Hounding of Gypsies Contradicts Slovenia’s Image
By NICHOLAS WOOD
Published: November 13, 2006 Quote:While untended geese stroll about, the police guard the house and property, just outside Ambrus in Slovenia, of the Strojan family.
The extended family of 31 Gypsies, 14 of them children, was forced to flee by a mob that demanded the eviction of the family members and threatened to kill them.
AMBRUS, Slovenia, Nov. 6 — Half a mile short of this picturesque village in central Slovenia, two brick houses and a cluster of sheds lie empty. A baby’s stroller sits abandoned outside, and chickens and geese race about, apparently unfed, all evidence of a rapid departure by the family that lived here until just over a week ago.
The Strojans, an extended family of 31 Gypsies, 14 of them children, fled the property on Oct. 28, after it was surrounded by a mob from Ambrus and nearby villages, threatening to kill them and demanding their eviction. While the police kept the crowd back, Slovenian government officials negotiated the family’s removal to a former army barracks about 30 miles away.
The scene is at odds with an image of Slovenia as the most advanced and wealthiest of the 10 Eastern European states that joined the European Union two years ago. Slovenia prides itself as being free of the ethnic tensions that dominate the rest of Yugoslavia, from which Slovenia broke free in 1991 after a 10-day conflict. Since then Gypsies, also known as Roma, have been the victims of sporadic assaults, including a grenade attack last year in which two women, a mother and her 21-year-old daughter, were killed.
While none of the Strojans were seriously hurt in the incident here, rights groups say the government’s role in the forced removal of the family makes it one of the most serious such incidents in Europe in a decade. And now other municipalities are calling for the removal of Gypsies.
Ambrus seems an unlikely place for such discord. Renovated houses are surrounded by lush fields and well-kept woodland. New cars are parked in driveways, symbols of wealth that make Slovenia the envy of the rest of the Balkans.
But a dispute over an illegal occupation of land by some members of the family two years ago began to sour relations, said Alojz Sinkovec, the village president, and then villagers suspected the family of dumping trash in a nearby stream. The police eventually exonerated the family. Matters worsened in mid-October when a man living with the Strojans fought with a villager, who fell into a coma.
Soon afterward police officers advised the Strojans to leave, the family said. “They told us people are gathering and that we should get in our cars and leave,” said Mirko Strojan, sitting in the former army barracks that has become his temporary home. For five days, the family sought refuge in the woods, living under tarpaulins and receiving food from a Romany community. Then they tried to go home. The police told them that a crowd was gathering in Ambrus, Mr. Strojan said. This time, riot police officers surrounded the houses, and several hundred villagers gathered, local journalists said.
“People were coming on foot through the woods, they were shouting, ‘Kill the Gypsies, kill the Gypsies!’ ” said Miha Strojan, Mr. Strojan’s brother. He said he remembered someone shouting, “We’ll string you up on a cross!” Photographs that Borut Peterlin, a local photographer, took of the crowd show both menace and boisterous spirits, with people laughing.
At 6 p.m., Interior Minister Dragutin Mate arrived to mediate. Mr. Mate said he proposed that the Strojans leave and that the government find them new houses within three weeks. “I gave them the proposal; both sides agreed with it,” he said in an interview.
He said the Strojans would not be allowed to return because their houses had been built without permission, although the family has lived in them since the 1960s.
Witnesses said the family had no choice but to leave. “There was no negotiation, the minister had taken his decision before he arrived,” said Zarko Grm, a representative of the Romany community in Novo Mesto, east of Ambrus, who took part in the talks.
When Mr. Mate told the people in the crowd of the agreement, they cheered, television images showed.
“They were singing the national anthem and other songs,” Mr. Peterlin said. “There were also shouts of, ‘Gypsies raus!’ ” he said, echoing a taunt used by the Nazi’s during the deportation of Jews and Gypsies during the Holocaust.
The European Roma Rights Center criticized the government for setting a dangerous precedent. “Were it to become permanent, this is an extremely worrying event,” said Claude Cahn, the group’s program director, who called the move a serious breach of basic civil rights.
But the government has defended the move. “I think the standard of living is far better in Postojna,” said Milan Zver, Slovenia’s education minister, who is also in charge of a government committee responsible for the Gypsies. “They are probably better off than they would be in Ambrus,” he said an interview on Pop TV, a private station.
And now, an initiative has been started to remove the community of more than 600 Gypsies from the outskirts of Novo Mesto.
According to Slovenia’s ombudsman for human rights, Matjaz Hanzek, the government and public reaction illustrate a deep-rooted prejudice that permeates Slovenian society. “They really don’t understand they are using discriminatory speech,” he said in an interview. “Our neighbors are watching this very closely. If this can happen here in the European Union, then nationalist groups in countries like Serbia and Croatia will know they can get away with the same.”
Mr. Hanzek has in turn been accused by Janez Jansa, Slovenia’s prime minister, of “denigrating Slovenia’s name” by raising the issue with the Council of Europe’s human rights commissioner.
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