Montuno
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UNIÓN ROMANI - UNION OF THE GYPSY PEOPLE
Ukrainian army gypsies are fighting against Russian occupiers:
"We were born in Ukraine and we are defending it."
Viktor Chovka is a journalist with the radio and television station "TV21 Ungar in Uzhhorod, Ukraine," who has confirmed, in an interview he was given by Radio Romano of Sweden, that Gypsies enrolled in the Ukrainian army are fighting against the Russian occupiers. He himself stated that he had just returned from England to join his family.
As everyone knows, as I write this commentary on Sunday afternoon, the attacks are concentrated in the capital, Kiev where a considerable number of Gypsies live. They are also suffering from the anguish of their families living in Slovakia, the Czech Republic and neighboring countries. "Gypsies," Chovka said, "have families all over the world.
There are indeed many Gypsies soldiers in Ukraine. "Many of the Gypsies who became soldiers a long time ago signed contracts with the Ukrainian army and could not leave now because no one will allow them to cross the border. But there are also many Gypsies who want to go to war, because this is the place where we were born - Ukraine," Chovka said.
Myroslav Horvat, a Gypsy-Roms activist in Ukraine, told Radio Romanó that "Roms are in shock. There is a lot of stress here because it is quite complicated, for example, just to buy groceries," adding that most are worried about how they will make a living, because their jobs ended when the war started.
Horvat shares photos of Roms soldiers in the Ukrainian army on his Facebook profile, which displays the Ukrainian flag. Julian Kondur, another Roms activist from the Chiricli organization in Ukraine, describes the situation of the Roms peaple in Kiev as follows: "We are all doing our best to stay safe, be with our families and be ready to defend our homes. We trust our army and we will defend our country."
Despite everything anti-Gypsyism has also been present in Ukraine:
Ukraine is a very big country. Bigger than Spain. It has more than 600,000 square kilometers (Spain has 505,000 kilometers) and a population very similar to that of Spain, almost 45 million inhabitants. And as in so many Eastern European countries anti-Gypsyism has been present.
It was in June 2018 when a climate of racist, Nazi and fascist-like violence was unleashed against the Roms community in Ukraine whose population is close to 300,000. The Community of St. Egidio of Kiev publicly denounced the outrages that the Gypsies were suffering in various parts of the nation. Thus, in the violent assault on the camp where some gypsy families lived in Lviv, in the neighborhood of Sokilniki, a young man of 24 years old was killed and three other people were injured, among them a 10 year old child. Earlier, however, victims were those living in the Lisa Gora camps and on June 7 in Golossevoa Park; in Ruden, on the outskirts of Lviv, on May 9. And in Velika Beresovitsa, on the outskirts of Ternopil, on May 22, some 15 men attacked a group of Gypsies who were preparing dinner at a campfire. The assailants broke into the meal and started shooting. Several tents were set on fire and the Gypsies fled into the forest. The director of the Police in the region, Alexander Bogomol, explained that the Gypsies came from the Transcarpathian region and had camped next to a sugar factory. They were subsisting as scrap metal dealers.
The St. Egidio community, which is free of any suspicion, claims that, as almost always, this racist violence manifests itself against families of Ukrainian citizens who are Gypsies and who live poorly with many children in shanty camps and dilapidated tents.
Gypsies and Roms have always been present in Ukraine;
The Gypsies in Ukraine are mostly of Russian origin. Before Ukraine gained its independence in 1991, two years after the Berlin Wall fell, the Gypsy population was well over one million. (Today there are 825,000 Gypsies living in Russia). It is natural, therefore, that the contribution of the Gypsy community to the shaping of the collective culture of this part of Europe was widely known.
Valeri Novoselski was a member of the International Romani Union.
Valeri Novoselski was a committed Ukrainian Gypsy. He was born in 1970 and died in 2016 in Riga (Latvia). A tireless activist he was one of the creators of the Romani Virtual Network and developed his work both in Ukraine and in Eastern Siberia, in Moscow and finally in Israel. I am pleased to say that in July 2000 he was elected a member of the International Romani Union, an institution in which we served together. We all remember him.
Eugene Hütz is known in the international music world as the creator of "transglobal gypsy punk".
https://unionromani.org/2022/02/28/l...upantes-rusos/
