From: The Guardian, Friday July 28, 2000

By Kate Connolly in Prague

The main body representing Europe's 12m Gypsies wants the Roma people to be given recognition as a non-territorial nation, and says it will back this up with its own "floating" parliament and embassies in various countries.

It is the first time that the International Union Romani has made such a demand for international recognition since it was founded in London three decades ago.

The organisation's fifth world congress concludes in Prague today with the presentation of a wide-reaching plan aimed at creating better living conditions for Europe's fastest-growing

ethnic minority and increasing the Roma's power to lobby governments which discriminate against them.

In 1993 the International Union Romani was granted the status of an advisory committee at the UN, greatly increasingly its lobbying power, but the congress document is its most significant political statement so far.

It recommends the establishment of a floating parliament that would meet every three months, a network of embassies and an anti-racist committee to be linked to an international Roma

court. A poll tax in the Roma community should be levied to finance the structure, the document says.

It foresees the court putting racists on trial and putting pressure on governments that discriminate against Roma - but it is unclear what recognition such a tribunal would have.

Sean Nazerali, one of the conference organisers said the time was long overdue to address one of the main Roma problems of the last 1,000 years - non-recognition of its nationhood by an

international system geared to recognising states only.

"The Roma are a modern nation like all the rest, so we are seeking recognition as a modern nation... enabling us to play a political role at the national and international level," he said. He suggested that, contrary to viewing the Roma as a problem, they could be an archetype for the perfect European nation. "It's

everywhere, it has a collective identity at the European level and

its people are connected throughout the entire continent."

But progress means quashing stereotypes, he added. "The sort of exotic but very common romantic notion of the wandering nomadic Gypsy who leads a wonderfully carefree, barefoot life, is roughly as accurate as the Indian running round on

horseback, shooting bison with a bow and arrow."

During often heated and passionate debate the conference tackled numerous issues.

The migration of Roma to the west, the plight of Gypsies in Kosovo, the rise in race-related attacks against Roma and improving education have dominated the agenda.

Compensation for Roma victims of the Nazi Holocaust was one of the more emotive issues. Plans were announced to set up a fund, to be financed by Roma personalities, which would establish a university as a living memorial to the half a million Roma who died.

The irony of setting the conference in Prague was not lost on delegates. The Czech Republic, like several of its neighbours, has been fiercely criticised for its treatment of Roma. Of the more than 30 documented race-related killings in the region since the fall of communism - not including those in the former

Yugoslavia - more than a third have been in the Czech Republic.

Members of the British Gypsy Council said they had considered boycotting the conference, as had most western groups. "We are suspicious that the Czech government put the money up for this to show how nice they're being to Gypsies, when in fact they get so poorly treated here," said the council's president,

Josie Lee.

But in his speech to the conference, President Vaclav Havel promised to "do my best to ensure a happier life for the Roma of the Czech Republic".