UN - COMMISSION ON HUMAN RIGHTS

Fifty fourth Session

16 March - 24 April 1998

Agenda item 12

Racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance.

Oral Statement by Mr. Paolo Pietrosanti

The Transnational Radical Party

NGO in consultative status (Category I)

Mr Chairman,

this statement is delivered also on behalf of the International Romani Union, a NGO with Status of category II.

There is a people, a Nation in the world whose 20 million individuals are simply forgotten, hidden; even by the most important and authoritative media in the world. Nevertheless, the very few news published by media can show how spread racial discrimination against Gypsies is.

At the same time, we must say that only few Nations have been able, like the Gypsy one has, not to disappear after having suffered a genocide, and still suffering an attempt to delete it.

Gypsies are a Nation, and they do not want what other peoples mean a state must be.

The history of the Gypsy Nation itself cuts through the traditional identity and coincidence between the concept of a State and the one of a Nation.

Mr Chairman, Gypsies are individuals in the world, and we can say them to be the most adequate people for the globalization.

Therefore, the answer to be given by other Nations cannot be any longer just the one of human solidarity, charity, assistance, projects against racism.

On the one hand, Mr Chairman, we have seen in the entire world, during the very last years, wars and blood being caused by the will of creating new states based on ethnical homogeneity; on the other hand, we all have the chance to reflect and use and exploit the actual example of a culture living its strong national identity since several centuries, without any will to create an ethnically homogeneous state.

It is evident and known that the ancient concept of the state as the coincidence of a people and a territory does not fit the new scene of the world any more. Economy and information are progressively getting global, and they move and develop across state and cultural borders.

Isn't such a characteristic of the Gypsy culture and tradition and way of life a treasure for the entire human community? It is a treasure which should be in the very core of the current cultural and political international debates.

Racism is something which belongs to the soul and the mind of each and every human being. Diversities still produce fears. It is not the psychological racism which can realistically be eradicated: it belongs to the inner soul of the human being. The only solution is the implementation of Right and Law, and of international and transnational political and juridical institutions.

But, Mr Chairman, International rules and Treaties on human rights have been violated systematically, sometimes even by laws approved by democratic states.

United Nations - Nations, Mr Chairman... - have to play a different role.

Should Gypsies be organized in a state to be recognized and respected? Wouldn't that be a violation of their own and inner culture?

How to fight against racism when the human community is technically unable to implement individual rights if they are not mediated by states, and when a nation, the Gypsy Nation does not want to be a state?

Mr Chairman,

racism has always come out of inadequacy of rules and institutions toward human needs and changes.

The main problem nowadays is the inadequacy of rules and institutions towards the changes and developments in the human society. Rules must and can be changed. Dignity must be given to a people, a nation, to each and every individual.

The UN System is showing its intelligence in the process which is going to establish the International Criminal Court. Such a profound capability of understanding and being adequate to the new world can and should be followed by taking into consideration the real causes of racial discrimination. Understanding that against Gypsies can be of great help.

Gypsies are minorities wherever they live; but at the same time they are a Nation among others in the world.

That is their specificity.

It is because of this specificity - useful for the entire community of Nations - that we propose the Commission to charge the Special Rapporteur to submit a Special Report on Gypsies to its next Session

of the Commission, with a special regard to the specificity and singularity outlined before.

We ask and propose a step on the path of dialogue.

We ask the Special Rapporteur to submit a Special Report on Racial Discrimination against Gypsies to the next working Session of the Commission.

Gypsies do not ask for a state, they do not ask for independence. They ask just to be seen like individuals, victims of a specific and particular discrimination.

A People of 20 million individuals does not only deserve that, but it can and will be very useful for everybody. For those who are discriminated, and for those who are not discriminated.

It is true and more and more evident: the same destiny is shared by minorities and majorities.

Thank you, Mr Chairman