Dear Editor,
For centuries the Gypsy or Romany people have been persecuted and murdered with impunity. Gypsies were equally murdered in the Nazi Holocaust, but unlike Jews, there was no one to even notice their persecution, much less to even bemoan their sufferings.
Now, in France, a highly civilized place which had been the home of Liberty and Equality, the Gypsies are being expelled to Rumania and Bulgaria, two under-developed Eastern European countries which were well-known in the past for their persecution of these people.
They are being deprived of even the little they have and made to suffer even greater poverty and discrimination. The leader of the French government, Mr Sarkozy himself has defended the expelling of the Gypsies.
For the first time, the European Community and the Vatican have spoken out against this eviction of the Gypsies. And they have told Mr Sarkozy how wrong he is.
Guyana and the rest of the Caribbean have been completely silent on this issue. In Guyana, in particular, the politicians, especially the PPP and the PNC, keep protesting when Palestinians, Africans or African-Americans are discriminated against.
They also play their everlasting tune of the wrongs of slavery and indenture. But they say not one word when that most persecuted of peoples – the Gypsies – are being oppressed.
If these politicians really believe in human rights and in the protection of defenceless minorities, then they must give notice of their support for the Gypsy cause.
The PPP party and its General Secretary who have vociferously protested against wrongs directed against Palestinians, must now publicly support the Gypsies and lobby the other Caricom states to do the same.
Yours faithfully,
P. Ramlall
