Gypsies walled off by Czechs

A SMALL wall running through the centre of a dilapidated Czech Republic town could become a massive stumbling block to the country's bid to join the European Union.

Brussels wants the wall, only 67 yards long and more than 6ft high, torn down. Germany - the Republic's main sponsor for EU membership - insists it must go too. Prague is both furious and embarrassed by the local form of apartheid in Usti nad Labem, and says all central aid to the locality will cease until it goes.

But the wall stands as both metaphor and reality for the problems confronting east Europe; the throwing together of different cultures, once bonded by Communism, but now mixing like oil and water in the new age.

Usti nad Labem's specific problem is gypsies, the Roma who have lived in eastern lands for centuries and a people as persecuted as the Jews in this century. Adolf Hitler managed to dispose of over half-a-million in the death camps but enough have survived to become the new scapegoats in several eastern European countries which is why the wall in Usti nad Labem in northern Bohemia stands.

It was built by people enraged at the habits and customs of the "strangers" suddenly in their midst - 165 Roma who were placed in neighbouring flats.

The natives of Usti nad Labem accused them of using their balconies as open toilets; of hurling rubbish from their windows on to the street below; of singing, drunkenness, lewd behaviour and a lack of hygiene.

While much of what they complained about might be true, there is no doubt of a strong element of racism.

The Roma have long been regarded as different. Called "blacks" by the Czechs, they are regarded with suspicion and sometimes fear.

Usti nad Labem's Roma moved in earlier this year, invited in by the state government to occupy grim, empty socialist-era flats. Immediately the friction began with locals, sparking an argument that has now reached Brussels, Berlin and Prague.

Protests grew over the months since their arrival in March, culminating in a decision by the town council to erect the extraordinary barrier, dividing the community in two.

But Usti nad Labem is an acid test of new borders, new neighbours and new mindsets. "We are treated like the Jews were by the Nazis, walled up in a ghetto because we are different," said Stanisvlav Hajek, a Roma.

"To say this is about us being dirty or disgusting or different is to mask the reality. Them, the 'whites,' just like their own society and object to anyone who is different, just like Hitler. This wall is a disgrace to them and to our country."

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