 Czech Prime Minister Announces Intentions to Purchase Pig Farm at Lety 4. 11. 2005
The Czech daily newspaper, Lidove Noviny, announced today that Jirí Paroubek will submit, as part of the national budget for 2006, a request for the funds necessary to buy the Lety pig farm. Although the Czech government had opened negotiations with the company AGPI, who runs the pig farm in Lety, before this announcement, a concrete plan was included in the projected national budget for 2006. However, such promises made ahead of important elections coming up in June of 2006 make the Prime Minister’s declaration seem more like an attempt to raise his popularity rather than an honest attempt at reconciliation.
The company has said it would be willing to relocate its 14,000 animals if offered comparable facilities or money to rebuild elsewhere. A pig farm was built on the site of the former Roma concentration camp in Lety in 1976. Unfortunately, at that time the history of the land and surrounding buildings were not widely known. In May 1999, 23 years later, the social democratic government in Prague refused to listen to Roma demands and to the advice of the government's human rights delegate to close down the farm built on the Lety site. The government claimed that their decision was based on financial concerns, citing that the cost of such an endeavor would cost hundreds of millions of crowns. While the government agencies may sound enticing and promising, it is not entirely up to the government. The proposed budget with the inclusion of monies for this effort must be approved by the parliament. If these measures pass, the removal of the pig farm can commence and a memorial on the site to remember the Roma victims of the terrible crimes committed during World War II can be constructed.
The concentration camp for Roma near the small Czech town of Lety was in use from August 10th, 1940 in accordance with a government decision of April 28th, 1939. On April 27th, 2005, the European Parliament called upon Czech authorities to remove the pig farm currently situated on this former camp site in Lety.
Many differing opinions of the realities of the concentration camp have arisen, creating strong tension between the President, Prime Minister, the Roma people and other political parties: Reacting to the resolution of the European parliament and to the protests of the Roma, which began in the mid-nineties, Václav Klaus, President of the Czech Republic, told the Czech daily Lidové Noviny on May 14th, 2005 in an attempt to minimize the atrocities at the camp: "Of course many tragic things happened there. However, we understand that the victims of this camp primarily succumbed to an epidemic of spotted typhus, not due to what is traditionally understood as the fate of a concentration camp victim - at least according to what every child learns in school. Of course it is necessary to appropriately commemorate this place." Roma officials claim that President Vaclav Klaus is “treating the crime of genocide which was committed against the Sinti and Roma during Nazism cynically and is distorting the historical fact that the Nazi system consisted precisely in creating conditions that lead to people dying, especially for children.
Jirí Paroubek, Prime Minister of the Czech Republic, said at the opening of a photo exhibit in the Czech Chamber of Deputies on June 6th, 2005 :"I think that Lety is a huge symbol of racism (...). Of course it is a very complicated thing after 65 years to speak about it, but I think the Czech nation has a certain debt to the past." (Written for Dzeno Association by Kim Kasey) Related Article:
Lety Exhibit Opens at Czech Parliament Tomorrow NightAn exhibit of photographs entitled “Lety - the history of an unmentioned genocide” will open to the public tomorrow night, Tuesday, June 21, 2005 at 6 p.m in the foyer of the Senate of the Czech Parliament. (Snemovni 4, Prague 1). The exhibit depicts life at the concentration camp at Lety by Pisek, a camp where more than a thousand Roma and Sinti were sent to die during the Second World War.
column: News | date: 20. 6. 2005 Karasek to discuss removal of Lety pig farm with ownersGovernment human rights commissioner Svatopluk Karasek will meet the owners of a pig farm situated on the site of a former Romany concentration camp in Lety today to discuss its removal, according to the website www.euro.cz. The meeting will be the first between a government representative and the managers of AGPI, the company that owns the pig farm, after eight years, Karasek told CTK.
column: From media | date: 13. 6. 2005 Lety — history of unmentioned genocideSome of the recent contributions to the debate on Lety have forced me to respond in order to correct certain things. The former prisoners and their descendants have been angered by the lies and half-truths which have recently been spread, even by members of the government.
column: News | date: 8. 6. 2005
Czech President and Prime Minister Clash over Roma Concentration Camp SiteOn Friday, May 13th, 2005, a memorial ceremony was held at the former Nazi concentration camp at Lety u Pisku where 1300 Roma were imprisoned under the Second World War Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. This year the event received more attention than usual due to a recent EP resolution on the situation of Roma in Europe which criticised the commercial pig farm currently on the site of the former camp. Dzeno Association estimates that approximately 200 people attended the event, more than half of them Roma.
column: News | date: 16. 5. 2005 Resolution by European Parliament Causes Panic in the Czech RepublicMembers of the European Parliament have voted to adopt a joint resolution aimed at improving the situation of Roma in the European Union. The resolution was discussed in Parliament on April 27, when MEPs stressed the need to eliminate the widespread racism and structural discrimination against the 12-15 million Roma in Europe, including the 7-9 million living within the European Union.
column: News | date: 2. 5. 2005
|
Radio
Rota 
AROIE
redakční systém Saluki
