Due to an alarming condition of human and minority rights of Vlach-Rumanian national minority in North-Eastern Serbia we are writing you to prevent a negative direction of present events.
Republic of Serbia has called for an elections for the national councils of national minorities on 6th of June 2010. The national councils are bodies of minority self government in the Republic of Serbia. For those national councils which fulfilled the conditions to fulfill the voting lists, direct elections will be organized. On the other side, for the national councils which did not fulfill the conditions, voting will be organized according to an electoral system. On 9th of March, 2010, Vlach national minority collected in separate electoral list 16.700 voters’ signatures, fulfilling in that way the condition for direct elections.
The problem arose when majority political parties interfere into the process of the elections with their lists, aiming to control the national minority councils. A Socialist Party of Serbia has joined the election process of the Vlach national minority with its list „Vlachs for Serbia – Serbia for Vlachs – Miletić Mihajlović Tića”. Mr Mihajlović is a high official of the Socialist Party of Serbia and MP of Serbia.
Socialist Party of Serbia had two reasons to be involved into the election process. The first reason is that National Council of Vlach National Minority demanded Ministry for Human and Minority Rights to introduce Rumanian language into the education system in Eastern Serbia. The majority of claims were from Branicevo district but the Rumenian language was not introduced due to discrimination of the laws. The second reason is lost of voters of Vlach origin in the Socialistic Party of Serbia who moved to Vlach political parties. Both reasons lead to a fast assimilation of persons belonging to Vlach national minority as assimilated they will be anable to realise their constitutional and legal rights. Due to the above mentioned reasons, Socialistic Party of Serbia used the resources of the Ministry of the Interior (the leader of Socialistic Party is the Minister of the Ministry of the Interior) and invited the citizens of Vlach national minority to an informative conversations, from 21st to 22nd April, 2010 in the Police station, Petrovac na Mlavi, using the Stalinistic-Nazi methods. The frightened citizens were called on 21st of April, late in the afternoon by the policemen which appeared in front of their doors. Hearings of the citizens were organized on 22nd of April whole day and about 50 citizens of Vlach origin were heard. Police wanted to know if citizens really gave their signatures in the voting lists of Vlach national minority. If they were brave enough to confirm that they signed the list they were asked to sing it again in spite of the fact that they have already signed them. They were asked following questions: „Do you belong to any Vlach political Party?”, „Do you know in which state do you live?” and similar. Secretariat of the Vlach national council has received many telephone calls from frightened citizens in following days. Some of them confessed that they denied that they signed the separate Vlach election lists, some confessed that they signed them but they asked police officers to erase their signatures. We want to emphasize that citizens signatures were collected by the activists of the Vlach Democratic Party (there were around 100 of them in Municipality Petrovac na Mlavi), that Vlach people living abroad have sent their signatures by the post and that Socialistic Party of Serbia has collected signatures of other Vlach non-governmental organizations. After police hearings many of citizens of the Vlach origin who gave their signatures to separate Vlach election lists are in panic fear so that the continuation of the election process for National Council of Vlach National Minority is in question.
Beside above mentioned incident there was also another one which lasted 3 days, before 13rd of April. National Council of Vlach National Minority used to celebrate one of its national holiday „ Matcalau” at the place called „Branik” in Kladurovo village. Before the holiday, there were some works on roads which lead to the village Kladurovo. Activists of the Socialistic Party of Serbia started to threat the activists of the Vlach Democratic Party that they will beat them and destroy the roads in order to prevent people to come to the holiday. The representatives of the Socialistic Party of Serbia knew that there will be few thousands of people at the celebration, that there will be liturgy under the open sky on the basement of the destroyed Vlach monastery so that they wanted to cause the incident. Because of possible risk factors, National Council of Vlach National Minority has canceled the celebration in order to prevent fighting among Vlach national minority.
Raising questions is: How to lead following election campaign in such conditions and which security is needed for the members of the Vlach Democratic Party of Serbia to propagate their program in the villages which are supported by the Socialistic Political Party?
Because of the above mentioned issues we are urging you to protect the fundamental human and minority rights of the Vlach national minority which are obviously discriminated in present„ Democratic Serbia”.
For more detailed information please contact us on: +381 64 25 23 055.
24th April 2010
Chief Secreatary National Council of Vlach National Minority, Dragan Demić
