The election of the International Romani Union president and the agenda of the board was discussed during the Seventh Romani Congress held this year in Croatia.
Almost 300 delegates from 28 different countries participated to the meeting.
The VII World Congress was held from 23rd.-25th. October 2008 in the Croatian capital Zagreb.
After a 4 years presidency of the IRU runned by Mr. Stanislaw Stankevic, 28 delegates from the whole world expressed their electoral preference and Mr. Stanislaw Stankevic, who reached the majority, got reconfirmed for a new mandate as leader of the International Roma Union.
With the Roma hymn ”Dzelem Dzelem” performed by Ms.Esma Redzepova, who participated in the Congress together with several other eminent world Romani leaders, the VII Romani Congress was officially opened.
The agenda of the Congress included not only the election of the new president but also the presentation of the latest reports of the IRU cabinet.
Also Ms Jadranka Kosor, Member of the Croatian Government and head of the monitoring team for the implementation of the Roma National program “Roma Decade in Croatia” joined the event as guest.
The organization of the Congress lasted over three months and the hardest work was done by Roma intellectuals Mr Kasum Cana and his brother Velia.
There was disagreement on the previous work of the representatived of the previous IRU cabinet and some of the speakers didn’t show any efficency. Mr. Stankevic during the discussion with a gesture negated to other 20 speakers the possibility to reply excluding them from the discussion.
He did not fully respect the Congress agenda. This reflected on the position of the moderator Mr. Zoran Dimov who was also general secretary of the IRU. “I am ashamed to report what have done with my position in the IRU, and you can see it from this paper, it is empty like my 4 years work in the IRU. This was not my decision but it was decided by other members of the cabinet. I am sorry, that there was not any progress but we have to bring young persons who will lead the IRU”
“I know that in our work it is always mentioned ‘Romanipe’ and we have to respect that because we are Roma; at the same time we disagree and agree, and this is normal. To reach our goal, that it is a lobby in the highest world institutions, we have to respect the ‘Romanipe’ and the ‘Democracy’”.
“I welcome the criticism but we must bare in mind that we have to progress our work, and for this we didn’t have any foundation like you already heard from out treasurer Mr. Novica Mitic. This means that we will have to find foundation and to reach bigger success” replied Mr. Stankevic.
Between 28 delegates who will be part of the IRU cabinet from the year 2008 until year 2012, for the first time, the deputy from new Kosovo Republic professor Mr Kujtim Paqaku is officially participating.
The first Romani Congress was held in London in 1971 and during that Congress many important decisions were adopted.
Nexhip Menekshe