Fwd: RFE/RL Poland, Belarus, and Ukraine Report (excerpts)
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Date: Wed, 16 Jun 1999 22:44:22 +0300 (EET DST)
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Subject: Fwd: RFE/RL Poland, Belarus, and Ukraine Report (excerpts)
From: MINELRES moderator <[email protected]>
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Fwd: RFE/RL Poland, Belarus, and Ukraine Report (excerpts)
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(From the moderator: Just in case if somebody is not yet aware of this
valuable source which broadly covers also the minority related
issues...
Boris)
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RADIO FREE EUROPE/RADIO LIBERTY, PRAGUE, CZECH REPUBLIC
________________________________________________________
RFE/RL Poland, Belarus, and Ukraine Report
Vol. 1, No. 4, 15 June 1999
A Survey of Developments in Poland, Belarus, and Ukraine by the Staff
of "RFE/RL Newsline"
POLAND
POLISH GERMANS DISMAYED BY BONN'S AID CUT. Germany has reduced this
year's aid for Germans living in Poland by 8.5 million German marks
($4.5 million). Announced by Jochen Welt, the German government
official responsible for affairs related to the German minority in
Poland, in Opole on 8 June, this move has dismayed leaders of the
Social and Cultural Association of Germans (TSKN), PAP reported. TSKN
head Henryk Kroll said he will seek to have that decision changed,
adding that reduced financial support from Bonn might result in a mass
exodus of Germans from Poland. "I am surprised at the decision," Kroll
said. "Only a year ago I spoke with Gerhard Schroeder when he was
still running for chancellor and he promised me that support for
Germans in Poland would remain unchanged."
According to the Katowice-based "Trybuna Slaska," Welt sought to
encourage Polish Germans in Gliwice during his visit to that town,
noting that now they will be more dependent on themselves and the
Polish authorities. "You have taken advantage of the possibilities of
[taking part] in Poland's public life," he commented, noting that
there is no precedent for the way in which the local ethnic Germans
assumed responsibility for people and the region following local
elections last year in Poland. In that ballot, several hundreds of
Polish Germans were elected to local self-governments in the Opole
region. Some, however, remained unconvinced. "If we cease to receive
support [from Bonn], the Polish government will not meet our
expectations. We have requested support from the [Polish] Ministry of
Culture, but the minister has given [only] 5,000 zlotys ($1,250) for a
90,000-strong community," "Trybuna Slaska" quoted German activists
from Bytom as saying.
....................
BELARUS
....................
BELARUSIAN-SPEAKING CHILDREN CONSIDERED MENTALLY RETARDED? Nataliya
Prymakova, a logopedic specialist from Homel, has diagnosed
five-year-old Frantsishak Yauseyanka as "linguistically and
emotionally underdeveloped" and has ordered him transferred to a
kindergarten group of mentally retarded children, RFE/RL's Belarusian
Service reported on 4 June. The reason for such a diagnosis was the
fact that Frantsishak, who is is being brought up in a
Belarusian-speaking family, speaks virtually no Russian. Prymakova,
who speaks no Belarusian, tested Frantsishak in Russian when his
parents were not present. She concluded that the child's orientation
is weak because the boy cannot name some things in Russian.
Volha Tsyareshchanka, Frantsishak's mother, took the boy out of the
kindergarten and sent a letter to the Belarusian Helsinki Committee
(BHK), complaining that the kindergarten's management has violated the
constitution by denying her son an education in his native language
(Russian and Belarusian are the constitutionally-recognized official
languages in Belarus).
The BHK commented that in Frantsishak's case it is difficult to
present his problem to the international community because
international human rights activists are not in a position to
understand why the Belarusian government is not interested in
promoting the native language of the Belarusians. "According to the
BHK's knowledge, there is no Belarusian-language kindergarten in the
country," BHK activist Svyatlana Kurs told an RFE/RL correspondent.
"The approach to a Belarusian-speaking child is fully dependent on
his/her teacher and logopedic specialist. Therefore, the child may
become morally and emotionally traumatized in his/her early childhood,
owing to the uncivilized behavior on the part of an adult or to the
Belarusophobia that, unfortunately, is now being enforced."
According to the BHK, since President Alyaksandr Lukashenka came to
power in 1994, some 600 Belarusian-language schools have been
transformed into Russian-language ones.
....................
*********************************************************
Copyright (c) 1999. RFE/RL, Inc. All rights reserved.
"RFE/RL Poland, Belarus, and Ukraine Report" is prepared by Jan
Maksymiuk on the basis of a variety of sources including reporting by
"RFE/RL Newsline" and RFE/RL's broadcast services. It is distributed
every Tuesday.
Direct comments to Jan Maksymiuk at [email protected]. For
information on subscriptions or reprints, contact Paul Goble in
Washington at (202) 457-6947 or at [email protected]. Back issues are
online at http://www.rferl.org/pbureport
Technical queries should be emailed to:
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