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Moldovan Czechs plea for aid

Immigration provisions too steep, group says

By Markéta Hulpachová
Staff Writer, The Prague Post
October 31st, 2007 issue

As government officials finish repatriating hundreds of Kazakh Czechs, Czech families in Moldova are appealing for help in returning to their ancestral homeland.  

“Most of us are doctors, engineers, scientists,” says 47-year-old physician Galina Cojocari from the Moldovan capital Kishinev. “Unfortunately, the economic situation here is so bad that none of us have the money to start a new life somewhere else.”
As a member of Czech Families in Moldova (ČRM), Cojocari is part of a 20-member group of ethnic Czechs who wish to return to their country of origin, but lack the funds to make the move on their own.
With 80 percent of residents living in poverty, Moldova is the poorest country in Europe.  According to Czech nongovernmental organization Člověk v tísni (People in Need), one-third of its population left the country between 1993 and 2005 in search of higher wages.
“We could move to Italy and Greece like so many other people, but it’s not about that,” Moravska says. “We want to return to the land my grandfather talked about — it’s been our families’ generational dream.”
In the late 19th century, hundreds of Czech farmers migrated to the Russian empire, drawn by the promise of affordable land. While most of these families settled on Ukrainian territory, lucrative land offers led some to venture further south to Bessarabia, a fertile region in southern Moldova.
Despite their remoteness, most families managed to retain close cultural ties with their homeland until the early 1940s, when the Stalinist regime systematically cut off the Soviet Union’s communication with other countries.
“Czechs who lived in the Soviet Union were oppressed during the Stalinist era,” says Lolita Moravska, a 45-year-old psychologist and ČRM member whose Czech grandfather relocated to Moldova from Ukraine in the early 1940s.  
“[The Soviet government] took away all of my grandfather’s property,” she says. “They would have sent him to Siberia if he hadn’t run away.”
In order to gain permanent resident status in the Czech Republic, individuals of Czech origin must first provide proof of their ancestry, says Libor Kučera, legal adviser at Poradna pro integraci, a Prague civic organization providing aid to refugees and immigrants.
Like all other applicants, the families in Moldova must also prove they possess adequate resources to live here, or about 9,000 Kč ($476) per family. “For normal people here, this sum is practically unattainable,” Cojocari says.
After hearing of the organization’s past efforts to repatriate Czech families from Ukraine and Kazakhstan, the ČRM turned to People in Need in hopes of receiving aid, only to find that the organization concluded the program six years ago.
“The integration program for Czech families in Kazakhstan ended in 2001,” says People in Need Director Šimon Pánek. “While it is true we never considered the situation of ethnic Czechs in other countries before launching the Kazakhstan program, it is unlikely that our organization will initiate similar missions in the future.”
According to Pavel Dymeš, chairman of the Interior Ministry’s foreigner and refugee integration department, the state facilitates the integration of immigrants of Czech descent by waiving their requirement to reside in the country for five years before gaining permanent residency. “This [provision] gives them a significant advantage over other foreigners,” he says.

Markéta Hulpachová can be reached at mhulpachova@praguepost.com


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