E/CN.4/2000/16/Add.1 page 9 28. Before going to Maticni Street, the Special Rapporteur talked to Mr. Ladislav Hruska, the Mayor of Ústi nad Labem and to Mr. Pavel Tosovsky, the Mayor of Nestemice district. The municipal authorities regretted that the affair of the Ústi nad Labem wall should have become so inflated because of the political capital that some people were trying to make out of it and the importance the media had given to the event. For them it was simply a matter of building a wall to reduce the noise and other nuisance mentioned by the Roma’s neighbours and not in any way to shut in or isolate the Roma. They said that both parties had been consulted before the decision to build the wall and had given their consent. The Special Rapporteur talked to the representatives of the Roma and to non-Roma inhabitants on the spot in order to hear their complaints and encourage dialogue. The Roma said that they had never at any time been consulted and the non-Roma inhabitants reiterated their critical comments. 29. The Special Rapporteur has since been informed that despite the measure to suspend construction, the municipality and council began building the wall on 5 October 1999 and completed it on 13 October. The same day, the Chamber of Deputies ruled against the decision by the municipality and the district council and asked the Government to continue negotiations with the local authorities with a view to dismantling the wall or seeking satisfactory solutions for the parties concerned. Based on talks between the Ústi nad Labem Municipal Assembly and Government-appointed Commissioner Pavel Zarecky, the Municipal Assembly decided on 23 November 1999 to remove the wall. The Government has released a special-purpose non-investment subsidy of CZK 10 million towards addressing the problems of inter-ethnic coexistence in the Nestemice District. D. Measures taken by the Government and the local communities 30. The Czech Government’s readiness to recognize the facts already constitutes vital progress towards solving the problems confronting the Roma. The authorities encountered throughout the visit showed great openness and a desire to cooperate and find appropriate solutions. They replied to the Special Rapporteur’s questions without prevarication and furnished him with the relevant documentation. To judge from the reports already submitted to the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD/C/289/Add.1) and to OSCE and the Council of Europe, it would appear that the Czech Government has shown great objectivity with regard to the Roma problem. 31. In its 1997 report to OSCE on the situation of the Roma community in the Czech Republic, the Government said in substance that relations between the Roma community and the majority of the population were increasingly affected by inter-ethnic tension, which had an adverse effect on all sectors of society. Resolving the problems facing the Roma while preventing inter-ethnic conflict on the part of the majority emerged as one means of alleviating this tension. It had therefore adopted a plan of action in 1998 entitled “Ground concepts of Government policy towards members of the Roma community with a view to facilitating their integration into society”. This document proposes a series of legal and institutional measures intended to eliminate discrimination against the Roma in all spheres (economic, social, political and educational, etc.) and to promote their culture with a view to better integration. 32. The Czech Government’s basic position is that the integration of the Roma as a national minority is absolutely necessary. At the same time, the Government realizes that the majority of