"Eastern Europe's Forgotten Civil War", exclaimed the Spiegel online this week, referring, among others, to Bulgaria and the recently revived Roma issues here.

"Civil war? In nonchalant and striving to survive Bulgaria?", I can't help firing back after listening and reading for days on end on how much Bulgarians hate Roma.

And this is just not true. Why does the situation look different in the eyes of our foreign colleagues?

Foreign TV crews or stringers in Bulgaria work with a small for the standards of their countries budget and their aim is to sell what they have produced to as many newspapers and TV channels as possible. It is the rule rather than the exception that they pick exotic for the Western audience topics, such as Roma weddings, dancing bears and long-legged mistresses of the so-called mutri or crime bosses.

So it was small wonder that the latest protests after the murder of a Bulgarian boy by Roma-linked men in the Katunitsa village made bombastic headlines abroad. After all Roma people and their violated rights are just obligatory elements of foreign press must-have-it lists, aren't they?

I do understand that topics featuring Roma may be the shortest route to the hearts of readers of articles about a country, which rarely quickens their pulse.

Still, it stinks of primitive populism when the press is more than ready to join the chorus in support of the Roma people regardless of whoever did what and see in a handful of nationalists and drunk football fans the whole Bulgarian nation.

What the foreign journalists obviously got right is that the messages Roma people and their plight send are very good for the readers - easy-to-digest, melodramatic and endlessly repetitive.

What they forgot is that these type of simplistic approach appeals only to people, who are too thick and shallow to grasp and appreciate any other interpretation of the events.

It is no flattering tribute to them if they believe their readers to be like this.

The serious press is happily oblivious of the obvious - anti-Bulgarian and pro-Roma raids serve the interest of their governments alone and work best because of the huge gaps in knowledge about the Balkan country.

I am afraid the foreign journalists are unable to grasp the real dimensions of the problem and fail to see that the human rights of the legally residing Bulgarians and the poor and ordinary ROMA are violated.

That's why I suggest that they move into Katunitsa village or the Roma district in the capital Sofia and live there for a month. I am sure they will think twice before writing their next article.

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