Germany sends refugees back to Kosovo
Published: 14 October, 2009, 13:53
Edited: 10 January, 2010, 09:25
AFP Photo
TAGS: Breakaway regions, Politics, Europe, Human rights
A decade after the armed conflict in Kosovo, Germany plans to repatriate thousands of refugees from the region, most of them of Roma origin. Critics have labeled the project “monstrous”.
There are an estimated 14,000 refugees from Kosovo in Germany, and 10,000 of them are Roma. The legal status of many of them has not been regulated.
An agreement between Berlin and Pristina is to outline a major repatriation program for them, reports this week German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung. The reason for the move is that the situation in the disputed region has become more stable, German officials say.
The Interior Ministry plans to process 2,500 repatriation cases yearly and pledged to maintain “a reasonable ethnical composition” among them.
In addition, Germany will pay 750 euro (about $1,100) to each returning person and cover their travel expenditures. It also promised to help repatriates to find accommodation and jobs in Kosovo.
Meanwhile, Ulla Jelpke from the Left Party in Germany’s Parliament labeled the project “monstrous”, arguing that deported Roma will face “absolute poverty” and “daily alienation” from the Albanian majority in Kosovo.
Roma human rights group Chachipe has condemned the repatriation program, saying the German government is overly optimistic when describing the situation in Kosovo.
“The Roma have been driven out from Kosovo, and in ten years, the international community has been unable to create the conditions for their safe return. Their interests have been sacrificed and abandoned in an attempt to pacify the antagonisms between Kosovo Albanians and Kosovo Serbs. Now, they are requested to return in order to make it possible for the international community to say that Kosovo has become a multi-ethnic country, which deserves to be an independent state,” the group said.
13.10.2009, 21:37
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These people were allowed into to Germany as "temporary" refugees. That is why they and all their children are being sent back. Germany is not a dumping ground for the world's wandering "refugees" and "asylum seekers". These people should go to the UK or Sweden where they will receive a warm welcome. When in Sweden, they should head for Malmo whose Estonian mayor made a political career out of catering to "asylum seekers" at the expense of local Swedes.
Why risk these people's lives and destroy the future for these kids, in a politically motivated move. What is the point in that? Why such a desire to show Kosovo a "success"? Everybody on this earth, who has a literacy above forth grade knows that Kosovo is heavily criminalized, and that Pristina "government" simply represents a decor, a puppet of the crime families. In all fairness, EU did not create the mess. The mess has been created by the foreign policy of Bill Clinton, and his hubristic notion of controlling Europe through perpetual crisis in the Balkans. Serbs until today, those that have remained trapped in "enclaves", live behind barbed wires. I can also see the little Roma kids behind barbed wires, the only way they would survive in that society. It is a joke to think that there is such a thing as a functioning economy, where one can get a job and a decent roof over one's head. The immigrants from Albania have already appropriated all the empty Serb homes and apartments, and none is left for returning Serbs, let alone for Roma. What would be their fate? They would be "allowed" to collect trash and metal scraps for a pittance. They will be abused on every turn. They will not be able to school their children. And they will seek every avenue to escape their fate. Granted, Europe has inherited the mess from US, and now it has to make what it can out of it. But US still holds the reigns of control, making it very difficult for Europeans to do much. Let's not throw these kids into Kosovo political swamp. Show some kindness. Those who think that by adding Roma in the mix, Albanians can show successfully how they can work with Roma, and how only Serbs are "obstinate", need to leave such ideas at the college whence they came from. Do not experiment on these kids, and do not count on Albanian civility. A big, big mistake.
When will the Germans learn to get out of social engineering? I can't believe I'm reading this after tens of millions of civilian deaths at the hands of the Nazis. This should be like a warning light going off at a nuclear power plant. Every one of Germany's social experiments involving other ethnic groups have been human rights catastrophes..yet...the Brits, French & now the Americans.....like P.M. Chamberlain before WWII, seem to think that these 'new' Germans who drive around in shiny , new Mercedes & BMWs, live in clean & efficient cities are not capable of inhuman acts......Where is the politically correct Western media on this one?...And more ominous, where is the powerful Jewish lobby and all its media muscle? The more sane Germans themselves must be appalled at the ease with which they are sliding into their old militaristic ways. NATO German troops in Nazi-style helmets already preside over a gangster state in Kosovo ethnically cleansing all Serbs except those in fenced compounds...what chance would the Gypsies have?