Deported Roma facing cold Kosovo reception

Deported Roma facing cold Kosovo reception; Germany sending many refugees home
The International Herald Tribune - May 19, 2005 Thursday

By: Nicholas Wood

PRISTINA, Kosovo: On Thursday, a plane chartered by the German government is expected to touch down at Kosovo's Slatina airport, the first in a long series of flights to deport about 50,000 refugees back to Kosovo.

To Germany, the flights simply end years of hospitality that it offered to waves of refugees when Kosovo was a Serbian province and was inflamed in a decade of ethnic tensions and ultimately war in 1999. But the flights have provoked strong criticism.

That is because a majority of these deported refugees are Roma, the ethnic group commonly known as gypsies, and rights groups say the expulsions reflect deeply held prejudices in Germany's immigration system.

They argue that other refugees from Kosovo, particularly the ethnic Albanians who make up the majority in Kosovo, were often given a permanent home in Germany, and when they did leave, went back to relative safety.

The Roma have rarely been given a right to stay in Germany, are given limited opportunity to work, and now will return to lost homes and the threat of violence as an unpopular minority.

Once back in Kosovo, they are to receive no aid from either Germany or the United Nations, which administers the province and has recently agreed to the first batch of refugees. The United Nations provides no aid for refugees deported to Kosovo.

In Germany, "the vast majority" of the Roma have been "targeted on a racial basis," said Claude Cahn, director of the European Roma Rights Center in Budapest, which gets Western funding. "They really do not want gypsies in Germany."

Over the past five years, ethnic Albanians and others have left Germany to go home and typically have been able to go back into their homes and communities. Many others in this group have been able to gain working papers and remain in Germany.

The Roma, who eke out their living on the margins of Kosovo society, are another matter. While almost six years have passed since the war ended, Roma and other minorities continue to face a volatile existence in Kosovo.

Many are unable to travel freely in the region and face the threat of intimidation or attack by Kosovo's ethnic Albanian majority. Hopes that interethnic relations had improved were violently dashed in March last year as thousands of ethnic Albanians rioted.

Serbian and Roma communities were the targets of three days of attacks during which more than 4,000 were forced from their homes and 19 people were killed. About 1,500 people have still to return to their homes.

But little more than a year later, under pressure to show signs of improvement, the UN mission has quietly agreed with the German government to allow the forced return of as many as 10,000 Albanian-speaking Roma, or Ashkali, from Germany to Kosovo.

The UN mission in Kosovo maintains that the Roma flights reflect an improving security situation.

Germany argues that the deportations are overdue, now that the UN says Kosovo is returning to normal and begins to work out whether the area will remain a province of Serbia or embark on a degree of independence.

There is substantial pressure from host governments because the refugees are expensive, said Karsten Luthke, director of the UN's repatriation unit.

"They say five to six years after the conflict, they are still not able to send people home," he said. "They're displeased."

The United Nations has agreed to let Germany return Albanian-speaking Roma and to watch their safety.

Later on, the UN has agreed to consider the return of the larger group of 24,000 Serb-speaking Roma.

The UN's decision to accept the deportations was based on an assessment made in March by the UN High Commission for Refugees. It found that the Ashkali Roma were still at risk but determined that deportations could go ahead if they were assessed case by case.

Nonetheless, UN officials said they did not have the resources to check what circumstances each refugee may face on return.

No funding was made available from the UN or aid groups for refugees being deported, said Luthke, and the refugees will be dependent on Albanian-dominated local authorities for their welfare.

Without funding for their resettlement, Luthke said, there was a risk of an increased threat to their security.

"If there are too many Roma on the streets with no place to go, this may raise security aspects," he said. "As long as they blend in it will be O.K., but the more visible they are, the more vulnerable they will be to attack."

Over all, Germany wants to deport about 51,500 refugees back to Kosovo, of whom 34,500 are Roma. All of them, according to the German government depend on welfare, at a cost to the regional authorities of an estimated 500, or $630, for each per month.

But many appear to have integrated into German society and have lost contact with Kosovo.

They include Afrim Aliji, 25, a Roma from southern Kosovo who now lives in Heidelberg. He recalls his native land hazily: memories of taunting at school, recollections of a family home that may no longer exist.

He was given a secondary school education and job training at the car maker Opel but is now unemployed. For his son, 4, Kosovo is an unknown land.

Aliji's chances of staying in Germany depend to a large extent on his ability to find a job, yet his identity papers forbid him from working, unless his employers can prove a German could not do the job instead.

His ID card is marked "duldung" or "tolerated," and reads: "This is not a resident permit. Bearer must exit the country."

In Vucitrn, one of the areas of Kosovo that was hardest hit by the rioting last year, the Albania-speaking Ashkali have only just begun to return to their homes, in small numbers. Of 69 families whose houses were destroyed, just 12 have returned.

The head of the community, Hamit Zymeri, a bulky 55-year-old, said his neighbors remained ill at ease.

Their movement in the town was limited to a few hours in daytime, he said.

Neither the NATO-led military forces nor the police "can guarantee us security," Zymeri said.

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Carter Dougherty contributed reporting from Heidelberg.

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