Germany unloads Roma in Kosovo

Around 10,000 Roma from Kosovo are facing deportation from Germany in the next years as a result of a recently signed repatriation agreement between Germany and Kosovo. This reduces Germany to the same moral level as South Africa when its government implemented its 'Homeland' policy in the 1970s, the left-liberal Frankfurter Rundschau admonishes: "You invent states to get rid of people there. For most deportation candidates even their allocation to the state of Kosovo is entirely arbitrary. They have no papers from there, don't speak the language and unless they can produce the birth certificates of parents and grandparents they won't be granted citizenship. The message is that the Roma belong far away, somewhere in the East if possible. Behind this squeaky clean agreement is the hope of keeping Germany free of the dirt and misery of the Balkans. The opposite will happen: the attempt to cleanse will only result in our getting dirty - as the societies of the Balkans know from experience."

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