BY CARL-ERIK ISACCSSON
STOCKHOLM - State governments in Germany and the federal government in Bonn agreed January 26 on a plan to deport 320,000 Yugoslavian refugees back to Bosnia. Beginning July 1, single adults and couples without children will be forced to leave and families with children will be deported after the middle of next year. Authorities say they will grant a few exemptions for students and people who have been tortured or raped.
"They have to understand that they were guests in our country as long as the war was going on. Now its time for them to go home," said Gunther Beckstein, the Bavarian minister of domestic affairs, shortly after the plan was announced. He pointed to the growing unemployment in Germany - which officially hit 10 percent in January - as a justification for the deportation order.
The refugees from Bosnia were only granted temporary permits to stay in Germany. The same policy has been applied in Sweden for 3,000 of the 60,000 Bosnian refugees here.
The Swedish daily Svenska Dagbladet reported that the plan caused protests among the different refugee organizations in Germany and unrest among many of the refugees from Bosnia who don't want to be forcibly returned there.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) - responsible under the so-called Dayton peace agreement for the "repatriation" of 2 million Bosnians who have been forced to leave their homes - criticized Bonn's plan. "It's too early to decide to use force to bring people back to Bosnia," said Ron Redmond, a UNHCR spokesman in Geneva. The governments of Germany, Switzerland, and Austria are seeking bilateral agreements with the Bosnian government to send back the refugees.