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Time - Man of the Year
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1993-04-08
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THE WEEK, Page 19WORLDGermany for Germans?
A week of rioting signals a vicious outbreak of xenophobia
"Ethnic cleansing," it appears, plagues not just the Balkans
but the Baltic as well. In a hail of rocks and Molotov cocktails,
skinheads and neo-Nazis in the eastern German port of Rostock
tried to storm an apartment block housing 200 asylum-seeking
Romanian Gypsies, beginning an ugly battle that would last all
week. After officials moved the Gypsies, the hooligans trapped
100 Vietnamese guest workers in a neighboring building and set
it ablaze. By luck alone, none of the inhabitants was seriously
hurt.
Even after the Vietnamese decamped, skinheads fought
nightly battles with the police. Local officials sought to
excuse the inept handling of the riots by blaming an influx of
rightists from Berlin and Hamburg. But local residents didn't
help matters much. Crowds of Rostockers let the rock throwers
disappear into their midst when chased by police, cheering on
the skinheads and screaming "Germany for the Germans!" Hundreds
of rioters were arrested, and hundreds of police were injured
in the fighting.
Chancellor Helmut Kohl deplored the mayhem as "a disgrace
for our nation," but it is far from unusual. Violent right-wing
incidents -- mostly against foreigners -- jumped almost
sevenfold last year to nearly 1,500, a recent federal report
found.
Even as they denounced the violence, Bonn officials used
the occasion to urge once more the adoption of a constitutional
amendment that would curtail Germany's liberal provisions for
asylum. Germany continues to bear the brunt of Europe's
population upheaval, taking in 256,000 asylum seekers last year
-- a number that may double this year. But Kohl's Christian
Democrats could soon get their wish. Leaders of the rival Social
Democrats, whose support is essential for such an amendment,
coincidentally abandoned their opposition only hours before the
Rostock riots began.