The emergence of the RNC has its roots in the campaigns for the right of settlement of Romani refugees from eastern Europe in Germany. The first group of Roma to leave eastern Europe after the closure of the iron curtain were migrant workers from Yugoslavi a, who, unlike most other nationals of socialist states, enjoyed freedom of travel. After immigration for working purposes was restricted, in Germany in 1973, the only possibility to try and settle in the country was to apply for political asylum. However , the flow of Romani refugees from Yugoslavia, and later from Poland, only began in the early 1980's, and so it cannot simply be considered an extension of earlier emigration for the purpose of finding work in the West. A large proportion of the Yugoslav R oma had left Yugoslavia years before arriving in Germany, and had spent longer periods of time in various western European countries, before arriving in Germany. Others left the country due to increasing ethnic tensions, as was the case in Poland in the m i d-1980s.

They remained in safety as long as their asylum application were still being processed. However, since 1978 asylum regulations were restricted, resulting in a very low proportion of cases were asylum status was granted. Though in the 1980's there was prin ciple recognition that ethnic tension

was rising in Yugoslavia, and for instance Albanians were granted asylum as members of a persecuted or at least discriminated ethnic minority, awareness of the Roma being an ethnic group was lacking, Their applications were rejected an the grounds that dis crimination was a result of their ''style of living''.

In the late 1980's, when all appeals bad been rejected and na more legal channels remained, several hundred families resorted to political pressure. Such organizations emerged first in Cologne and Hamburg. In Cologne, a small group was allowed ta settle te mporarily under close surveillance of a special police and municipality task force, isolated in a trailor encampment surrounded by barbed wire and under observation 24 h. a day, with each and every movement of guests and residents being registered and eva l uated by members of the task force. Families and persons whose behavior was found to be potentially damaging to everyday routine were ordered off the premises and lost their legal status. A small number of some eight families were granted residence perm i ts in the town, but kept under close observation of social workers who reported to the task force on a regular basis on their ''progress in integration''. Such progress was made a condition for acquiring a more secure legal residence status.

The Cologne experience was a result of close cooperation between a political initiative organized by Germans in support of the Roma, the municipality and church officials. The task force comprised representatives offal three groups, as well as the social w orkers in charge of administrating daily routine, who were the chief persons responsible for contact with the Roma. Thus, what emerged as a result of political pressure in support of the Roma became an institution responsible for observing and regulating t heir lives, with no guarantee of civil rights.

In Hamburg, the approach was different. Here political protest was instantly centered around an organization founded and run by Roma: The Rom & Cinti Union. Thus, there began a unique cooperation between Roma with permanent residence status, same of whom h ad been German citizens for generations, and Romani refugees. This became a cultural experience, with various groups of Roma mixing on a general national common denominator. This melting pot of various Romani cultures, dialects and family structures serve d as a basis for the emergence of a national consciousness, which for the first bound Romani non-intellectuals, with intact family structures into a political campaign. It thus became a unique political experience, with Roma who were acquainted with the p o l itical and social structures of the country, and with the language, taking initiative an behalf of those with less resources.

Finally, it enabled crystallization for a new political leadership that emerged around the practical tasks associated with organizing groups of people into a political campaign Persons of no political background became active in an attempt to motivate thei r own families into participating in the campaigns. These activists met in organizational conferences , which crossed not just family lines, but also sub-ethnic group boundaries, with Rumanian Kelderara mixing with Polish Rumungri, Montenegranian Das, Mac e donian Arli and German Sinti.

The aim af the Hamburg campaigns in 1988-1989 was to draw international public attention to the fate of the Romani refugees threatened by deportation, The argumentation line adapted was a departure from the conventional approach in asylum procedures, where individuals are asked to provide proof for political persecution. Rather, it focused on the general fate of the Roma as a nonterritorial nation, deprived of the mere opportunity of becoming involved in political activities in most countries, and threatene d by evacuation an the sole basis af their ethnic affiliation The demand was for protection as a group, and it was directed to the German authorities as a political claim resulting from moral obligations Germany had towards the Roma as a result af the Hol ocaust.

Here, two new qualities emerged which bad seen no precedence in Romani self- emancipation movements up to that date. First, claims for reparations were not made on a financial basis, as had been the case during the emergence of most Romani initiatives in t he 1970's, including the International Romani Union and the Central Council of German Sinti and Roma. Rather, reparation for injustice were sought on a political basis as moral gestures towards the Romani nation as a whole, enabling the descendants of vic t ims, but also other Romani individuals, to begin a new life in security. Second, Germany's moral obligations toward the Roma were mentioned in the context of a political debate which challenged Germany's Aliens Act and Asylum regulations and so one of t h e basic and most sensitive legal and political institutions of the Federal Republic, where immigration policies and immigration laws never existed. Thus, they confronted German administration and public opinion with a unique quality of political debate, wh er e Germany's past and present merged.

This quality of the political campaign was unmatched by any interest group. The German- citizen Sinti, in protesting against discrimination, indeed challenged the continuation of repressive measures against their group, but they were fighting the symptoms of racial prejudice. Immigrant groups in Germany had demanded a revision of the Aliens Act, but their arguments were based on the fact that Germany had practically developed into a multiethnic society. The Roma campaigns in Hamburg, on the other hand, chal lenged the essence of this constitutional institution by drawing on the moral responsibility Germany had toward the Romani people due to its genocide policies in the past.

The administration in Hamburg was thus confronted with a self-organized group, which broke traditional prejudices on Roma who never ''fight back'' and never attempt to draw public attention. It was confronted wit a political movement, which could not be cl assified according to any of the ideological patterns known to the authorities, and which indeed demonstrated extreme flexibility in selecting its political partners: it drew support from radical anarchist groups, as well as from organizations of Jewish s u rvivors of the Holocaust, celebrities and international media. Finally, it was confronted with entire families with children taking nonviolent creative and non-conventional action, seeking refuge at the site of a former concentration camp at Neuengamme, th en in churches, squatter initiatives and private homes, organizing protest marches across town and hunger strikes in historic locations, calling the attention of tourists and visitors to their struggle.

The Hamburg campaign in 1988-1989 resulted in a special regulation for Rorna which was adopted by the state Parliament, the Buergerschaft on the night of November 9th 1989, several hours before the opening of the Berlin wall. It granted over two thousand p ersons threatened by deportation to Poland and Yugoslavia legal residence status.

Following the success of the Hamburg campaign, similar groups organized around the same leadership in Northrhine-Westfalia, Bremen and Niedersachsen. A two-week protest march against planned deportation took 1500 Roma - men, women and children - through th e thick metropolitan jungle of the Ruhr-district, until finally the government of Northrhine-Westfalia reacted with a decree allowing ''de facto stateless Roma'' to acquire permanent residence status in the province, This decree was issued by the Minister of Interior Affairs in February 1990, and Roma to file in applications for a residence permit.

This breakthrough in Romani history had a number of components. First, for the first time, except for a humanitarian gesture by the Dutch government in 1978, a government acknowledged the Resolutions and Recommendations of the Council of Europe and the Eur opean Parliament on Roma, granting them the right of settlement. Second, for the very first time the term ''de facto stateless'' was used to acknowledge the fact that the possession of passports did not necessarily mean that Roma were considered citizens w ith equal rights in their countries of birth, and that furthermore many Roma had been forced to leave the countries of which they were citizens, and can no longer consider them as their home.

Apart from that, ''de facto stateless" expressed the government's recognition of the fact that states do no necessarily feel responsible toward their citizens of Romani origin. Finally, the success was a further demonstration that the Romani political civi l rights movement could initiate changes in legislation through non-violent protest action, lobbying and pressure on public opinion, and especially by negotiating directly, rather than via mediators.

While negotiations on the criteria according to which applications for status in accordance with the February 1990 decree were to be processed were still taking place, deportation plans in Bremen and Niedersachsen led to yet another protest march with seve ral hundred participants. The quality of these protest marches, which were termed ''beggars' march", symbolizing both the traditional image of the Gypsies ar~d the role assigned to them in political life, was that of continuous non violent action in which entire families participated. The march passed through numerous towns and villages, allowing for information campaigns in both remote areas and urban centers and involving local and regional press, media and politicians in discussing the fate of the Roman i refugees. It also called for large scale logistical efforts on the Part of the Red Cross, police and other organizations and institutions which assumed the responsibility of providing food, sleeping facilities and medical care.

The second march ended with a blockade of the German-Dutch border station at Vaals, near Aachen, in June 1990. The state governments involved agreed to stop deportations temporarily. Negotiations were postponed and so there was not yet a permanent outcome. But the wave of public campaigns spread to Baden-Württemberg, where Roma began to take similar action,