4 July 2007

DEN BOSCH (AP) - Vipero Botari fled violence-wracked Congo 14 years ago with his wife and daughter to seek asylum and acceptance in the Netherlands. On Wednesday Botari and his family finally got what they came for: residency permits.

The Botaris - now including 4-year-old son Dieuci - were the first of up to 30,000 people who will be granted residency under a Dutch "'general amnest" for certain illegal immigrants, capping a dramatic softening of Dutch immigration policy after years of cracking down.

In a ceremony in a modern meeting hall attached to the 16th century Den Bosch Town Hall, the Botaris were personally handed their permits by State secretary for Justice Nebahat Albayrak.

''This family is living proof of why the amnesty was a good move,'' said Albayrak, herself the daughter of Turkish immigrants.

''For you this is a new start,'' she told the family, ''and also for the thousands more people I hope will pick up their permits soon.''

For 20-year-old Mauwa Zawali, wearing a brightly coloured African dress, the credit card-sized residency permit is a passport to the same kind of life her school friends enjoyed growing up in this historic city 90 kilometres southeast of Amsterdam.

''You don't notice it when you're young,'' she said in fluent Dutch when asked about life as an illegal immigrant. ''But as you get older you realise and it gets annoying. You want a vacation job like your school friends, but you can't get one.''

The amnesty applies only to asylum-seekers who arrived before a new immigration law was adopted on April 1, 2001, and remained in the country despite their applications being rejected.

Under Albayrak's hardline predecessor Rita Verdonk, 11,000 people in the same category left or were deported, 4,200 of them kicked out forcibly. Once one of Europe's most welcoming countries, the Netherlands became increasingly hostile toward immigrants amid rising crime and unemployment among mainly North African newcomers critics said did little to join or contribute to Dutch society.

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