Misery Shuttle

DAR ES SALAAM/BERLIN/MINSK (Own report) - The German Government is financing the deportation of refugees between several African states and is intervening in the migration in the Eastern part of that continent. These measures are affecting several hundred thousand people in Tanzania and are designed to divert the migration flow originating there, to prevent these victims of poverty and civil war from coming to Europe. Germany is particularly directing these refugees toward Burundi and the Congo, where starvation and death awaits them. The UN Refugee Agency is implementing these measures. In front of its Cairo office recently, a massacre of desperate migrants was carried out. The continuous expansion of the EU border regime includes plans for an international detention system, that regulates the social dynamic of the refugee movement in regionally established reservations ("Regional Protection Programs", RPP). Selected migrant workers can "shuttle" between these camps and interested economic centers, according to the German Konrad Adenauer Foundation. Two pilot projects are promoting these EU plans and are linked to the current German deportation of refugees in Tanzania, where preparations have begun for building "Regional Protection" camps. The second camp is presently being projected for refugees from the "Ukraine, Moldavia and Belarus". Thus the EU is promoting the German-Italian concept of the organized supply of cheap labor from transcontinental poverty zones, while simultaneously hermetically closing all European borders.

Alarming

According to the German government's response to a parliamentary inquiry, it is financing measures aimed at "repatriating Burundi and Congolese refugees (from Tanzania) to their countries of origin".[1] Tanzania is one of the "main host countries for refugees in Africa".[2] In 2003 approximately 690,000 people sought refuge in this East African country. Among them, particularly persons having fled the war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, but also several hundred thousand refugees from the civil war in Burundi. In cooperation with the UN agency, UNHCR, the German government is providing "transportation facilities, food and other aid for all those who allegedly are voluntarily willing to return to their country of origin."[3] Refugees are obviously being placed under intense pressure, as reported by amnesty international (ai): "Officials are repeatedly threatening them with forced repatriation, if they don't leave Tanzania voluntarily."[4] According to ai, there are also deportations to Burundi, where an "alarming security situation" prevails.

Catastrophic Situation

The "Regional Protection Program" currently being prepared by the EU in Tanzania, can continue the work, that Germany has already begun in this East African nation. Also in cooperation with the UNHCR, Brussels is already supporting a project entitled "Strengthening Protection Capacity", that is aimed at controlling the situation in the Tanzanian refugee camps.[5] This East African state, one the poorest in the world, cannot ensure a decent accommodation of the refugees alone. Due to the lack of international support, more than a third of the children in the camps are undernourished and violence is widespread. The UNHCR activities, which is dependant upon the flow of finances from the industrial nations, has been suspected for years of doing the groundwork for the EU. According to uncontradicted reports, the recent massacre in a refugee camp in front of the Cairo UNHCR office, was carried out after confidential consultations between representatives of the UNHCR and the local police.[6]

To Better Direct

The refugees in Cairo had made their way to the Mediterranean coast from their countries of origin in Africa. In order to prevent this, and intercept the migrants long before they reach the coast, the "Regional (EU) Protection Program" is being implemented in Tanzania. Planned is a "program of 5 or 6 measures" ("capacity development") intended to include the "registration" of the refugees and the decision on how to use their manpower ("training") and decide where they will be sent in the future.[7] Whether the migrants are to be deported to their countries of origin or if they will be allowed to leave for countries requiring their manpower, will be decided in accordance with the given circumstances. According to the strategy paper on the EU-border regime's management, it is of higher-ranking significance that "the countries concerned" can "better direct the migratory movement."[8]

Satellite Technology

A special EU-Commission using the terms "Justice, Freedom and Security" in its title, is handling the industrial regulation of manpower deployment of Africans and other migrants. Its commissioner, Franco Frattini, briefed the German Konrad Adenauer Foundation during a "working lunch" about the planned measures and the suggested terminology to describe them.[9] For example, the circulation of workers "between the countries of origin and the countries of immigration" should be referred to as a "'shuttle' of highly qualified migrants". This model appears to be a solution for the difficult screening of persons, who will be deployed in the core states of the EU. Their respective competence will be assessed in the distant "Regional Protection" reservations under conditions of a standardized camp system ("migration regulation on a statistical basis"). Unlike the detention managers of the last century, today's organizers enjoy aid on a global scale. As the EU Vice-President and Commissioner, Frattini, explained at the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, migration "surveillance must use satellite technology". "Furthermore, North African states should undergo more intensified controls".

Three continents

Several East European states can expect imperial measures that are similar, where "Regional Protection Programs" are being developed against migrants from the Ukraine, Moldavia and Belarus. Since "the containment of illegal immigration" is the primary responsibility of the countries of origin "local capacities have to first be used." Since the establishment of a system, announced a year and a half ago by the German Interior Minister at the time, Otto Schily, its extension to the poverty stricken country of a third continent is being discussed: Afghanistan.

Model Set of Regulations

The dislocation of the defense against refugees to the regions of their origin and transit, offers new possibilities for the expulsion of those, who have already reached Europe. Financial means from the EU's AENEAS program, which serves to manage the global migratory movements and supports the "Regional Protection Programs," are earmarked primarily "for third countries, that are actively involved in the preparation or the implementation (...) of a re-admission treaty with the EU" confirms the German government.[10] According to the "Asylum Procedures Directive", adopted by the EU Interior Ministers on December 1, 2005, countries, that have not signed the Geneva Convention on the Status of Refugees, can qualify as "safe third countries" and are, in principle, therefore open to receiving deportees. "A model set of regulations" applicable to all cases of illegal immigration is the objective.[11]

Voluntary

To avoid appearing completely ridiculous, when calling on annoying states to respect human rights, the EU core states want to conceal their control of the global migratory movements with the air of unconstraint. One should give "first the possibility of a voluntary repatriation" explains Frattini at the Konrad Adenauer Foundation. If this does not produce the desired results, we can apply "also measures of forced resettlement of illegal immigrants".[12]

[1] Antwort der Bundesregierung auf die Kleine Anfrage der Abgeordneten Heike Hänsel u.a. und der Fraktion die Linke: Auffanglager für Flüchtlinge in Afrika und Osteuropa, Berlin 13.02.2006
[2] Migration in und aus Afrika; BMZ-Spezial Nr. 118 September 2004
[3] Antwort der Bundesregierung auf die Kleine Anfrage der Abgeordneten Heike Hänsel u.a. und der Fraktion die Linke: Auffanglager für Flüchtlinge in Afrika und Osteuropa, Berlin 13.02.2006
[4] Tansania; amnesty international Deutschland Jahresbericht 2005
[5] Strengthening Protection Capacity and Support to Host Communities in Tanzania; Recommendations from the Tanzania National Consultation April 5-6, 2005
[6] see also Zu den Toten von Kairo kommen noch mehr
[7] Die externen Aspekte der Asylpolitik: Die Verbesserung des Schutzes in Drittländern; europa.eu.int/comm/justice_home/fsj/asylum/ external/fsj_asylum_external_de.htm
[8] Mitteilung der Kommission an den Rat und das Europäische Parlament über regionale Schutzprogramme. KOM(2005) 388 endgültig; Brüssel 01.09.2005. Excerpts: Bekämpfung unerwünschter Migration (II)
[9] Working Lunch mit Kommissar Franco Frattini; www.kas.de/proj/home/events/9/1/veranstaltung_id-17764/
[10] Antwort der Bundesregierung auf die Kleine Anfrage der Abgeordneten Heike Hänsel u.a. und der Fraktion die Linke: Auffanglager für Flüchtlinge in Afrika und Osteuropa
[11], [12] Working Lunch mit Kommissar Franco Frattini; www.kas.de/proj/home/events/9/1/veranstaltung_id-17764/

see also Festung, Import-Export, The Libyan Project and Detention Camp Specialists


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