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The Camps

As the Mauritanian government has announced, it will immediately take measures to control EU bound travel by boat. Reference is made here to the Canary Islands. The measures being undertaken are the development of newer border posts, an increase of border patrols and an intensification of surveillance of the border.[1] Berlin and Brussels have the corresponding blueprints on hand. The deployment of European police troops - presumably from Spain - is also imminent. Those arrested while attempting to leave are to be placed, as soon as possible, in internment camps.[2] Mauritania is reacting to pressure from the EU, which takes as the pretext for insisting on the permanent fortification of the Mauritania's sea-border, the numerous deaths of refugees at sea between continental Africa and the Canary Islands. According to data assembled by humanitarian organizations, over the past four months, at least 1,200 people have drowned at high sea, while attempting to reach European territory.

Shift

The mass dying at large of Africa's West Coast is the direct consequence of measures the EU has forced to be taken on the North Coast of Africa. Last autumn, Morocco was made to intensify controls on its national borders.[3] The migratory flow, that had led across to the Moroccan coast, was diverted, without the EU having addressed the causes of the sustained pressure of poverty. This caused a shift in navigation coordinates, which now led westward, primarily across Mauritania. Already from Senegal, Mauritania's southern neighbor, it is no longer practically possible to reach the Canary Islands - and thus EU territory - with conventional means of escape, mostly light boats.

Blueprints

With the arms buildup on Mauretanian borders and the construction of camps, the EU is cooperating with a regime, that came to power, last August, in a coup. The current president, who, only four weeks ago, dispatched a special emissary to Berlin, for negotiations with the Foreign Ministry, is considered to be the main person responsible for torture, the presumed liquidation of members of the opposition and massacres carried out on minorities.[4] But none of this poses an obstacle to Berlin's cooperating in the technical construction of fortifications along the maritime border. The preliminary work was laid out in plans made by the former German Interior Minister, Otto Schily. These are the blueprints for the functioning of a large number of the fortifications along the Mediterranean and East European periphery.

Only the detention cells

Berlin supplements its foreign refugee policy with reinforcement of the domestic impermeability. The Interior Ministry is presently working on a revised version of the so-called "immigration law." Persons, who would like to benefit from the constitutionally guaranteed right of asylum in Germany, will be subjected to further hindrances. According to these changes, persons entering the country, may, already at the external German borders, be deported on the basis of the bare suspicion that the person may seek asylum; an immediate arrest is also possible.[5] Future asylum-seekers will, between the moment of their attempted entry and their deportation "from Germany, get to see only the interior of detention cells", explains Karl Kopp, adviser for European Affairs of the human rights organization, Pro Asyl, in a discussion with german-foreign-policy.com.

Shunt Yard Dublin II

According to Kopp, the objective of Berlin's strategically applied policy is to shunt the aspiring refugees to states forming the southern and eastern borders of the EU. The so-called "Dublin II-Regulation" of the EU stipulates, "that in the EU, that state is responsible for examining an application for asylum, that allowed the entry of the asylum seeker onto the territory of the community", reports Kopp. The consequence is the increased pressure on the - usually the poorer - southern and eastern EU border states, where illegal repulsion to adjacent non-EU states are becoming more frequent. The camps, that Berlin wants to have established - for example in Mauritania - are "somewhat the 'mollifier,' for legitimizing the repulsion practices done in violation of international law, by claiming 'reception centers' are now being developed," the European adviser of Pro Asyl told German foreign policy.com. He points to the already existing misery camps in the Ukraine, in which the arrested refugees suffer from hunger.[6]

Getting Rid

One also gets "the impression" that the repulsions, which are inadmissible under international law, with the asylum procedure guidelines, adopted by the EU Commission in December, are being "combined to form an EU guideline". According to the EU text, it is to become possible to deport refugees to non-European states without formalities; to states that have not even ratified the Geneva Refugee Convention. As Kopp judges, the guidelines, which are similar to those in force in Germany since 1993, and, through pressure from Germany, also been made EU law,[7] can as "compensation" be applied to the southern and eastern EU border states. They are "saying in essence: We were very successful with our third-state regulation, if you implement it, you can get rid of the problem of having to accept more refugees."

Meltdown

The "meltdown for European refugee protection" (Kopp) goes back to the attempt to create a practically refugee-free "insular situation" for Germany inside the EU. Last week the Interior Ministry published the recent asylum statistics, which demonstrate the full success of their project. Altogether, according to these statistics, 3,801 persons have requested asylum in Germany during the first two months of the year - 15.4 per cent less than in the previous year and the lowest since the brief opening of European borders in 1989/90. At the same time, 6,326 asylum demands have been processed. 63 per cent of the requests were rejected, 33.8 per cent "otherwise settled" (through withdrawal of the request or suicide), 2.4 per cent (149 persons) were granted protection from deportation under terms of the Geneva Refugee Convention. In January and February, asylum was granted to 0.8 per cent of the applicants nationwide - first, for three years, with the possibility of a later revokation. That is exactly 52 people, less than one person per day.[8] About ten people per day die in their attempt to reach the EU by way of the Canary Islands.

Please read also Festung Europa and Interview mit Karl Kopp.

[1] Mauritania anuncia un plan contra la inmigración clandestina hacia Canarias; El Pais 12.03.2006
[2] Autoridades mauritanas repatriaron 70 inmigrantes a Senegal; EFE 11.03.2006
[3] see also Unknown Victims and Verschiebung
[4] see also Uneingeschränkt positiv
[5] Mehr Abschottung, mehr Haft, weniger Integration. Pro Asyl zum Entwurf eines Gesetzes zur Umsetzung aufenthalts- und asylrechtlicher Richtlinien der Europäischen Union; www.proasyl.de
[6] Please read also Interview mit Karl Kopp.
[7] see also Berlin will Verschärfung des europäischen Asylrechts, Europa den Europäern and Anwalt der Menschenrechte
[8] 1.779 Asylbewerber im Februar 2006; Pressemitteilung des Bundesministeriums des Inneren 08.03.2006

see also Detention Camp Specialists, Größere humanitäre Krise and Misery Shuttle