Pushbacks at sea and in the desert

Recently I wrote of the denial of identity during slavery, and the parallels with the way Europe deals with migrants today. New developments have prompted me to write a separate article on this subject. The first item is the much-discussed Tunisia deal of the European Union in relation to pushbacks, which apparently also take place in the desert.

 

The newest attempt to reduce the stream of migrants from Africa is the Tunisia deal, in which the Dutch Prime Minister Rutte and his ultra-right wing Italian colleague Meloni, under guidance of EU president Ursula von der Leyen negotiated a commitment from the Tunisian dicator Saied, who will receive a sum of money and carte blanche to serve as a border guard for the EU. We know where that leads to from the example of Libya, where migrants are jailed in dire conditions, physically abused or even enslaved, or quietly disappear from the face of the earth. The earlier deal with Turkey, another country with an autocratic regime, only resulted in longer and more dangerous migration routes over the Mediterranean.

To my surprise and disgust, Rutte, whose Cabinet was toppled last week over another migration issue, together with Meloni and Von der Leyen has pushed through the migration deal with Saied. Here we see the proud trio holding hands with the Tunisian dicator. Holding hands with someone who has blood on his hands. Human rights organisations are astonished - see replies below.

source: NOS

 

Amnesty International: Our Government has to take human rights seriously. There shouldn’t be a deal with any country if we know in advance that we will finance human rights violations.

Vluchtelingenwerk Nederland (a major refugee support organisation): Europe turns Tunisia into a dead-end alley for refugees and migrants.

Stichting Vluchteling (another refugee support organisation, on Twitter): ‘With all consideration for human rights’, Rutte recently said about a deal with this man who jails his opposition, calls for violence against migrants and makes life difficult for refugee support organisations, leaving people without water in the desert. Human rights. Well, well.’

 

Deportation of migrants from the Tunisian harbour of Sfax. These people are said to have been abandoned in the desert. Source: NOS

 

The bloodstained hands of Saied are no invention of mine. Tunisia has a bad track record on the subject of human rights and racial discrimination. Following the popular coup and democratic movement a few years ago, the country is once again in the steel grip of a ruthless dictator, who relentlessly pushes through a racist agenda in his country, stirring up feeling against black migrants from the south.

What this leads to is clear enough – recently a few journalists from Al-Jazeera found hundreds of people who had been dropped in no man’s land on the Libyan border without food, water or shelter, by the Tunisian authorities.

And only yesterday more people were found who had been dropped in the desert by the Tunisian army, who even stole and destroyed their passports and thus proof of their identity.

migrants abandoned in the desert by Tunisian troops. Source: NOS

But our recently dismissed Prime Minister Rutte, who is only supposed to handle current affairs and not pursue controversial issues, claims there are enough safeguards for human rights. Naturally he would.

EDIT August 2, 2023: finally, Dutch Parliament seems to wake up - questions have been asked of the Cabinet about recent deaths in the desert on the Tunisian/Libyan border. And the Belgian Undersecretary for Asylum is calling upon the European Commission to monitor human rights in North Africa more closely.  

EDIT September 12, 2023: The EU Parliament made mincemeat of the Tunisia deal. ‘It is a dirty deal with a dirty dictator,’ says one European Parliament member. ‘The racist policy of Saied actually is the reason people flee the country, and this deal will never lead to less migration.’ Another MEP says this is ‘treason to European values.’ Regrettably the European Parliament was bypassed when the deal was concluded - one effect of the remarkable political structure of the Union, which is less democratic than it should be.

Pushbacks at sea

Tunisia’s neighbour Libya has its own bad track record due to countless pushbacks and other human rights violations. The most recent incident was a Red Cross-sponsored rescue action being fired upon by the Libyan coast guard, on July 11. There are clear indications that the EU-financed Libyan Coast Guard works in collusion with human traffickers and is even infiltrated by criminal gangs. This is literally admitted by the European Commissioner for Migration. Even so, this situation is kept out of the media and no one seems to care a jot. Probably the EU finds the criminal Libyan approach to migration an effective deterrent.

taking cover from Libyan shots fired at a rescue mission. Source: International Red Cross / NOS.

 

The Greek pushback disaster of last month

Now let us look at Greece, where international law has been violated for years already. Once again, the terrible consequences of pushbacks of migrants in the Mediterranean were in the news. Hundreds of people drowned miserably in a dilapidated old boat that apparently was going to be towed off to Italian waters by the Greek Coast Guard. For me as a former Merchant Navy officer the risks are crystal clear: the vessel was overloaded and unstable, and trying to pull incautiously at such a vessel using a hawser will capsize it. Look at the way the vessel was overloaded: 

the overloaded disaster vessel capsized at sea near Greece

 

Pushbacks are illegal actions by European authorities to send migrants back to the place they came from, or to sea, without verifying the legitimacy of their claim to asylum. Illegal, because this is contrary to international regulations as laid down in refugee treaties and international maritime law, and they often lead to loss of life. The authorities concerned always point the finger at human traffickers as the cause of the problem, denying their own role. In the case of the capsized boat with 700 people on board, the Greek Coast Guard is now under investigation, as is the part played by Frontex. Which naturally is being vehemently denied.

New information points at an unsavoury role of the Greeks. They reportedly put pressure on the survivors to keep their mouth shut. A Dutch news article refers to BBC interviews with some of the survivors:

Two survivors the BBC spoke with confirm that the Coast Guard tried to tow the Adriana (i.e. the disabled vessel) off. “They fastened a rope to the left hand side. Everyone then moved towards the other side to keep the vessel horizontal. The Greek vessel then moved off fast, capsizing our boat”, says one of the survivors. The BBC says this was confirmed in court testimonials of five more witnesses.

Once ashore, the survivors were told not to speak about what they had seen. “When some said that the disaster had been caused by the Coast Guard, the translator had to say to them that they had to keep their mouth shut,” said the other witness the BBC spoke with. “You have survived! Keep your mouth shut! No more questions!” reportedly had been shouted at them.

Europol will ‘assist’ the Greek authorities to get at the truth of the matter. We will have to see what comes of that.

Short-term thinking only delays the solution

Does this mean we will have to accept the endless stream of refugees and migrants, despite all the social consequences? And should we shut our eyes to the activities of the traffickers? Of course not, because most of the people who flee from their birthplace become deeply unhappy here, and the housing and administrative problems increase time after time. But all these politically (i.e. anti-immigrant) motivated deals with repressive regimes only have a short-term effect. What is needed is statesmanship aimed at a long-term solution to make the world a better place. Statemanship regrettably is hard to find today.

I will repeat what I wrote in my previous post.

What is needed is vision, not a lump sum given to an unpleasant regimes to serve as a gatekeeper for Europe. Instead of subsidising a dictatorship, there should be proper investment in the countries of origin of migrants, to create worthwile jobs for everyone in Africa, with the returns flowing back into that unhappy continent. Only that will stop the flow of migration, the trafficking and the deaths at sea and in the desert.