WUNRN
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/hibaaq-osman/no-place-left-to-run_b_7276788.html
EU & WESTERN RESPONSE TO IMMIGRANTS FLEEING FOR
SAFETY, LEAVES MANY WOMEN WITH “NO PLACE LEFT TO RUN” – ANALYSIS
Hibaaq Osman - Founder, Karama – May 14, 2015
"Europe is declaring war on smugglers" the EU's top
migration official said last month. As the Mediterranean fills with boats and
the bodies of migrants from Africa and the Arab world, it is inopportune
language like this underlines how grave a situation we find ourselves in and
how far away a humane solution seems.
More than 3,200
refugees trying to migrate from their troubled homelands into Europe died in
2014 and already, in 2015, the death toll tops 1,500. The EU's plans to address
the tragedy are to double funding for border surveillance and search and rescue
missions. Rescue, while it can save migrants from immediate death in choppy
waters and horrid, claustrophobic conditions in leaky boats, does not mean
anyone is being saved. Instead, women, men, and children fleeing nations
impoverished by war, corruption and weak government like Syria, Somalia, Libya,
Nigeria, and the DRC find themselves at the end of their ropes, hours into a
journey from despair only to find themselves being sent back to the impossible,
dangerous living conditions from which they though they had escaped.
The sight of
western countries shirking a duty of care to these people belies the West's
role in creating this crisis in the first place. The wars from which
individuals are fleeing are man-made, supported by an influx of weapons from
international partners, and exacerbated by shortsighted interventions in
pursuit of a change in a regime that in the long term bring only destruction.
These migrants are not appearing out of nowhere, and it is shocking now that
Europe is surprised to see the inevitable consequences from years of misguided
international policy that, coupled with corrupt national governments in the
Middle East and Africa, have led to the impossible conditions that have forced
people to risk everything in pursuit of new homes in lands unknown.
With a problem
whose cause lies so often in violence, some still argue that its solution is
violence too. Italy's foreign minister Paolo Gentiloni recently proposed "targeted
anti-terrorist strikes" into the coastal area to reduce the massive influx
of refugees.
Italy took part
in the 2011 Nato airstrikes in Libya. It was said nearly 15,000 women, men, and children traveled to the tiny island of
Lampedusa, Italy in early 2011, following conflict with Gaddafi. That number is
increasing, and destination countries are claiming they can no longer
accommodate refugees. Austria's chancellor called for an EU-wide quota for
accommodating migrants who reach Europe's southern shores. Several Italian
politicians in the North said they would no longer take in migrants, saying
they were saving their budgets for their own citizens.
Meanwhile, countries such as Greece report limited resources and migrants
suffer in poor conditions within detainment centers that feel more like
prisons. It can take months for migrants to receive documents and move on from
these centers to meet up with relatives in the region. Many, however, will toil
away in these centers, or perhaps worse yet, be sent to detainment centers on
volatile shores, back to the countries from which they ran.
If there is no money to support refugees it is in part because it has already
been spent on the proliferation of weapons of war - guns, bombs, and combat training
offered to on-the-ground militias who, in their mission to topple oppressive
dictators, have also contributed to the militarization of civilian towns, the
dissolution of security and safety, the crumbling of people's livelihoods and
of their homes.
Where the interventions have remained diplomatic rather than military, this has
often only added to the destabilization. Take for example Eritrea, a country
that has faced unfair sanctions imposed by the UN Security Council for its
supposed connection to terrorist organizations like Al-Shabaab. The country's
leaders have pleaded innocence. In Eritrea, there is no sign of terrorism.
Muslims and Christians live side by side. Instead of learning from them, the
international community has reaffirmed sanctions that have hampered development
and diminished the wellbeing of the Eritrean people.
The West
continues strategies that aim to bring leaders they don't like to their knees
but they have only succeeded in bringing the desperate to their own shores.
One can also not
ignore the grim irony of countries such as Eritrea being deemed beyond the pale
over allegations of supporting extremism while countries such as Saudi Arabia
receive the yet more arms and the support of the West in their own regional
conflicts.
The migrants now
risking their lives, the migrants who are desperate and literally have nowhere
else to run are being turned away, treated like rabid animals who have appeared
out of thin air. But their situations were created in part by the very
governments now shrugging their shoulders, balking that they cannot possibly
accommodate these foreigners into their peaceful homes. They cite limited
resources and fear of terrorism, without any sense of irony that the resources
spent over decades were invested in this new devastation and hopelessness.
If war is a
responsibility of the Western nations, than why isn't peace? If it matters that
we see fewer migrants perish in these dangerous waters, than why don't their
lives post-rescue have any gravity? NATO and the EU have yet to find a problem
in Libya they did not think could be solved with bombing. If they had spent
more on demilitarization and demobilization after the fall of Gaddafi than they
did on ordinance, we might not see such tragedy in the Mediterranean today.
The end to this
cycle of terror begins with responsibility. It is time now for Europe and the
US to respond to the people, not just to their own selfish foreign policies.