The United States Should Help Lebanon Build a New Government Free From Corruption and Hezbollah’s Influence.
▻https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/08/11/lebanon-beirut-needs-transformation-not-another-corrupt-unity-governm
Comme après 2005 dit l’auteure.
Quand on lit des inepties aussi monumentales, on comprend très vite que ce qui est requis pour travailler dans certains « centres de réflexion » ce n’est ni la compétence ni l’honnêteté.
Après, avec le WINEP, « inepties » est encore une façon gentille de dire les choses :-))
Hanin Ghaddar is the Friedmann fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy’s Geduld Program on Arab Politics.
Sinon, depuis ton référencement, le titre de l’article a été changé.
url :
lebanon-beirut-needs-transformation-not-another-corrupt-unity-government-france-macron
The Coronavirus Pandemic Should Kill Regime Change Forever
▻https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/07/08/the-pandemic-should-kill-regime-change-forever-coronavirus-iraq-afgha
A few weeks ago, I tweeted the following: “A country that cannot convince its own citizens to wear masks to halt a pandemic has no business toppling foreign governments and trying to remake whole societies that it barely understands.” It received more retweets and “likes” than I usually get, along with the usual amendments, endorsements, and snarky replies. The logic of my tweet should be fairly obvious, but since there are still prominent people and organizations who think regime change is a ready solution to vexing foreign-policy challenges, it’s worth unpacking the argument in a bit more detail.
En même temps, les politiques de regime change et de démocratisation ne sont que les alibis médiatiques des guerres impériales, jamais leurs causes.
Ben oui, pour le coup je trouve que cet article, tout pétri de bonnes intentions qu’il soit, tombe à côté de la plaque... Les arguments de regime change pouvaient avoir un sens du temps de la guerre froide — ça se traduisait par : mettons une bonne junte déguisée en régime représentatif à la place de ces communistes potentiels, ce qui était déjà un alibi en soi (cf le chili, terrain d’expérimentation néolibérale) — autant là c’est devenu un truc grossièrement propagandiste masquant (très mal) des appétits extractivistes.
How to Aid Syria Without Aiding Assad- Foreign Policy
U.N. agencies also failed to fully take advantage of options to move cross-border aid into non-regime areas. The U.N. Security Council created a dedicated mechanism in 2014 which authorizes humanitarian actors to use border crossings to deliver assistance to Syria from Turkey, Iraq, or Jordan without the Assad regime’s approval. This lack of impartiality from certain U.N. agencies in Damascus recently impacted the COVID-19 response. The World Health Organization (WHO) assisted Damascus in February, but did not use cross-border corridors in northwest Syria until late March and delivered equipment in northeast Syria in May only to regime emissaries.
#Covid-19#Moyen-Orient#Rojava#Iraq#Syrie#Frontière#aide_internationale#Politique_internationale#ONU#migrant#migration
▻https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/06/24/how-to-aid-syria-without-aiding-assad
Trump Administration Says Iran Could Exit Syria Amid Pandemic - Foreign Policy
The State Department’s top official for Iran thinks Russia and Syria see more benefits to a potential Iranian drawdown.
Hook’s comments come amid signs that Tehran’s enthusiasm for proxy campaigns across the Middle East could be flagging, with COVID-19 killing more than 7,000 people in Iran so far, a figure that U.S. officials believe could be much higher. Israel’s departing defense minister said this week that he’d seen Iranian forces leaving Syria but offered no evidence to back up his claim. An Iranian lawmaker also said this week that the campaign on behalf of Assad has cost as much as $30 billion.
#Covid-19#Iran#USA#Syrie#Politique_internationale#Economie#WHO#Pandémie#migrant#migration
▻https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/05/21/trump-iran-syria-exit-coronavirus-pandemic
Bowing to Russia, U.N. Halts Funding for Pandemic Relief in Northeastern Syria - Foreign Policy
With Putin’s help, Assad has constrained the capacity of the United Nations to deliver health supplies in Syria’s opposition-controlled territory, which faces rising risk of coronavirus.
#Covid-19#Moyen-Orient#Rojava#Iraq#Syrie#Frontière#aide_internationale#Russie#POlitique_internationale#ONU#migrant#migration
▻https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/05/13/coronavirus-pandemic-syria-russia-united-nations-relief-agencies
Many Americans Feel Safer Abroad in Countries Less Infected by the #Coronavirus
▻https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/04/17/americans-abroad-safer-coronavirus-pandemic-infections
Pas forcément en Islande mais dans les improbables Beyrouth ou Mozambique, même quand les intéressés bénéficient d’une assurance maladie correcte,
Another American, living in Erbil, Iraq, who asked not to use her name as she works for the United Nations and is not allowed to speak to the media without approval, said that while her insurance does cover her in the United States, Iraq seems safer than her native Utah. Northern Iraq was on military-imposed lockdown, while Utah had not implemented statewide stay-home measures at that point.
“To return home would be to return to a place less safe than where I am,” she said. “It seems like a wise decision to wait it out here.”
Syria’s Revenge on the World Will Be a Second Wave of Coronavirus-Foreign Policy
Of all the places in the Middle East where people are suffering, the Syrian province of Idlib—a giant refugee camp of sorts—is perhaps the most worrying. Not only is the coronavirus a threat to the people there, but, like the Syrian conflict itself, it is a threat to the Middle East and well beyond. The virus does not respect travel bans, closed borders, and a cessation of trade. The grave reality is that if and when COVID-19 sweeps through Idlib, it will likely prolong the suffering of Syrians, Lebanese, Jordanians, Turks, Iranians, Russians, and Europeans
#Covid19#Syrie#Idlib#Camp#migrant#migration#santé
▻https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/03/26/syrias-revenge-on-the-world-will-be-a-second-wave-of-coronavirus
You Can’t Practice Social Distancing if You’re a Refugee
Around 70 million people are suffering displacement in crowded camps, awaiting the arrival of the coronavirus pandemic.
▻https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/03/20/you-cant-do-social-distancing-if-youre-a-refugee
#confinement #social_distancing #distanciation_sociale #éloignement_social #réfugiés #asile #migrations #camps_de_réfugiés #coronavirus
via @isskein @thomas_lacroix
Voir compile des effets délétères indirects de la pandémie :
►https://seenthis.net/messages/832147
Au moment où culminent les craintes qu’une épidémie Covid 19 dans les camps de réfugiés et plus particulièrement au hot-spot de Moria à Lesbos ne pourrait que tourner à une catastrophe humanitaire sans précédent, des jeunes demandeurs d’asile, parlant plusieurs langues, ont organisé une équipe, « #MORIA_AWARENESS_CORONA_TEAM » (#ΜΑCT), pour essayer de faire face à la situation ? MACT explique aux résidents les règles d’hygiène et la nécessité absolue de limiter les contacts avec le monde extérieur, et s’est chargé de régler la circulation à distance de sécurité des réfugiés dans le supermarché le plus proche. La même équipe a construit avec l’aides des organisations solidaires, un atelier de fabrication de masques de protection en tissu.
Voir: ▻https://standbymelesvos.gr/2020/creation-of-corona-awareness-team-in-moria-camp
Reçu de Vicky Skoumbi, via la mailing-list migreurop, le 22.03.2020
#Moria #Lesbos #Grèce
Fears of catastrophe as Greece puts migrant camps into lockdown
Doctors say coronavirus outbreak could be disastrous amid ‘horrific’ conditions.
As the Schengen area closed its external borders last week, in a move designed to replace the closing of member states’ national borders against imported Covid-19 infection, some internal barriers still went up in Europe. The day after the European commission’s announcement, the Greek government introduced a set of measures that would apply to the migrant camps in the Greek islands.
As of Wednesday, the camps have been locked down from 7pm to 7am. In the daytime, only one person is allowed out per family, and the police control their movements. Some camps, on the islands of Leros and Kos, have been closed entirely.
Meanwhile, visits to the camps’ reception centres have been temporarily suspended, except for those who work there, and arrivals are being subjected to compulsory fever screening. The measures only apply to the camps, not to the resident population of the islands.
In the five Greek island “hotspots” that are sheltering about 42,000 people, one case of Covid-19 has been recorded. The affected person is a resident of the island of Lesbos. There have been no cases in the camps so far.
In Greece as a whole, 464 cases of Covid-19 have been recorded and six deaths. The government has banned mass gatherings and is urging Greeks to practise social distancing. Thirteen hospitals on the mainland have been turned over to the treatment of Covid-19.
“The imposition of this restriction of movement on the people of the camps and not for anyone else on the islands is unacceptable and discriminatory,” said Apostolos Veizis, director of the medical operational support unit for Médecins sans Frontières (MSF) in Greece. “You are locking children, women and men into severely overcrowded camps where the sanitation and hygiene conditions are horrific.”
The largest camp, Moria on Lesbos, is temporary home to about 20,000 people but was built for just over 6,000. In parts of Moria, there is one water tap for 1,300 people, one toilet for 167 people and one shower for 242 people.
Up to six people may be sleeping in 3 sq metres (32 sq feet), a quarter of the size of an average parking space. “They do not have enough water or soap to regularly wash their hands and they do not have the luxury of being able to self-isolate,” Veizis said.
Over a third of the migrants are children, just under a half of whom are unaccompanied. Their principal countries of origin are Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, Palestine and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and their average stay in the camp is between five months and a year.
There are already high levels of health problems among the migrants, due to the unsanitary conditions, and high levels of stress. Veizis calls the situation “a chronic emergency”. “If we had an outbreak in these camps, it would be disastrous,” he said.
The Greek National Public Health Organisation, which is responsible for health in the camps, did not respond to requests for comment. However, a European commission spokesperson, Ciara Bottomley, wrote in an email that the commission was funding the deployment of doctors and other medical staff to the hotspots. “The healthcare response in case of an incident on a hotspot island foresees first treatment at the local island hospital followed by air evacuation to one of the specialised hospitals in the mainland,” she went on.
Those measures appear to apply to local residents only. Since last July, all arrivals to the camps have been excluded from the Greek healthcare system. Three government-funded doctors are conducting vulnerability screening in Moria, but the only medical care is being provided there by NGOs and voluntary groups.
Veizis said MSF had been in contact with the government to discuss case management in the camps as part of the government’s evolving Covid-19 strategy, in case of an outbreak there.
Meanwhile, he fears the new regime will add to the migrants’ stress while fanning tensions between them and local residents. Violence directed at NGOs forced some of them to temporarily suspend operations this month.
The new measures, Veizis says, are just “one more element to pit the people of the islands against the asylum seekers”.
▻https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/mar/21/fears-catastrophe-greece-migrant-camps-lockdown-coronavirus
#confinement
Coronavirus auf Lesbos: Wie junge Geflüchtete gegen die Krise kämpfen
Das neuartige Coronavirus hat Europa fest im Griff. Homeoffice, Ausgangssperren, Grenzschließungen, Hamsterkäufe. Einige Regionen bereiten sich noch auf die Pandemie vor, andere stecken bereits mittendrin.
Wie aber bereitet man sich an einem Ort auf das Virus vor, an dem schon im Normalzustand kaum ein menschenwürdiges Leben möglich ist?
Etwa 20.000 Menschen leben im Camp Moria auf Lesbos. Das Lager für Geflüchtete ist überfüllt, die hygienischen Bedingungen sind katastrophal. Immer wieder kommt es zu Bränden, erst am Montag starb dabei mindestens ein Kind.
Spätestens seit es auf Lesbos den ersten bestätigten Corona-Fall gibt, wächst die Sorge darüber, was passiert, wenn das Virus das Lager erreicht. Das Krankenhaus im nahegelegenen Mytilini wäre mit einem Ausbruch komplett überfordert. Wegen in letzter Zeit aufgetretener Angriffe von Rechtsradikalen haben Hilfsorganisationen im Camp ihre Arbeit reduziert (bento). „Gesundheitsversorgung existiert nicht in Moria“, sagte Apostolos Veizis von „Ärzte ohne Grenzen“ kürzlich dem SPIEGEL.
„Vor allem Informationen verbreiten“
Eine Gruppe junger Geflüchteter will dabei nicht tatenlos zusehen. Mit Unterstützung der Hilfsorganisation „Stand by me Lesvos“ haben sie das „Moria Corona Awareness Team“ gegründet und versuchen, mit den ihnen zu Verfügung stehenden Mitteln die Menschen im Lager über das Virus aufzuklären. Mit dabei sind Vertreterinnen und Vertreter verschiedenster Nationalitäten, die in Moria leben.
A call for support from the Moria Corona Camp Team in Lesvos for solidarity and help. Lesvos is facing a huge crisis....
Posted by Stand by me Lesvos on Thursday, March 12, 2020
Einer von ihnen ist der 19-jährige Masi aus Afghanistan. „Wir wollen vor allem Informationen verbreiten“, sagt er im Telefon-Interview mit bento. Darüber, wie Menschen sich im Camp vor dem Coronavirus schützen könnten. Überall im Camp haben sie handgeschriebene Plakate mit Informationen aufgehängt. Hände waschen, Abstand halten, das Virus ernst nehmen. In vier Sprachen: Farsi, Arabisch, Französisch und Englisch.
„Zusätzlich fahren wir durchs Camp und informieren die Menschen über Megafone, die wir besorgen konnten“, erzählt Masi.
Pragmatisch, nicht verzweifelt
Das Team wurde binnen weniger Tage zusammengetrommelt, immer mehr Menschen schließen sich der Gruppe an. Dass es viel zu tun gibt, merkt man: Mitten im Interview reicht Masi das Telefon weiter, irgendwo wird er gerade gebraucht.
Fereshte, 17, soll übernehmen. „Am Wichtigsten ist, dass wir den Menschen Hoffnung geben, dass wir sie beruhigen“, sagt sie. Ihrer Erfahrung nach funktioniere das im persönlichen Gespräch oder über die Megafone am besten. Die relevanten Informationen hätten sie vorher auf offiziellen Seiten im Internet recherchiert.
Ein großes Problem bei ihrer Arbeit seien im Camp kursierende Gerüchte, die Panik schüren. „Es gab in den letzten Tagen zwei Tote im Camp. Viele erzählten, sie seien an Corona gestorben, aber das stimmt nicht, es waren Herzinfarkte.“
Fereshte klingt pragmatisch. „Die griechischen Behörden machen wenig, also müssen wir selbst anpacken“, sagt sie.
Geflüchtete regeln den Lidl-Einkauf
Immer mehr Geflüchtete beteiligen sich am Corona Awareness Team. „Inzwischen sind wir mehr als 50 Freiwillige. Wir hoffen, das in den nächsten Tagen mindestens noch verdoppeln zu können“, sagt der 30-jährige Apotheker Omid, der ebenfalls mithilft.
Die Aufgaben beschränken sich nicht mehr auf das Verbreiten von Informationen. Mit Hilfe von Hilfsorganisationen hat das Team eine kleine Fabrik aus dem Boden gestampft, in der Geflüchtete Atemschutzmasken nähen.
Auch im knapp fünf Kilometer vom Camp entfernten Lidl ist das Corona Awareness Team mittlerweile im Einsatz. In Absprache mit der Geschäftsleitung habe man einen Dienst organisiert, der den Einlass in den Markt regelt, damit nicht zu viele Menschen gleichzeitig auf engem Raum einkaufen. „Wir rufen die Leute auch dazu auf, in der Schlange vor dem Markt Abstand zu halten“, erzählt Omid.
Auch die lokalen Griechinnen und Griechen, die im Lidl einkaufen, fänden diese Maßnahme gut. „Sie sind sehr freundlich und freuen sich darüber, dass wir etwas tun“, sagt Omid. Er erzählt, dass sie hoffen, eine ähnliche Aufsicht auch an der Nahrungsausgabestelle im Camp etablieren zu können.
Forderungen nach Evakuierung
Wie hart das Virus Moria treffen würde, ist schwer abzusehen. Zwar leben laut dem Leiter des Camps Dimitris Vafeas nur 178 Menschen in Moria, die über 65 Jahre alt sind und damit aufgrund des Alters zur Risikogruppe gehören. Durch die schlechten hygienischen Bedingungen und die mangelhafte medizinische Versorgung sind aber auch viele jüngere Menschen stark geschwächt.
Deshalb häufen sich angesichts der Coronakrise die internationalen Forderungen, Moria endlich zu evakuieren. "Ärzte ohne Grenzen“ warnt: „Die entsetzlichen Lebensbedingungen in den überfüllten Hotspots auf den Inseln sind ein idealer Nährboden für COVID-19.“
Der SPD-Bundestagsabgeordnete Lars Castelluci fordert, dass die Geflüchteten aufs griechische Festland gebracht werden. Ähnlich äußerte sich Grünen-Parteichefin Annalena Baerbock.
Under dem Motto #LeaveNoOneBehind haben Menschen aus Politik, Kultur und Zivilgesellschaft eine Petition für den Schutz der Geflüchteten gestartet. Zu den Erstunterzeichnerinnen und -unterzeichnern gehören unter anderem die Influencerin Louisa Dellert, der Moderator Joko Winterscheidt und der Musiker Henning May. Mehr als 20.000 Menschen haben die Petition bisher unterschrieben. „Das Virus unterscheidet nicht nach Hautfarbe, Religion oder Geschlecht. Corona betrifft uns alle“, heißt es da. Wer jetzt nicht handle, mache sich mitschuldig für die Katastrophe, die den Menschen in Not drohe.
Auch Omid wünscht sich Hilfe und Solidarität: „An die europäischen Staaten: Bitte kommt und steht an unserer Seite. Wir tun, was wir können. Aber wir brauchen mehr.“
▻https://www.bento.de/politik/coronavirus-auf-lesbos-wie-junge-gefluechtete-gegen-die-krise-kaempfen-a-0fd09
Coronavirus : des eurodéputés appellent à évacuer les migrants les plus vulnérables des camps grecs
La commission des libertés civiles du Parlement européen a appelé lundi à l’évacuation d’urgence par l’UE des migrants les plus vulnérables au coronavirus des camps surpeuplés en Grèce, mettant en garde contre le « risque de nombreux décès ».
La commission des libertés civiles du Parlement européen a appelé lundi à l’évacuation d’urgence par l’UE des migrants les plus vulnérables au coronavirus des camps surpeuplés en Grèce, mettant en garde contre le « risque de nombreux décès ».
Dans une lettre adressée au commissaire européen chargé de la gestion des crises, Janez Lenarcic, le président de la commission parlementaire LIBE, Juan Fernando Lopez Aguilar, a alerté sur la situation des 42.000 demandeurs d’asile entassés sur les îles grecques, où il n’y a « aucune possibilité de distanciation sociale » et où « l’équipement médical nécessaire n’est pas disponible ».
« C’est une urgence et l’UE doit réagir en conséquence avec un plan d’action qui devrait au moins inclure une évacuation préventive de la population à haut risque, notamment les plus de 60 ans et les personnes souffrant de problèmes respiratoires, de diabète ou d’autres maladies qui augmentent le risque de symptômes sévères », écrit-il au nom de la commission LIBE qui rassemble tous les partis.
« Si l’UE échoue à agir immédiatement, la situation sur les îles grecques deviendra ingérable, avec le risque de nombreux décès », avertit-il.
Les eurodéputés demandent aussi pour les demandeurs d’asile un effort coordonné accru de la part des systèmes de santé des Etats membres, et davantage d’aide financière pour augmenter les capacités d’hospitalisation et de soins intensifs.
Alors que sept pays de l’UE se sont engagés à la mi-mars à accueillir quelque 1.600 enfants des îles grecques, ces eurodéputés appellent « à continuer » d’agir pour leur « relocalisation rapide ».
Deux cas de coronavirus ont été diagnostiqués sur l’île de Lesbos mais pour l’heure, aucun n’a été détecté dans les camps grecs.
Afin d’éviter une propagation de l’épidémie, Athènes a imposé de strictes restrictions à la liberté de mouvement des migrants sur les îles égéennes. Les visites dans les camps sont également réduites au minimum.
▻https://www.mediapart.fr/journal/fil-dactualites/230320/coronavirus-des-eurodeputes-appellent-evacuer-les-migrants-les-plus-vulner
Europe must act to stop coronavirus outbreak in Lesbos, say MEPs
As the coronavirus pandemic spreads across Europe, refugees and migrants living in overcrowded camps remain extremely vulnerable.
On the island of Lesbos, one suspected coronavirus case would be enough to raise concerns in the Moria camp. Human rights organisations are concerned asylum seekers won’t have access to resources needed to prevent and then treat the outbreak.
“It will be a very difficult situation if the virus comes to Moria or any other overcrowded reception centres or hotspots on the Greek islands,” admits Ylva Johansson, Commissioner Home Affairs.
“That’s why it is necessary to take a lot of measures right now … So far, there is no detected virus in the camps.”
NGOs have raised concerns over asylum procedures being frozen. According to the Commissioner for Home Affairs, processing applications must not be stopped.
“People arriving at the borders still have the right to apply for asylum and cannot be sent away without their claim being assessed,” explains Professor Philippe De Bruycker, Institute for European Studies, Université Libre de Bruxelles. “This does not mean that nothing can be done regarding the protection of health: People requiring asylum maybe tested to see if they are sick or not, and if they are it can be applied measures such as quarantine, or even detention or restrictions of movement within the territory of the states.”
Restrictions on travel and social distancing measures means delays in the asylum process are inevitable.
“A lot of member states are making the decision that the interviews with asylum seekers should not take place right now because they would like to limit the social interaction,” says Commissioner Johansson. “So there will be delays in the processes of asylum, but I think that member states are taking measures to deal with the risk of the virus being spread.”
MEPs have called for an “immediate European response” to avoid a humanitarian crisis spiralling into a public health crisis. NGOs warn there is little chance of not getting infected living in such conditions.
►https://www.euronews.com/2020/03/24/europe-must-act-to-stop-coronavirus-outbreak-in-lesbos-say-meps
Αυτοψία του « Ν » στο λιμανάκι της Πέτρας
Βρίσκονται εκεί 56 μετανάστες, από το Αφγανιστάν και το Κογκό, ανάμεσά τους και πολλά παιδιά.
Παραπλεύρως του λιμανιού της Πέτρας βρίσκονται από την περασμένη Δευτέρα ως και σήμερα 56 συνολικά μετανάστες, στην πλειοψηφία τους από το Αγφανιστάν και 6 από το Κογκό.
Πρόκειται για νεοαφιχθέντες στη Λέσβο, που βγήκαν με βάρκα από τα τουρκικά παράλια στην περιοχή του Γαβαθά. Ανάμεσα τους βρίσκονται αρκετές γυναίκες και παιδιά. Σύμφωνα με το νέο νομοθετικό πλαίσιο, κανείς τους δεν έχει δικαίωμα κατάθεσης αιτήματος για χορήγηση ασύλου, παραμένοντας ουσιαστικά στην παραλία, όπου έχουν δημιουργήσει κάποιες πρόχειρες κατασκευές μαζί με κάποιες σκηνές, αφού οι αρχές τους έχουν βάλει σε καραντίνα για 14 ημέρες, λόγω της πανδημίας του κορονοϊού.
▻https://www.stonisi.gr/post/8007/aytopsia-toy-n-sto-limanaki-ths-petras-pics-video
–—
Commentaire de Vicky Skoumbi, reçu via la mailing-list Migreurop, le 29.03.2020 :
Regardez dans quelles conditions de ‘confinement’ sont obligés de vivre 56 réfugiés, originaires la plupart d’Afghanistan et 6 du Congo, dont plusieurs femmes et enfants à Petra de Lesbos. Ils sont arrivés lundi dernier près du port de Petra, au nord de Lesbos. Le nouveau cadre législatif leur interdit l’accès à la procédure d’asile et les autorités les obligent de rester en quarantaine sur place ( !!!) pendant 14 jours dans des abris de fortune que vous voyez au milieu de nulle part. C’est une pratique systématique depuis deux semaines à Lesbos : les nouveaux arrivants ne peuvent plus accéder à Moria et la seule « alternative » adoptée par les autorités est de les maintenir sur place à l’endroit même où ils ont débarqués sans aucune infrastructure d’accueil, jusqu’à leur transfert aux centres de détention fermés comme le camp sinistre de Klidi au nord de la Grèce voir
Le Courrier | La #promiscuité dans les foyers alarme
▻https://seenthis.net/messages/837115
Greece quarantines Ritsona migrant camp after finding 20 corona cases
Les camps de migrants, une bombe sanitaire à l’heure de la pandémie
A l’heure où l’on demande à chacun·e d’entre nous de respecter scrupuleusement les mesures de distanciation sociale afin d’endiguer l’expansion du COVID-19, la Grèce préconise l’enfermement collectif de milliers de personnes migrantes sur ses îles comme mesure de lutte contre l’extension de la pandémie dans le pays. Pourtant, si on souhaite préserver la santé d’un maximum de personnes, ces camps de premier enregistrement et de tri des personnes migrantes (hotspots) devraient être évacués de toute urgence et leur résident.e.s accueilli.e.s dans des hébergements où la distanciation sociale est possible et où les mesures d’hygiène de base et les soins de santé sont accessibles. Préserver la santé des exilé.e.s, c’est préserver notre santé à tous et toutes.
Les appels qui demandent l’évacuation des milliers de personnes résidant dans les hotspots en Grèce fusent [1] à mesure que les témoignages terribles se multiplient. Pétition d’ONG, de médecins et de collectifs citoyens mais aussi indignation d’eurodéputés et de la commissaire aux Droits de l’Homme du Conseil de l’Europe au sujet de la dangerosité sanitaire des centres de détention. Pourtant, rien n’y fait. Actuellement, la Grèce, quand elle n’empêche pas complètement les entrées et sorties de ses hotspots, déplace des centaines de personnes depuis ces lieux de détention pour les emmener sur d’autres îles ou dans des centres fermés sur le continent éloignés de tout, comme dans le no man’s land de Klidi au nord du pays. Pas d’accès correct aux services de base (eau, nourriture, logement, mesures d’hygiène et soins de santé), pas de recours possible à un avocat, peu d’accès aux informations et possibilités de communication vers l’extérieur. Médecins Sans Frontières estime la population des cinq camps insulaires en Grèce à 42 000 personnes, alors que la capacité totale de ces derniers est de 6 000 personnes.
Déni d’accueil, déni d’asile
S’ajoute à cette situation de non accès aux mesures sanitaires préconisées par l’OMS e en temps de coronavirus (la distanciation sociale, lavage des mains réguliers, etc.), l’impossibilité temporaire de demander l’asile en Grèce et dans nombre d’Etats européens. En Belgique, l’Office des étrangers a fermé ses bureaux, ce qui empêche la prise en charge des nouveaux arrivants dans son réseau d’accueil coordonné par Fedasil. Le CGRA a, lui, suspendu ses auditions en présentiel.
L’UE propose aux Etats membres des mesures qui ne sont pas à la hauteur des enjeux humanitaires de ces centres de détention. A la mi-mars, face à la situation de crise à la frontière gréco-turque, elle avait proposé aux Etats membres de relocaliser minimum 1 600 mineurs non accompagnés et de participer à la mise en œuvre de 5 000 retours dits volontaires. Depuis, ces propositions dérisoires face à l’ampleur du problème ont été bloquées avec l’arrivée du coronavirus. Actuellement, pour désengorger les camps, elle suggère à la Grèce de déplacer les personnes les plus vulnérables sur le continent (en Grèce) ou dans d’autres îles.
Le COVID-19 n’a pas de frontières
Il est difficile d’avoir des informations fiables sur la situation des hotspots italiens, les « jungles » informelles aux frontières ou sur les camps surpeuplés situés au-delà des frontières européennes et qui accueillent 80 % des personnes actuellement déplacées. Ces derniers jours, des premiers cas ont été détectée dans le hotspot de Lesbos et Moria, un autre dans les camps de fortune en Syrie et d’autres dans les villes proches du plus grand camp de réfugiés au monde, le camp de Cox’s Bazar au Bangladesh. En Libye, les personnes migrantes craignent la contagion au sein des centres où elles croupissent.
Alors que l’UE se tait, l’ONU, via la voix du Haut-commissariat aux réfugiés, appelle les États à ne pas fermer les voies vers l’asile, mais à adopter des tests de dépistage et le placement en quarantaine des réfugié.e.s si un risque sanitaire est identifié lors du passage des frontières. Elle suspend cependant les programmes de réinstallation. Les Nations Unies ont lancé également un nouveau fonds d’urgence pour contrer l’impact du coronavirus dans les pays en développement, en Afrique notamment, afin de s’assurer que les personnes les plus vulnérables (y compris les personnes exilées) ne soient pas abandonnées à leur sort dans la lutte contre le coronavirus.
Face à l’abandon, certains résident.e.s des camps en Grèce ont pris les choses en main. A Moria, des personnes migrantes réunies au sein de la Team Humanity ont commencé à coudre leurs propres masques. Et dans le camp de Vathy à Samos, des enfants ont réalisé des affiches éducatives sur le lavage des mains et l’hygiène [2].
Bombe sanitaire comme héritage de l’externalisation
La pandémie du COVID-19 révèle une nouvelle fois l’impact des politiques inadéquates et violentes mises en place vis-à-vis des personnes migrantes, qu’elles soient en demande de protection internationale ou pas.
Résultats de cette mise à l’écart des personnes migrantes ? Des camps d’exilé.es surpeuplés devenus insalubres dans les pays du Sud, faute de véritables mécanismes permanent et solidaire d’accueil en Europe ; l’émergence de routes et campements informels aux frontières, faute de voies légales et sûres de migrations. Ces camps surpeuplés sont de véritables bombes à retardement sanitaires. Ils sont l’héritage de politiques migratoires européennes de mise à l’écart des personnes migrantes vers le continent. Croire que la préservation de la santé de certain.e.s se fera au détriment de celles des autres est cependant une erreur criminelle. La pandémie nous concerne tous et toutes et c’est en ne laissant personne de côté que nous en viendrons à bout. A court terme, à l’image du Portugal qui a annoncé samedi 28 mars la régularisation temporaire de plusieurs personnes migrantes, des solutions rapides et efficaces sont possibles. A long terme, cela implique un changement de politiques migratoires dont les objectifs centraux doivent être un accueil solidaire et des voies légales et sûres de migrations.
L’impasse dans laquelle l’Europe s’est enfermée, en basant ses politiques sur la répression, l’externalisation des frontières et le refus de la solidarité entre Etats membres, se retourne aujourd’hui contre elle-même, aggravant le risque sanitaire au détriment de sa propre population. Cette alerte devrait créer l’opportunité de refonder les politiques migratoires, sur une approche solidaire, la seule qui puisse permettre de sortir l’Union européenne de l’ornière.
►https://www.cncd.be/covid-19-coronavirus-camps-refugies-migrants-bombe-sanitaire-europe-grece-pande
signalé ici aussi :
▻https://seenthis.net/messages/838434
Chronique d’un désastre annoncé : l’enfermement criminel des réfugiés en Grèce
La situation des demandeurs d’asile retenus dans les îles grecques est catastrophique d’un point de vue sanitaire. On n’ose à peine imaginer ce qu’il pourrait s’y passer si l’épidémie de Covid-19 s’y déclarait.
Par ces temps si troubles, où l’immunité grégaire obtenue par la vaccination généralisée est détournée en immunisation de troupeau résultante de l’exposition de tous et toutes au Covid-19 – ce qui ne manquera pas d’entraîner l’élimination des plus vulnérables –,
par ces temps de détresse où les médecins en Italie, en Espagne et même en France sont sommés de faire le tri entre ceux à qui ils donneront une chance d’être sauvés et les autres qu’on laissera mourir,
par ces temps si obscurs où les demandeurs d’asile aux frontières de l’Europe sont traités comme des ennemis à repousser et, si besoin, à abattre, tandis que ceux qui réussissent à passer en Grèce sont traités comme des criminels de droit commun, étant condamnés à des peines de prison ferme,
il y a une partie de la population qui est condamnée à la contagion généralisée : en premier lieu, les réfugiés et les migrants vivant partout en Europe et surtout en Grèce dans des conditions sanitaires déplorables dans des « hotspots », ou bien détenus dans de centres de rétention administrative (CRA), puis les sans-abri et enfin les personnes incarcérées. Pour l’instant, aucune mesure de vraie protection sanitaire n’est prévue pour ces trois catégories. Les plus exposés parmi eux sont les réfugiés vivant dans les hotspots, centres dits de réception et d’identification, à Lesbos, Samos, Chios, Cos et Leros. Ces camps fonctionnent actuellement cinq, sept voire onze fois au-dessus de leur capacité d’accueil. Dans les îles grecques, 37 000 personnes sont actuellement enfermées dans des conditions abjectes dans des hotspots prévus pour accueillir 6 000 personnes au grand maximum. Les demandeurs d’asile sont obligés d’y vivre dans une très grande promiscuité et dans des conditions sanitaires qui suscitaient déjà l’effroi bien avant l’épidémie de coronavirus. Dans la jungle de l’oliveraie, extension « hors les murs » du hotspot de Moria, à Lesbos, il y a des quartiers où il n’existe qu’un seul robinet d’eau pour 1 500 personnes, ce qui rend le respect de règles d’hygiène absolument impossible.
Conditions sordides
Or la seule réponse envisagée par le gouvernement grec est de transformer Moria en un centre fermé, en restreignant drastiquement les déplacements de réfugiés. Les rares fois où un effort est fait pour la « décongestion » du camp, celle-ci est effectuée au compte-gouttes. Mise à part l’installation d’un conteneur médical par les autorités régionales à l’entrée du camp, aucun renforcement du dispositif sanitaire avec des effectifs médicaux suffisant pour traiter les 20 000 habitants actuels de Moria n’est prévu. Au contraire, le gouvernement Mitsotákis mise sur la peur d’une épidémie dans les camps pour imposer aux sociétés locales la création de centres fermés, censés garantir la sécurité, non pas tant de leurs résidents mais des riverains. Ou bien le coronavirus, ou bien les centres fermés de détention, avait déclaré sans détours il y a une dizaine de jours le ministre de la Migration, Notis Mitarachi. Quant à ceux qui sont arrivés après le 1er mars, lorsqu’ils ne sont pas condamnés à des peines de quatre ans de prison ferme pour entrée illégale dans le territoire ils sont détenus dans des conditions sordides en vue d’une expulsion plus qu’improbable vers leur pays d’origine ou d’un renvoi forcé vers la Turquie, « Etat tiers supposé sûr ». Pendant une dizaine de jours, 450 nouveaux arrivants ont été séquestrés dans des conditions inimaginables dans un navire militaire, où ils ont été obligés de vivre littéralement les uns sur les autres, sans même qu’on ne leur fournisse du savon pour se laver les mains.
Une telle exposition à des conditions insalubres de personnes fragilisées par des voyages longs et éprouvants pourrait-elle être mise sur le compte de la simple impréparation ? Ces conditions sont presque aussi inhumaines dans les centres fermés de Malakassa et de Serrès, où les nouveaux arrivants sont détenus. Pour les 1 300 détenus de Malakassa, en Attique, l’accès à l’eau courante se limite à quelques heures par jour, tandis que la dernière distribution de produits d’hygiène remonte à deux semaines. A Serrès, l’accès à l’eau se limite à deux heures par jour, tandis que la seule visite médicale a été faite par un médecin qui n’a examiné que quelques enfants.
Scénario terrifiant
De telles conditions de détention ne laissent pas de doute sur la stratégie du gouvernement : cette population ne doit pas être protégée mais exposée. La stratégie d’enfermement et de refoulement qui a été jusqu’alors la politique migratoire de l’Europe se révèle à présent être une véritable « thanato-politique ». Aux refoulements illégaux et de plus en plus violents à la frontière (voir ici et ici) s’est ajoutée par temps de pandémie l’exposition des populations entières à des conditions si insalubres qu’elles mettent en danger leur santé et ne manquerons pas de conduire inévitablement à l’élimination physique d’une partie considérable d’entre eux. Sommes-nous face à un scénario terrifiant d’élimination de populations superflues ? Cette question ne saurait être contournée.
Pourrions-nous fermer les yeux devant ces crimes de masses qui se préparent en silence et dont les conditions sont mises en place déjà à Moria (Lesbos), à Vathy (Samos), à Malakassa en Attique, au centre fermé, à Klidi ? Ce dernier, destiné à ceux qui sont arrivés en Grèce après le 1er mars (date de la suspension de la procédure d’asile) est un véritable camp de concentration, « un camp quasi militaire », écrit à juste titre Maria Malagardis. Les réfugiés et les migrants seront détenus dans ce camp pour un temps indéterminé, en attente d’un renvoi vers la Turquie, plus qu’improbable dans les conditions actuelles. Le choix de cet endroit désolé et à haut risque d’inondation, la très grande promiscuité obligatoire, ainsi que l’absence de toute prise en charge médicale, ont suscité de réactions, y compris au sein de la police locale et des sapeurs-pompiers. On n’ose à peine imaginer ce qu’il pourrait s’y passer si l’épidémie Covid-19 s’y déclarait.
Et que se passera-t-il si l’épidémie se déclare dans des endroits si surpeuplés et si dépourvus d’infrastructures sanitaires que sont les hotspots des îles ? « En cas d’épidémie, une quarantaine qui enfermerait des dizaines de milliers de personnes en bonne santé ainsi que des personnes infectées par Covid-19 dans les camps surpeuplés, accompagnée d’un manque de préparation et de réponse médicale adéquate et appropriée, entraînerait presque certainement la mort inévitable de nombreuses personnes », ont déclaré 21 organisations qui ont lancé un appel pour l’évacuation immédiate des hotspots.
Désastre sanitaire imminent
Aux multiples appels (1) à évacuer immédiatement les camps surpeuplés, et même aux exhortations venant des instances européennes, le gouvernement grec continue à faire la sourde oreille, prétendant que l’enfermement des demandeurs d’asile dans des lieux comme le hotspot de Mória assure leur propre sécurité ! Le ministre de la Migration ne cesse de brandir comme solution miracle la création des centres fermés dans les îles. Entre-temps, les nouveaux arrivants, y compris les femmes enceintes et les enfants, restent bloqués à l’endroit même où ils débarquent, pour un supposé « confinement en plein air », sous des abris de fortunes ou même sans aucun abri, pendant au moins une période de quatorze jours ! Les appels répétés (voir ici et ici) de la commissaire Ylva Johansson de transférer les réfugiés des hotspots, ainsi que les exhortations de la commissaire Dunja Mijatović de libérer les migrants détenus en CRA, résonnent comme de simples protestations pour la forme. Dans la mesure où elles ne sont pas suivies de mesures concrètes, elles ne servent qu’à dédouaner la Commission européenne de toute responsabilité d’un désastre sanitaire imminent.
Un tel désastre ne saurait toucher uniquement les réfugiés, mais l’ensemble de la population des îles. L’Union européenne, si elle veut vraiment agir pour mettre les demandeurs d’asile en sécurité, doit à la fois exercer des pressions réelles sur le gouvernement grec et prendre de mesures concrètes pour l’aider à évacuer les réfugiés et les migrants et à les installer dans un confinement sécurisé à domicile. Dans l’immédiat, elle peut réorienter l’aide exceptionnelle de 700 millions d’euros octroyée à la Grèce pour assurer l’étanchéité des frontières européennes, afin de mettre en sécurité des réfugiés et des migrants.
Appliquer sur une population affaiblie et mal nourrie la méthode de « l’immunisation du troupeau » reviendrait à mettre en œuvre une politique d’élimination de populations superflues. Un tel choix politique ne saurait laisser intacte notre société tout entière. Ce n’est pas une question d’humanisme, c’est une question qui touche aux fondements de notre vivre-ensemble : dans quel type de société voulons-nous vivre ? Dans une société qui non seulement laisse mourir mais qui fait mourir ceux et celles qui sont les plus vulnérables ? Serions-nous à l’abri dans un monde transformé en une énorme colonie pénitentiaire, même si le rôle qui nous y est réservé serait celui, relativement privilégié, de geôliers ? Il est grand temps de se ressaisir : l’épidémie de Covid-19 a démontré, si besoin était, que nous vivons toutes et tous dans le même monde et que le sort des uns affecte celui des autres. Ne laissons pas les demandeurs d’asile subir un enfermement qui pourrait s’avérer mortel, mais faisons en sorte qu’ils partagent avec nous les conditions d’un confinement protecteur et salutaire. Il faudrait leur offrir en toute urgence un abri digne de ce nom dans des conditions sanitaires décentes. C’est une priorité absolue si nous voulons éviter une catastrophe humanitaire et sociétale.
Sans précédent
Face au choix de traiter des êtres humains comme des miasmes, nous pouvons opposer une politique qui combine diverses propositions : les résidents de hotspots et ceux qui se trouvent en détention administrative pourraient être transférés en Grèce continentale en bateaux de croisière, et y être hébergés provisoirement en logements touristiques vides, afin d’être par la suite répartis entre les pays européens.
L’extrême urgence de la situation impose de faire vite, il n’y a plus une minute à perdre (2). Exigeons du gouvernement grec et des dirigeants européens une action immédiate qui mettra en sécurité les demandeurs d’asile et les migrants. Ne pas le faire aujourd’hui nous rend complice d’une stratégie criminelle qui mènera inévitablement à une catastrophe humanitaire sans précédent.
Contre les politiques d’exclusion et de criminalisations des arrivants, il nous faudra construire un monde « un », commun à toutes et à tous. Sinon, chacun de nous risque à n’importe quel moment de se retrouver du mauvais côté de la frontière.
►https://www.liberation.fr/debats/2020/04/04/chronique-d-un-desastre-annonce-l-enfermement-criminel-des-refugies-en-gr
Trump’s Israeli-Palestinian Peace Plan Looks Like Apartheid
Un ancien ambassadeur israélien en Afrique du Sud explique le parallèle entre l’apartheid et l’actuelle situation des Palestiniens. Et comment Israël a aidé les bantoustans sud-africaines.
▻https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/02/27/trumps-plan-for-palestine-looks-a-lot-like-apartheid
In the heyday of South Africa’s apartheid regime, the country’s white minority government planned to create 10 so-called homelands—also known as Bantustans—where black South Africans could live far away from the cities it hoped to keep white. It was the culmination of what the regime called “separate development”—an effort to deflect attention from racial oppression by claiming black people had been granted independence in their own states and weren’t second-class citizens in South Africa.
The apartheid government ultimately created only four ostensibly independent Bantustans (Bophuthatswana, Venda, Ciskei, and Transkei) and six supposedly self-governing territories. Foreign governments for the most part dismissed the puppet states for what they were; South Africa was the only country in the world to officially recognize the Bantustans, and the major decisions regarding their affairs were made exclusively in Pretoria.
Desperate, Thousands of Syrians Flee Toward Turkish Border
With bloodshed and tensions rising between Syria and Turkey, the last rebel holdout of #Idlib is turning into the biggest humanitarian crisis of the war.
As snow fell on northern Syria this past week, it covered thousands of fleeing families unable to find even a piece of tarp to shelter themselves.
The wintry weather, along with the bloody onslaught by the forces of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, has turned the flight of displaced civilians in Idlib and Aleppo toward the Turkish border into the biggest humanitarian crisis yet in a war that for almost a decade has normalized mass atrocities. “No one prepared camps ahead of time, there are no tents, people are sleeping in cars and in the streets,” said Ahmad, a resident of northern Aleppo, who is attempting to help the displaced. (Like many of those interviewed for this story on WhatsApp, Ahmad wants only his first name used for fear of retribution.)
The lucky among them stay with relatives or rent a home, but very few can afford this. Homeowners in areas abutting the Turkish border are charging the displaced exorbitant sums in rent—a common price is $350 per month for a two-bedroom house, when an average salary in the region, which has rampant unemployment, is about $50.
According to new data from the United Nations, since Dec. 1, 2019, 689,000 civilians have been displaced by the government’s offensive against the last rebel holdout in Idlib, most of them women and children. Some 100,000 have been displaced only in the past week. The rapid progress of regime forces and waves of displacement it produced escalated tensions between Turkey and the Syrian forces backed by Russia. Another five Turkish soldiers were killed in recent days in an attack carried out by Assad’s forces, precipitating retaliation against Syrian army targets by Turkish forces dispatched to northwestern Syria.
“I think there are now more Turkish soldiers in Idlib than armed revolutionaries,” said Yasser, a tracker of regime airstrikes and military movement in Idlib, referring to the mass influx of Turkish soldiers and heavy weaponry into Idlib, the last bastion of the Syrian armed opposition. In early February, Turkey began dispatching multiple convoys made up of hundreds of jeeps, armored personnel carriers, tanks, multiple rocket launchers, and electronic warfare equipment into Idlib, in an effort to prevent the collapse of the last rebel-held pocket in Syria, amid rapid regime advances against it.
The fate of Idlib’s 3 million to 4 million residents now depends on Turkey’s ability to deter further regime advances. In Ankara’s eyes, a mass influx of refugees would be politically destabilizing. Turkey’s willingness to send in thousands of troops and heavy weaponry with no air cover and against Russia’s wishes shows that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is willing to take significant risks to prevent the last rebel pocket from collapsing. Turkey established several new observation posts manned by newly arrived troops. After its observation posts came under attack in early February, Turkey began firing artillery at advancing regime forces on several occasions. Thus far, Turkey has not attempted to enter the fray with its air force, which has been significantly weakened due to purges after the 2016 attempted coup.
Russia and the Assad regime still control the skies and use this dominance to destroy hospitals, bakeries, and other civilian areas in what appears to be the purposeful depopulation of entire towns, pushing civilians to flee toward the shuttered Turkish border. About 1 million civilians have been displaced in Idlib, northwestern Syria, since the start of the Syrian regime’s offensive in late April 2019, according to U.N. data.
“These are people who’ve been displaced time and time again. People are completely exhausted, and the capacities of NGOs are also exhausted,” said Asmahan Dehny, the emergency response program coordinator at the Syrian humanitarian nongovernmental organization Violet, which helped evacuate impoverished families unable to afford their escape and recently established communal tents to receive them.
The prospect of returning to live under the Assad regime terrifies most Idlib residents, even as the rebels ruling over them lost much of their popular support due to their abusiveness. A majority of Idlib’s up to 4 million residents were displaced from their homes by the regime and expect to be executed or jailed and tortured if they fall into the regime’s hands. “Even people who have nothing to do with the revolution or the factions feel that they are the target,” said Maher, a displaced novelist residing in Idlib. Similarly to many others in Idlib with whom Foreign Policy spoke in recent days, he pointed to the case of Ahmad al-Jifal, a 69-year-old man with mental health issues, who refused to leave Maarat al-Numan. After the city was captured by a Russian-backed militia in January, the fighters executed him and set fire to his corpse.
But very few who are left can afford to escape Idlib. The cheapest and most perilous smuggling attempt to Turkey costs $350 and usually ends in being caught, beaten, and sent back by Turkish border guards. Despite the risks, a greater number of Idlib residents are making this trip, usually by borrowing from friends and relatives living abroad. According to Maher, “the fence along the border and the border police reinforcements on the Turkish side of the border are making smuggling incredibly difficult. There are people who’ve tried six, seven times to cross into Turkey, getting arrested and deported each time. People are expecting death.” He said he hopes to finish a novel he’s writing about a French and Syrian archeologist digging in the ancient city of Ugarit before the regime reaches his border village.
Veteran humanitarian NGO workers are at a loss about how to handle this unprecedented crisis. “Even if we manage to secure food and water for all the displaced, we can not provide them with shelter or areas that are safe from the torrential rains to set up a tent,” said Ziad al-Sebai, the director of the media office of the Syrian humanitarian NGO Watan. “Imagine how many babies from the previously displaced and the new waves will get sick and die due to the cold and malnutrition.”
A series of agreements between Russia and Turkey, which called for establishing a demilitarized zone in Idlib and allowed Turkey to erect observation posts in Idlib starting in late 2017, broke down in April 2019; negotiations between Russia and Turkey to revive it have not been successful. Russia is determined to achieve a decisive military solution for Idlib and told Turkey it would not accept a cease-fire, even with significant concessions from the rebels. This uncompromising position was pushed by the Russian Ministry of Defense, overriding less gung-ho elements in the Russian administration.
To make matters worse, in January, Iran became much more actively involved in the campaign against the last rebel-held pocket. Previously, Iranian officials promised Turkey to stay out of the fighting in the area, wishing to preserve their relationship with Turkey. The reopening of the dormant front in western Aleppo, manned by pro-Iranian militias (including Iraqi, Afghan, and Pakistani fighters overseen by the Quds Force) and units within the Syrian army that are close to Iran (such as the 4th Division), signaled a shift. The rebels, forced to rebuff attacks both in southern Idlib and western and southern Aleppo, could not hold their ground. The headway of the regime turned into an all-out stampede.
“Just being able to repel attacks has become a victory in an of itself,” said Mannar, a rebel with the National Liberation Front, hours after he was forced, with a small group of fighters, to withdraw from his village of Kafr Halab, ceding it to the Iranian-backed militias. “The regime annihilated the village.” Mannar has been fighting the regime since the age of 15. He is determined to return to the front after evacuating his family to the border.
The regime’s advances on the ground also stemmed from Russian support: Training and guidance from Russian officers and mercenaries boosted the capabilities of pro-regime militias, and night vision equipment provided by Russia allowed the regime’s forces to advance during the night. In 2019, Russia altered its targeting policy in Idlib. While previously, the regime and Russia relied on indiscriminate fire across the rebel-held territory to terrorize the population, break its spirit, kill, and destroy, they now concentrate their indiscriminate airstrikes and artillery shelling on stretches of territory close to the front lines, leading nearly all civilians to escape. At the same time, Russia began relying more heavily on surveillance drones that call in airstrikes by jets. These precise strikes ensured that fighters heading to and from the front lines are targeted and killed. Even groups as small as two fighters on a single motorcycle have been hit in these precise strikes.
“We have lost many [fighters] because of the drones. When we hear them, we truly feel immense fear,” said Qusay, a veteran fighter in the ranks of the Islamist jihadist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham. “The central fighter in their ranks is the drone,” he said, describing how he and a group of fighters got stuck in a house near the front lines and could not go out to even procure food for over a day because “the drones are always in the skies, searching, and unlike the jets, there is no warning when they take off” from military air bases.
Speaking to Foreign Policy over the messaging app Telegram, the communications director of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, Taqi al-Din Omar, said that “when the Russian occupier and Iranian occupier (and particularly Lebanese Hezbollah) launched a large-scale offensive on Idlib, they attacked from multiple directions (at times from six directions at the same time), using incredibly intense air strikes and artillery. The occupiers were able to achieve superiority over the mujahideen, forcing them to retreat from bombed-out areas.”
While the regime is able to rely on a large army, with many of its soldiers press-ganged into service, as well as local and foreign Shiite militias, the rebels have been unable to properly compensate for their attrition. The armed opposition factions do not publicize their losses, but daily observation of death notices on Facebook pages and WhatsApp groups of rebels indicate that the numbers have long ago exceeded 1,000 who are not easily replaceable, as many were hardened fighters with years of experience in combat under heavy fire.
Recognizing their inability to resist the advancing pro-regime forces and wishing to avoid further attrition, the factions chose to withdraw much of their fighting force from the front lines when faced with the fierce regime onslaught. Amir, a fighter with Jaysh al-Nasr, a Free Syrian Army group, who was injured in the latest offensive, said that “right now, the factions still have strength, but we can’t attrition all of it. If all of us go down [to the front lines] we will not be able to resist for more than a month, while the regime can fight for years.” Echoing conversations with many rebels in recent months, he said, “I started losing hope. My morale is zero.”
The rapid losses of the opposition and the decisive role played by the foreign actors intervening in Idlib are making the population lose faith in the rebels’ ability and willingness to resist. Those removed from the battlefield—and often resentful of the leading rebel group in Idlib, the authoritarian Hayat Tahrir al-Sham—insist that a secret deal exists between Russia and Turkey under which certain areas will be “sold” or “surrendered” to the regime. By this logic, widely accepted in Idlib, resistance is futile. As a result, pleas by rebel leaders, rebel commanders, and preachers close to the factions for civilian men to remain in their homes and fight rather than retreat are met with a lackluster response.
The regime’s progress deprived hundreds of thousands of their homes, now thoroughly looted and at times torched by the conquering forces. The immense poverty of the population in Idlib meant that many could not afford to even hire a car to take them toward the Turkish border and had to be rescued by the Syria Civil Defense in large convoys, able to carry only a few belongings with them. Those more well-off left with the entire contents of their houses, knowing they will not be able to return.
▻https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/02/10/syrians-flee-idlib-turkish-border-humanitarian-crisis
#réfugiés #asile #migrations #réfugiés_syriens #guerre (sans fin) #conflit
Régulation et Marché
Bat Soup Didn’t Cause the Wuhan Virus
Racist memes target Chinese eating habits, but the real causes of the coronavirus are more mundane.
▻https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/01/27/dont-blame-bat-soup-for-the-wuhan-virus
But as it turns out, the market may not have been the cause of the outbreak at all. A new study shows that the early known victims had no contact with the market. And although the virus, at present, does seem to have originated in bats, it’s unclear how it made its way to humans. It’s quite likely no chowing down on the creatures of the night was involved.
Many Chinese people certainly like tucking into dishes Americans would consider unusual, though a lot of this is confined to very high-end or weirdly macho audiences, such as Beijing’s penis restaurant. But the standards of what animals we do and don’t eat are culturally arbitrary. Vegetarianism is morally consistent, but deploring the eating of dogs while tucking into companionable and intelligent pigs isn’t. (I myself have eaten many things others might find gross: dog soup, insects, Chicago deep-dish pizza.) And it goes both ways: A lot of East Asians, for instance, find the taste of lamb disgusting. The range of tastes inside China is as great as it is outside; the Cantonese habit of eating “everything with four legs save the table and everything that flies but the airplane” is a standing joke in the rest of the country.
And when it comes to disease, it’s not what’s being eaten that matters as much as the conditions—such as the standards workers are trained to meet, the lack of barriers at markets, and the absence or bribing of regulators and health inspectors.
And when it comes to disease, it’s not what’s being eaten that matters as much as the conditions—such as the standards workers are trained to meet, the lack of barriers at markets, and the absence or bribing of regulators and health inspectors.
The H1N1 virus, after all, started not in any uncommon species, but in pigs.
U.S. Recognition of West Bank Settlements Will Harm Israel
▻https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/11/21/us-recognition-israel-settlements-palestine
The Trump administration’s disdain for international consensus on the West Bank will encourage previously cautious governments to support BDS and Palestinian statehood.
[…]
Israeli diplomatic efforts with regard to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have in many respects been designed to prevent unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state and have included pressure campaigns against international bodies that accept Palestine as a member, relying on a U.S. veto in the Security Council to prevent the U.N. from admitting Palestine as a full member state, and even advocating the curtailment of foreign aid to the Palestinians if they seek to use international law as a way to gain statehood.
One of the reasons this approach has been tacitly accepted by the international community is because it has been widely understood that Israel’s de facto control in much of the West Bank is temporary. The more that Israel fully rejects this notion and seeks to cement a de jure presence through some form of annexation, the harder it is for Israel to continue arguing successfully that the world community should stick to its guns when it comes to the Palestinian approach to unilaterally declaring statehood.
This would be a diplomatic nightmare of unprecedented proportions for Israel and has largely been avoided until now, because Israel has successfully argued for an international consensus that the only path to a permanent resolution is direct negotiations between the two parties. If the new Israeli position is to declare that any policies that it or the Trump administration advances are all that matters, irrespective of what anyone else thinks, and that the fundamental realities that the rest of the world accepts can be unilaterally reversed or ignored, it will be very difficult to argue that countries that want to recognize Palestine should hold off.
Similarly, Israel has successfully relegated the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) campaign to the fringes of far-left politics and activism. But moves intended to shatter a consensus on some issues or demonstrate that it should not exist will have unintended consequences on other issues, and BDS is one of them. Israel has rightly argued that the policy of targeting Israel with boycotts and other such actions holds Israel to a fundamentally unfair and one-sided standard, and governments outside of the Arab world have largely agreed. The more that Israel argues that its own extreme positions should be adopted by everyone, the more it opens the door for adoption of extreme positions that do not benefit Israel, including BDS.
Open Borders Are a Trillion-Dollar Idea
Tearing down all barriers to migration isn’t crazy—it’s an opportunity for a global boom.
The world’s nations, especially the world’s richest nations, are missing an enormous chance to do well while doing good. The name of this massive missed opportunity—and the name of my book on the topic—is “open borders.”
Critics of immigration often hyperbolically accuse their opponents of favoring open borders—a world where all nationalities are free to live and work in any nation they like. For most, that’s an unfair label: They want more visas for high-skilled workers, family reunification, or refugees—not the end of immigration restrictions. In my case, however, this accusation is no overstatement. I think that free trade in labor is a massive missed opportunity. Open borders are not only just but the most promising shortcut to global prosperity.
To see the massive missed opportunity of which I speak, consider the migration of a low-skilled Haitian from Port-au-Prince to Miami. In Haiti, he would earn about $1,000 per year. In Miami, he could easily earn $25,000 per year. How is such upward mobility possible? Simply put: Human beings are much more productive in Florida than in Haiti—thanks to better government policies, better management, better technology, and much more. The main reason Haitians suffer in poverty is not because they are from Haiti but because they are in Haiti. If you were stuck in Haiti, you, too, would probably be destitute.
But borders aren’t just a missed opportunity for those stuck on the wrong side on them. If the walls come down, almost everyone benefits because immigrants sell the new wealth they create—and the inhabitants of their new country are their top customers. As long as Haitians remain in Haiti, they produce next to nothing—and therefore do next to nothing to enrich the rest of the world. When they move, their productivity skyrockets—and so does their contribution to their new customers. When you see a Haitian restaurant in Miami, you shouldn’t picture the relocation of a restaurant from Port-au-Prince; you should picture the creation of a restaurant that otherwise would never have existed—not even in Haiti itself.
The central function of existing immigration laws is to prevent this wealth creation from happening—to trap human talent in low-productivity countries. Out of all the destructive economic policies known to man, nothing on Earth is worse. I’m not joking. Standard estimates say open borders would ultimately double humanity’s wealth production. How is this possible? Because immigration sharply increases workers’ productivity—and the world contains many hundreds of millions of would-be immigrants. Multiply a massive gain per person by a massive number of people and you end up with what the economist Michael Clemens calls “trillion-dollar bills on the sidewalk.”
Or do we? An old saying warns, “If it seems too good to be true, it probably is.” Far lower levels of immigration already inspire vocal complaints. After presenting my basic case in Open Borders, I strive to evaluate all the common (and many not-so-common) objections to immigration. My bottom line: While open borders are undeniably unpopular, they deserve to be popular. Like every social change, immigration has downsides. Yet when we patiently quantify the downsides, the trillions of dollars of gains of open borders dwarf any credible estimate of the harms.
The simplest objection to open borders is logistical: Even the largest countries cannot absorb hundreds of millions of immigrants overnight. True enough, but no reasonable person expects hundreds of millions to come overnight, either. Instead, immigration usually begins slowly and then snowballs. Puerto Ricans have been legally allowed to move to the United States since 1904, but it took almost a century before Puerto Ricans in the United States came to outnumber the population left on the island. Wasn’t the European migration crisis an unmanageable flood of humanity? Hardly. Despite media outcry, total arrivals from 2014 to 2018 came to less than 1 percent of the population of the European Union. Many European countries—most notably West Germany during the Cold War—have swiftly absorbed much larger inflows in the past.
The standard explanation for these asymmetric public reactions is that resistance to immigration is primarily cultural and political, not economic or logistical. While West Germans welcomed millions of East German migrants, a much lower dose of Middle Eastern and African migration has made the whole EU shiver. Aren’t economists who dwell on economic gains just missing the point?
Yes and no. As a matter of political psychology, cultural and political arguments against immigration are indeed persuasive and influential. That does not show, however, that these arguments are correct or decisive. Does immigration really have the negative cultural and political effects critics decry? Even if it did, are there cheaper and more humane remedies than immigration restriction? In any case, what is a prudent price tag to put on these cultural and political effects?
Let’s start with readily measurable cultural and political effects. In the United States, the most common cultural complaint is probably that—in contrast to the days of Ellis Island—today’s immigrants fail to learn English. The real story, though, is that few first-generation immigrants have ever become fluent in adulthood; it’s just too hard. German and Dutch immigrants in the 19th century maintained their stubborn accents and linguistic isolation all their lives; New York’s Yiddish newspapers were a fixture for decades. For their sons and daughters, however, acquiring fluency is child’s play—even for groups like Asians and Hispanics that are often accused of not learning English.
Native-born citizens also frequently worry that immigrants, supposedly lacking Western culture’s deep respect for law and order, will be criminally inclined. At least in the United States, however, this is the reverse of the truth. The incarceration rate of the foreign-born is about a third less than that of the native-born.
What about the greatest crime of all—terrorism? In the United States, non-citizens have indeed committed 88 percent of all terrorist murders. When you think statistically, however, this is 88 percent of a tiny sum. In an average year from 1975 to 2017, terrorists murdered fewer than a hundred people on U.S. soil per year. Less than 1 percent of all deaths are murders, and less than 1 percent of all murders are terrorism-related. Worrying about terrorism really is comparable to worrying about lightning strikes. After you take a few common-sense precautions—do not draw a sword during a thunderstorm—you should just focus on living your life.
The most cogent objection to immigration, though, is that productivity depends on politics—and politics depend on immigration. Native-born citizens of developed countries have a long track record of voting for the policies that made their industries thrive and their countries rich. Who knows how vast numbers of new immigrants would vote? Indeed, shouldn’t we expect people from dysfunctional polities to bring dysfunctional politics with them?
These are fine questions, but the answers are not alarming. At least in the United States, the main political division between the native- and foreign-born is engagement. Even immigrants legally able to vote are markedly less likely than native-born citizens to exercise this right. In the 2012 U.S. presidential election, for example, 72 percent of eligible native-born citizens voted versus just 48 percent of eligible immigrants. Wherever they politically stand, then, immigrants’ opinions are relatively inert.
In any case, immigrants’ political opinions don’t actually stand out. On average, they’re a little more economically liberal and a little more socially conservative, and that’s about it. Yes, low-skilled immigrants’ economic liberalism and social conservatism are more pronounced, but their turnout is low; in 2012, only 27 percent of those eligible to vote opted to do so. So while it would not be alarmist to think that immigration will slightly tilt policy in an economically liberal, socially conservative direction, warning that “immigrants will vote to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs” is paranoid.
Note, moreover, that free immigration hardly implies automatic citizenship. Welcoming would-be migrants is a clear-cut blessing for them and the world. Granting citizenship is more of a mixed bag. While I am personally happy to have new citizens, I often dwell on the strange fact that the Persian Gulf monarchies are more open to immigration than almost anywhere else on Earth. According to the Pew Research Center, 76 percent of people in Kuwait—and 88 percent in the United Arab Emirates—are foreign-born. Why do the native-born tolerate this? Probably because the Gulf monarchies generously share their oil wealth with citizens—and jealously protect the value of citizenship by making naturalization almost impossible. You do not have to ignore the Gulf monarchies’ occasional mistreatment of immigrants to realize that it is much better to welcome immigrants with conditions than to refuse to admit them at all. Migrants—mostly from much poorer parts of the Islamic world—accept this deal, however unfair, exactly because they can still do far better in the Gulf than at home.
In Open Borders, I have the space to address many more concerns about immigration in more detail. What I can’t do, I confess, is address the unmeasured and the unmeasurable. In real life, however, everyone routinely copes with ambiguous dangers—“unknown unknowns.” How do we cope?
For starters, we remember Chicken Little. When people’s warnings about measured dangers turn out to be wrong or overstated, we rightly discount their warnings about unmeasured and unmeasurable dangers. This is how I see mainstream critics of immigration. Their grasp of the basic facts, especially their neglect of the tremendous gains of moving labor from low-productivity countries to high-productivity countries, is too weak to take their so-called vision seriously.
Our other response to unmeasured and unmeasurable dangers, however, is to fall back on existing moral presumptions. Until same-sex marriage was legalized in certain countries, for example, how were we supposed to know its long-term social effects? The honest answer is, “We couldn’t.” But in the absence of strong evidence that these overall social effects would be very bad, a lot of us have now decided to respect individuals’ right to marry whom they like.
This is ultimately how I see the case for open borders. Denying human beings the right to rent an apartment from a willing landlord or accept a job offer from a willing employer is a serious harm. How much would someone have to pay the average American to spend the rest of his or her life in Haiti or Syria? To morally justify such harm, we need a clear and present danger, not gloomy speculation. Yet when we patiently and calmly study immigration, the main thing we observe is: people moving from places where their talent goes to waste to places where they can realize their potential. What we see, in short, is immigrants enriching themselves by enriching the world.
Do I seriously think I am going to convert people to open borders with a short article—or even a full book? No. My immediate goal is more modest: I’d like to convince you that open borders aren’t crazy. While we take draconian regulation of migration for granted, the central goal of this regulation is to trap valuable labor in unproductive regions of the world. This sounds cruel and misguided. Shouldn’t we at least double-check our work to make sure we’re not missing a massive opportunity for ourselves and humanity?
▻https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/11/01/immigration-wall-open-borders-trillion-dollar-idea
#ouverture_des_frontières #frontières_ouvertes #économie #migrations #richesse #monde #frontières
v. aussi :
A world of free movement would be $78 trillion richer
▻https://seenthis.net/messages/655387
Migrants : et si ouvrir les frontières générait de la richesse ? Idées
▻https://seenthis.net/messages/384909
To make the world richer, let people move
Alas, the politics of migration has never been more toxic, argues #Robert_Guest.
UNDER A MAKESHIFT sunshade by a half-dry riverbed on the Indonesian island of Java, Eddie Sebastian is taking a lunch-break. It is hot and he is tired. He makes $2 a day collecting stones, breaking them with a hammer and selling them as building material. Asked if he has any better tools, he says: “Our most advanced equipment is that ‘forklift’.” He is pointing at a rusty wheelbarrow.
Mr Sebastian’s talents are wasted. Not just because he would make a fine stand-up comedian, but also because he was born in the wrong place. If he lived in a rich country, he would be operating a mechanical digger and earning $20 an hour instead of $2 a day.
▻https://www.economist.com/special-report/2019/11/14/to-make-the-world-richer-let-people-move
#mobilité
#paywall
Beating #Wall_Street Won World War II
▻https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/10/28/wall-street-world-war-ii-democracy-monopoly
After the invasion of Poland, Americans didn’t necessarily want to intervene in Europe, but preparedness and support for military spending began to increase. U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt asked for larger Army and Navy budgets. But to build that larger Army and Navy, massive supplies of steel, aluminum, copper, and every other material would be necessary. The control of monopolists, who wanted to restrict supplies of these metals, would have to be broken.
European Concerns Over China’s Economic Power Hold Up a Project to Build the World’s Longest Undersea Rail Tunnel Under the Baltic Sea
▻https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/10/07/does-the-worlds-longest-undersea-tunnel-have-a-china-problem
btw : projet poussé par l’ex-marketeur en chef de Angry Birds
A Chinese-financed project to connect the Estonian and Finnish capitals has hit a snag as Europe ponders how to deal with Beijing’s economic heft.
A Chinese-funded project to build the world’s longest undersea rail tunnel in the Baltic Sea is being held up over concerns about its financing, making it a focal point of larger European questions about the influence of China.
The idea of building a tunnel between the Finnish and Estonian capitals of Helsinki and Tallinn is not new, but fresh concerns arose about the project after Peter Vesterbacka, a Finnish tech entrepreneur, inked a deal this year with Touchstone Capital Partners, a financial firm that invests the resources of state-owned Chinese enterprises. The deal will supply $17 billion to fund the three Chinese companies that have signed on to build and design the tunnel.
Should the project break ground, it would become the largest Chinese investment in Northern Europe and open up a slew of other opportunities to build infrastructure across the region.
In July, however, Estonian Public Administration Minister Jaak Aab said the current timeline to open the tunnel in 2024 wasn’t realistic and questioned Vesterbacka’s business plan while also raising serious concerns about the source of the private financing: China.
The tunnel controversy is playing out against the backdrop of an ongoing trade war between Washington and Beijing, and greater concern about China’s growing presence across Europe. Even as individual countries cut deals, the European Union has begun to take a tougher approach to China’s rise, making an unprecedented declaration this year that Beijing was a “systemic rival” in some areas, as well as a competitor or potential partner in others. In late September, Japan and the EU also signed a major deal to build infrastructure and set development standards around the world, in what was seen as a response to Beijing’s amorphous Belt and Road Initiative. The moves came on the heels of a series of Chinese acquisitions across Europe, which sparked new EU rules that allow for closer scrutiny of foreign investments and led to an ongoing debate over updating the bloc’s procurement, competition, and industrial policies to better adjust to China’s economic pull.
“There is more strategic thinking about China now than ever before in Europe,” said Erik Brattberg, the director of the Europe program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, “but there isn’t a coherent European strategy yet.”
Vesterbacka says concerns over Chinese involvement are overblown. He argues that the tunnel will be majority-owned and operated by FinEstBay, the development company he co-founded, not the Chinese investors and contractors.
“We need to do more to alleviate the fears and concerns over Chinese involvement, but I think that’s very much doable,” Vesterbacka told Foreign Policy in an interview. “The Chinese are investing in this because they see it as a good business case.”
Indeed, until Beijing entered the picture, the political will and public funds had never fully materialized for such an ambitious undertaking. So, Vesterbacka, who made his name as the former chief marketing officer at Rovio, the game-maker behind the international hit Angry Birds, decided to launch a privately funded version in 2016. Since then, Vesterbacka has moved quickly to bring the project to fruition by lining up tunnel boring companies to drill under the Baltic, developing a ticketing system for the trains, bringing private investors on board, and setting an ambitious December 2024 deadline for the 62-mile tunnel. His deal with the Chinese companies was intended to help make the project a reality.
Instead, the episode has opened up a conversation about how best to finance and build large-scale infrastructure projects and provided a window into the growing tension between geopolitics and business when it comes to China-linked projects in the European Union.
Bit by bit, despite pressure from the Trump administration, EU countries are demonstrating a willingness to engage in big projects with China. In March, Italy became the first G-7 country to sign up to the Belt and Road Initiative, joining 23 other European countries that signed memorandums of understanding with Beijing’s signature foreign-policy initiative. Meanwhile, countries such as Hungary, Greece, and Portugal continue to welcome Chinese investments in their railways, ports, and energy infrastructure, and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has signaled that China will play a big part in the country’s post-Brexit economy. France and Germany are also still searching for a balance to strike in their dealings with Beijing, using tough rhetoric while still courting Chinese cash.
Sisi Isn’t Mubarak. He’s Much Worse. – Foreign Policy
▻https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/12/19/sisi-isnt-mubarak-hes-much-worse
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi achieved something impressive in the last few weeks: He made remarks that, in their loopiness, managed to outdo U.S. President Donald Trump’s campaign rallies. In a televised address he declared, “The situation was this way, we were this way, and despite it being this way, we went this way. That is the miracle.” Then, a few days later, while imploring Egyptians to lose weight and exercise more, he added, “Even in the media we have to choose guests who take care of their bodies.”
Border Violence Monitoring Network - Report July 2019
The Border Violence Monitoring Network just published a common report summarizing current developments in pushbacks and police violence in the Western Balkans, mainly in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Montenegro and along the Serbian borders with Croatia and Hungary.
Due tu a new cooperation with the Thessaloniki-based organisation Mobile Info Team, we were also able to touch on the Status quo of pushbacks from and to Greece.
This report analyzes, among other things:
– BiH politicians’ rhetoric on Croatian push-backs
– Whistleblowers increasing pressure on Croatian authorities
– Frontex presence in Hungarian push-backs to Serbia
– The use of k9 units in the apprehension of transit groups in Slovenia
– The spatial dispersion of push-backs in the Una-Sana Canton
Competing narratives around the legality of pushbacks have emerged, muddying the waters. This has become especially clear as Croatian president Grabar-Kitarovic admitted that pushbacks were carried out legally, which is contradictory to begin with, and that “of course […] a little violence is used.” Croatia’s tactic of de facto condoning illegal pushbacks is similar to Hungary’s strategy to legalize these operations domestically, even though they violate international and EU law. On the other side of the debate, a whistleblower from the Croatian police described a culture of secrecy and institutional hurdles, which prevent legal and organizational challenges to the practice. The role of the EU in this debate remains critical. However, despite paying lip service to the EU’s value, Brussels’ continues to shoulder the bill for a substantial part of the frontier states’ border operations.
►https://www.borderviolence.eu/wp-content/uploads/July-2019-Final-Report.pdf
#frontières #violence #push-back #refoulement #route_des_Balkans #Frontex #Subotica #Bosnie-Herzégovine #Croatie #Italie #Serbie #Hongrie #rapport
Croatia Is Abusing Migrants While the EU Turns a Blind Eye
The evidence of Croatian police violence toward migrants is overwhelming, but Brussels continues to praise and fund Zagreb for patrolling the European Union’s longest external land border.
BIHAC, Bosnia and Herzegovina—Cocooned in a mud-spattered blanket, thousands of euros in debt, and with a body battered and bruised, Faisal Abas has reached the end of the line, geographically and spiritually. A year after leaving Pakistan to seek greener pastures in Europe, his dreams have died in a rain-sodden landfill site in northern Bosnia. His latest violent expulsion from Croatia was the final straw.
“We were just a few kilometers over the border when we were caught on the mountainside. They wore black uniforms and balaclavas and beat us one by one with steel sticks,” he recalled. “I dropped to the ground and they kicked me in the belly. Now, I can’t walk.”
Faisal rolled up his trousers to reveal several purple bruises snaking up his shins and thighs. He has begun seeking information on how to repatriate himself. “If I die here, then who will help my family back home?” he said.
The tented wasteland outside the Bosnian city of Bihac has become a dumping ground for single male migrants that the struggling authorities have no room to accommodate and don’t want hanging around the city. Bhangra music blasts out of a tinny speaker, putrid smoke billows from fires lit inside moldy tents, and men traipse in flip-flops into the surrounding woods to defecate, cut off from any running water or sanitation.
A former landfill, ringed by land mines from the Yugoslav wars, the hamlet of Vucjak has become the latest squalid purgatory for Europe’s largely forgotten migrant crisis as thousands escaping war and poverty use it as a base camp to cross over the Croatian border—a process wryly nicknamed “the game.”
The game’s unsuccessful players have dark stories to tell. A young Pakistani named Ajaz recently expelled from Croatia sips soup from a plastic bowl and picks at his split eyebrow. “They told us to undress and we were without shoes, socks, or jackets. They took our money, mobiles and bags with everything inside it, made a fire and burnt them all in front of us. Then they hit me in the eye with a steel stick,” he said. “They beat everyone, they didn’t see us as humans.”
Mohammad, sitting beside his compatriot, pipes up: “Last week we were with two Arabic girls when the Croatian police caught us. The girls shouted to them ‘sorry, we won’t come back,’ but they didn’t listen, they beat them on their back and chest with sticks.”
Down the hill in Bihac, in a drafty former refrigerator factory turned refugee facility, a metal container serves as a quarantine area for the infectious and infirm. Mohammad Bilal, a scrawny 16-year-old, lies on a lower bunk with his entire leg draped in flimsy bandage. Three weeks ago, at the cusp of winning the game and crossing into Italy, he was seized in Slovenia and then handed back to Croatia. That’s when the violence began.
“They drove us in a van to the Bosnian border and took us out one at a time,” he said, describing the Croatian police. “There were eight police, and one by one they beat us, punching, kicking, hitting with steel sticks. They broke my leg.”
A nearby Bosnian camp guard grimaced and wondered out loud: “Imagine how hard you have to hit someone to break a bone.”
Among the fluctuating migrant population of 7,000 thought to be in the area, vivid descriptions of violent episodes are being retold every day. The allegations have been mounting over the last two years, since Bosnia became a new branch in the treacherous Balkan migratory route into Europe. Denunciations of Croatian border policy have come from Amnesty International, the Council of Europe, Human Rights Watch, and a United Nations special rapporteur. Officials in Serbia have even alleged “physical and psychological torture” by Croatia’s police forces.
In November 2018, the Guardian published a video shot by a migrant in which haunting screams can be heard before a group of migrants emerge from the darkness wild-eyed and bloodied. A month later, activists secretly filmed Croatian police marching lines of migrants back into Bosnian territory.
Croatian President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic even appeared to let the cat out of the bag in an interview with the Swiss broadcaster Schweizer Radio und Fernsehen, during which she remarked that “a little bit of force is needed when doing pushbacks.” Despite the videos showing injured migrants, explicit video evidence of Croatian officials carrying out actual beatings has never been seen, and migrants report that one of the first commands by border guards is to surrender mobile phones, which are then either taken or destroyed before a thorough search is performed.
The abuse appears to be rampant. Both the violence and humiliation—migrants are often forced to undress and walk back across the border to Bosnia half-naked for several hours in freezing temperatures—seem to be used as a deterrent to stop them from returning. And yet the European Union is arguably not only facilitating but rewarding brute force by a member state in the name of protecting its longest land border.
In December 2018, the European Commission announced that it was awarding 6.8 million euros to Croatia to “strengthen border surveillance and law enforcement capacity,” including a “monitoring mechanism” to ensure that border measures are “proportionate and are in full compliance with fundamental rights and EU asylum laws.”
According to European Commission sources, a sum of 300,000 euros was earmarked for the mechanism, but they could not assess its outcome until Croatia files a report due in early 2020. Details of oversight remain vague. A spokesperson for the United Nations refugee agency in Croatia told Foreign Policy that the agency has no involvement. The Croatian Law Center, another major nongovernmental organization, also confirmed it has no role in the mechanism. It appears to be little more than a fig leaf.
►https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/12/06/croatia-is-abusing-migrants-while-the-eu-turns-a-blind-eye
#Slovénie
AYS Special 2019/2020: A Year of Violence — Monitoring Pushbacks on the Balkan Route
In 2019, The Border Violence Monitoring Network (BVMN) shared the voices of thousands of people pushed back from borders on the Balkan Route. Each tells their own tale of illegal, and regularly violent, police actions. Each represents a person denied their fundamental rights, eyewitnesses to EU led reborderization. This article shares just some of the more startling trends which define border management on the eve of 2020, such as the denial of asylum rights, systemic firearms use, water immersion, and dog attacks.
With a shared database of 648 reports, BVMN is a collaborative project of organisations with the common goal of challenging the illegal pushback regime and holding relevant institutions to account.
“Pushback” describes the unlegislated expulsion of groups or individuals from one national territory to another, and lies outside the legal framework of “deportations”. On a daily basis, people-on-the-move are subject to these unlawful removals; a violent process championed by EU member states along the Balkan Route. In 2019, BVMN continued to shine a spotlight on these actions, perpetrated in the main part by states such as Croatia, Hungary, and Greece. Supporting actors also included Slovenia and Italy, and non-member states with the aid of Frontex which has seen its remit and funding widened heading into 2020.
Volunteers and activists worked across the route in 2019 to listen to the voice of people facing these violations, taking interviews in the field and amplifying their calls for justice. Just some of the regular abuses that constitute pushbacks are listed below.
Guns and Firearm Abuse
The highest volume of BVMN reported pushbacks were from Croatia, a state which has been acting as a fulcrum of the EU’s external border policy in the West Balkans. It’s approximately 1300 kilometer long border with the non-member states of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia and Montenegro have been a flashpoint for extremely violent pushbacks. Even in the challenging winter conditions, people make daily attempts to cross through the mountainous landscape of Croatia and are pushed back from the territory by a web of police actors who deny them the proper procedure and use crude physical abuse as a deterrent.
Of major concern is the huge rise in gun use by Croatian officials against transit populations. In the first ten months of 2019 BVMN recorded 770 people who were pushed back by police officers who used guns to shoot or threaten. In November, shots were fired directly at transit groups, resulting in the near fatal wounding of one man, and causing a puncture wound in the shoulder of another. AYS reported on the shooting of two minors in 2017, showing this isn’t the first time guns were turned on unarmed transit people in Croatia.
Dog Attacks and K9 Units
The use of canine units in the apprehension and expulsion of transit groups is also a telling marker of the extreme violence that characterises pushbacks. Since the summer of 2019, a spike in the level of brutal dog attacks, and the presence of K9 units during pushbacks has been noted by BVMN. In a recent case, one man was mauled by a Croatian police dog for ten minutes under the direct guidance of the animals police handlers who laughed and shouted, “good, good”, as it almost severed a major blood vessel in the victim’s leg.
Fortunately, the man survived, but with permanent injuries that he nurses still today in Bosnia-Herzegovina where he was illegally pushed back, in spite of his request for asylum and urgent physical condition. Sadly this is not an unfamiliar story. Across the route canine units remain a severe threat within pushbacks, as seen in cases recorded from North Macedonia to Greece where a man was severely bitten, or in chain a pushback from Slovenia where 12 unmuzzled police dogs traumatised a large transit group. Dogs as weapons are a timely reminder of the weighting of border policy towards violent aggression, and away from due legal access to asylum and regulated procedure.
Gatekeeping Asylum Access
K9 units and guns are ultra-violent policing methods that contribute directly to the blocking of asylum access. In the first eleven months of 2019, over 60% of Croatian pushbacks to Bosnia-Herzegovina saw groups make a verbal request for asylum. Yet in these cases, group members were pushed back from the territory without having their case heard, in direct contravention of European asylum law.
Croatian authorities, along with a host of other states, have effectively mobilised pushbacks to remove people from their territories irrespective of claims for international protection. A host of actors, such as police officers and translators have warped the conditions for claiming asylum, regularly coercing people to sign removal documents, doctoring the ages of minors, or avoid any processing at all by delivering them to the green border immediately where they are pushed back with violence. Slovenia are also participants in this chain of asylum violation, seen most brutally in a case from July when pepper spray was used to target specifically the people who spoke out asking for asylum.
Wet Borders: River Pushbacks
Most pushbacks occur at remote areas of the green border, especially at night, where violence can be applied with effective impunity. A particular feature of police violence on the border is the weaponisation of rivers to abuse groups. Monitoring work from September revealed 50% of direct pushbacks from Croatia involved respondents being forced into rivers or immersed in water. This is accompanied regularly by the stripping of people (often to their underwear) and burning of their possessions. Then, police officer push them into the rivers that mark the boundary with Bosnia-Herzegovina (often the Glina and Korana), putting people at a high risk of drowning and hypothermia.
A recent case from November combined the use of firearms with this dangerous use of wet borders. A group of Algerians were pushed into a river by Croatian officers who were returning them to Bosnia-Herzegovina.
The respondent recalled how: “They pushed me into the river and said, ‘Good luck.’”, while the officers fired guns into the air.
Meanwhile in the Evros region of Greece, the river border is used regularly to pushback people-on-the-move into Turkey. As in Croatia, the incidents often occur at night, and are carried out by officials wearing ski masks/balaclavas. Taken by force, transit groups report being loaded violently onto small boats and ferried across to the Turkish side. This regular and informal system of removal stands out as a common violation across Greece and the Balkan area, and raises major concerns about the associated risks of water immersion given the high levels of drowning which occur in the regions rivers.
2019 at the EU’s Doorstep
Border management on the Balkan Route has systematised a level of unacceptable, illegal and near fatal violence.
The trends noted in 2019 are an astonishing reminder that such boundaries are no longer governed by the rule of law, but characterised almost entirely by the informal use of pushback violations.
Gun use stands out as the most extreme marker of violence within pushbacks. But the shooting of weapons sits within a whole arsenal of policing methods that also include blunt physical assault, unlawful detention, abuse during transportation, taser misuse and stripping. Though Croatia emerged as a primary actor within BVMN’s dataset, common practive between EU member states were also clear, as across the region: Hungary, Slovenia and Greece continued to target people-on-the-move with a shared set of illegal and violent methods. The new interventions of Frontex outside of EU territory also look to compliment this reborderisation effort, as non-member states in the Western Balkans become integrated into the pushback regime.
The Border Violence Monitoring Network will continue to elevate the brave voices of those willing to expose these violent institutions. Their stories are a testament to the dire situation at Europe’s borders on the eve of 2020, and accountability will continue to be sought.
▻https://medium.com/are-you-syrious/ays-special-2019-2020-a-year-of-violence-monitoring-pushbacks-on-the-balkan-
#2019 #chiens #armes #armes_à_feu
America the Mediocre – Foreign Policy
▻https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/08/15/america-the-mediocre
Americans think they’re No. 1. They’re wrong in so many ways.
For many Americans, the proposition that they live in the most powerful, richest, and most advanced society on Earth is something close to a statement of faith.
A 2017 Pew Research Center poll found that most Americans disagree only whether the United States is the best country in the world (29 percent) or one of the best (56 percent). Only 14 percent of Americans agree instead that there are other, better countries.
Elites agree, too. Forget the current president’s flag-humping rhetoric—even the cool and cerebral Barack Obama said it was “objectively” true that the United States holds “the best cards of any country on Earth.”
That might be the case in a game of geopolitical Risk, where the cards that count are military strength and overall GDP. But in ordinary life, it’s harder to make the case for America as No. 1. The rest of the world is developing and adopting policies that can make everyday life in the United States, outside of a few coastal oases, seem … old. Even backward. And the U.S. reluctance, or inability, to learn from other countries is making life worse for its citizens than it has to be—not just in the big ways, such as the disasters of American health care and student debt, but in the little, everyday ones, too.
By many measures, the United States looks like a decidedly middle-of-the pack country or even one at the bottom of the set of rich countries. Consider the classic three American goals: “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” On measures indicating the quality of life, the United States often ranks poorly. The U.N. Human Development Index, which counts not just economic performance but life expectancy and schooling, ranks the United States at 13th, lagging other industrialized democracies like Australia, Germany, and Canada. The United States ranks 45th in infant mortality, 46th in maternal mortality, and 36th in life expectancy.
What about liberty? Reporters Without Borders places the United States at 48th for protecting press freedom. Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index ranks the United States as only the 22nd least corrupt country in the world, behind Canada, Germany, and France. Freedom House’s experts score the United States 33rd for political freedom, while the Varieties of Democracy project puts the quality of U.S. democracy higher—at 27th.
As for happiness: The World Happiness Report places America at 19th, just below Belgium. Belgium!
[…]
That might explain one reason why the United States proves so resistant to learning from other countries. Using terms that officials since have echoed repeatedly, then-U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright described the United States and its role by saying, “We are America. We are the indispensable nation. We stand tall, and we see further than other countries into the future.”
[…]
A Generation of Girls Is Missing in India – Foreign Policy
▻https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/08/15/a-generation-of-girls-is-missing-in-india
Perched almost a mile above sea level and circled by majestic Himalayan peaks, Uttarkashi is a spot where religious pilgrims often make a pit stop before proceeding on the sacred Hindu Char Dham Yatra, the Four Abode Pilgrimage, which they believe will bring them closer to salvation. With its verdant landscape, dotted by temples and yoga ashrams, Uttarkashi is a place of breathtaking beauty.
But all is not well in this peaceful Himalayan district. Between February and April, not a single female child was born here in 216 births across the 132 villages. Local authorities, suspecting sex-selective abortions, have launched an extensive investigation, spearheaded by the district magistrate, Ashish Chauhan.
[…]
Although exact numbers of such terminations are not available, according to the first national study on abortion overall, an estimated 15.6 million abortions [▻https://www.guttmacher.org/news-release/2017/national-estimate-abortion-india-released ] took place in India in 2015. Although the practice is legal up to 20 weeks into a pregnancy under a broad range of criteria, an estimated 10 women die every day due to unsafe procedures. As many as 56 percent [▻http://www.hindustantimes.com/health-and-fitness/behavioural-shift-communication-can-raise-awareness-about-safe-abortions-in-india/story-nZ2t3BFyO8jZluHPj9WCwK.html ] of abortions in India are estimated to be unsafe, and about 8 to 9 percent of all maternal deaths [▻https://www.business-standard.com/article/current-affairs/56-abortions-in-india-unsafe-despite-being-legal-kill-10-women-ev ] in India are due to unsafe abortions.
It is safe to assume that a large number of the abortions that happen in India are performed because the fetus is female. Last year, an Indian government report [▻http://mofapp.nic.in:8080/economicsurvey/pdf/102-118_Chapter_07_ENGLISH_Vol_01_2017-18.pdf ] found that about 63 million women were statistically “missing” from the country’s population due to a societal preference for male children. And this problem does not just stem from sex-selective abortion. The report noted that another 21 million girls were considered “unwanted” by their families, who continue to have children until a son is born. Roughly 239,000 girls under the age of 5 died in India every year between 2000 and 2005 due to gender-based neglect, according to a 2018 study [▻https://www.thelancet.com/journals/langlo/article/PIIS2214-109X(18)30184-0/fulltext ].
[…]
Efforts to enforce the law have also been lacking. Despite vast evidence that sex-selective abortion happens on a wide scale, it still goes largely unpunished, mostly due to ineffective and lackadaisical judicial systems. According to data from the National Crime Records Bureau, between 2002 and 2012, there were a mere 218 cases charging medical practitioners with performing ultrasounds with an intention to determine the sex of the fetus. Only 55 people were convicted.
[…]
India is already experiencing all of these problems, especially in northern states with particularly bad sex ratios. According to a report by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India [▻https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/survey-shows-sex-ratio-falling-further-to-896-in-3-years-to-2017/articleshow/70221462.cms ], the female sex ratio has fallen to 896 females per 1,000 males in 2015 to 2017 from 898 in 2014 to 2016. The Wire reported [▻https://thewire.in/gender/urban-sex-ratio-declining ] that according to census data, India’s national child gender ratio fell from 945 girls to 1,000 boys in 1991 to 918 in 2011. The states of Haryana, Punjab, Jammu and Kashmir, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Uttarakhand, and Maharashtra all had a ratio even lower than 900 girls per 1,000 boys.
As Epstein, who has collected data in more than 100 countries, including the United States, told me in 2015 [▻https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/india/2015-05-22/when-bride-be-bride-buy ], “Extra males affect the social system quite dramatically. Even now, there are women being drugged and kidnapped from Bangladesh and poor Indian states because there is a shortage of young females. Take that effect and magnify it over a period of years. It’s a social disaster.”
[…]
Before it digs its own grave, India must bring back its girls.
article, on le voit, très solidement étayé ; sous #paywall (léger, contournable via navigation privée)
Assez horrible. Je crois me souvenir que la Chine aussi a tué ses bébés filles ?
Female infanticide in China - Wikipedia
▻https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Female_infanticide_in_China
[…]
The practice continued into the 19th century and declined precipitously during the Communist era, but has reemerged as an issue since the introduction of the one-child policy in the early 1980s. The census of 1990 showed an overall male-to-female sex ratio of 1.066, while a normal sex ratio for all ages should be less than 1.02.
En Asie du Sud-Est
http://www.searo.who.int/entity/health_situation_trends/data/chi/demo_graph9_sex_ratio_bar_large.jpg World Health Organization, Sex Ratio
▻http://www.searo.who.int/health_situation_trends/data/chi/sex-ratio/en
Over last 20 years (from 1990 to 2010) the ratio of number of males to per 100 females has declined in all SEAR countries except Bhutan, Indonesia, and DPRK. While in Bhutan it increased by eight percentage points, in Indonesia and DPRK the increase was modest by one percent. Sharpest decline was in Sri Lanka, Nepal, Maldives, and Bangladesh in that order. By 2010, only two countries (India and Bhutan) in the Region continue to have skewed (above 105) sex ratio.
On the other hand, of the three countries ( DPR Korea, Myanmar, and Thailand) which had higher percentage of females than males, two ( Myanmar and Thailand) continued to do so at still higher rate in 2010 but it slowed down in DPR Korea in favor of males.
Although women normally outnumber men beyond age 60, somehow it is not so in three SEAR countries (Bhutan, Maldives, and Bangladesh) where sex ratio in 60+ population is at 130, 113, and 108 respectively. This may be due to anomalies in enumeration of age and sex specific population data.
