EU Refugee Crisis Made by... the
EU
By Finian Cunningham
April 25, 2015 "Information
Clearing House" - "Sputnik"
- When you are part of
the problem then, by definition, you can't be part of the solution. That
aphorism applies to the way European Union leaders are responding to the refugee
crisis in the Mediterranean.
After their "emergency summit" in Brussels this week, the
leaders of the 28-nation bloc stand accused by many humanitarian groups
of abysmal failure.Despite much official
handwringing and talk about "saving lives" and "solidarity", in the end the
European governments have shown that they are incapable of fully addressing
the crisis to stop the spiralling death toll.
The EU summit was called after some 1,200 migrants drowned
over the past week when their overcrowded vessels sank in the Mediterranean.
In one incident, more than 800 people died when the 20-metre fishing trawler
they were packed into capsized.This year is set
to become the deadliest for fatalities in the Mediterranean. The
Geneva-based International Organisation for Migration says that at the
current rate, some 30,000 people will perish by the end of the year — 10
times the figure for 2014, which itself was an appalling record high.
Shamefully, the inadequate response
of European governments to the crisis will most likely see that grim
predicted death toll materialise. This is because the EU is treating the
problem as a security issue.
After the leaders' summit in Brussels one of the main
points of agreement is to beef up maritime border controls. The so-called
Triton Operation is to have a three-fold increase in its current budget and
EU member states are pledging to supply more patrol boats and helicopters.
British leader David Cameron has even said his country
would send a Royal Navy warship to the Mediterranean, while Germany has
proposed the deployment of military marines.
European governments are thus battening down the hatches of
"Fortress Europe" to make sure that migrants don't reach their shores. But
this security response won't stop people piling into boats on the North
African coast in the first place and making the treacherous sea crossing
towards mainland Europe.Some EU leaders, such
as Commissioner for Migration Dimitris Avramopoulos, are calling
for military action against human smugglers — the gangs that prey
on migrants and exploit them for passage to Europe, often in dangerous and
overcrowded vessels.
"We are declaring
war on human traffickers," said Avramopoulous.
The supposed plan is that EU military forces will destroy
the boats used by these trafficking gangs. Italy's interior minister
Angelino Alfano has even proposed bombing vessels moored off North Africa
that are suspected of being involved in "modern slavery".
Apart from serious implications for international law and
the sovereignty of North African countries, the notion of blowing
smuggler-ships out of the water as a solution to the humanitarian crisis
in the Mediterranean is another example of how European leaders are
incapable of properly addressing the issue. Indeed, such idiotic proposals
will only make the dire situation worse.
With millions of people willing to risk their lives
by migrating across Asia, the Middle East and Africa in order to make it
to Europe, no amount of border security or "preemptive strikes" will address the
problem. Europe's security response is merely dealing with effects, not the
causes of migration.
Therefore, the waves of desperate migrants will continue
to propagate towards Europe. Europe may not let them in, but what we will be
then facing is the catastrophic and morally repugnant situation of the
Mediterranean polluted by thousands of decaying corpses.
There are several causes
for the current epic flow of migrants: poverty, hunger, unemployment and climate
change in the originating countries are some of the reasons.
The EU could address these issues by, for example, increasing
humanitarian aid budgets instead of splurging billions of euro on military
spending as part of its US-NATO alliance. EU countries could cancel trillions
of euro in debt owed to European banks by countries in Africa. That would then
allow those countries to develop resources for their people instead of them
being forced to migrate to find employment in Europe.
But here is the real factor: conflict. Most of the people
migrating to North Africa and thence to Europe are fleeing war and conflict. The
UN High Commission for Refugees records that among the millions of would-be
migrants the preponderant nationalities are Syrian, Iraqi and Afghani. Among the
African migrants, many too have come from countries torn apart by violence.
Now we ask: who has caused these wars and conflicts? It should
be obvious, but amazingly, the Western media do not permit the explicit
identification of the countries that are responsible for most of the conflicts.
The Washington Post, for example, this week wrote about the
refugees crisis and "an of arc of strife from West Africa to Afghanistan". Nice
prose, but neither the Washington Post nor the Western media in general identify
the culprits for this "arc of strife".
The EU could address these issues by, for example, increasing
humanitarian aid budgets instead of splurging billions of euro on military
spending as part of its US-NATO alliance. EU countries could cancel trillions
of euro in debt owed to European banks by countries in Africa. That would then
allow those countries to develop resources for their people instead of them
being forced to migrate to find employment in Europe.
But here is the real factor: conflict. Most of the people
migrating to North Africa and thence to Europe are fleeing war and conflict. The
UN High Commission for Refugees records that among the millions of would-be
migrants the preponderant nationalities are Syrian, Iraqi and Afghani. Among the
African migrants, many too have come from countries torn apart by violence.
The culprits are primarily Washington and its European allies.
Washington and London together destroyed Afghanistan and Iraq,
forcing millions of displaced during more than a decade of illegal war and
occupation. A despicable legacy that continues to this day.
Washington, London and Paris, along with other European NATO
members, destroyed Libya with a seven-month aerial blitzkrieg during 2011. That
criminal carnival of mass murder overthrew the government of Muammar Gaddafi and
replaced it with a failed state of ongoing internecine violence. That is why
lawless Libya is now the launchpad for millions of migrants being trafficked
to Europe. The US and the EU created that gateway of misery.
What the European governments did in Libya,
along with their American ally, is nothing short of a war crime. These
governments should be prosecuted in an international tribunal based on Nuremberg
principles.
The same goes for Syria where the Americans and Europeans,
together with their Israeli and Arab proxies, have been waging a covert war
of regime change for the past four years. Washington, London and Paris
in particular, have turned Syria into a charnel house with their extremist
Takfiri mercenary brigades. Up to 10 million Syrians — nearly half the
population — have been displaced and exiled as wandering refugees.
In Africa, the US and its NATO allies have militarised that
continent in a new "Scramble for Africa" to offset legitimate Chinese strategic
interests. NATO is expanding on the Horn of Africa with drone bases in Djibouti,
Kenya, Ethiopia and attacks in Somalia. President Obama has sent special forces
into several Central and West Africa countries, while France has embarked
on outright illegal military interventions in Mali, Central Africa Republic and
the Ivory Coast. This American and European militarism across Africa is sowing
conflicts and resulting in millions of displaced people whose communities and
farms have been devastated.
Right now on the Arab Peninsula, Yemen is being pounded
by hundreds of warplanes belonging to Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf Arab
dictatorships. These warplanes are supplied and coordinated by Washington.
Europe may not be directly involved in this particular slaughter, but its
shameful silence in international fora, such as the UN Security Council,
nevertheless make it complicit in the aggression on this sovereign nation.
Tragically, Yemen — the Middle East's poorest country — will
add tens of thousands more desperate people migrating towards Libya and joining
the droves of other Asians and Africans trying to escape to Europe.
Some estimates put the total number of refugees on the move
across Asia, the Middle East and Africa at over 50 million, which is said to be
biggest collective movement of people since the Second World War.
The bottom line is that this humanitarian cataclysm is "a stain
on Europe's conscience". Not merely because dead bodies are floating in the
Mediterranean — "the image of which is against European values" said German
Chancellor Angela Merkel. It sounds like Merkel is more aggrieved by the image,
rather than the fact of dead bodies.
No, the appalling death toll among millions of migrants dying
at sea and on land is a stain on Europe's conscience because this problem has
been largely caused by Europe, from its warmongering and militarism in collusion
with Washington.
European leaders cannot offer a solution to the refugee crisis
because they are part of the problem. All that the EU, under the present
leadership, can "offer" is more ways to make the problem even worse.
Stopping European-fuelled wars and conflict in Asia, the
Middle East and Africa is a big part of the solution. So too is for the people
of Europe to get rid of their current crop of governments and replace them
with actually democratically serving ones.
