Immigration: trivial pursuits

By Richard North - March 13, 2023

For all the squealing about the horrid words being used by the evil, wacist Tories – with their Indian heritage prime minister – spare a thought for the hundreds of sub-Saharan Africans in Tunisia who, ten days ago were reported to be “heading back to their homelands amid a spike in vigilante violence”.

This violence, we are told, including the stabbing of African migrants, and general unpleasantness, as recounted by Mariama Bangoura who had then just returned to her home country of Guinea after fleeing Tunisia in response to what were called “xenophobic attacks”.

The underlying cause of Bangoura’s flight is said to be what has been labelled a “hate speech” by Tunisian president Kais Saied, who alleged that undocumented immigration from sub-Saharan African countries was aimed at changing Tunisia’s demographic composition.

“The undeclared goal of the successive waves of illegal immigration is to consider Tunisia a purely African country that has no affiliation to the Arab and Islamic nations”, Saied had declared, adding that the influx of irregular migrants must quickly be ended.

Ibrahima Diallo, a Guinean who fled Tunisia, takes up the story from there. “When the president gave a racial hate speech against Black migrants, the population started interfering and attacking Blacks, mostly women. They grab their telephones from them, beat them”, Diallo said. “I witnessed many attacks”.

The response from Guinea was fairly swift. It started repatriating its nationals, with its foreign minister, Morysanda Kouyate, accompanying the first planeload of Guinean returnees. One of the passengers, Mohamed Cisse, described his gratitude to the Guinean government. “Really, they have helped us, we were in a distress. This is a big relief”, Cisse said.

In Tunisia itself, the embassies of Ivory Coast and Mali provided emergency accommodation for dozens of their citizens evicted from their homes, including young children. Relief flights were arranged, the first destined for Mali landing with 135 Malians on board.

Among these was Korotoumi Diakite. “’We had enough problems with both the police and the population”, he explained. “Students were attacked for no reason. We’re getting arrested for just being black”.

The International Federation for Human Rights said it had documented human rights violations including arbitrary arrests and detentions, assaults, evictions and dismissals in the weeks following Saied’s remarks.

Amnesty International recorded interviews with 20 people in Tunisia, including five asylum seekers and 15 undocumented migrants from Cameroon, Sierra Leone, Ghana, Nigeria, Guinea and Ivory Coast. All 20 interviewees claimed to have been attacked by mobs and, in at least three cases, police officers had been present but had failed to intervene.

Despite not having Gary Lineker to speak up for them, these “illegals” had another, albeit less glittering personality to take up cudgels on their behalf. This was Romdhane Ben Amor, spokesperson for the Tunisian Forum for Economic and Social Rights, who condemned Saied’s intervention as “a racist approach just like the campaigns in Europe”.

In fact, the local Tunisian response might have been closer to the 1930s Nazi Germany, to which Lineker had alluded, presumably because the cash-strapped Tunisian government cannot afford the actual approach taken by front-line European states in an attempt to stem the tide of illegal immigration, which includes a major wall-building programme in multiple states.

Part of the Greek response is illustrated above – a border wall near the town of Feres, along the Evros River which forms the frontier between Greece and Turkey.

The five-metre (16-foot) steel wall currently extends more than 27 kilometres (17 miles in real money) and helps cover another 10 kilometres (six miles). Furthermore, Greece is currently extending the wall, adding a 22-mile stretch with the ultimate goal of extending along most of the 120-mile border with Turkey.

Emphasising that Greece’s border is also the EU’s external border, citizens’ protection Minister Takis Theodorikakos, is asking for contributions from other member states, and even the UK. “The task (of protecting the border) needs the support … of European public opinion, the European Union itself and its constituent members individually”, he says.

Furthermore, he added, “It is our steadfast position that member states of first reception cannot be (the migrants’) only European destinations. There must be solidarity among member-states and a fair sharing of duties … close coordination is a must”.

The Greek approach has not been without success. In 2022, its border guards claimed to have prevented some 260,000 migrants from entering illegally and arrested 1,500 traffickers. They have done so with the assistance of the EU’s border protection agency, Frontex, which plans to add another 400 border guards in Greece to the existing 1,800-member force already in place.

Technically and legally, on its land borders, Greece has an easier task than the UK in keeping out migrants. Unencumbered by the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS), it can erect fences and patrol them to prevent migrants crossing. What happens to those who fail to cross is of no concern to the Greeks. On land, there are no potential tragedies of sinking dinghies to focus their minds.

As to the sea crossings, this is another matter. Out of sight, and very much out of Linker’s mind, Greece is accused of violating EU and international law with “impunity”.

In the first week of 2023, the Hellenic Coast Guard is said to have stopped 32 boats carrying 1,108 people, turning them round under the threat of sinking them, in a process known as “pushbacks”. Its actions this year represent an increase of 125 percent compared to the first week of 2022.

Unlike the UK, which has granted semi-official observer status to the dinghy people’s charity, Care4Calais, Greece has detained and is now prosecuting aid workers, starting with 24 who were assisting migrants who arrived at the island of Lesbos. After a delay of four years, their trial started in January, with the defendants accused of membership of a criminal organisation, money laundering and espionage. Although the Greek court rejected the charges on procedural grounds, the cases are still pending.

With illegal migration into the territories of EU member states having reached a six-year high in 2022, standing at 330,000, the EU itself is sharing the UK’s difficulties in devising an effective migration policy, while trying to avoid tragedies such as the shipwreck off Italy last month, which killed at least 70 migrants.

In Europe, though, AP notes – humanitarian tragedies and the plight of people fleeing persecution in countries like Afghanistan and Syria often take second seat “to populist rhetoric about overcrowding, loss of national identity and the cost of housing migrants”.

Yet, out of sight and scarcely recorded by the UK media, and entirely unremarked upon by Gary Lineker – the voice of the unrepresented oppressed – tragedies continue to occur. On 9 March, at least 14 Africans died and 54 were rescued when a boat in which they were trying to reach Europe sank off the coast of Tunisia.

But, on the same night, Tunisian coastguard vessels thwarted 14 other boats carrying a total of 435 migrants attempting a journey from central and southern regions of Tunisia, destined for Europe in what is regarded as is the most dangerous migration route in the world.

Onshore, Tunisian authorities have stepped up arrests of Africans without residency papers, in the wake of president Kais Saied’s comments, but while the EU Home Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johansson has expressed concern about Saied’s statements, saying they are “very worrying,” she also commended Tunisia’s role in helping prevent migrants reaching Europe.

“Tunisia is a core country for cooperation when it comes to preventing smuggling but also when it comes to readmission of Tunisian citizens that come here and are not eligible for international protection”, she told reporters.

However, the same Johansson has joined in the criticism of the UK’s Migration Bill. “My immediate reaction is to question whether this is in line with international obligations”, she says, aligning herself with the UN refugee agency that says it amounts to an “asylum ban” and a clear breach of the UN refugee convention.

As Frontex officials turn a blind eye to Greek pushbacks, underlining EU equivocation and hypocrisy, perhaps Gary Lineker should intervene once again in what is a global problem, given his elevated concern for migrant welfare. Now he is expected back at work, though, he might not have time for such trivial pursuits.