Giving money to Eritrea and Sudan to stop refugees is almost satire
Offering
financial incentives to repressive governments shows deeply flawed
logic that ignores the reasons people flee from home
A
migrant waits to disembark in Sicilian harbour of Messina, Italy.
Photograph: Antonio Parrinello/Reuters
Friday
13 November 2015
African
governments have been offered €1.8bn to
help stem the flow of refugees to Europe. Yet the migrants European
leaders want to “send back” are in many cases fleeing the
governments the EU is now collaborating with.
It
could almost be satire. Amongst
those present at
the Malta summit in Valletta were Sudan, Eritrea and Ethiopia –
widely condemned for their disregard of human rights.
In
Sudan, for example, according to the High
Commission for Refugees there
are 400,000 internally displaced people in Darfur, thanks
to continued
conflictbetween
rebel groups and government forces. A further 6.9 million people are
in need for humanitarian assistance. By the end of 2015, the UN
estimates there could be up to 460,000 refugees in Sudan alone.
Can $2bn for Africa stem the refugee crisis?
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For
many in Sudan, smuggling and trafficking has become a lucrative
business. Reliable sources in the country allege that many National
Intelligence and Security Service officers have been involved in
human smuggling for financial gain. The security force are also
alleged to be involved in trafficking operations in eastern Sudan and
Darfur, transporting refugees up in to Libya.
Amnesty
International was quick to point
out these contradictions,
arguing that the EU should not cooperate with those guilty of grave
human rights abuses. “With the EU seemingly intent on enlisting
African nations as proxy gatekeepers, the Valetta summit is likely to
result in a one-sided border control contract dressed up as a
cooperation agreement. Refugees and migrants deserve and are entitled
to better,” said Iverna McGowan, acting director of Amnesty
International’s European Institutions Office.
To
date, there has been no evidence that the EU’s previous financial
incentives to Omar al-Bashir’s government have made any positive
impact on the crisis, so why will they now?
In
November last year, the EU launched another controversial policy,
known as the Khartoum
Process.
Announced in Rome, it pledged to tackle human smuggling from the Horn
of Africa into Europe by providing countries in the region with
financial, technical and political incentives to manage and control
migration.
As
part of this, the EU pledged to offer Sudan and Eritrea significant
payments. However, in the absence of monitoring mechanisms and
transparency, these funds will likely disappear without trace,
swallowed by two government who are currently under international
sanctions for
human rights abuses.
Europe's €1.8bn fund to tackle migration crisis not enough, say Africans
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Writing
in African Arguments,
migration researchers Maimuna Mohamud and Cindy Horst said the
Khartoum Process represented a “worrying precedent”.
“All
participants of the Khartoum Process ... have policies and political
systems that directly render them responsible for creating conditions
that produce refugees and migrants in the first place,” they
argued.
Last
month, Mike
Smith, chair of the commission of
inquiry on human rights in Eritrea, emphasised the significant number
of Eritreans arriving on the shores of Europe: after Syrians and
Afghans, they made up the third biggest group of people attempting to
enter in 2014.
But
EU leaders seem to be turning a blind eye to this, once again turning
to cash incentives as quick fixes.
For
a meaningful solution to the problem, the EU should be forcing the
issue of conflict in Darfur, or pressurising Isaias Afwerki’s
government to end indefinite military service in Eritrea.
Only this way will the root of the problem be addressed.
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