Bullshit policies

The Christian  Montagnards once fought alongside US forces during the Vietnam War and have suffered the repercussions from that move ever since. The fate of  asylum seekers from Vietnam hiding in Cambodia's remote northeast has focused a spotlight again on the country's policy towards would-be refugees. One provincial police chief warned the Montagnards would be arrested on sight and returned to Vietnam, as per a request from the government there.

In a statement issued from its Geneva headquarters, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said it was concerned police might hand over  the Montagnards to Vietnamese authorities, putting their lives in danger. "The involuntary return of the individuals to Vietnam would represent a violation of international legal obligations ... UNHCR strongly urges the government to refrain from - and instruct local authorities to refrain from - such action." Asylum seekers "should not be sent back where their lives or freedoms could be in danger", said Vivian Tan, UNHCR spokeswoman in Bangkok.

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In return for $35 million in Australian aid money and resettlement costs, Cambodia has agreed to take in asylum seekers that Australia has refused to accept. Critics of the so-called Australia "refugee dumping deal" said Cambodia is ill equipped to adequately provide for refugees, pointing out Phnom Penh's track record of deporting asylum seekers, such as the Montagnards, considered dissidents by China and Vietnam.

Deporting the Montagnards back to Vietnam "would show just how little refugee rights and protection mean in Cambodia, and no amount of public relations spin to the contrary from Canberra will convince anyone otherwise", said Phil Robertson, deputy director of Human Rights Watch's Asia division.

Sailors from the Royal Australian Navy say they have suffered trauma after having to pull dead asylum seekers from the ocean while on border patrol. Some complained government policy had led to the deaths of dozens of asylum seekers. Former and serving sailors on border patrol operations told of having to retrieve bodies from the ocean after vessels carrying asylum seekers had capsized or sunk. According to some of the interviewees, decisions taken by the Australian government indirectly led to the deaths of asylum seekers at sea.

"All we found was probably a line about 70 miles long of bodies," he said, according to ABC. "We fished them out for as long as we could, 'til we were full. And that wasn't uncommon." A serving navy officer said ships' captains were sometimes told not to board vessels until they were in Australian waters so the passengers could then be subject to Australian migration law. On at least one occasion a boat carrying asylum seekers sank as a result. "In the incident that I've described where the boat overturned and people died, that pressure came from Canberra," she said.

François Crépeau, the UN’s special rapporteur for migrants’ rights has censured the British government immigration policies, saying they have endangered the lives of migrants. He slammed the UK Home Office for sending only one official to take part in a European search and rescue mission aimed at deterring migrant deaths in the Mediterranean Sea, the official[A1]  arguing that stopping search and rescue missions would stave migrants off Europe. “Not supporting search and rescue operations means letting them die. This is what happens, if you don’t search and rescue them; they die. If we accept that, I think we go well beyond the moral boundaries of our political system.”

Politicians must stand up to the “bullshit” populist stereotypes about migration in Britain amid concerns that border control policies across the EU are putting people’s lives in danger he warned. “The fantasy is that there is a core British culture that was created probably 2,000 years ago and carried on, and now it’s being threatened by all those barbarians that are coming to our gate,” he said. “This is utter bullshit, but who is going to say this? That is why I think we have a problem with political conversations that we can’t have.” It was a “multicultural, diverse, open society” that created “Cool Britannia” in the 1990s. “If Britannia is ruled by the Ukip, or with Ukip-type policies, it is not going to be cool.”

The Canadian professor of law blamed European governments for wanting a kind of migrant slave labour. Crépeau said there are powerful economic forces working to maintain the status quo – whereby economic migrants are attracted to the EU by jobs but often work  illegally, earning well below the minimum wage and living in poor conditions. But they are unwilling to speak out for fear of being removed from the country. “We have found a system to subsidise a series of sectors of our economies by people who have no power and can be exploited at will. This was the slavery system in the old days,” Crépeau noted. 

We live in a period in history where war and conflict are a more permanent feature affecting a huge proportion of the world population as never before. The responsibility of western governments and multinationals for this situation is bigger than ever and millions of people are displaced from their homes because of this.

There is much in the press about the "problem" of bogus asylum seekers becoming a drain on a country's resources, and getting involved in criminal and fraudulent activity etc. Every day, the politicians try to out-do each other as to how they would restrict immigration further.  Political leaders are promoting myths, mis-truths and lies simply to win votes. Socialists see these people as yet another group to be targeted by the ruling class and their friends in the capitalist media who seek to blame them for the failings in their own capitalist system. The fact these people are taking such desperate measures to reach here in the first place should make us begin to question the underlying reasons for this phenomena, and to provide a straight forward answer to those people who would seek to make asylum seekers scapegoats for the ongoing problems. Socialists do not condone deceit or criminality but we recognise that criminality and deceit are but symptoms of a capitalist system that forces some sections of society down the criminal path in order to survive. When a man or woman cannot feed their family then they will do whatever it takes. This is forced on them by the material conditions of the capitalist system that cannot even provide the basic necessities of life for masses of the world population. When an individual is robbed of their dignity and self respect, on a daily basis by a system that seeks to exploit and profit at that individuals expense then it is no surprise that there are people who feel left out and dispossessed. There is no such person as an 'illegal asylum seeker'. By law, anyone has the right to seek sanctuary and apply for asylum, and to stay until a final decision has been made.

When asylum seekers – children, women and men who have to flee their homes and families and make the hazardous and often outright dangerous journey across the globe – arrive in this state, their ordeal is far from over. Rather than being given the opportunity to rebuild their lives, they are isolated from society. They are not allowed to work, they can not even work until they are given refugee status. Some have to live under the restrictive regime of the centre (e.g. meals are served at set times three times per day only) and have to make do with a bare subsistence. They have to remain in this situation until their case is finished they are at the mercy of the state to be moved from centre to centre. Asylum seekers have no access to social housing; they are forced into hard to let properties.

The European Anti-Poverty Network sums up the effects “This system directly creates poverty and social exclusion as well as isolation and widespread depression and mental illness.  The explicit exclusion of asylum seekers from integration policies stores up social problems for the future.” Instead of helping and protecting, governments of all shades are actively destroying these people’s lives.

People want to move to improve their family’s finances, escape poverty or flee from war and persecution. In the same way, people choose to live and work abroad, either where the money is, or to retire in sunnier climes.  Would those who want to restrict migration into a country also want to stop people moving abroad? Everyone should be free to move and live where they chose.  We should not make it more difficult for immigrants to get benefits, or to have to pay for health care.  The overwhelming majority of migrants want to work – that is why they travel vast distances from home to live in often unfriendly cultures.

The attempt is being made to scapegoat asylum seekers, making them the target of people's fears and diverting attention away from the failings of the capitalist system. A glimpse of the potential that this gives for the rise of racism and racist attacks was the hysteria created by the media coverage of the Roma. The resources are there to provide everyone with a decent home, job, health care and education. The problem is the profit-driven capitalist system - not whether the resources exist, but who controls them.