Responses to mainstream media
From Noborders Network Wiki
Responses to mainstream media
These are some of the questions expected to be asked by mainstream journos when conducting interviews with us about the camp, along with some suggested answers and responses. Obviously each of these question could be asked in many different ways, so try to understand what the real purpose of the question is and where it may lead you, then answer accordingly (see the tips for dealing with mainstream media).
CALAIS NO BORDER CAMP
Why Calais?
Long running focus of migrant struggles Laboratory & engine of development of European Borders Regime An example of the struggles going on at borders all around Europe e.g. Lesvos/Patras/Ceuta & Melilla/Malta/Lampedusa/etc.
What does the Camp hope to achieve?
The camp aims to highlight the problems faced by both the migrants in Northern France and the people that try to help and support them. Co-operative project between UK and French activists* which stands in stark contrast to the historic antagonism between the French and UK governments that stretches back to before the opening of the Sangatte IRC Centre up to the present day controversies over joint deportation flights to Iraq and Juxtaposed controls in Calais, Boulogne, Dunkerque and Dover. Show the migrants that are totally marginalized (from their countries of origin, by EU policies, prey to gangs and police, routinely harassed, gassed, beaten and arrested by the CRS) that not everyone is against them.
- Belgian & Dutch activists have also been actively participating in the building of the camp.
What are the main causes of mass migration?
Foreign and economic polices are the root causes. Western countries sell arms to anyone with the money to buy them. Most are used in internal conflicts such as Sudan, Eritrea, Somalia,etc. Then there are the neo-colonial wars such as Iraq & Afghanistan. World is more and more dangerous and with climate change, World Bank projects such as dams, thousands displaced.
Many migrants choose the UK because of Language / Imperial past / family links.
Many British polices and investments abroad are responsible for forced migration. Waging war in the Middle East, exporting weapons to military regimes and supporting large infrastructure projects, such as dams, oil and gas pipelines and mines have all provoked a mass exodus of people. Dams alone, many backed by Britain cash, have displaced an estimated 80 million since the Second World War.
Climate change is now becoming an increasing cause of mass migration and will soon become the major cause if the climate change scientists' predictions are correct.
What are the main solutions to the 'problem'?
We need to end the situation where local truck stops are patrolled by gangsters, who wander the night with knives out, wearing Balaclavas and demanding ransom from any migrant wishing to pass. This also happens on the Greek, Italian and Turkish borders where the non-existence of any legal entry for asylum-seekers has produced a market of illegal transport facilities, a prospering business at the EU-borders. Border controls have produced this market while criminalising the migrants. Draconian penalties against “people trafficking” drives up transportation prices making the market more attractive to criminal elements, as well as making a secure arrival at the aimed destination impossible.
Displacing the migrant problem back to the so-called Safe Third Country such as Greece is also not a solution: In 2002 for example in Greece just eight refugees out of 22,000 who applied were given permission to stay....
We need Freedom of Movement for all, irrespective of how well-off someone is. It is truly appalling when the person in a Third World sweat shop who make the trainers or cheap clothes that you and I wear is totally unable to move around the world yet under the guise of Free Trade the items that they make and the wealth that they create through there labours is free to go where ever the money takes them.
What do you mean by Freedom Of Movement For All?
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) states:
"Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each State. Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and return to his country."
Why stop there? The Neo-Liberal doctrine of Free Trade as defended by the IMF and World Bank protects the free movement of Good and Capital but not the people that create it merely the rich First World owners of the Transnational companies and their agents in the Developing Countries. The poor people that work in Third World sweatshops that make the clothes and trainers that we in the rich West wear for a pittance, that is sold to us as designer labels to pander to our collective vanity, they have no real freedom of movement (unlike the products of their labour).
Almost all Third World countries are crippled by enormous debts to the First World, debts that continue to mount and can only be 'serviced' by following the IMF and World Bank policies of privatisation - selling of their infrastructure to First World countries which only serves to increase their indebtedness further. We only have to look at what has happened to water provision in countries like Brazil and South Africa. This is not to mention the rich picking from these countries to be gained from arms sales and the forcing of infrastructure development in the guise of International Aid.
This all comes on top of the legacies of colonialism. From the 16th Century onwards, the world has been plundered of its mineral, agricultural, human and economic wealth by the West. And this continues to this day in the guise of the Transnational Mining giants, the big Supermarket Chains, the IMF and World Bank, and not least by the so-called managed migration organised by such bodies as the International Organisation of Migration. Third World countries are plundered by the First for people with the skills like Doctors and Nurses or people with no skills but that are willing to work in the very low paid jobs that Westerns deem too lowly paid for them to do.
Surely abolishing borders will bring chaos?
There is already chaos. The EU is constantly trying to force non-EU countries to bear the burden of a problem of its own creation by externalising its borders and border controls. One only has to look at the situation on the Turkey-Greece border, the Ukraine-EU border, between Ceuta, Melitta and Southern Spain, between Lampedusa, Malta and Libya. All these problems are a direct result of the creation of Fortress Europe.
And this chaos is constantly escalation as the EU seeks ever more extreme measures to try and solve the problem: - the militarisation of its borders with the formation of Frontex (the EU agency which conducts migrant hunting operations, trains border guards and special units to hunt down people crossing borders, and helps to coordinate and standardize EU immigration surveillance and control policies. "together, the Frontex agency and the border code represent the state-of-the-art of EU co-operation on management and control of borders") and its military wing RABIT (Rapid Border Intervention Teams); the increasing use ho hi-tech military equipment such as Airborne early Warning planes and naval ships off the west Coast of Africa; paying millions of Euros (via the IOM and Frontex) to African countries to build and house internment camps to help manage the migration EU's problems.
And the chaos can only grow with increasing mass migration, migration that is largely internal to African counties at present, cause by Climate Change (which itself is a legacy of uncontrolled Western development). Fortress Europe can only really be seen as being a direct response to the increasing threat of mass migration from ecologically devastated countries towards the North where Climate Change is projected to have lesser ecological effects.
The Anarchist Question
The No Borders network adopts an explicit anti-capitalist position, seeing capitalism as at the root of social injustice and inequality. As an anti-authoritarian network, No Borders rejects all forms of domination and social control. Therefore many anarchists see common political ground with the No Borders position and are members of No Borders groups.
However, not all No Border group members are anarchists and probably the majority of people who attend No Border camps would not consider them selves to be anarchists either. In fact, that is the very idea of No Border camps, to create a forum where a wide range of often diverse groups can come together to debate migration issues and build links around commonly held ground for present and future actions and activities.
The New Colonialism
The direct exploitation of countries via colonial empires has been replaced with global capitalism, the exploitation of natural resources by transnational mining and food corporations, the forcing of mass privatisation of infrastructure by the IMF and World Bank; slavery by structural Third World debt and the creation of 'good' migrants and 'bad' migrants.
So-called 'good' migrants are those with sufficient capital/wealth as to be afforded free movement around the globe in the hope that the countries they visit and invest in will accrue capital/wealth themselves; those with the right skills to exploit - doctors and nurses (whose migration to rich Western countries often leave the health services of their countries of origin at great disadvantage) - and temporary workers who will provide labour to areas of their host countries, filing jobs that the resident population hold to be too poorly paid or 'below their dignity' to do.
The 'bad' migrants are those with no capital/wealth or skills that their potential host countries see as exploitable. They have to be kept out at all cost! Yet many are seeking to migrate as a direct result of the effects of the New Colonialism, such as mass displacement of populations by World Bank funded dam projects, as well as the traditional 4 Horsemen of the Apocalypse - war, famine, pestilence and death. Except the New Colonialism has its fingers in these pies via the arms trade and neo-colonial wars, contributing to the change from subsistence farming to monoculture cash-crops grown for Western supermarkets and consumers, global warming largely caused by the developed West, and all of the above...
Additional points to get across:
Juxtaposed controls - effectively shift border controls from England to France and make it even harder for people in need of protection to reach sanctuary in the UK and may force them to: - accept a lower standard of protection - remain separated from families and communities, - find other routes to the UK, at greater risk to themselves or others.
Juxtaposed controls are a blunt sword that effectively lumps all migrants together in an attempt to reduce so-called 'illegal' immigration to the UK, yet it has serious long-term implications for the international protection regime.
Asylum seekers are grouped together with 'clandestine entrants', 'inadmissible travellers', and 'illegal immigrants', without any acknowledgement of the difficulties that a person fleeing persecution may have in obtaining a passport or visas nor of the right of refugees, under the 1951 refugee convention not to be penalised for entering a country of asylum illegally.
Allows Immigration officers to make full immigration decisions on passengers – can refuse entry to UK of people they suspect will make asylum application
The target of these juxtaposed controls is not 'clandestines', but people travelling quite openly in full view of the authorities. Nor is the aim to single out people who have been accused of exploiting the asylum system, people whose subsequent asylum claims prove to be unfounded. All asylum seekers are targeted, including those who need protection and who have ties to the UK.
Juxtaposed Controls are simply a method to appear to be dealing with ‘asylum overload’ – prevent arrivals (irrespective of their need for protection or ties to the UK) so don’t need to increase removals! This has been admitted by James Munro, Assistant Director of the Immigration Service in evidence to the High Court [Statement by James Munro in European Roma Rights Centre Vs Immigration Officer at Prague Airport and the SSHD, 8/10/02].
In short, Juxtaposed Controls have the effect of:
Displacing refugees
Forcing refugees to take dangerous risks
Reliance on smugglers & traffickers
Threatening the refugee protection system and breaching international law
Forcing refugees to seek asylum in countries with inadequate protection
Shifting responsibility for refugees onto poor countries.
Natacha Bouchard (Calais mayor) is pressing for UK to sign up to Schnegen. French authorities moan about £12m spent each year on securing the port. But even if UK signed up it wouldn’t be an open border and under Eurodac, Safe Third Country, etc. would still deny the asylum seekers right to ask for protection.
Migrants in Calais relatively small in number but highly visible - As the UK remains outside Schengen and there are limited routes across the Channel, those heading for the UK are held up in northern France. These represent only a small minority of Europe's asylum seekers, but they are rendered highly visible by the UK's particular geographical and political situation and attract disproportionate media and political attention.
According to French NGOs, delays in access to French asylum procedures can result in asylum seekers being left destitute for ten months or more; a shortfall of 15,000 accommodation places mean that many asylum seekers remain homeless; financial support for those living independently is capped at a maximum of one year, although the asylum procedure often takes much longer. It should be noted that, nevertheless, when France's 30,000 applications for "territorial asylum" are taken into account, the number of asylum applications France receives is comparable to the UK.
Fortress Europe - Since 1988 more than 13,000 people have died along EU external borders trying to get into Europe.
Seem to want to use the Mediterranean as a moat just like a medieval castle.
So-called People traffickers are usually criminal gangs, with migrants paying protection money not paying to cross the Channel. Often using extortion by demanding payment to stop preventing journeys rather than facilitating them.