By Guadi Calvo / Source Resumen Latinoamericano / The Dawn News / March 3, 2016. In September last year, the EU acknowledged that their actions in Africa and the Middle East have not achieved the results they and the US had expected. The Arab Spring, that “wonderful” initiative that was supposed to bring “democracy” and “freedom”, only caused deaths and piled up several millions of refugees on the European borders.
From there on, the 28 members of the EU have held four councils and several extraordinary summits on the burning immigration issue; from all that, only one winner emerged —Turkey, who has become the great blackmailer in this tragic game.
Formally, everything concluded with declarations of love, grandiose promises and other equally believable displays, but the real issue keeps getting worse.
The conditions under which hundreds of thousands of refugees are living in Europe are shameful for humanity and make clear that the discourse that Europe depicts as a modern and democratic society is only that: a mediatic construction, a great lie.
The meetings, the handshakes, the smiles, the grave expressions and the thousands of millions of Euro that Turkey received to become a controller of the border, have failed, and now Europe’s own unity has begun to shake. Even though it still resists, 10 thousand people have gone missing since 2014, most of them were children.
The attempts of Chancellor Angela Merkel to distribute the refugees with teuton reasonableness are in the past. The economic crisis of Europe is now too serious for any politician to risk their career by acting with responsibility; let’s forget about the obsolescence of fraternity, a word that some should begin to erase from their national banners.
The number of refugees that crowd the Greek- Macedonian border has doubled, and this also increases their anguish and desperations.
The closing of the Macedonian border is only one more of the myriad of cases that are convulsing the continent. That barricade means that 70 thousand refugees will remain stranded in Greece, with no promise for the future but waiting.
Greece, as we all know, has no material means to solve their own population, let alone anyone else’s.
What will be of the lives of these 70 thousand souls that are waning in camps such as the ones in Idomeni, where there are around 12,000 refugees, 2,500 of them children, who not only Syrian, but also Iraqi, Afghan, Pakistani and even Africans?
The tank is being filled beyond its capacity, Europe is blocking all escape valves, and the contents are flammable.
Last Monday, February 29, there was a display of what can occur when a group of refugees tore down a sector of the border fence between Greece and Macedonia, to which the police responded with tear gas and stun grenades.
In Athens, welcome centers are overcrowded, as are the surrounding areas of the Piraeus airport, where many of the newcomers remain in one of the two shuttles to transport refugees that arrive in islands such as Lesbos, which is the destination of refugees that flee from Turkey.
The Greek government has asked the municipalities to open temporary refugee centers to overcome the emergency that, according to estimates, will worsen in the coming weeks, as the weather starts to improve.
The road has two ends
In the north of France, close to the Euro-tunnel that connects the French region of Calais with Folkestone, in England, authorities created another bottleneck.
Near Calais, refugees that wanted to cross the channel started to form camps. These camps were built precariously, with very few resources, and the site grew so big that it was baptized “The Jungle”. England would not take refugees, and France let the situation develop, waiting for David Cameron to change his mind.
But in recent weeks, François Hollande discovered that the English are not very keen on changing traditions and decided to put an end to the refugees’ wait with bulldozers, to somehow disseminate them throughout the region so that they wouldn’t be so visible.
France violently dismantled the tents, with demolitions and fires, and it caused resistance. According to sources, between 7 and 10 thousand refugees lived here, and many of them have gone missing, presumably running from authorities, that don’t have anything good planned out for them.
The crisis not only has uncovered the pettiness of European governments and the selfishness of their policies, which mocks everything they claim to defend since World War II (with the exception of the cases of Indochina, Algeria, the Middle East and Malvinas, among other minutia).
The refugee crisis has also given a great opportunity to neonazis like the Hungarian Prime Minister, Viktor Orban, and hundreds of parties and small far-right organizations in the continent to stir up the moods and promote openly racist actions. It is clear that they are not only a small group of fanatics, but a considerable number.
Until now, the EU has only had one plan: to pay Erdogan, owner of Turkey, to somehow stop the refugees inside his territory. Indeed: “somehow”. In the latest extortive Europe fell again in Turkey’s trap and instead of paying 1,500 for the agreement, it will have to pay 6,000.
Furthermore, there is open talk about deportation of the refugees to Turkey, which already has 3 million in its territory, but oh well, Erdogan can do what he knows to do best: swept the problem under the rug, or underground, which is almost the same.
