EUROPE: Five Nations Begin Sea Patrols to Stem Immigration

By Tito Drago Reprint | | Print |

Tito Drago

MADRID, Jan 28 2003 (IPS) - Five European nations initiated sea patrols with armed vessels in the Mediterranean Tuesday to keep undocumented immigrants from entering the European Union (EU), amidst criticism from activists who protest that the operation is a violation of human rights.

A total of seven vessels from Spain’s Civil Guard – a militarised police force – and from France, Britain, Portugal and Italy began to take part in Operation Ulysses, described as the first EU-wide initiative aimed at stemming the inflow of undocumented immigrants.

”This action violates human rights, because the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the United Nations establishes freedom of movement as one of those rights,” Francisco José Alonso Rodríguez, president of the Spanish League of Human Rights, told IPS.

Parliamentary Deputy Consuelo Rumi, in charge of immigration affairs in the opposition Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE), commented to IPS that the sea patrols were the ”embryo” of a pan- European border police force, the creation of which is supported by her party.

She added, however, that it is a mistake to believe that illegal immigration flows can be effectively checked by sea patrols.

What is needed, Rumi argued, is ”to work in the immigrants’ countries of origin with a policy of real development aid and cooperation, in order to prevent hunger and desperation from driving people to leave their home countries.”

According to Zorha Elguenuri, the president of the Association of Moroccan Immigrant Women, the inflow of people must be regulated in such a way as to allow those wishing to come to Europe to do so.

In response to IPS’ question whether there is space in Europe for many more immigrants, she said that ”each person finds their place, and the universal right to free circulation must be respected.”

The head of the Federation of Defence and Promotion of Human Rights, José Antonio Gimbernat, said the operation launched Tuesday amounts to an attempt to ”fence off the countryside” without addressing the roots of the problem.

Gimbernat remarked to IPS that those responsible for the new patrols believe in ”fortress Europe” – the possibility that this region can remain an island of high living standards surrounded by countries suffering ”epidemics of hunger and underdevelopment,” which he said was simply not possible.

He added that in order to attack the underlying causes, what is needed is an effective freeing up of trade to allow imports of merchandise from those countries, as well as ”real” development aid. But while the countries are developing, he added, the right to immigration must be respected.

The start of Operation Ulysses, a pilot project, was announced by Spain’s Interior Minister Angel Acebes in Palma de Mallorca, the capital of the Balearic Islands, located off the eastern coast of Spain in the Mediterranean.

An Interior Ministry spokesman said the sea patrols are aimed at ”combatting illegal immigration and the mafias that traffick human beings.” In addition, he said, the vessels will provide humanitarian aid in case of shipwrecks.

Spain is one of the gateways used by thousands of undocumented immigrants from North and sub-Saharan Africa, East Europe and Asia to enter the EU every year, and hundreds drown annually in the attempt to cross the Strait of Gibraltar, often in precarious watercraft.

The operation’s command post will be based in Algeciras, a southern Spanish port city on the Strait of Gibraltar.

Greece, Norway, the Netherlands, Germany, Poland and Austria are also participating as observers, and on Feb 8, the patrols will extend to the Atlantic ocean, around Spain’s Canary Islands, located off the northwest coast of Africa.

Acebes said the participating watercraft will create a ”rectangular filter” six nautical miles in width, with a length measured in multiples of 12 miles according to the number of ships.

He said any boat attempting to pass through that filter would be detected, since the radars of the ships taking part in the patrols have a 12-mile range.

The initiative began to be planned in the first half of 2002, when Spain held the EU rotating presidency, and the bloc began to decisively promote cooperation in the areas of justice and the interior between the 15 member nations, and to move towards the creation of a common European Union border guard.

Spain designed and presented Operation Ulysses to the Strategic Committee on Borders, Immigration and Asylum. It was approved in September, and the rest of the EU countries joined the project, either as participants or observers.