RIGHTS-SPAIN: NGOs Rebel Against Immigration Policy

By Tito Drago Reprint | | Print |

Tito Drago

MADRID, Nov 23 2001 (IPS) - A majority of Spain’s non-governmental organisations (NGOs) are opposed to the immigration policy of the centre-right government of José María Aznar, and have joined together in plans to create an “Alternative Forum” to mobilise public opinion against the tightening of controls on immigration.

Parliament, where the governing Popular Party (PP) commands a majority, approved a new Immigration Law last December making it more difficult to immigrate and settle in Spain.

Last year, the number of undocumented immigrants entering Spain was double the 1999 total, while nearly 140,000 foreign nationals regularised their residency status in this country of 40 million, and another 27,750 were deported.

To quell criticism of the law formulated by the leftist opposition, the trade unions and NGOs, the Aznar administration set up an “Immigration Forum”, comprised of representatives of the public administration, immigrant organisations, and social groups like trade unions and business associations.

But if the opposition and social organisations might have been expected to raise objections, statements by Manuel Pimentel, who served as labour minister in Aznar’s first term (1996-2000) but turned down the post in the current legislature, took some by surprise.

“We set borders in front of developing countries, we set borders in front of their products with our (import) tariffs, and we create difficulties to take advantage of their raw materials. Thus we are creating a dynamic by which the rich become richer and the poor become poorer,” said Pimentel shortly before passage of the Immigration Law.

Opposition to the law even led to the absence of one of the key figures, Nobel Literature Prize-winner Gabriel García Márquez, at the Second International Congress of the Spanish Language, held in October in the Spanish city of Valladolid.

García Márquez and his fellow Colombian authors Alvaro Mutis, Fernando Vallejo, William Ospina, Darío Jaramillo and Héctor Abad, as well as prominent artist Fernando Botero, sent a letter to Aznar explaining why they refused to visit Spain.

“With the dignity that we learned from Spain, we will not return to that country as long as we are submitted to the humiliation of having to present a permit to be able to visit what we have never seen as foreign,” the renowned cultural figures wrote.

The writers and artists were referring to the entry visa that the new law demands of people from countries whose citizens were previously free to enter Spain without a visa, and to the requirements set for those wishing to settle here, who must arrive in Spain with a visa as well as a previously arranged work contract.

The discrepancies expressed in the Immigration Forum led the government to modify its composition. Although a number of NGOs are still represented, other respected social groups were eliminated, triggering complaints of discrimination.

Among the civil society organisations that the government allowed to remain in the Forum are the Red Cross, Caritas and the Catholic Association on Migration.

But one of the NGOs left out of the Forum was the Movement for Peace, Disarmament and Freedom (MPDL), headed by Paquita Sauquillo, a Spanish Socialist Workers Party (PSOE) deputy in the European Parliament.

Two years ago, Sauquillo was awarded the European Woman prize from the Union of Women for Europe in recognition of her contribution to peace and reconstruction efforts in countries of the South and the Balkan region.

Esteban Tomás Navarro, the MPDL’s head of immigration issues, told IPS that criticism of official policy is not tolerated in the Immigration Forum. “The PP refuses to budge in its position, and does not even tolerate us expressing our views,” he said.

As an illustration of what he described as discrimination, Navarro pointed to the absence of Ecuadorian immigrant groups in the official Forum.

Their absence is inconceivable, said the activist, given that a majority of the immigrants who have arrived in Spain in the past few years have come from Ecuador, responding to a demand for unskilled labour in agriculture, construction and domestic service.

Also left outside the Forum were other influential groups that have now joined the movement to create an Alternative Forum, like the Spanish Commission of Aid to Refugees (CEAR), the Federation of Progressive Women and SOS Racism.

Navarro said he expected the Alternative Forum to come into being in early January. “We have a lot to do, in a coordinated manner, to ensure that Spain does not become a country of closed doors to immigrants,” he underlined.

The new president of the official Forum, Mikel Azurmendi, who was designated this month, said the NGOs have not done much for immigrants, because they have focused mainly on helping them get their documents in order, to legalise their residency status.

In Azurmendi’s view, the NGOs should work on the ground, in the communities, helping “to convert immigrants into citizens” with respect to social and labour insertion.

Navarro, however, said most of the NGOs do work in local communities, both in and outside Spain. But that is not an alternative to their voices being heard and taken into consideration by the government, he added.

“The Aznar government must understand that pluralism is an essential part of democracy, and that it cannot demand that everyone always respond ‘yes’ to everything,” said the activist.