“Tanks to Saudi-Arabia?” Angry protesters outside the Swiss parliament after it took the decision to ease arms exports regulation. Credit: Ray Smith/IPS.

By Ray Smith
BERN, Switzerland, Mar 13 2014 (IPS)

Switzerland has eased its restrictions on arms exports – in order to save a few thousand workplaces. Critics fear that Switzerland’s credibility as an international peace broker will now suffer.

Switzerland’s army doesn’t go to war – but its military equipment does. In 2011, Saudi Arabia used Swiss Piranha tanks to crack down on protests in Bahrain. Libyan rebels used Swiss ammunition against Muammar Gaddafi’s troops, and Syrian rebels have been throwing Swiss hand grenades against President Bashar Assad’s soldiers.

Only a few weeks ago, videos circulating on the internet offered proof that Swiss sniper rifles where used against civilians on Kiev’s Maidan square. Many died in brutal police action."Swiss assault rifles were exported to Ukraine and have now been used against civilians.”

Switzerland, a neutral country at the heart of Europe known for an active promotion of a peace policy in diplomatic forums, is in fact the world’s fifth-largest producer of small arms. It ranks eighth in arms exports per capita, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Sipri).

Last year, 34 percent of exported military equipment consisted of ammunition. Other major exports were fire control systems, weapons and armoured military vehicles. In all 73 percent of military exports went to European countries.

But in 2013, Swiss arms exports dropped from 700 to 461 million Swiss Francs (524 million dollars). The country’s three-biggest arms producers, General Dynamics European Land Systems – Mowag, RUAG, and Rheinmetall Air Defence sacked 415 employees.

The lobby of the 70 Swiss arms producers called for the government to act. It demanded the lifting of export restrictions.

Judging whether or not the Swiss arms industry is on decline depends on how one reads the statistics. Ten years ago, these companies exported less than in 2013 and long-term statistics show that the high export values 2008-2012 were exceptional.

Further, arms exports statistics do not include “special military goods”, a category designed for dual use goods. Under this category, Swiss companies last year additionally exported military material worth 405 million Swiss Francs (461 million dollars).

Dismissing the alarming rhetoric of cuts and a crisis by the arms lobby, the Swiss Peace Foundation (SPF) says the sector is  “ridiculously insignificant”, as it accounts only for 0.33 percent of Swiss exports, and employs less than 10,000 people.

SPF director Heinz Krummenacher told IPS the Swiss arms industry should be dissolved totally or at least produced only for the domestic market.

The Swiss government had tightened export restrictions in 2008. A year later Swiss voters turned down an initiative by the pacifist Group for Switzerland without an Army (GSoA) for a ban of Swiss arms exports. On Mar. 6, the Swiss parliament narrowly gave in to the demands of the arms lobby, and eased arms exports regulation drastically.

Under the former regulation, arms exports to countries known for systematic and grave human rights violations were forbidden. Also, arms exports to countries engaged in an internal or international, armed conflict were not permitted. The new clause will be more elastic.

Now, permits will be denied if there is “a high risk” in the receiving state that the military equipment will be used for serious human rights abuses, if the country is “illegally” engaged in an international, armed conflict or if an internal, armed conflict prevails. The “high risk” provision especially leaves room for manoeuvre.

The State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) assesses risks of human rights abuses in potential receiving states and issues export permits. Alain Bovard, arms expert at Amnesty International Switzerland is sceptical about these investigations.

“Over the past few years, we’ve seen how little they help. Despite thorough investigations, Swiss assault rifles were exported to Ukraine and have now been used against civilians.”

In the end, it’s all about how specific criteria are checked and assessed. “The human rights criteria hasn’t always been carefully evaluated,” Bovard says.

Switzerland has been using post-shipment verification clauses to make sure that delivered military equipment isn’t re-exported by the receiving states. In practice, these clauses have often been ineffective.

Boxes full of Swiss hand grenades, which were found last year in the Syrian civil war, were originally purchased by the United Arab Emirates. In 2011, Swiss ammunition was detected in the hands of Libyan rebels that was originally delivered to Qatar. Both countries signed a non-re-export clause.

“It’s illusive to believe that Swiss authorities are able to control whether exported Swiss weapons and ammunition are used for human rights abuses,” Stefan Dietiker, secretary general of GSoA, tells IPS. “Once they’ve left our country, they’re gone, no matter how many clauses the purchasers sign and how many promises they make.”

Besides the material consequences of the Swiss parliament’s decision to ease its arms exports regulation, critics stress its symbolic effect. “The decision contradicts Switzerland’s foreign policy goals which prioritise protection of human rights,” says Amnesty International’s Bovard.

He points to Switzerland’s important role in negotiating and pushing the international Arms Trade Treaty (ATT). ATT is a landmark effort to regulate the global arms trade, which more than 100 states signed in 2013. The treaty currently awaits ratification. Switzerland has offered to host the ATT secretariat.

“Switzerland loses credibility,” says Alain Bovard. Switzerland, he says, must have stricter arms exports regulation than ATT’s minimum standards demand.

He also worries about the country’s reputation. “Having close arms trade ties with countries like Saudi Arabia, which systematically violates human rights, damages Switzerland’s image.”

Economic Minister Johann Schneider-Ammann insisted through the parliamentary debate that Switzerland would continue to keep up its humanitarian tradition – while not neglecting its security interests. “It’s not about surrendering the protection of human rights for the sake of preserving work places,” he stressed.

Critics like Stefan Dietiker say Switzerland has to make up its mind. “Ultimately, we have to decide whether we want to deliver weapons or protect human rights.”

Swiss voters have approved an initiative by the right-wing Swiss People’s Party (SVP) aimed at limiting immigration. The result not only threatens the free movement of people, but all agreements between Switzerland and the European Union.

The voting results have been a shock for open-minded Swiss citizens, foreigners living in the country and the whole European audience.“Those who have voted for the SVP initiative regard migrants not as human beings, but as pure workforce."

In all 50.3 percent of the Swiss voted in favour of the SVP’s “initiative against mass immigration”, which demanded the introduction of quantitative limits and quotas for foreigners and a renegotiation of the “Agreement on the free movement of people” with the EU. The Swiss government now faces the difficult task of introducing the new constitutional measures at the legislative level.

Several foreign ministers of EU member states, and the European Commission (EC), the executive arm of the EU, have regretted the Swiss decision. In its initial statement, the EC wrote that the introduction of quantitative limits to immigration “goes against the principle of free movement of persons” and that the EC intends to “examine the implications on this initiative on EU-Swiss relations as a whole.”

Martin Schultz, president of the European Parliament, said that as long as the Swiss government didn’t suspend its bilateral agreements with the EU, they would remain valid, signalling that the EU for now will not terminate either the agreement on the free movement of people or any of the other accords.

However, Schultz stated that it would be “difficult to limit the free movement of citizens and not limit the free movement of services, for example.” He made it clear that if Switzerland is no longer able to fulfil the conditions of the agreement, all other bilateral agreements were at risk.

Currently, about 430,000 Swiss citizens live in the EU, while more than a million EU citizens call Switzerland their home, and another 230,000 commute to their Swiss workplaces daily. Major sectors of the Swiss economy such as construction, the hotel and restaurant industry, and health services depend on foreign workers.

There’s been strong resistance in Switzerland to joining the EU. However, the two entities are bound by at least a hundred bilateral agreements. As regards trade in goods and services, Switzerland is the EU’s third-largest economic partner, while 57 percent of Swiss exports in goods go to EU member states and 78 percent of its imports come from there.

For Andreas Kellerhals, Director of the Europe Institute at the University of Zurich (EIZ), the EU’s reaction to the Swiss vote isn’t just a strategic threat.

“In the eyes of the EU, the Agreement on the free movement of people isn’t negotiable, as freedom of movement is one of its four basic pillars,” Kellerhals told IPS. He points out that in 1999, the EU only agreed to the bilateral path because the Swiss gave in to an accord on the free movement of people.

The Federal Council is now exploring ways to put its relationship with the EU on a new footing, as it hardly sees how immigration quotas could be compatible with the principle of free movement of people.

“Legally, that isn’t possible,” Kellerhals agrees. “Technically, Switzerland could set the quotas high enough so they couldn’t be exceeded; however I don’t think the EU will accept that.”

Further, that strategy would jar with the SVP initiative and allow the right-wing party to further criticise and pressure the Swiss government. No matter how the Federal Council negotiates with the EU, it can only lose.

For foreigners living and working in Switzerland, the vote was a disaster. Or, as Rita Schiavi, member of the executive board of the largest Swiss trade union Unia puts it: “A slap in the face of nearly two million migrants, who have a huge hand in making Switzerland as prosperous at it is.” Schiavi told IPS that migrants are frustrated and alienated.

In concrete, the SVP demands a return to the so-called Saisonnierstatut, a regulation for seasonal workers that had been in place for seven decades. It means that migrant workers wouldn’t be allowed to bring with them their families, that they would depend on their employers, and would risk losing their stay permits in case of unemployment.

“Those who have voted for the SVP initiative regard migrants not as human beings, but as pure workforce,” said Schiavi.

Returning to some kind of Saisonnierstatut wouldn’t just harm affected migrants, but the Swiss economy as a whole. Swiss companies have a strong desire for skilled foreign personnel, who in the future may find Switzerland less attractive than before, despite higher wages.

Switzerland’s economic lobby has long fought the initiative against immigration, as a return to quotas and contingents would complicate their business and reduce planning reliability. “Multinational companies may relocate or strengthen their branches abroad which could threaten the jobs of Swiss employees, too,” said Schiavi.

In Schiavi’s opinion, urgent political action is now required to deal with those worries and fears that had motivated voters to approve the SVP initiative. It’s measures that trade unions have demanded for many years: “We need to reduce wage dumping, improve job protection, introduce measures in the housing sector and set a national minimum wage,” said Schiavi.

For the moment, half of the Swiss population is licking their wounds, while the other half led by the SVP triumphs. Nevertheless, the right-wing effort to regain control over immigration and the Swiss-EU relations may lead to the opposite: to a massive loss in sovereignty. Soon the Swiss delegation travelling to Brussels may have no option but to hope for the EU’s goodwill.

A ruling by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in relation to a Turkish national has kicked up a new row on anti-racism legislation.

The court ruled in December that Switzerland violated the right to freedom of speech of the Turkish national Doğu Perinçek by convicting him for calling the idea of an Armenian genocide an “international lie”.

In 2007, a court in the Swiss Canton of Vaud had found Perinçek guilty of racial discrimination as defined by Section 261 of the Swiss Criminal Code, ruling that the Armenian genocide was a proven historical fact. Already in 2003, the Swiss National Council had acknowledged the Armenian genocide.Until today, diverging interpretations of what happened in Armenia during and after the First World War strain bilateral relations.

Perinçek subsequently appealed in Switzerland’s Federal Court, which dismissed his claims. After that, Perinçek took his case to the ECHR in Strasbourg.

In its ruling, the ECHR found that Perinçek’s conviction by the Swiss court was wrong, as it violated Article 10 of the European Convention of Human Rights on freedom of expression. The court argued that Perinçek had never questioned the massacres and deportations perpetrated by the Ottoman Empire during the First World War, but had denied their characterisation as “genocide”. He didn’t mean to incite hatred against the Armenian people, the ECHR pointed out.

In fact, Perinçek’s view corresponds with Turkey’s official stance that is widely shared by the Turkish public, all main political parties as well as the state-run Historical Society. Turkey’s Foreign Ministry called the ECHR decision “a victory for the rule of law.”

Schools and universities in Turkey teach that the killings of Armenians were neither deliberate, nor orchestrated by the Ottoman leadership in Istanbul. Further, Turkish historians doubt that up to 1.5 million Armenians had died, as many Western scholars claim.

However, Turkish estimates vary, starting around 10,000 Armenian casualties. Turkish historians argue that most of the death occurred due to illness and malnutrition.

Beyond Turkey’s eastern border, lobbying for worldwide genocide recognition is a fundamental part of Armenia’s foreign policy. Until today, diverging interpretations of what happened in Armenia during and after the First World War strain bilateral relations.

The ECHR highlighted that it wasn’t called upon to address either the veracity of the massacres and deportations perpetrated against the Armenian people or the appropriateness of legally characterising those acts as “genocide”. It doubted that there could be a consensus on the issue.

The Switzerland-Armenia Association (SAA) said it was “deeply disappointed and appalled by the ECHR verdict.”

Dominique de Buman, Swiss national councillor and co-president of the SAA told IPS: “The ECHR ruling isn’t just a setback for human dignity, but also contradicts a European Council Framework Decision that ordered member states to ensure that publicly condoning, denying or grossly trivialising crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes were penalised.”

Such framework decisions do not pose a legal basis for the ECHR, however. De Buman also referred to the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. “Don’t forget that the convention was adopted in reaction to the Holocaust as well as the Armenian genocide,” he told IPS.

The ECHR ruling has sparked a debate in Switzerland on whether or not the government should appeal the decision and if and how Swiss anti-racism legislation may be amended.

Councillor De Buman told IPS he was optimistic that an appeal could lead to a further examination of the case, as the ECHR ruling wasn’t unanimous: “Two of the seven judges had expressed a joint concurring opinion. They stated that there existed an international consensus regarding the characterisation of the massacres against the Armenian people.”

Judges András Sajó and Guido Raimondi would welcome a Swiss appeal to the Grand Chamber, as so far the court has never taken a view on the massacres and deportations of the Armenians. “It’s our symbolic and moral obligation to define and qualify these events,” they wrote. Switzerland’s Federal Office of Justice hasn’t yet taken a decision in that regard.

The ECHR ruling plays into the hands of right-wing groups such as the Swiss People’s Party (SVP) who have repeatedly tried to knock down the country’s anti-racism legislation. Consequently, the party’s long-time leader Christoph Blocher demanded a change of the criminal code. Legally, the ECHR ruling doesn’t force Switzerland to amendments.

Silvia Bär, the SVP’s secretary general, told IPS that the party is preparing a parliamentary request to specify or even abolish Swiss anti-racism legislation. “We reject racism. However, the current application of the legislation is getting increasingly absurd and incorrectly limits the right to freedom of expression.”

According to Bär, the anti-racism legislation is being misused to discipline and sanction unwelcome opinions. In addition, the SVP demands that Switzerland resigns from the International Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination and that it dissolves the Federal Commission against Racism (EKR).

Martine Brunschwig Graf, National Councillor for the Liberals and President of the EKR has doubts about these intentions. “The ECHR ruling is complex and doesn’t put the Swiss anti-racism paragraph in question,” she told IPS. From 1995 to 2012, Swiss courts have sentenced accused persons in 310 cases under that paragraph.

Brunschwig Graf calls the legislation an indispensable instrument: “The fight against racism requires prevention at all levels, but also repression if certain limits are surpassed.”

Among the other parties, the Swiss anti-racism legislation enjoys broad support. Hansjörg Fehr of the Social Democrats told the Swiss national radio that if the criminal code was to be changed, then “we need a passage that explicitly punishes the denial of the Armenian genocide.”

The debate is expected to ignite at the next parliamentary session in March.

Ziad Ali and his family in their ‘home’ in Switzerland. Credit: Ray Smith/IPS.

By Ray Smith
LUCERNE, Switzerland , Jan 25 2014 (IPS)

Switzerland facilitated family reunification for Syrians in September. So far, more than 1,100 Syrian refugees have benefited from the programme, while thousands are waiting at Swiss embassies in the region, hoping for a similar chance. Surprised by these numbers, Switzerland put an end to the programme.

Several European countries responded to an appeal by the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees  (UNHCR) last summer to admit Syrian refugees. Switzerland announced it would accept 500 “especially vulnerable refugees” over three years.Either Swiss authorities were surprised by these numbers, or considered their humanitarian action short-lived.

Further, the country that hosts about 2,000 citizens of Syrian origin pledged to open its borders for their relatives. By the end of November, Swiss embassies in Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan had granted 1,600 Syrians a three-month entry visa.

At least 1,100 of these have already travelled to Switzerland. A further 5,000 Syrians have applied for appointments at Swiss embassies to file similar visa requests.

Either Swiss authorities were surprised by these numbers, or considered their humanitarian action short-lived. Already in early November, they introduced bureaucratic hurdles: Swiss-based Syrians who had invited their relatives now needed to meet certain financial requirements.

“Looking at the size of an average Syrian family, these requirements constitute a killer criteria,” said Beat Meiner, secretary-general of the Swiss Refugee Council (SFH). “Few of the Swiss-based Syrians have enough money to clear these hurdles.”

Meiner’s warnings fell on deaf ears. Even worse, a month later Swiss Justice Minister Simonetta Sommaruga cancelled the family reunification programme entirely. “We assume that most of those Syrians who are entitled to apply for entry visas and face immediate distress have made use of our eased visa requirements,” she argued.

Ashti Amir, a Kurdish Syrian who fled to Switzerland for political reasons more than a decade ago and now runs the charity SyriAid, has a different perspective. Since September, he managed to get the families of one of his brothers and sisters to Switzerland. Amir told IPS that he still had two brothers and his parents back home in Aleppo and wanted to get them to Switzerland, too.

“Escaping from there and travelling to an embassy abroad is not only difficult, but very costly,” he said. Amir knows dozens of other compatriots who have relatives in danger in Syria whom they want to rescue.

Another sister of his as well as a sister-in-law are stranded in Istanbul with their families, waiting for an entry visa to Switzerland. They had applied for an appointment before Switzerland cancelled its reunification programme, and Amir is optimistic that they’ll finally be granted a visa.

“But if not: where should they go? Their long stay in Turkey has eaten up their savings.”

SFH’s Beat Meiner says that many Syrians have embarked on a dangerous trip to Swiss embassies in the Middle East, assuming they can successfully apply for an entry visa there. “Some of them are blocked now: they may neither come to Switzerland, nor return to Syria,” he says.

He’s convinced that Swiss humanitarian action could have been prolonged and that considerably more human lives could have been saved.

Besides that, Switzerland also hesitates to treat about 2,000 asylum requests by Syrians who had fled to the country individually rather than as families. Some of them have been waiting three to four years for a decision.

IPS met Ziad Ali and his family in central Switzerland. Originally from Malikiyah in the northeast of Syria, Ali moved to Damascus as a youth, where he earned his living as a taxi driver. “As a Kurd in Syria, you took any job you may get anywhere,” he says.

Before he fled the country, Ali worked in Idlib region as a gardener. He was arrested at a demonstration in Qamishli and then tortured in a prison in Deir az-Zour in Syria.

After his release, escaping the country appeared to him the only option. His wife and their two children reached Switzerland in June 2011, while Ali followed in January 2012.

Ali says the fate of his sister and his father, who were arrested by the Syrian regime in 2011, is constantly on his mind. He hasn’t heard from them since then.

His daughter Fatima and his son Mohamed go to school locally and already speak better German than Kurdish. A year ago, their youngest brother Azad was born. The family lives in a barracks established for asylum-seekers, occupying three rooms.

Their asylum request is still in limbo, leaving the family in constant insecurity about their destiny.

Moreno Casasola, secretary-general of the refugee rights organisation Solidarité sans Frontières, says that asylum requests of Syrians are mostly put aside by the Federal Office for Migration. Like any other European country, Switzerland fears that answering asylum requests positively would attract even more Syrian refugees.

Federal Office for Migration spokesperson Michael Glauser acknowledges that asylum requests of Syrians aren’t treated with priority. He denies, however, any decision moratorium. Glauser asserts that Syrian asylum-seekers enjoy Switzerland’s protection – and for the moment haven’t been sent back to Syria.

Ziad Ali and his family, along with other Syrian asylum-seekers, have protested in front of the Federal Office for Migration in Bern, demanding a speedy decision on their request. Getting at least temporary official admission would give them a perspective for the next few years and facilitate hunting for a job.

Despite his desperation, Ziad Ali hopes for a positive outcome. He says he wouldn’t mind returning to Syria once the war has ended, if Kurds were treated fairly. “But the longer my children live here, the more difficult it would be for them to return.”

Liana Foxvog (left) and Kalpona Akter (right) plan to take the anti-award to Gap's headquarters in San Francisco Credit: Ray Smith/IPS.

By Ray Smith
DAVOS, Switzerland, Jan 24 2014 (IPS)

As self-appointed global leaders gather at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos and discuss ‘The Reshaping of the World’, a stone’s throw away non-governmental organisations named this year’s winners for their dreaded Public Eye Awards.

The jury chose the American textile giant Gap, while 95,000 online voters honoured the Russian energy company Gazprom.“Davos is the global showcase for symbolic policy where arsonists dress up as firemen for a few days.”

“Sadly, there’s still a need for campaigns like ours that demand corporate accountability,” Silvie Lang said on behalf of the organisers, the Berne Declaration (BD), a Swiss NGO working for equitable North-South relations, and Greenpeace Switzerland.

“We are here to remind the corporate world and those hiding behind closed doors in Davos that the social and environmental consequences of their business activities affect not only people and the environment, but also the reputation of their company.”

Participating in the WEF is no option for the BD. “This kind of inclusion is far less effective than fundamental critique from outside,” its spokesperson Oliver Classen told IPS. “Davos is the global showcase for symbolic policy where arsonists dress up as firemen for a few days.”

This year, international NGOs proposed 15 nominees for the two shame awards, ranging from Glencore Xstrata and BASF as representatives of the extractive industry to pesticide producers and the U.S. garment company Gap. The latter was eventually chosen for the jury award.

On behalf of the jury, Greenpeace International executive director Kumi Naidoo said: “We shame Gap for its monstrous and disingenuous business practices consisting of hindering legally-binding agreements to substantially ameliorate working conditions.”

Gap declined to show up and receive the award. Instead, Kalpona Akter of the Bangladesh Centre for Worker Solidarity and Liana Foxvog of the International Labour Rights Forum (ILRF) collected the prize.

Akter, a relentless grassroots activist, is herself a former child garment worker. “I sewed clothing for multinational corporations and made less than 10 dollars a month for 450 hours of work,” she said. Today, the minimum wage in Bangladesh is 68 dollars a month. “Due to inflation, it’s not much more than I used to earn,” Akter said.

Her main concern isn’t the low wages, however. “When workers speak up with concern about safety risks, they aren’t listened to.”

Three years ago, 29 workers were killed in a fire at one of Gap’s Bangladeshi supplier factories. After that, labour groups and unions negotiated with Gap to put an end to the constantly climbing death toll in the garment industry.

In all 1,129 Bangladeshi workers died in a deadly fire in a garments factory last year.

In a press statement, Gap stressed that it is a founding member of the Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety: “The Alliance is a serious and transparent, binding commitment on the part of its members to make urgent improvements to worker safety in Bangladesh.”

For Foxvog, the Alliance is “hardly more than a facelift.” She vowed to take the award directly to the Gap headquarters in San Francisco.

“We don’t want the companies to leave our country,” Akter said. “We want jobs, but they must be jobs with dignity. Global corporations must stop profiting off this low-road system.”

A third of the 280,000 people taking part in the online voting chose the energy giant Gazprom for the people’s award. That was not surprising, as the company had been in the spotlight for the past few months.

In September, Russian security forces arrested 28 Greenpeace activists and two journalists during a protest against oil drilling at their offshore platform Prirazlomnaya. In December, Gazprom became the first company that started to drill oil in the Arctic.

According to Greenpeace, Prirazlomnaya is far from some ultra-modern drilling unit. The absence of a publicly available and convincing response plan for any oil spill in one of the world’s most extreme environments worries activists deeply.

Greenpeace argues that Gazprom’s reliance on traditional clean-up methods would simply not work under icy conditions.

IPS requested Gazprom to comment on receiving the anti-award for “irresponsible business conduct at the cost of people and the environment.” Gazprom spokesperson Sergey Kupriyanov did not elaborate on its response plan, but stressed that the company was fully committed to the highest ecological standards.

“Therefore we are quite puzzled by the decision of the Public Eye Awards jury which seems to be motivated by anything but ecological concerns,” Kupriyanov told IPS.

He said that the Prirazlomnaya platform had been specifically designed for operation in the most hostile climate. “The applied drilling techniques prevent subsurface water pollution and the mixing of drilling and production waste with sea water.

“Specially designed oil spill prevention and response plans ensure that the platform crew is well equipped for emergency situations,” Kupriyanov told IPS.

Greenpeace’s Naidoo said his organisation considered calling for a boycott of Gazprom and its partner Shell, who had last year received an anti-award in Davos. “Our peaceful protest in the Arctic raised a lot of awareness,” he told IPS. “About five million people have signed up for our Arctic campaign, while the best of it is yet to come.”

Using the shame award to raise further awareness may be easier for the organisations dealing with Gap, as its consumer base differs much from that of Gazprom. Nobody depends on Gap clothes, but many depend on Gazprom’s oil and gas.

Criticising the energy giant my fall on deaf ears. “Even Gazprom, Rosneft or Chevron aren’t completely immune from public pressure though,” argued Naidoo. He said that these companies had so far ignored one thing: “Relations and reputation are a capital which is just as important for success as conventional capital.”

Development issues find little place in Davos. Credit: Ray Smith/IPS.

By Ray Smith
DAVOS, Switzerland, Jan 22 2014 (IPS)

With no acute crisis on the radar, this year’s Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) will move away from the response mode of the past years and “look for solutions for the really fundamental issues,” its founder Klaus Schwab said at the pre-meeting press conference.

“We cannot afford to allow the next era of globalisation to create as many risks and inequities as it does opportunities,” Schwab wrote in a blog post a few days earlier. “Today we face a situation where the number of potential flashpoints are many and are likely to grow.”Hardly any of the workshops scheduled specifically address developing countries.

Even Schwab and his organisation have finally realised that globalisation has increased global inequality and that its consequences have not been managed and mitigated well on the global level.

According to Schwab, the WEF is the “biggest assembly of political, business and civil society leaders in the world.” For decades, he has been gathering the world’s richest and most powerful people and companies once a year in the mountain resort of Davos under the banner of “improving the state of the world”.

This year, the annual meeting beginning Wednesday takes place for the 44^th time. Schwab welcomes around 2,500 participants, among them more than half of the CEOs of the 1,000 largest companies of the world, over 30 heads of state, and numerous leaders of international institutions.

A report published by the WEF has spoken of widening income disparities. The report states that increasing inequality impacts social stability within countries and threatens security on a global scale.

“It’s essential that we devise innovative solutions to the causes and consequences of a world becoming ever more unequal,” its authors wrote.

With a well-timed report, the renowned aid and development charity Oxfam International picked the issue up this week. According to Oxfam, the world’s richest 85 people own the wealth of half of the world’s population – a fact that the charity’s executive director Winnie Byanyima called staggering.

“We cannot hope to win the fight against poverty without tackling inequality,” she said. Oxfam locates the roots of the widening gap in fiscal deregulation, tax havens and secrecy, anti-competitive business practice, lower tax rates on high incomes and investments and cuts or underinvestment in public services for the majority.

According to Oxfam, the richest individuals and companies hide trillions of dollars in tax havens around the world. “In Africa”, the report says, “global corporations – particularly those in extractive industries – exploit their influence to avoid taxes and royalties, reducing the resources available to governments to fight poverty.”

Over the last years, tax avoidance has become a major focus of non-governmental organisations especially in countries like Switzerland, where some of the world’s biggest companies involved in raw materials mining and trade have their headquarters.

“Tax avoidance and harmful tax incentives are strongly linked with inequality,” said Martin Hojsik, tax campaign manager of ActionAid International, an international coalition fighting poverty across the globe. “With a lack of revenue caused by tax dodging, developing countries in particular have very little resources to finance essential services like education and health care,” he told IPS.

ActionAid doesn’t participate at the WEF, which Hojsik calls a talking shop for elites in a fancy resort. “Real progress requires commitment from governments and processes that are inclusive of all stakeholders including people living in poverty,” he said.

Hojsik has no illusions about Davos: “This year, Deloitte, a company among other things advising companies how to avoid taxes when investing in Africa, is tweeting about income disparity on their #DeloitteDavosLife event, clearly showing some of the absurdity.”

Unlike ActionAid, Oxfam will take part at the global leaders’ meeting. The charity is asking participants to pledge to supporting progressive taxation, to making public all the investments in companies and trusts, to demanding a living wage in their companies and to challenging governments to use tax revenue to provide universal healthcare, education and social protection for citizens.

Oxfam’s effort is doomed to fail. A look at the WEF’s more than 260 sessions shows that hot potatoes like tax avoidance won’t be addressed. Even though there is a workshop specifically on the extractive industry, it aims only to discuss how the industry may drive growth in the future in the light of rising concerns over scarcity and environmental deprivation.

Hardly any of the workshops scheduled specifically address developing countries. There’s a session on the post-2015 development goals, however. It asks how a new spirit of solidarity, cooperation and mutual accountability may carry those goals from vision to action.

Peter Niggli, director of Alliance Sud, an alliance of the six biggest Swiss charities, isn’t attracted by such debates. Alliance Sud doesn’t go to Davos.

“We lobby at the Swiss government which makes more sense,” he told IPS. As a discussion forum, the WEF in Niggli’s opinion doesn’t have any influence at all on defining the post-2015 development agenda.

Niggli said that it is in any case not the WEF’s official programme with all the debates and workshops that draws businessmen and politicians, but the opportunity they have to meet others informally or set up new projects behind closed doors.

Surely it also isn’t the fake refugee camp the WEF has set up in Davos that draws the global elite. “We are simulating the experience of a Syrian refugee in a Jordanian refugee camp,” Schwab said. “It is so important that people can really imagine what it means to be a refugee.”

The United Nations Refugee Agency has appealed for 6.5 billion dollars for Syrian refugees. International donors have pledged 2.4 billion dollars so far. If the WEF is serious about “improving the state of the world”, its wealthy members could come up with the lacking sum.

A Swiss village has decided to reject tax money from the firm Glencore and to instead donate it to charities. Other towns may follow, sending a strong signal to the government to follow the U.S. and the EU and introduce transparency rules for the extractive industry.

It’s rush hour in the city of Zug in Central Switzerland as Mrs Sandra Räppli struggles to raise her voice over the traffic noise. About 35 people listen as she lectures about commodity extraction and trading companies based in the city and the neighbouring town of Baar.

Räppli talks about complex company structures and tax optimisation, finally asking the audience: “Could you follow my explanations? Did you understand?” Then she smiles: “You couldn’t? No problem, because that is what those companies intend.”“Even as a member of parliament I can't be sure that things are handled correctly if the government on any occasion hides behind the tax secret.”

Once a month, actress Maria Greco slips into the role of Sandra Räppli and guides groups of inhabitants and visitors through the streets of Zug. The canton counts 116,000 inhabitants and more than 30,000 companies, 105 of which belong to the commodity cluster formed by GlencoreXstrata, Northstream, Rusal and Gazprom, to name just a few.

Privileged taxation for holding, domicile and mixed companies brought these firms here. Holding companies are exempt from cantonal income tax, and pay almost no capital tax. Incomes of management companies generated abroad are hardly taxed, too.

Critics say Zug’s tax environment is an invitation to ‘transfer pricing’, a method to allocate a corporation’s net profit before taxation; in other words a means for tax evasion. Despite sales of 214.44 billion dollars in 2012, Glencore paid no tax on earnings at all in the canton of Zug last year.

The commodity cluster as a whole is estimated to have paid only 40 million dollars in cantonal and communal taxes.

Under official secrecy rules, exact taxes paid by Glencore and other companies are not available. Statistics on the number of companies or their employees is also lacking, even at the national level.

“That  lack of transparency is a major problem,” says Andreas Hürlimann, a parliamentarian with the Green-Alternative party in Zug. “Even as a member of parliament I can’t be sure that things are handled correctly if the government on any occasion hides behind the tax secret.”

Hürlimann finds Zug’s tax regulation deeply unfair. “It makes us rich, while people in extraction countries suffer, as the companies evade taxation there.” He says that Zug bears at least some moral responsibility.

At the end of her tour, Sandra Räppli stops in front of Zug’s town hall. “Our politicians are hand in glove with Glencore’s managers,” she tells her audience. “Only if people get active can something be done about these companies.”

Räppli has just ended her second season of city tours. She’s happy that the attendance has remained high – by Swiss standards. Media reports and a campaign run by the Swiss non-governmental organisation Berne Declaration have clearly increased popular interest in the commodity sector.

In the nearby canton of Zurich, these efforts have yielded fruits. Several villages are up in arms against Glencore. The corporation’s flotation on the stock market in 2011 had filled the pockets of CEO Ivan Glasenberg, leading to a huge one-time tax inflow for the canton. That money was redistributed to the communes.

But in several communes, residents were appalled by profiting indirectly from what they call “Glencore’s dubious business conduct abroad.” They collected signatures and demanded that at least 10 percent of the “Glencore money” be donated to charities who support affected communities in extraction regions.

In Hedingen, a village of 3,500, voters approved the donation of 120,000 dollars to charities. Samuel Schweizer, a member of the local citizens’ committee, explained that success to IPS: “Our proximity to Zug was crucial, people could relate to Glencore. Also, we’ve managed to build a broad committee.”

Schweizer explained that donating only 10 percent of the “Glencore money” instead of the whole amount further helped to find a majority.

At least five more communes will soon decide upon similar initiatives. In Affoltern for example, 180,000 dollars are at stake. In Hausen, it’s 80,000 dollars.

There, Franz Schüle of the local initiative committee is optimistic. “We live in a rural area. When I explain that in Colombia the surface of the land belongs to the farmers, while everything below can be owned by extraction companies, people can relate to the problem easily.”

“Direct democracy has hit Glencore,” says Oliver Classen, spokesperson of the Berne Declaration. He’s aware that these communal initiatives are only a drop in the ocean and a one-time effort. “However, Hedingen has a huge political signalling effect,” Classen tells IPS.

This summer, the European parliament introduced the Transparency and Accounting Directives that force mining, oil and gas companies to publish their payments to governments; country by country and project by project. The Swiss government has remained hesitant so far and will present its own measures next spring.

Oliver Classen demands transparency on payments and human rights obligations for commodities companies producing or trading abroad.

GlencoreXstrata neither commented on the tax initiatives nor responded to accusations ranging from tax avoidance to violating basic human rights in extraction countries. Its spokesperson Charles Watenpuhl sent IPS a statement.

“We believe that Glencore’s global presence and economic strength have a predominantly positive impact on the communities in which we operate. We seek out, undertake and contribute to activities and programmes designed to improve quality of life for the people in these communities.

“Glencore’s tax strategy and payments play a vital role in our intention to achieve long-term sustainable development. We are committed to full compliance with all statutory obligations, full disclosure to tax authorities and reporting transparently in the tax payments that we make to the governments of the countries in which we operate.”

A member of the Free Syrian Army at the entrance to Sarmeen. Credit: Shelly Kittleson/IPS.

By Ray Smith
LUCERNE, Switzerland , Sep 12 2013 (IPS)

Refugee rights organisations are demanding an EU-wide temporary protection regime for Syrian refugees. The announcement by some countries that they can take a few thousand refugees is not enough, the groups say.

Sweden has announced a few steps after the number of Syrian refugees seeking shelter abroad has crossed the two million mark in early September.

“The conflict will continue for a long time ahead,” said Fredrik Beijer, director of legal affairs at the Swedish Migration Board. Sweden decided to grant permanent residence to about 8,000 Syrians who currently hold temporary residency permits, and to facilitate family reunification.

Germany and the Scandinavian country have between them received about two-thirds of the Syrian refugees fleeing to Europe. Since early 2012, approximately 14,700 Syrians have asked for asylum in Sweden. In August alone, 1,201 Syrian asylum-seekers arrived in the country.A comparison with the Bosnian war between 1992 and 1995 makes today's numbers look dismal.

On Sep. 11, 107 Syrian refugees were flown out of Lebanon to Hanover as part of a temporary admission programme announced by the German government earlier this year. Having committed to 5,000 places, Germany currently runs the biggest refugee relocation programme for the Syria crisis.

In June, the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) appealed for 10,000 humanitarian admissions. A group of countries including Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands, Norway and Spain have pledged 960 admissions for 2013 so far.

“Germany is setting an important example,” UNHCR spokesperson Dan McNorton told IPS. “We hope more countries will come forward with similar schemes to help Syrians fleeing the violence.”

Germany’s two smaller neighbours Switzerland and Austria have pledged to accommodate 500 refugees each. Austria’s foreign minister preference for Christian refugees recently drew harsh criticism.

Compared to the hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees stranded in Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt and Iraq, the estimated 40,000 that have applied for asylum in Europe since April 2011 is peanuts.

A comparison with the Bosnian war between 1992 and 1995 makes today’s numbers look dismal. At the time, Germany hosted 350,000 Bosnian refugees, Austria 90,000 and Switzerland nearly 30,000.

During the Kosovo war, Germany evacuated more than 15,000 refugees, while Switzerland sheltered 53,000 and Austria 5,000.

The Swiss chapter of Amnesty International calls Switzerland’s present offer “a drop in the ocean.” Austrian and German refugee rights organisations have also criticised their governments.

“Germany’s contribution is yet too small,” Karl Kopp, director of European affairs at the human rights organisation Pro Asyl told IPS, “though, we appreciate that Germany has launched the debate.”

In addition to the 5,000, several German states have announced they will permit up to 1,000 Syrian refugees to stay with their Germany-based relatives. Kopp said that many of these have been trying desperately to get their relatives to come over.

Bureaucratic hurdles for family reunification are high, as Syrians already living in Germany have to prove they can provide for their relatives, host them and pay for their health insurance. “Most of them are unable to do so. But humanity mustn’t fail due to lack of money,” Kopp said.

While Switzerland is facilitating family reunification, too, Austria hesitates to do so. In Austria, upcoming parliamentary elections reduce the willingness of politicians to invite refugees to the country.

Meanwhile, thousands of Syrian refugees are trying hard to find a way into Europe. According to the Italian interior ministry, 3,000 Syrians have already arrived in Italy since the beginning of the year, most of them in boats. At Europe’s other entry gate, Greek coastguards have repeatedly been accused of pushing Syrian refugees back into Turkish waters.

“That is outrageous,” says Kopp. “Europe needs to open legal escape routes. Currently, Europe asks Syria’s neighbours to open up their borders, while its own borders remain closed.”

Anny Knapp, president of the Austrian refugee rights organisation Asylkoordination Österreich says refugees have to turn to the risky and expensive services of people smugglers, as no legal escape routes exist.

“In addition, the Dublin regulation forecloses that refugees can profit from family or community ties in other European states,” says Knapp. According to the Dublin regulation, immigrants may be sent back to the country through which they first entered the European Union.

Knapp’s German counterpart Karl Kopp therefore demands freedom of movement for Syrian refugees within Europe.

Judith Sunderland, senior researcher at Human Rights Watch told IPS that Syrians seeking asylum in other EU member states face a protection lottery, with their fate depending on which country they reach first.

“Those who make it to the EU through external border countries such as Greece, Bulgaria and Cyprus can face problems such as detention, failure to be granted any form of protection, problems with family reunification as well as poor or non-existent reception conditions.”

All refugee rights advocates agree that action at the European level is required urgently.

Kopp finds it “absolutely pathetic” that three years after the beginning of the Syria crisis the EU still doesn’t have an active admission programme. In June, the European Commission had called upon its member states to provide resettlement or humanitarian admission places, to facilitate family reunification and “to admit any Syrians arriving at the external borders of the Union.”

The European Commission also promised to continue efforts to ensure a greater degree of convergence between member states’ approaches to the Syrian refugee crisis. Yet it is far from providing a concerted solution like a EU-wide temporary protection regime, repeating its failure during the Libya war in 2011.

Instead, tons of tents and blankets are sent to Syria’s neighbour states. “Even though they think that the Syrian refugee crisis can be contained regionally, it has in fact long reached Europe,” says Kopp. “The catastrophe’s dimensions render such an approach not just absurd, but highly cynical.”

One of several water dams on Grimsel Pass in the Swiss Alps. Hydropower used to be profitable, but now revenues have shrunk drastically. Credit: Ray Smith/IPS.

By Ray Smith
LUCERNE, Switzerland, Aug 28 2013 (IPS)

Water power is the backbone of Alpine countries’ energy supply. Despite its important role in Europe’s energy shift, further development of hydroelectric infrastructure in Austria and Switzerland is on hold.

On sunny, windy summer days in Germany, when millions of solar panels soak up the sun and wind turbines run at full speed, the German electricity network can’t cope with the overcapacity. Especially on Sundays, production often exceeds demand. The result is low prices, at times even negative ones; which means customers get paid for buying electricity.

Europe’s energy market is liberalised. What happens in Germany affects all its neighbours. Swiss hydropower stations are unable to compete under these conditions. The heyday of Swiss water power is over.

The energy source that covers 55 percent of the country’s energy supply faces drastically reduced profitability, as electricity prices have sunk 20 percent again compared to the preceding year.The heyday of Swiss water power is over.

In the light of this market environment, the biggest Swiss energy producers Alpiq, Axpo, BKW and Repower are less willing to invest in optimising and enlarging their infrastructure. Repower has announced a 35 percent cut in investments in the next 10 to 15 years.

Andreas Meyer, media person at Alpiq, told IPS that the massive subsidies for renewable energy have destabilised the market, putting in question the profitability of hydro and thermal power stations and blocking further investments. Currently, Alpiq runs a divestment programme. The company is worried that the price deterioration will continue.

Further development potential of Swiss water power is disputed. While the government estimated four to five terrawatt hours, the World Wildlife Fund assessed only 1.5 terrawatt hours. In any case, the potential is quite low.

Nevertheless, Switzerland subsidises small hydropower stations with a capacity of less than 10 megawatt massively, irrespective of their efficiency and the ecological damage they may cause.

Due to the subventions, small water power projects have become cash cows. The WWF demands that these subsidies be stopped. “Building new power stations at previously unspoilt waters is absolutely silly,” water expert at WWF Switzerland Christoph Bonzi tells IPS. Today, 95 percent of Swiss water is used for energy production.

For once, conservationists and the leading energy suppliers take a common stand on the Swiss subsidy model that favours small hydropower projects. “Isn’t it absurd that subsidising new renewable energy leads to a situation where even other systemic technologies need to be subsidised?” says Werner Steinmann, spokesperson for Repower.

The boom of solar and wind energy in Europe has lead to increased demand for electricity storage, as both energy sources are unsteady. Germany, Switzerland and Austria agreed last year to increase the capacities of pumped-storage hydropower plants in a concerted effort.

Several such plants are currently being constructed in the Swiss Alps. Whether these investments will finally pay off is more uncertain then ever.

Some Swiss energy companies don’t oppose all state subsidies for renewable energy. Repower’s biggest shareholder is the Canton of Grisons. Recently, the canton’s chief councillor Mario Cavigelli broke a taboo when he demanded subsidies even for electricity produced in big hydro power plants. Cavigelli asked for cutting money granted to small hydropower projects.

Within the energy sector, that demand is disputed however. Axpo’s media person Daniela Biedermann says that it can’t be a solution to solve the mistakes of the current subsidies regulation with additional subventions. “We need to discuss how to implement the new renewable energies into a market-oriented system instead,” she told IPS.

The Swiss Association for Water Management (SWV), which represents the industry, demands that subsidies for hydropower may no longer be limited to small projects and that instead the relevant criteria would have to be efficiency, an aspect that the current subsidy system completely ignores. The SWV wants promotion for those projects that produce the most electricity per subsidy-dollar.

Conservationists are less happy about the various further demands voiced by the water power industry though. In the name of “national interest”, water power companies have been trying to tap even nationally protected waters. Instead of using even the last drop of water for electricity production, the WWF prefers to increase energy efficiency.

Just across the border, the Austrian hydropower industry struggles with similar problems. Currently, about 60 percent of the country’s electricity supply is covered by domestic water power. The industry once intended to increase its capacity by seven terrawatt hours until 2020.

“We surely won’t be able to meet up with our expectations,” says Ernst Brandstetter, spokesperson of Oesterreichs Energie, which represents the interests of the Austrian electricity industry. According to Brandstetter, only an additional four terrawatt hours until 2025 are realistic. “Unfortunately, many projects are on hold. The industry is about five years behind its development plans.”

Brandstetter explains that regarding water power stations, the current market situation is characterised by acute insecurity. “Many planned projects are economically no longer justifiable.” Oesterreichs Energie doesn’t demand subsidies. It however wants a more investor-friendly environment.

“Most worrying is that even storage projects are about to become unprofitable,” Brandstetter adds. “Along with the electricity networks, pumped storage hydropower plants are the most important enablers of a renewable energy future.”

Ernst Brandstetter demands a stop to market distortions by introducing a European market design with rules granting all energy sources fair competitive conditions.

For Switzerland’s and Austria’s hydro power industry, much depends on developments at the European Union. On that level, a consultation on Environmental and Energy Aid Guidelines 2014-2020 is currently under way. Whether or not Alpine hydropower may profit from the new guidelines will be seen next spring.

Several drilling heads were used in St. Gallen to drill a hole of 4,450 metres in depth. Courtesy: Stadt St. Gallen/St. Galler Stadtwerke town councils.

By Ray Smith
ST. GALLEN, Switzerland, Aug 5 2013 (IPS)

An accident in a flagship project threatens the future of geothermal energy in Switzerland. The mishap that was followed by earthquakes has come as a warning that geothermal deep drilling still has a long way to go.

It occurred in a project in the eastern Swiss city St. Gallen earlier in July brings a new setback, after earlier accidents.

In 2010, 83 percent of St. Gallen’s voters approved a 160 million Swiss francs (172 million dollars) credit for a flagship geothermal project. A geothermal power station was expected to cover the electricity needs of 3,000 to 5,000 households eventually and provide heat for half of the city’s buildings. In early July, drilling was concluded up to 4,450 metres depth, and extraction tests prepared.

On Jul. 19 around noon, the engineers’ nightmare happened: they unexpectedly encountered gas in the drilling hole, which raised the pressure. The leak was closed and water was pumped into the hole to reduce the pressure. Next morning, St. Gallen was shaken by an earthquake that measured 3.6 on the Richter scale, followed by dozens of micro-earthquakes.“The worst case would be if the project was aborted or if no adequate thermal water resources could be found.” -- Elmar Grosse Ruse, project manager for climate and energy at the World Wildlife Fund

Since then, all eyes are on the city in Switzerland’s east. Engineers have managed to stabilise the drilling hole. Further test drilling has been cancelled. Decisions on the project’s future will be taken after thorough review. Damage to earthquake-affected buildings and infrastructure was negligible, but the reputation of geothermal energy has suffered considerably.

Geothermal energy is significant in Switzerland’s energy shift. It has already found wide use especially for heating buildings. However, Switzerland wants to use its underground also for electricity production, expecting it to contribute 4.29 GWh annually by 2050, which is about 7.5 percent of the country’s electricity consumption. So far, no geothermal power plant exists on Swiss soil.

Switzerland is not Iceland, where the required heat can be found only a few hundred metres below the surface. Here, the necessary minimum temperature of 100 degrees Celsius is found at a depth of 3,000 metres or more. Drilling such deep holes is a technical challenge, and also costly.

“An average geothermal power station costs around 80 to 100 million Swiss francs, around 75 percent of which is for the drilling,” says Peter Meier, CEO of the Swiss company Geo-Energie Suisse AG. His company is pushing for pilot projects in order to prove technical feasibility and economic viability.

But Switzerland’s geothermal efforts have suffered several major setbacks. A first project “Deep Heat Mining Basel” in the northwestern city Basel led to a series of earthquakes reaching up to 3.5 on the Richter scale in 2006, causing damage to buildings and infrastructure. The project was aborted.

A so-called petrothermal system was used in Basel. This is applied if no adequate thermal water resources are available. Petrothermal systems create artificial underground heat exchangers by cracking rock.

Alternatively, hydrothermal systems use natural thermal water resources in the depth. As such resources first have to be found, costly test drilling is necessary, and success is not guaranteed.

Following the abortion of the geothermal project in Basel, the city of Zurich invested 20 million Swiss francs (22 million dollars) into hydrothermal test drilling in 2009. The drilling did not cause seismic activity, but proved unsuccessful.

No water in the required amount and temperature was found; the hole could not be used for the anticipated electricity production, but only for heating.

Despite those two failures earlier, expectations of geothermal energy had remained high in Switzerland.

After the failure in Basel, experts had claimed that with improved technology, seismic activity caused by geothermal drilling would become insignificant. A different technique was used in St. Gallen, but that promise turned out to be false.

“Deep heat mining plays a significant role in Switzerland’s energy shift,” Elmar Grosse Ruse, project manager for climate and energy at the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), told IPS. Along with all other major environmental organisations, the WWF supports geothermal energy.

Ruse said that the future of the technology in Switzerland depends on whether and how the project in St. Gallen continues.

“The worst case would be if the project was aborted or if no adequate thermal water resources could be found,” he said. Drawing the curtain over geothermal energy after a few unsuccessful efforts would be premature, he said.

“Honestly, no drilling, not even in tunnel construction, is entirely without risks. If we as a society decide to pull out of much riskier technologies such as nuclear power and to drastically reduce our CO2 emissions, we have to accept the minor risks of alternative technologies,” the WWF project manager said.

Meanwhile, Peter Meier’s Geo-Energie Suisse AG is searching for locations for petrothermal power stations. “We have learned from Basel,” he told IPS. Geo-Energie Suisse has always said that with drilling seismic activity may occur. “Our advanced technology leads to reduced seismic activity though, as our drilling technique disperses the pressure on many, already existing fissures in the rock.”

Technically, the incident in St. Gallen will not affect Meier’s projects. “We use a different method in a different rock.” Unlike in St. Gallen, most Swiss geothermal projects target crystalline rock.

Nevertheless, Meier is aware that in the near future, he’ll have to do a lot of additional persuading.

WWF’s Grosse Ruse said that it might be better to plan geothermal power stations further away from densely populated areas. The dilemma however is, that waste heat users may then be too far away.

“Heat can be easily transported, hence that’s not a decisive factor,” countered Meier. His company nonetheless targets such less populated areas, but for other reasons. The CEO stressed that it isn’t about using nearby inhabitants as guinea pigs, but points at another factor: “Insuring potential damages in cities would be way more expensive.”

Once more, Swiss voters have lashed out against asylum seekers, further tightening the country’s already strict asylum law. The government has meanwhile announced a radical restructuring of the asylum procedure.

Switzerland’s asylum law exists since 1981. Since then, one reform chased the other, all of them to the disadvantage of those seeking asylum in the country. The aim of the ten law revisions so far is evident: make Switzerland as unattractive as possible for poor immigrants.

On Jun. 9, 78 percent of Swiss voters approved new measures to keep asylum seekers out. Switzerland had been so far the only country in Europe to allow asylum seekers to apply at Swiss embassies. Now, Swiss voters have closed that unique door.

The facility had offered a safe path to exile, especially for endangered women and children who could avoid dangerous trips and people smugglers.

The government says the provision attracted too many requests, leading to a huge administrative effort. In 2012 Switzerland registered 7,667 such applications. Since 2006, Justice Minister Simonetta Sommaruga has said, only 11 percent of these asylum seekers were allowed to travel to Switzerland, and 40 percent of these were finally granted asylum.

Since 2005, thousands of Eritrean refugees have found a way to Switzerland. In 2012, they filed 15.4 percent of all asylum requests. Many young, male Eritreans fled the dictatorship of Isaias Afewerki and compulsory, sometimes infinite military or state service. About two-thirds of them were granted asylum for being conscientious objectors. Now that will no longer be a sufficient reason for asylum.“Sommaruga plans to accelerate only unpromising, baseless asylum requests for one sole purpose: deterrence.”

Swiss voters have also paved the way for a major restructuring of the asylum process. As Swiss cantons struggle to accommodate asylum seekers, the state has demanded extra powers to provide accommodation in its own infrastructure such as unused military bunkers. The government can now use its infrastructure as asylum centres for three years without the approval of the concerned cantons and communities.

On Jun. 14 Sommaruga laid out the details of her restructuring project. Its main aim is the acceleration of the asylum procedure. Under the new procedure, 60 percent of all asylum requests should be conclusively dealt with within 140 days, the remaining 40 percent within a year.

The Swiss Justice Minister intends now to centralise the system that’s now scattered all over the country. Transporting asylum seekers from cantonal accommodations to the federal interrogation bureaus and back has been costing money and time.

Taking the Netherlands as an example, Sommaruga’s vision is to build a small number of big asylum centres, where all concerned administrative actors are present. Also, 60 percent of asylum seekers would be hosted by the government and only 40 percent by the 26 cantons. For that, the government needs to create at least 3,000 more accommodation places.

The Justice Ministry will carry out a two-year test phase at a centre in Zurich, starting 2014. “It makes sense to probe the new procedures in practice and collect experiences, before it is introduced comprehensively,” Sommaruga said at a press conference earlier on Mar. 25.

The details of the test system aren’t entirely clear yet, but it is being ensured that no more than 300 asylum seekers stay in a centre. The centres are likely to consist of detention cells to facilitate direct deportation of those denied asylum.

Human rights groups are watching the ministry’s efforts closely, and with concern. They agree on a need to accelerate procedures. “However, the Justice Minister’s project will mainly speed up Dublin cases and asylum requests with potentially low chances,” Moreno Casasola, secretary general of the refugee rights organisation ‘Solidarité sans frontières’ tells IPS. The ‘Dublin cases’ are asylum-seekers who can be sent back to the first European country where they were registered, under an EU agreement reached earlier in Dublin.

Casasola thinks that speeding up is needed for those asylum seekers who have a good chance of being granted asylum. Such asylum requests are often suspended for months or even years. “If the government wants more efficiency, it should simply decide upon these requests instead of leaving them in the drawer.”

In Casasola’s view, the government doesn’t want positive asylum decisions because it fears a pull effect that may attract even more immigrants. “Sommaruga plans to accelerate only unpromising, baseless asylum requests for one sole purpose: deterrence.”

Along with the accelerated procedure, the Swiss Justice Minister plans to offer asylum seekers free legal advice and representation.

“In principle, that’s a good idea,” Melanie Aebli, secretary general of the ‘Democratic Lawyers Switzerland’ (DJS) tells IPS. But Aebli fears that the government will place the legal advice office in the new centres “probably right besides the bureau for return advice.”

DJS and other refugee rights groups want the legal support promised to asylum seekers to be situated far from the asylum centres, and be identifiable as clearly independent. Aebli says the accelerated procedure will put a lot of pressure on the asylum seekers, because they will hardly be given enough time to collect evidence to present their case and to organise themselves.

Further, the government plans to cut the appeal period for original asylum decisions. “Already 30 days meant a lot of stress for legal representation, cutting it to ten days is highly problematic as there’s hardly time to work out a substantial appeal,” says Aebli.

Switzerland has started to house asylum seekers in underground bunkers on remote mountains. Credit: Ray Smith/IPS.

By Ray Smith
LUCERNE, Switzerland, May 2 2013 (IPS)

Struggling to accommodate all its asylum seekers, Swiss authorities have turned to unused army quarters. Some of these lie on mountain passes, far away from inhabited areas.

Last year, 28,631 persons asked for asylum in Switzerland, nearly twice as many as 2010. Most applicants came from Eritrea, Nigeria and Tunisia. At the end of March 2013, 44,478 persons were registered at the Federal Office for Migration (FOM), which is responsible the asylum process.

Swiss authorities struggle to accommodate all the immigrants. It’s a home-made problem however, as former justice minister and prominent right-wing politician Christoph Blocher initiated a drastic reduction in the country’s asylum infrastructure in 2006.

Reacting to the shortage, the Swiss government in March 2012 ordered the Federal Department of Defence, Civil Protection and Sport (DDPS) to provide accommodation for 4,000 asylum seekers. The DDPS oversees the Swiss Armed Forces, which have plenty of unused infrastructure.

Nevertheless, the DDPS efforts were slowed by political adversities, building restrictions and non-conformance with communal spatial plans. The parliament therefore passed a resolution allowing bypass of communal and cantonal permission procedures.

Swiss army quarters often are located in very remote areas. However, many citizens are glad to see asylum seekers accommodated far away from populated areas. That atmosphere is the result of more than a decade of right-wing populist campaigns against foreigners and asylum seekers in special.

Before they are distributed to the cantons, the FOM hosts asylum seekers in its own collective centres. Due to the urgent need, remote accommodations seem right for the FOM, even if they pose logistical challenges.

One of these temporary accommodations was opened last October near the village Sufers in the Grison Alps 1,400 metres above sea level. “The asylum seekers live in an old, bleak bunker in a narrow valley,” says Denise Graf of Amnesty International, who recently was allowed to visit the place. “There are no houses nearby, just trees and heaps of snow.”

As in all FOM centres, asylum seekers may only stay outside between 9 am and 5 pm. An army barrack serves as a recreation room. For the weekend, they may leave the centre. “To compensate for their spatial isolation, they are given free tickets for public transportation on weekends. However, the next bus stop is several kilometres away from the bunker,” Graf tells IPS.

“Contact between Sufers’ 130 residents and the 80 asylum seekers is rare,” says the village’s mayor Thomas Lechner. “The centre is two-and-a-half kilometres away from the village.” Asked if he considered an underground bunker a suitable place for asylum seekers, the mayor says: “People are in there for a maximum of 35 days. For army troops, it was handled this way as well, so I guess it’s also reasonable for asylum seekers.”

As the centre in Sufers was closed in the end of April, IPS couldn’t speak to any of its inhabitants. However, former inhabitants of other remote asylum centres have spoken of extreme boredom, which sometimes raised the potential for conflicts.

“It is very difficult to live in bunkers, especially with limited freedom of movement,” says Moreno Casasola, secretary general of the refugee rights organisation ‘Solidarité sans Frontières’. “As you can also see from soldiers’ experiences, it negatively affects your mind quickly.”

The FOM was aware of that, so Sufers and other villages in the valley were asked to provide work opportunities. “It was a win-win situation for the asylum seekers as well as for our commune,” says mayor Thomas Lechner. “They prepared firewood, renovated hiking paths and cleaned wood pastures.

“Indeed, many asylum seekers have welcomed work opportunities. It has raised their acceptance and improved their reputation among locals,” says Amnesty’s Denise Graf. “However, it’s definitely no solution to place asylum seekers in such remote areas in the mountains.”

Because the centre in Sufers has closed, another temporary centre will be opened on the Lukmanier Pass, which connects the cantons of Grisons and Ticino. There, up to 100 asylum seekers will be accommodated once the snow has melted.

“We decided to lend a hand to the FOM,” Peter Binz says. He is the mayor of nearby Medel, the municipality to which the mountain pass belongs. Medel has 400 inhabitants, its main village Curaglia is 15 kilometres away from Lukmanier Pass.

“We approach the issue with a certain respect and openness,” Binz says. Currently, he collects ideas for work opportunities. “They’ll use the bus and our shop, but besides that there won’t be many contacts with the asylum seekers,” he estimates.

Quite soon, the FOM may announce the opening of yet another asylum centre at Lago della Sella 2,256 meters above sea level. The artificial lake is located near Gotthard Pass, which connects Switzerland’s North to the Italian-speaking South.

Lago della Sella belongs to the municipality of Airolo. Its mayor Franco Pedrini is worried: “Nobody lives up there. It’s a beautiful place just fine for a one-week holiday camp, however the climate is rough. It’s not suitable for asylum seekers.”

Even though the centre at Lago della Sella would only be used in summer, it isn’t unusual that snow falls even in July or August. “A little remote would be fine and please citizens who fear the asylum seekers’ presence,” Pedrini says, “but that’s just way too far from any civilized area.”

‘Solidarité sans Frontières’ radically opposes remote asylum centres. “These are human beings, not cows that are brought to the mountains in summer,” its secretary general Moreno Casasola says. He points at other options. “The FOM only relies on the DDPS to provide accommodations. They need to expand their range of partners and include for example clerical institutions, which own plenty of suitable real estate,” Casasola argues.

André Durrer, who works for the relief organisation Caritas, also shakes his head. He prefers asylum centres in urban agglomerations. “For 20 years, we have run asylum centres within populated areas without fences around them and private security standing guard. And it has worked,” he says.

“By providing good assistance and conditions for the asylum seekers, no increased security arrangements are needed like at FOM-centres,” Durrer argues.

The powerful Swiss commodity sector is under fire here, as citizens fed up with government inaction on charges of corporate corruption, tax evasion and lack of transparency gear up for major protests.

Switzerland is anything but a country rich in raw materials but it is, nevertheless, a major hub for international commodity trade, hosting some of the world’s biggest commodities companies such as Glencore (which specialises in power generation, steel production, oil and food processing); Xstrata (copper, zinc, aluminium, nickel and coal-fired electricity), Vitol (which ships oil products like gasoline, diesel, jet fuel and metals, as well as ethanol and chemicals) and Mercuria (dealing in oil and energy products).

Swiss-based companies are estimated to have a share of 15 to 25 percent of the global commodities trade.

Data provided by the industry reveals that 60 percent of the global metals and coffee trade is done in Switzerland. In sugar, the Swiss sector has a market share of 50 percent and in crude oil and grains it makes up 35 percent of global trade.

Against this backdrop, Swiss critics are preparing for a chance to voice their grievances with these massive commodities giants at the second annual Financial Times Global Commodities Summit to be held in the city of Lausanne, about 60 kilometres northeast of Geneva, on Apr. 15.

But protestors say the summit “is a symbol of exploitation and speculation”.

“While the companies’ profits increase, the local population in mining countries suffers from environmental damage, expulsion, tax avoidance and anti-trade union measures,” Yvonne Zimmermann of MultiWatch, a broad coalition of NGOs, trade unions and anti-globalisation organisations, tells IPS.

An alliance of two-dozen organisations is calling for a demonstration to coincide with the arrival of businessmen in Lausanne on Apr. 15. Speaking on behalf of the protest organisers, Alwin Egger tells IPS the march, which is expected to draw hundreds, will move towards the Hotel Beau-Rivage Palace, where the summit takes place.

A member of the anti-globalisation Association for the Taxation of financial Transactions and Aid to Citizens (ATTAC), Egger says, “In our opinion, it’s the people who should have control over extraction and trade of raw materials, not profit-oriented companies.”

Over the last decade, the commodities business has grown exponentially in Switzerland. In 2011, its net receipts from trade added up to 20 billion Swiss francs (or 21 billion dollars), contributing 3.5 percent to the country’s gross domestic product (GDP). While some corporations are only involved in either commodity trade or extraction, most of them offer services throughout the entire supply chain.

For more than a century, commodity companies have flocked to Switzerland to avail themselves of the country’s low tax rates and the privileged corporate taxation system. Holding companies, for example, are exempt from corporate income tax on cantonal and communal levels as long as they own shares in foreign companies only. Besides, Switzerland offers strong banks, political stability and a high standard of living.

That the country wasn’t a member of the United Nations until 2002 was another factor behind its popularity, as it allowed Switzerland-based companies to avoid U.N. embargoes and sanctions.

The commodities business is known for its discreetness. But as of late, that peace has been disturbed by NGOs such as the Berne Declaration (BD), which published a groundbreaking book in 2011 to shed light on some of the dubious practices the sector constantly engages in.

Accusations range from human rights abuses, ecological destruction, exploitation, to corruption and tax avoidance in developing countries. In 2012, for instance, NGOs accused Glencore of buying copper from intermediaries in the Democratic Republic of Congo that was extracted partly using child labour and under precarious conditions.

Entitled “Commodities – Switzerland’s Most Dangerous Business”, the book found that “trade in oil, gas, coal, metals and agricultural products – particularly via deals made in Geneva and Zug – has grown by an incredible 1,500 percent since 1998…The result: Seven of the twelve corporations with the highest turnover in Switzerland trade in…or mine commodities.”

“As more information becomes available, attentiveness to the issue grows” — and so does criticism, observes Zimmermann, adding that a media spotlight on these practices has dealt a harsh blow to the industry’s public image.

But Economics Minister Johann Schneider-Amman opposes specific, national regulations for the commodities sector. “We don’t want to treat our companies any stricter than other, competing locations do,” he said at a press conference, echoing the standard argument issued every time the corporate tax system is in the line of fire: that Switzerland cannot afford to have companies relocate elsewhere.

For critical experts like Classen, this excuse is not valid since “there are no unregulated alternative business locations” anywhere else in the world.

The Swiss Federal Council has proposed a consultation draft for a transparency regulation similar to the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act in the United States, section 1504 of which obliges companies to disclose their payments to governments for access to oil, gas and minerals. It is still unclear, though, whether payments of commodity trading companies will be included in the Swiss draft regulation.

Fearing new regulations, the Swiss commodities sector has ramped up its lobbying efforts. Associations representing the industry have popped up in the main commodity trading hubs of Geneva, Zug and Lugano.

Glencore recently invited Swiss parliamentarians to hear an explanation of its “engagement for sustainable business, for the health and safety of its employees and for the environment”. Media and NGOs were denied access to the closed-door meeting.

“The sector is concerned that it has become the subject of attentiveness and debates,” says MultiWatch’s Zimmermann, who protested against the recent lobby event.

“As a reaction to criticism, these companies have started to publish sustainability reports”, she said, which whitewash their practices and portray themselves as charities.

Aegis, a ‘private security and risk management company’ has moved quietly into Switzerland. Credit: Ray Smith/IPS.

By Ray Smith
BASEL, Feb 18 2013 (IPS)

The Swiss government has presented a draft law regulating the private military industry but critics argue the law is toothless.

On Mar. 24 2010, a newly founded holding company was registered in Basel’s commercial register. Its name was Aegis Group Holdings AG. A few months later, on Aug. 2, it was noted that the holding had taken control over the London-based Aegis Defence Services Ltd.

AEGIS describes itself as “a leading private security and risk management company.” As such, it has been providing its services worldwide, including in war-torn countries such as Iraq and Afghanistan.

The company’s relocation caught the government as well as the public by surprise. More private military companies (PMCs) were expected to move to Switzerland, trying to profit from the country’s political stability, low business taxes and its peaceful and neutral image.

PMCs do not differ legally from any other security provider, and firms active in conflict zones are hard to identify in the commercial register. The Federal Department of Justice and Police estimates that the country is home to 20 such companies.

Switzerland has a long history of sending poor farmers as mercenaries to European battlefields. In the late Middle Ages, Swiss cantons took the role of the brokers. The decline of the mercenary business started in the 18th century and ended with the introduction of Switzerland’s federal constitution in 1848. From 1859 on, fighting on foreign battlefields was no longer permitted.

Thereafter, ‘neutrality’ became a fundamental element of Switzerland’s foreign policy and in a mythologised way a central piece of Swiss collective identity. The arrival of Aegis was seen by many as a threat to the country’s neutrality.

Swiss politicians pushed for establishment of a new legal frame for registration and licensing of private security companies. Josef Lang, then national councillor and a leading voice in the Group for Switzerland without an Army (GsoA) demanded a national ban of PMCs.

Swiss Justice Minster Simonetta Sommaruga announced a national “ban on mercenary companies” on Jan. 23. She said Switzerland would no longer serve as a base for activities that violate human rights. But what was announced as a ‘ban’ turned out to be an ineffectual regulation.

The draft law provides for notification and a ban on certain activities – but not of PMCs themselves. It forbids firms or holding companies based in Switzerland to “directly take part in hostilities within an armed conflict abroad.”

“In plain language, this means that the new law allows so-called security companies to act within armed conflicts abroad and to indirectly take part in hostilities,” says Josef Lang. “Anyone believing that in the heat of the battle anyone will differentiate between ‘direct’ and ‘indirect’ participation has no clue of today’s wars.”

Ulrich Petersohn, senior researcher at Zurich’s Centre for Security Studies (CSS) says that in international law the definition of ‘direct participation in hostilities’ is vague and subject to debate. “And where does self-defence end?” he asks. “Obviously, there’s a twilight zone.”

Petersohn points to a realistic dilemma: “What applies when a military compound guarded by PMC personnel is attacked?”

The new draft law also bans PMCs from “conducting any activities which encourage the commission of serious violations of human rights.” Josef Lang says: “Does that mean that encouraging light human rights violations is permitted?”

The Green Party politician believes the law cannot force Aegis to leave Switzerland. “They’ll simply promise to not directly take part in hostilities in conflict zones and to do nothing to encourage serious human rights violations.” It remains unclear how Swiss authorities could control mercenaries’ activities on the ground.

Albert A. Stahel, Director of the Institute for Strategic Studies based in the town of Wädenswil near Zurich believes that Switzerland’s attractiveness to foreign PMCs may get reduced, but that those already present will not be constrained. “The Federal Council should have proposed a clear a priori ban of PMCs, thereby clearly stating that we don’t tolerate any companies which take part in wars,” he tells IPS.

Petersohn also does not see significant legal constraints coming up for Aegis. “However, the sharpest weapon of the draft law is that on suspicion, lawsuits can be filed.” Companies are eager to avoid negative publicity, and that could put them under pressure, Petersohn says.

Lang holds up the strict regulation in Norway as example. “Instead of forbidding certain hardly definable activities, it would be more feasible to apply a more controllable criteria. Norwegian companies aren’t permitted to carry weapons in foreign countries.”

At the international level, Switzerland along with the International Committee of the Red Cross had launched a process leading to the ‘Montreux Document’ in 2008. This intergovernmental document signed by 44 states contains a compilation of good practices but is not legally binding.

Unexpectedly, the law proposed by the Swiss government does not stick to the suggested good practices. The Montreux Document advocates measures to guarantee transparency in authorisation such as oversight by parliamentary bodies. The Swiss draft law leaves out all transparency measures.

The law would, though, oblige Switzerland-based PMCs to sign the International Code of Conduct for Private Security Service Providers (ICOC-PSP), a self-regulatory framework that 592 PMCs have signed.

Stahel considers this approach useless, because there’s no sanctioning mechanism. Petersohn is hopeful that such codes may lead to development of norms that get some degree of compulsion.

ICOC-PSP primarily serves the image of its signature companies and keeps other service providers at a distance. Petersohn stresses that violations of the code nevertheless risk naming and shaming campaigns.

The Swiss parliament will debate the draft law, but isn’t expected to make it any harsher. “A step in the direction was taken,” says Stahel. “However, the glass is still only half full.”

Barbed wire and safety fences are dismantled, the police and army are withdrawn and freedom of movement is restored. The 43^rd annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) ended last month with negligible protests against the ‘global leaders’.

Every year in late January, the Swiss mountain town Davos is temporarily turned into a fortress. On the streets, policemen, soldiers and bodyguards outnumber unarmed citizens by far.

More than 2,500 ‘global leaders’ met in Davos this year “to improve the state of the world.” as the WEF claims. It’s difficult to make much sense of this year’s motto ‘Resilient Dynamism’. Nevertheless, a lot was discussed, much optimism spread but no decisions taken; at least in front of the cameras.

Even though temperatures were frosty, sunshine reigned at this year’s annual meeting. At least from the business perspective, the global economic crisis is receding. “The worst is behind us. The optimism for recovery is there,” Axel Weber, chairman of the board of directors of the scandal-ridden bank UBS proclaimed.

Meanwhile Davos mayor Tarzisius Caviezel couldn’t stop raving about the WEF’s economic importance for Europe’s highest city: “The pictures broadcast throughout the world are invaluable advertising for Davos.”

Indeed, visual publicity was much worse a decade ago – trashed fast food restaurants, broken windows, a martial police presence, clouds of tear gas, peaceful protesters beaten and showered by water cannons.

This year, barbed wire was cleverly covered by large white canvas. The security personnel’s only challenge was to guide the countless SUVs and limousines through the town’s narrow streets.

A decade ago, thousands of protesters challenged the ‘global leaders’, threatening to shut down the World Economic Forum. It wasn’t just about expressing alternative opinions in Davos, but about chasing the rich and powerful out of town. “Wipe out WEF” was their slogan.

In past years the police did everything possible to keep protesters away from Davos, and put up with riots in other Swiss cities. Whoever tried to travel to Davos was stopped; trains and coaches were blocked in the lowlands.

About 50 people joined a rally in Davos. Rolf Marugg, secretary of the local Green Party was pleased, though he had expected more. “It’s important that we as locals protest against the meeting, the order of the globalised economy and the often dirty doings of the WEF participants,” Marugg said.

Pointing at the WEF’s rather vague motto, the Green politician said that the world doesn’t need dynamism and resilience but a slowdown and change. “The current crisis proves that those self-appointed global leaders’ only ability is to drive economy, society and the environment against the wall. ‘Resilient Dynamism’ therefore only means to keep up the current crisis system by any means possible.”

Over the last few years, small demonstrations are tolerated in Davos; they no longer constitute a threat. The rally went almost unnoticed. Additionally, Greenpeace temporarily shut down a Shell gas station, criticising the company for planning to drill for oil in the Arctic. In another token protest, three activists approached the congress centre with smoke flares to protest against the exploitation of women in the global economy.

A decade ago going up to Davos in late January was on every left-wing activist’s agenda. David Böhner, now in his forties, was a leading figure in Switzerland’s anti-globalisation movement. “Our protest was fundamentally anti-capitalist and directed against the increasingly powerful multinational corporations,” he said.

“Any social movement needs some kind of point of reference. In our case, the World Economic Forum provided a suitable projection screen.” At that time, no meeting of the G8, the European Union or the WTO was safe from resistance protests.

Böhner didn’t travel to Davos this year. “The demonstrations against the WEF don’t interest me any more.” The political capacity to ignite has long gone, he said, and a ritualised form of protest carries little potential.

It was in the early 2000s that opposition was loudest and most radical. Even though the authorities were quick to deflect from political content by nurturing a debate on violence at the protests, it was then when the activists’ arguments were most heard.

“Another major reason for the decline of the anti-WEF movement surely was the police repression,” David Böhner added. The turning point was in 2004, when 1,082 demonstrators were held in the freezing cold in the town Landquart, 40 kilometres from Davos, after violently being pulled out of a train by the police.

The authorities succeeded, because disputes flared up within the movement. Mobilising for demonstrations in Davos became senseless, unwise and unattractive. In the following years, increasingly smaller rallies were held in other Swiss cities.

Meanwhile, the WEF facilitated media access and invited ‘civil society leaders’ to their debates to counter critique. The Open Forum to run parallel to the WEF was invented.

But despite its polished image, the World Economic Forum remains a dubious platform for politicians and business leaders to consult behind closed doors, far from any accountability. The official programme is just one side of the coin.

On behalf of the World Economic Forum, Nicholas Davis argues that if every meeting was made public, nothing would get decided. “Some conversations – over delicate or sensitive issues – frankly have to be held behind closed doors. Our aim is to be as open as possible without jeopardising our mission to improve the state of the world.” (End)

Only a stone’s throw from the Davos World Economic Forum meeting, a group of non-governmental organisations presented the annual Public Eye Awards this week to Goldman Sachs and Royal Dutch Shell.

Every year in late January, a pilgrimage of a special kind can be observed in Grisons, Switzerland’s easternmost canton. Limousine after limousine, SUV after SUV and helicopter after helicopter head to Davos, the highest city of Europe. At the local congress centre, the preciously dressed pilgrims unite to renew their belief in unregulated, free market capitalism and to “improve the state of the world,” as the World Economic Forum (WEF) proclaims.

This year, ‘Resilient Dynamism’ is the motto of the global leaders’ gathering. Besides the official programme though, many participants will use the platform to hold informal meetings. Business and political interests mingle behind closed doors.

Only a ten-minute walk from the Davos congress centre, a few dozen people attended the presentation of the Public Eye Awards, a critical counterpoint to the WEF since 2000. “On the occasion of the WEF, we annually put the spotlight on corporations who cause problems, violate human rights, destroy the environment, act corruptly and push people into poverty and misery,” says Andreas Missbach on behalf of the organisers.

In order to take the wind out of the Public Eye sail and to slightly open up to the public, the WEF started in 2003 to organise its own counter event, the Open Forum. Nevertheless, the Public Eye has survived and this year once again presented two recipients for their ‘awards’.

As a result of an online voting process, the public award went to the Anglo-Dutch oil and gas company Royal Dutch Shell. Shell’s search for oil in the Arctic drew voters’ criticism. “There is no safe drilling under sea ice conditions, Shell gambles with the wildlife and beauty of one of the last unspoiled regions on our planet,” said jury member Andreas Missbach before handing the award over to Greenpeace executive director Kumi Naidoo.

Naidoo, whose organisation had nominated shell for the voting, said he didn’t want the award sitting in his office in Amsterdam. He promised to find Shell’s CEO Peter Voser at the World Economic Forum to present him the award.

Greenpeace is running a major campaign to prevent oil drilling in the Arctic. Naidoo addressed the Anglo-Dutch company directly: “We as Greenpeace will come after you peacefully, but aggressively until you get out of the Arctic.”

Christian Brütsch, an independent political analyst specialised on energy issues doubts that Shell can be pressured to disengage from the Arctic region soon. “The U.S. Geological Survey assumes one-fifth of the global undiscovered conventional oil and gas resources to be in the Arctic, and Shell has invested 4.5 billion dollars to prepare offshore drilling in Alaska so far.”

Brütsch said that if activists really wanted to prevent the exploitation of natural resources in the Arctic, they should target consumers. “Energy companies will only leave the region if the demand for oil sinks to a level where Arctic adventures would become unprofitable.”

However, as long as the current situation prevails, Brütsch prefers to see big energy companies in the Arctic. “Statoil, Exxon Mobil or Shell are much more capable of financing ‘same season relief wells’ (needed if leaks appear) than smaller corporations.”

Andreas Missbach stressed that Shell has been the only company so far to win the Public Eye Award twice. Back in 2005, the multinational was shamed for its activities in the tropics.

Missbach said that Shell’s investments in extremely damaging tar-sand extraction in Canada and the fact that the company had dropped renewable energy from its long-term strategy had further contributed to again nominate Shell for the prize.

The American investment bank Goldman Sachs received the jury award. The Public Eye jury argued that the company bears a large share of responsibility for the Euro-crisis.

“Goldman’s derivative deals, which fudged Greece’s way into the Eurozone, pawned the future of the Greek people,” said Missbach.

Former bank regulator and academic William K. Black, who attended the awards presentation, stressed that Goldman Sachs wasn’t just a singular rotten apple in a healthy bushel of banks. “Goldman Sachs is the norm of systemically dangerous institutions,” he said.

Black blamed the World Economic Forum for spreading the myth that fraud by corporate elite was rare. “They have pushed deregulation, de-supervision and de facto decriminalisation.”

Expert on business ethics Ulrich Thielemann said the dogma of profit maximisation itself leaves no room for moral integrity. “It’s the paramount cause for irresponsible corporate behaviour,” he said. “Ruthless competition that disregards human rights and environmental standards via non-regulation and the race to the bottom in standards of good corporate conduct must come to an end.”

Does naming and shaming companies have any use? Missbach admits that such an award by itself changes nothing. But within a campaign, he says, such a shame prize might be a useful tool. “Those organisations who nominated the award winners may use the prize to attract attention.”

Political analyst Christian Brütsch is far less convinced about naming and shaming campaigns. He points out that the names of the decried companies always remain the same. “Some corporations can afford to simply ignore criticism,” he says. Others would just increase their PR budgets, Brütsch argues.

Greenpeace’s Naidoo regards the awards as a means contributing to reduction of a company’s relational and reputational capital. He’s sure though that none of these powerful corporations will react to the criticism. “However, the failure to respond is a very loud confirmation that our accusations are true.”

The Swiss parliament has decided to tackle wage dumping in the construction sector. With the introduction of chain liability, general contractors can soon be held accountable for labour agreement violations by their subcontractors.

Eight euros per hour instead of 27.5 euros guaranteed by the collective labour agreement is what some technicians of a Slovenian company working at Messe Basel have declared they earn. A new exhibition hall is being built there at a cost of nearly 360 million euros.

Time pressure is extreme, delays are considered a catastrophe. Up to a thousand labourers work day and night with the new hall due to open its doors at the end of April when Messe Basel hosts ‘Baselword’, the globally leading exhibition in the watch and jewellery sector.

The Slovenian technicians working on the façade are at the bottom of a chain of several subcontractors. Swiss general contractor HRS Real Estate has been charged with the work. But HRS denies accountability for the wage abuse, claiming it can’t control the payroll of its subcontractors. The owner of the building, MCH Messe Basel, holds HRS, responsible as its prime contractor.

The buck is passed around, and there are several victims: The workers don’t earn what they deserve, correctly employed labourers face pressure on their wages, and properly operating companies are confronted with unfair competition.

In Switzerland, that phenomena is called ‘wage dumping’. Labour unions say it has drastically increased over the past few years. It’s a result of the opening of the Swiss labour market to EU citizens which started in 2002 when the Agreement on the Free Movement of Persons came into force.

The agreement allows EU citizens to reside and work in Switzerland. Employees and self-employed persons working in Switzerland for less than 90 days don’t need permission, but they have to register with cantonal authorities. Since 2002 immigration from EU countries is on the rise.

In 2004 the Swiss government introduced ‘accompanying measures’ to protect employees from violations of labour and wage agreements. These include observation of the labour market and on-site controls of work conditions. However, several legal gaps remained.

This summer the Swiss parliament cracked down on fake self-employment. For the labour unions that wasn’t enough, as the problem of wage dumping by subcontractors remained.

Swiss minister for economic affairs and former entrepreneur Johann Schneider-Amman admits that the problem is getting bigger and bigger. “Interventions in the liberal principles of the free labour market are only permissible in cases of massive malpractice,” he says. “Unfortunately that’s the case.”

Swiss labour unions have demanded laws making general contractors legally accountable for misconduct by its subcontractors, so-called ‘chain liability’. General contractors are only freed from responsibility if they can show to have ensured that their subcontractors abide by the law.

The neo-liberal lobby along with the Swiss Employers’ Association has launched a much weaker counter-proposal. They want general contractors to be freed of any legal responsibility if their direct subcontractor simply signs a contract pledging to respect Swiss wage and labour conditions.

Last summer, Switzerland’s Council of States adopted chain liability. Then, it was the National Council’s turn. In the debate, advocates of chain liability could not only count on support from the Federal Council, but also from a number of liberal entrepreneurs.

One of these was Hans Grunder, a Bern representative of the Conservative Democratic Party (BDP). He explained that not quality, but prices had become the most important criteria in bidding procedures. “As a result, subcontracting assignments often go to foreign companies, leaving our enterprises at unfair competition,” he said.

Grunder was supported by the Green Party’s Alec von Graffenried, who works for a major construction company. He argued that since general contractors are already accountable for prices, schedules, quality, safety and environment protection, it was only logical that they would also assume responsibility for their subcontractors’ conduct.

Corrado Pardini, Social Democrat and unionist, said that strengthening instruments against wage dumping would ensure public support for free movement and residence of EU citizens, which is crucial for Switzerland’s economic prosperity. “Continuing abuses of wage and labour conditions will increase xenophobia,” he warned.

The right-wing Swiss People’s Party (SVP) again played an ambivalent role. Its representatives rejected chain liability. The strategy is well-known: public outrage against foreign workers is exactly what the SVP utilises to draw support for their populist policy and their latest popular initiative ‘Stop mass immigration’.

Finally, the National Council adopted chain liability. Labour unions applauded. Nico Lutz, responsible for the construction sector at Switzerland’s largest inter-professional trade union Unia said that companies as well as workers would profit. “It’s important however, that chain liability won’t be watered down during implementation.”

His opponents at the Swiss Association of Builders (SBV) hope for limited additional bureaucracy and promised to play a constructive role in the implementation process, even though they still doubt the practicability of chain liability. “It remains unclear how prime contractors can check the payrolls of their subcontractors’ subcontractors,” SBV media officer Matthias Engel says.

Engel also thinks that chain liability could lead to less law-abiding subcontractors because they know that for any violation the general contractor would be held responsible. “Chain liability will be like the sword of Damocles hanging over the general contractors,” he said.

Both employers as well as labour unions call for better controls on construction sites. On behalf of the builders, Matthias Engel calls for a badge system for workers which would regulate access to construction sites and in addition tackle problems such as fake self-employment and black labour. Unia’s Nico Lutz demands that sanctions should be aggravated and that in case of well-grounded evidence of wage dumping, entire construction sites could be halted.

In Basel, chain liability seems to find premature appliance. For the Slovenian façade technicians, the story may end well. In order to polish their image and avoid any delays of construction, MCH Messe Basel and its general contractor HRS promised in late December to step in over the outstanding salaries their subcontractor is supposed to pay.

Melting glaciers are the most visible effect of global warming in the Swiss Alps. Meanwhile, permafrost is invisible and melting too, often causing rockfall and massive debris flows, ultimately threatening mountain villages.

Guttannen, home to 310 residents, is a tiny village in the Bernese Alps, the last one that travellers drive through on the way up to Grimsel Pass. It’s spring and the snow is retreating from the steep slopes of the valley. As the pass is still closed, calm reigns in the picturesque village centre. Only cowbells and the rushing of the nearby Aar river break the silence.

For some residents though, living in Guttannen has become rather uneasy and, on the long term, even dangerous. The root cause of the peril lies further uphill, in the northeastern flank of the 3,282 metres high Ritzlihorn. In July 2009, a huge rockfall had occurred and since then, massive debris flows have roared downhill each summer.

“These mudslides as well as the volume of transported rubble have grown from year to year,” says Nils Hählen, hydraulic engineer at the cantonal public works service. “The debris partly ends up in the Aar, lifting and widening its channel.” Within three years, 630,000 cubic metres were transported into the river, increasingly endangering civil infrastructure.

In summer, after heavy rainfall, the only road leading through the narrow valley often has to be temporarily closed. A house near the river already had to be taken down, the local sewage treatment plant may be next. Since 2010, the debris flows reach as far as the hamlet Boden, threatening ten houses and 30 inhabitants.

“The next few mudslides won’t be a big problem,” says Guttannen council leader Hans Abplanalp. However, some houses would effectively be threatened in two to five, others in five to seven years, he adds.

One of these homes belongs to Martin Leuthold. “I’ve lived here for 60 years and my father was already a farmer here,” he says. Leuthold claims he has no fear, as he’s grown up with the moods of nature. Nevertheless, the farmer doesn’t ignore the peril: “Perhaps nothing will happen for the next 10 years, but maybe this summer it could all rumble down on us. Nobody knows.”

Nearby, Hans von Weissenfluh lives less than 20 metres away from the river. “The threat is real, we can see it,” he says. Von Weissenfluh remembers well how impressive amounts of water and debris came down the Aar last summer. “Only five years ago, the river channel was much more narrow,” he notices.

Engineers, geologists and glaciologists assume permafrost melt to be the underlying problem. Permafrost is underground material such as rock or rubble that permanently remains at or below zero degrees centigrade. Ice is a possible, but not a necessary ingredient. “The issue is, that permafrost occurrence is generally not known,” says Nils Hählen. There are maps designed on calculated probabilities, but as the hydraulic engineer explains, in any case things have to be evaluated locally.

In northeastern mountain slopes, permafrost may occur roughly above 2,600 meters altitude. Scientists estimate that about 5 percent of Switzerland’s area contains permafrost. It stabilises steep rocky or scree slopes in the high mountains and protects them from erosion by serving as a kind of natural putty. When permafrost melts, the result may be rockfalls and debris flows. “The lower permafrost zones are the most vulnerable,” explains Hählen.

He locates the cause of permafrost melt in rising air temperatures which have been measured over the past years in the European Alps. Jeannette Nötzli, glaciologist at the University of Zurich, mentions that atmosphere and underground permafrost are often not directly coupled. Ice content and changes in surface coverage can mask atmospheric signals. Nötzli heads the Coordination Office of the Swiss Permafrost Monitoring Network PERMOS.

“As PERMOS’ systematic monitoring commenced in 2000, most of our data cover around a decade, whereas for robust statements about trends in climate science typically a 30-year period is considered,” Nötzli points out. “However,” the researcher adds, “much of our data points to permafrost degradation. For example, in the past three years active layer depths in summer have increased with new record values at many of the observed sites.”

Reliable forecasting of permafrost changes isn’t possible. In the case of Guttannen, experts limit their predictions to the next year. Hählen expects that in the long term, debris flows from the Ritzlihorn will stop, as ultimately the catchment area in the flank is limited.

Removing the rubble from the valley floor and the Aar is no option. It’s too risky, but also too costly. Additionally, dumping places in the region are limited. Only to remove the current rubble from the river would cost more than 18 million Swiss Francs and accumulate to at least 50,000 lorry loads.

There’s not much hope for the residents of Boden. Ultimately, they’ll have to leave their homes and resettle somewhere else. Hans Abplanalp, the council president, has talked to all persons concerned. “Nearly all of them want to stay in Guttannen,” he says. “We can offer them land and homes to buy.”

Boden resident Hans von Weissenfluh plans to move up to Guttannen as soon as possible. Others such as Martin Leuthold are more hesitant. He wouldn’t mind living somewhere else in the village, but is reluctant to tear down his house and move all the belongings.

“That’s a lot of work,” he says. Leuthold fears he will not be fully compensated. He’d only be compensated for his stable if he built a new one in another place. “I wouldn’t know what to build a new stable for, as I’ll soon be retired.”

In the wake of Fukushima, the Swiss government decided last year to slowly, but definitely phase out nuclear energy. But the new energy strategy for the next decade has drawn criticism, especially from environmental organisations.

Hydro power plants in Switzerland are already at full capacity. Credit: Ray Smith/IPS.

Switzerland’s household electricity relies largely on nuclear and hydro power. Five nuclear power plants, of which the last will be shut down in 2034, currently produce 40.7 percent of the country’s electricity. Making up for this large share once it’s phased out requires a fundamental change in Switzerland’s energy policy, an “ambitious but feasible” undertaking as the government keeps saying.

Deciding on the nuclear shutdown is one thing, but implementing it and defining concrete measures is a more complicated task. The Swiss Federal Council has outlined its energy policy framework for the next decades under the title ‘Energy Package 2050’. The main pillars of the strategy are reduction of energy consumption, increasing efficiency of energy use, and scaling up renewable energy.

The government has calculated that by 2050, energy consumption could be reduced by 28 percent compared to 2000. Potential for reduction is mainly seen in buildings rehabilitation and in the industrial and services sectors. EnAW, the energy agency of the Swiss economy, has presented a study including scenarios for increasing electricity efficiency. According to EnAW, Swiss companies could save 7 twh (terrawatt hours) by 2050.

“That’s disappointing,” says Jürg Buri, managing director of the Swiss Energy Foundation (SES), which pushes for an ecological and sustainable energy policy. “Swiss businesses could easily save twice as much electricity by 2050.” There is potential already, he says, to save 7 twh with more efficient industrial motors.

SES, Greenpeace, Pro Natura and the WWF reacted with a joint statement to the government’s announcement, saying the steps taken by the Federal Council are too small. Patrick Hofstetter, climate policy campaigner at WWF Switzerland calls the new energy strategy “unambitious”, claiming that there’s much more potential to increase energy usage efficiency in the economy as well as in households.

A strong instrument such as a regulatory tax is lacking, he says. “Wasting electricity is still too attractive for companies and households…Taking measures to save energy requires knowhow that few people have, and monetary savings are often small.”

The Federal Council admits that the package of measures it presented suffice only to fulfil about half the goals set for 2050. Swiss Energy Minister Doris Leuthard ays she would be more than happy if more energy could be saved than planned.

The second pillar of the new energy policy strategy is renewable energy. The Federal Council estimates that production could be increased by a third by 2050. But here too, views differ drastically. There is huge difference between the government’s estimates and those calculated by environmental groups concerning solar energy. The latter claim that renewable energy is often reduced to hydropower, neglecting the immense potential of solar energy.

Wind, biomass and the sun currently only provide 0.26 percent of Switzerland’s electricity. In Germany, those three energy sources held a 16 percent share in the past year’s electricity mix. WWF Switzerland estimates that solar energy could be scaled up by 15 twh by 2035, which is five times the government’s goal.

“In Germany, in December 2011 alone 3 twh of solar energy went online,” says Hofstetter. “So, what Germany did within one month, Switzerland expects to do in 23 years.”

Swiss Energy Minister Doris Leuthard earned even more disapproval when she said that if saving efforts failed, electricity would either have to be imported, or up to six combined-cycle gas plants would have to be built to make up for the energy gap caused by the nuclear shutdown.

WWF’s Patrick Hofstetter recalls the latest outlook published by the International Energy Agency. “It stated that in order to reach the two-degree target (on warming of the planet) no investment in fossil energy infrastructure should be made after 2017 worldwide. The Swiss plan to invest in fossil energy therefore is quite awkward.”

Environmental groups claim that the risks of nuclear energy shouldn’t be replaced by the risks of climate change. Combined-cycle gas plants cause massive carbon dioxide emissions. “Taking into consideration the country’s CO2budget, the 30 million tons put out by each plant over the next 30 years would be far too much,” Hofstetter says.

The Federal Council is using the threat of combined-cycle gas plants to put pressure on the economy, but also on Swiss cantons and environmental groups: “If we want to expand renewable energy production, environmental organisations need to lessen their opposition to such projects,” the Swiss Energy Minister demanded.

WWF’s Hofstetter says the Federal Council is not right to argue that a more intense development of renewable energy is hindered by conflicts with nature and landscape protection. “It’s based on the prevailing idea that hydropower is the only renewable energy in Switzerland, which indeed is nearly fully developed.”

Hofstetter defends the environmental organisation’s right to appeal construction projects, which has recently come under increased pressure. “If that right falls, nobody would insist on the laws concerning nature to be respected.”

Two years ago, a Nigerian asylum seeker died during a forced deportation attempt from Switzerland. Now, the prosecution has dismissed the case, leaving nobody responsible for the young man’s death. Instead of re-assessing the deportation system, Swiss authorities prefer ignorance.

The detention centre for migrants at Zurich airport. Credit: Ray Smith/IPS.

Six weeks of hunger strike had weakened Joseph Chiakwa, when nine policemen entered his cell at Zurich’s deportation prison in the afternoon of March 17, 2010. The cops body-searched the Nigerian asylum seeker, tied his hands and put a boxing helmet on his head. In a nearby building, policemen constrained Chiakwa’s arms and legs and tied the 29-year-old to a special wheelchair. For a long time, signs of discomfort were ignored. As a doctor finally arrived, Chiakwa had already died.

Joseph Chiakwa was subjected to a so-called ‘Level-IV’ deportation attempt. Having spent about a year in the deportation prison, Ibrahim Moses (name changed) says that he got nervous each time rumours of upcoming special flights made rounds. “You’re afraid because in there you don’t have anyone to fight for you,” the West African asylum seeker explains. He witnessed how several inmates were forcefully deported.

“Usually the prison guards ask you to come to the second floor, without letting you know why. There they make you wait. Suddenly and by surprise, policemen overpower you.” Usually, the victim is tied up and put in a separate cell, Moses tells. “Later they come for you; six or seven cops for one person. They make you dress (in) special clothes, handcuff you and take you to another building,” the young West African says. “There they tie you up like a parcel before carrying you to the plane.”

Moses himself faced a ‘Level-II’ deportation attempt. In this scenario, the handcuffed deportee is escorted by two policemen on a scheduled flight. “I resisted on the way to the plane,” Moses says. A few years ago, even totally shackled people were occasionally deported on scheduled flights; so-called ‘Level-III’ deportations. These don’t happen any more and so Moses was taken back to prison. “If you refuse being deported on a normal flight, they may put you as a parcel on a special flight the next time,” the West African asylum seeker explains.

In 2011, Switzerland sent back 6,439 persons by air. In all 165 of these were ‘Level-IV’ cases on 33 special flights. In comparison to previous years, the number of such deportations has dropped, but Amnesty International’s refugee coordinator Denise Graf says that still many ‘Level-IV’ deportations could be avoided. “They should be absolutely exceptional,” she says, adding that preparation is often insufficient.

“In most cases, the total shackling of deportees is absolutely disproportionate,” Graf points out. She explains that ‘Level-IV’ deportations carry risks and harm the deportees’ human dignity. Amnesty demands that before any deportation attempt, a final, extensive conversation has to be held with the deportees. “The reasons that make a person resist deportation are many and often the problem could be solved easily.”

Also, Graf refers to the principle of proportionality: “The police is obliged to always choose the least harming option. However, we observe that very often the harshest possible measures are applied.” She says that in Chiakwa’s case, nearly all police interventions were escalating.

In the wake of Joseph Chiakwa’s death in 2010, the Swiss government paid 50,000 Swiss francs (55,000 dollars) to the victim’s family. “As a humanitarian gesture” and “neither compensation, nor an admission of guilt,” it stated. The family however was primarily interested in a serious investigation in Chiakwa’s death.

Two forensic evaluations ordered by the prosecution of the canton of Zurich identified malfunctions of the victim’s heart. “I don’t find them plausible,” comments Viktor Györffy, lawyer for Chiakwa’s family. “When it comes to defining the exact heart disease leading to the death, the evaluations are even contradictory.”

Based on an independent evaluation by a cardiologist, Györffy argues that relevant causes were ignored by the prosecution. “According to the cardiologist, Chiakwa’s death was caused by the hunger strike combined with the immense stress during the ‘Level-IV’ deportation attempt,” the lawyer says. He adds that even if a heart disease was concurrently causative, those responsible were culpable. “Nobody who’s lost a relative in such a way would under these circumstances accept the dismissal of the case,” says Györffy, who has filed an appeal against the prosecution’s decision.

The lawyer is supported by the human rights group ‘augenauf’. Its speaker Rolf Zopfi regards the prosecution’s investigation as biased. “Isn’t it remarkable that a 29-year-old dies in the hands of the police and a heart disease is supposedly the sole cause, while all other factors are regarded as unfortunate and ultimately irrelevant?” he asks.

After Chiakwa’s death in March 2010, Switzerland temporarily halted special deportation flights. But by June, all but those to Nigeria were resumed. The latter recommenced in January 2011, after bilateral problems were solved. Soon however, Swiss authorities faced criticism again, as the national TV station documented how policemen hit a Nigerian asylum seeker during a deportation attempt, while the police had stated that the concerned flight was carried out “without any incidents.”

It is not just human rights organisations demanding independent monitoring of forced deportations. Since January 2011, Switzerland is obliged by the European Union’s ‘Return Directive’ to “provide for an effective forced return monitoring system.” No such system has been implemented, even though Swiss authorities had long been aware of the directive’s upcoming adoption. Currently, only some deportation flights are monitored by observers who had already run a six-month pilot project for the Federal Office for Migration.

Amnesty’s Denise Graf says that transparency and independence are fundamental for any monitoring system: “The observers can’t just be another element inside the black box.” Rolf Zopfi of ‘augenauf’ says that the monitoring pilot project doesn’t question the proportionality of the system. His organisation considers ‘Level-IV’ deportations fundamentally dangerous, inhuman and disproportional and therefore categorically rejects them.

Switzerland saw a 45 percent increase in asylum requests compared in 2011 to the year before. The country struggles to accommodate the new asylum seekers while efforts to put up new centres face fierce resistance by local people.

Shortly before Christmas a small number of asylum seekers were turned away at several asylum centres at the Swiss border. The events marked the peak of an anticipated shortage in host facilities for asylum seekers in the wake of the uprisings in North Africa.

From 2004 to 2010, between 10,000 and 16,000 asylum requests were filed each year. The uprising in Libya led to the re-opening of a key immigration route to Western Europe via Lampedusa in spring 2011. Latest statistics reveal a drastic increase in new asylum requests in Switzerland from 15,567 in 2010 to 22,551 in 2011.

In Switzerland, it’s the cantons’ obligation to host asylum seekers. From October to December last year, the canton of Lucerne in central Switzerland had to find a way to accommodate nearly 400 new asylum seekers.

In Lucerne, the relief organisation Caritas is tasked to host and provide services to asylum seekers. Its manager Thomas Thali confirms that sufficient accommodation could be found in late 2011, but that in March 2012 one of their centres is closing down and replacement hasn’t been found yet.

In Lucerne, newly arriving people are allocated to collective centres before being relocated to private apartments at the second stage. Caritas manager Thali explains that in comparison to finding apartments for asylum seekers, establishing new centres is provoking political resistance. “Nobody’s interested in hearing how well already existing centres are in fact working,” Thali regrets.

In Fischbach, a small village with 700 inhabitants, the cantonal authorities planned to establish a new centre by 2012 providing accommodation to 55 asylum seekers. As the plans were unveiled, many locals voiced strong opposition.

Guido Graf, head of the Department of Health and Social Affairs in Lucerne, says he understands people’s fears. “We normally inform the communities and inhabitants before signing a rental agreement for a new centre. It’s a difficult path as it provokes resistance and criticism,” he admits.

Despite the resistance, the centre in Fischbach will be established, though smaller than projected. Nevertheless, the canton still needs up to 100 new places in centres. In Weggis, a lovely village with 4,000 inhabitants right at the Lake Lucerne, the cantonal authorities found a building they would like to turn into a centre for up to 60 asylum seekers. At a communal meeting, many locals expressed strong dissatisfaction.

Emil Grabherr, president of the local section of the right-wing Swiss People’s Party (SVP) says that he radically opposes any asylum centre in Weggis, as the village is a regional tourist magnet. Grabherr lives 800 metres from the chosen building and heads a neighbourhood committee.

“The centre would be situated right in the middle of a residential and villa area. Residents are afraid.” Also, he thinks that the project is not in line with the zoning plan.

“But anyway,” Grabherr says, “it seems those so-called asylum seekers are in fact economic migrants.” To stress his argument, he lists the origins of the anticipated refugees. Among them are war-torn countries such as Syria, Afghanistan, Libya, Somalia and Iraq. “Therefore, we don’t even have to talk about the issue,” says the SVP politician.

Speaking on behalf of ‘Asylnetz’, an organisation observing asylum-related human rights violations in Lucerne, Felix Kuhn points out that over and over, the same old foe images are projected on the new groups of asylum seekers.

“It used to be people from Sri Lanka, Turkey and the Balkans, but now the stigmatisation targets refugees from Africa,” he says. Kuhn adds that it’s no longer just the parties on the right wing who mobilise against asylum seekers, but that exponents from the political middle have joined the chorus.

Caritas’s Thomas Thali says that as long as political parties manage to profit from mobilisations against centres for asylum seekers, resistance will persist. “The image of asylum seekers is strongly influenced by the political debate and the media.” In contrast, Thali explains, where people have direct social exchange with asylum seekers, a relaxed atmosphere prevails.

Moreno Casasola, secretary general of the refugee rights organisation ‘Solidarité sans frontières’ regrets that doors are already slammed in the faces of asylum seekers before arrive. “Instead of having a serious discussion on hosting asylum seekers, things tend to turn into a openly racist debate,” he says, pointing to the village of Bettwil, where the locals’ protest had attracted far right-wing hanger-ons.

In Casasola’s view, provincial villages just aren’t the right places for asylum seekers. “There, they’re often very isolated and face suspicion and resistance by local inhabitants. It would be better to accommodate asylum seekers in cities.”

In an effort to fight what it considers “asylum misery”, Lucerne’s SVP is now preparing a popular initiative demanding the locals’ right to vote on new asylum centres. Also, it demands fully supervised container settlements for asylum seekers outside of densely populated communal areas.

Ironically, it was the SVP’s former justice minister Christoph Blocher who in 2006 initiated the reduction of the country’s accommodation for asylum seekers. It was a time of comparatively low numbers of asylum requests. Before then, annual numbers of more than 20,000 requests were quite normal.

Now the cantons pay the price for Blocher’s austerity. “We had to give up various capacities that we now lack,” Thali says. Lucerne’s Health and Social Affairs Department has already drawn its conclusions from the current crisis. “In the long run, we’ll have to acquire facilities again to regain our freedom of action,” Guido Graf says. “It’s easier for us to keep a building in reserve than to open a new centre in cases of need.”

By Ray Smith
LUCERNE, Switzerland, Jul 22 2011 (IPS)

Future glacier retreat in the Alps could affect the hydrology of large streams more strongly than previously assumed, a new study shows. Water shortages in summer could become more frequent.

The signpost in Switzerland warns of glacier retreat. Credit: Ray Smith/IPS.

The Furka Pass in central Switzerland has long been awaiting its visitors with a special attraction. Just below the highest point of the pass, tourists may enter an ice grotto dug into the Rhone glacier to discover glacier life from the inside. Each year however, the grotto’s entry can be found a few metres further downhill. Long-term measurements reveal that from 1879 to 2010, the Rhone glacier has lost 1266 metres of its original length.

The Swiss Alps are often called ‘Europe’s water tower’. Nearly 60 billion cubic metres of water are stored in its glaciers. Matthias Huss, glaciologist and senior lecturer at the Department of Geosciences at the University of Fribourg explains that glaciers fulfil a balancing function: “They release water exactly when we need it, while storing it in periods when we need it less.”

In other words, glaciers store water during the cold and wet winter months. From May to September, snow and ice melt on the glacier surface and provide the water that is dearly needed during the hot and dry season. That same mechanism also balances year-to-year variations: in colder, wetter years glaciers accumulate water that is released in relatively hot and dry summers like in 2003.

The threat posed to alpine glaciers’ essential contribution has long been recognised. However, a new study presented by Matthias Huss in the scientific journal ‘Water Resources Research’ found that the proportion of glacier water running down major European streams is larger than previously assumed.

“I have compared water runoff data from glaciers with actual runoff at gauges along the entire length of four major streams originating in the Swiss Alps,” explains the glaciologist. His study is based on measurements along the Rhine, Rhone, Po and Danube rivers.

The comparison allowed Huss to determine the relative share of glacier water running down those streams. “Consequently, I was able to quantify how much the runoff of those streams could decrease in case the glaciers’ contributions are entirely lost,” he says.

One of the streams observed by Huss is the Rhone. Originating in the Upper Valais in Switzerland, the river passes through the Rhone Valley and Lake Geneva to France, finally reaching the Mediterranean Sea at the Camargue Delta near Arles. The Rhone’s length is 813 kilometres, its drainage basin measures about 100,000 square kilometres.

In August, snowmelt runoff from non-glacierized regions of the catchment is small, while bare ice melt is most important. According to Huss’s calculations, the 100-year average glacier contribution to the Rhone accounted for 25 percent of the total runoff. In August 2003, the share deriving from glacier storage change rose to 40 percent; a proportion not to be ignored during that extremely hot and dry summer.

At Switzerland’s Federal Office for the Environment (FOEN), researchers are well prepared to deal with the consequences of climate change for the Swiss water household. The FOEN recently started ‘Project CCHydro’. The project name stands for climate change and hydrology in Switzerland. Based on current climate scenarios, the project aims to provide detailed forecasts on the hydrological cycle and runoffs in Switzerland for the coming decades.

Project director David Volken says that between 1996 and 2006, 0.9 billion cubic metres of water have melted from the glaciers yearly. He expects that until 2050, runoff from glaciers will increase, but then rapidly drop towards the end of the century.

“Because of the warming climate, snow melt will happen about a month earlier and rainfall will decrease 10 to 15 percent in summer,” Volken adds. As a consequence, the rivers’ runoff regime will change, he predicts. “There’ll be more runoff in winter and less in summer. During hot summers, less water will be available in the future,” the hydrologist warns.

Matthias Huss of the University of Fribourg also stresses that the current picture is deceptive. “Due to climate change, we currently get more water from the glaciers than normally, as they’re melting. At first glance it looks like there’s no problem,” he says. But Huss warns that soon the picture will change and the remaining glaciers won’t be able to provide enough water during the summer months.

Huss’ glacier models are linked to specific climate scenarios. Diverging global warming estimates therefore affect prognoses regarding glacier shrinkage significantly.

The glaciologist admits that there are large uncertainties. “However,” he says, “what’s for sure is that glaciers will shrink massively. Even in an unlikely best-case climate scenario, glaciers will lose more than 70 percent of their size until the end of the century.” And in the worst case? “There wouldn’t be any glaciers any more at all.”

Taking different glacier retreat scenarios into account, Huss estimates that currently glacierised basins might contribute 55 to 85 percent less water to stream flow runoff by the end of the 21st century. “Even if the climate could be stabilised at the current level,” the glaciologist argues, “we’d witness drastic glacier retreat and their storage ability would either drop extremely or be lost totally.”

As glacier shrinkage seems unstoppable, mankind will be forced to adapt to the new situation. Water shortages may occur more often and economic consequences may be harsh, the study warns. Especially the agricultural sector will face serious challenges, and communities may struggle to keep up drinking water supply.

The FOEN’s Thomas Volken says that in the agricultural sector, water consumption efficiency has to be stepped up. He adds that adjustments in the cultivation of agricultural surface are inevitable, too.

As regards drinking water supply, Volken suggests its optimisation through regional integration and new strategies, such as linking drinking water networks to at least two independent resources. As additional measures, the hydrologist mentions the construction of additional dams in the mountains or systematic ground water accumulation.

Excerpt:

By Ray Smith
BERN, Jun 9 2011 (IPS)

Switzerland is witnessing a drastic turnaround in energy policy. Half a year ago, plans for the construction of new nuclear reactors were heavily debated. Now, three months after the disaster in Fukushima, the initial steps for a staged nuclear shutdown have been taken.

The Swiss government, the Federal Council, surprised many, when on May 25 it announced its decision to phase out nuclear energy in the medium term. All five Swiss nuclear reactors are to be shut down at the end of their operational lifespan without being replaced. According to the plan, the first power plant (‘Beznau I’), the world’s oldest pressurised water reactor still in service, would be disconnected by 2019, the last reactor (‘Leibstadt’) by 2034.

Along with the nuclear opt-out, the cabinet presented its ‘Energy Strategy 2050’. Its main features include reducing energy consumption, strengthening energy research, and broadening electricity supply by boosting hydropower and renewable energies. Currently, Switzerland’s nuclear power plants are producing 39 percent of the country’s energy supply.

It’s still a long and potentially bumpy road from the Federal Council’s landmark decision to its actual implementation, however. First, the new energy strategy is to be submitted to both chambers of the Swiss parliament for debate. Then, concrete measures and the necessary draft laws have to be developed and formulated. These will be discussed by the parliament. It is widely expected that the Swiss voters will have the final say on the issue.

On Wednesday, the National Council gathered for a special session devoted to the government’s new energy strategy. On behalf of the Social Democrats, National Councillor Eric Nussbaumer demanded the nuclear phase-out to take place earlier than proposed by the Federal Council.

“Operators pretend that their reactors can be kept in service for 50 or even 60 years, even though they were built for 40 years only,” he said. Pointing at three Swiss reactors being among the world’s oldest, Nussbaumer called it careless to keep them running until the end of their operational lifespan.

Fulvio Pelli, president of the Liberals, criticised the absence of concrete alternative plans to replace nuclear power. He stressed that his party was against building new reactors based on currently available technologies, but didn’t want to ban nuclear technology forever.

“Nuclear energy is no technology of the future,” replied Swiss Energy Minister Doris Leuthard. She argued that keeping the currently existing reactors safe was costing increasing amounts of money. Leuthard stressed the importance of taking a clear and fundamental decision. “We could lose precious time. A clear decision is an impulse for the economy, it will attract investment,” she said.

Representatives of the right-wing Swiss People’s Party called the cabinet’s phase-out decision a mistake, claiming it would not only destroy jobs and endanger businesses, but also put the security of energy supplies for the country at risk.

Ninety-nine of Switzerland’s 246 parliamentarians are members of pro-nuclear interest groups. Most of them can be found in the ranks of the Swiss People’s Party and the Liberals, but to a lesser extent also in the centre parties.

Nevertheless, most representatives of centre parties recently changed their opinions and started to support a nuclear opt-out. One explanation is obvious: parliamentary elections are up in autumn and public opinion in Switzerland on nuclear power has drastically shifted in the wake of the disaster in Japan.

A post-Fukushima survey showed that two-thirds of the Swiss voters objected to building new nuclear reactors, even if as a result electricity prices would rise. In comparison, less than a year ago, only half of the respondents rejected new power plants. The poll also showed that about a third of the interviewees supported a more or less immediate shutdown of Switzerland’s nuclear reactors.

Nearly asleep before ‘Fukushima’, the country’s anti-nuclear movement has gained increasing support. In May, a demonstration against nuclear reactors attracted more than 20,000 protesters. It was by far the largest anti-nuclear demonstration in Switzerland for 25 years.

Several smaller demonstrations took place, too. In Bern, for the past two months activists have been squatting a park facing the headquarters of BKW, the operator of several power plants, including a disputed nuclear reactor in the town of Mühleberg.

The shift in public opinion and popular pressure left their traces on Wednesday’s debate in the National Council. After long discussions, a majority of the representatives voted in favour of a nuclear phase- out.

The powerful Swiss business federation ‘Economiesuisse’ reacted with disappointment. The country’s largest umbrella organisation representing the interests of Swiss businesses has been the fiercest opponent of the cabinet’s new energy strategy. It has argued that the effects of a nuclear opt-out on the national economy weren’t considered by the cabinet, that its costs would be larger than estimated and that the potential of renewable energy and electricity imports was being overestimated.

Meanwhile, a much smaller economic association representing leading clean-tech companies welcomed the National Council’s decision. “From an economic point of view, it’s the only right way,” Swiss Cleantech president Nick Beglinger said. The organisation is aware of the difficulties and costs of the envisaged turnaround in energy policy, but states that they’re outbalanced by the emerging opportunities.

Beglinger is convinced that phasing out of nuclear power could even go along with fighting climate change. Swiss Cleantech regards halving the overall energy consumption of Switzerland by 2050 based on raising efficiency as realistic. Boosting alternative energies is seen as another key to success.

Switzerland’s small area however could be the source of obstacles on the way to boosting renewable energy such as hydro, wind or solar power. The construction of water supply dams in the mountains for example has often sparked resistance from local residents and environmental organisations. The latter though may soon be silenced by the law, as the National Council has decided to limit their tools to block or delay the construction of energy-related projects.

Excerpt:

By Ray Smith
CRANS-MONTANA/ALPAGE DU SCEX, Switzerland, Oct 5 2010 (IPS)

Wolves have resettled in Switzerland. Their appetite for sheep and even cattle has sparked fierce debates in the mountain republic. Nature conservation organisations demand the implementation of herd-protection measures. However, alp farmers are sceptical about their practicability and costs.

“On Jun. 24, the wolf attacked our 60 sheep for the first time, killing five of them. A week later, five of the 200 sheep on the neighbouring alp were slain. The next night, the wolf killed ten more sheep.” Armin Andenmatten, tenant of the Alpage du Scex in the canton Valais in south-western Switzerland, looks serious as he tells how his nightmare began. The tall and strong farmer explains that all sheep herds in the area had to be taken down to the valley immediately after the wolf attacks.

Alpage du Scex extends over an area of 450 hectares located between 1,200 and 2,500 metres above sea level. Its steep and rocky terrain includes forests, grassland, creeks and waterfalls. The view on some of Switzerland’s highest peaks is stunning, and only cowbells break the silence.

Andenmatten’s weather-beaten face looks thoughtful as he continues to tell how in July his cattle were attacked, leaving two cows dead and one seriously injured. Before, wolf assaults on cattle hadn’t happened and were considered very unlikely. In early August, the canton Valais authorised the killing of one of the two wolves detected on Alpage du Scex. Soon after, hunters shot the predator.

Historically, the widespread clearing of the forests and the disappearance of prey animals during the 16th century forced the wolves to nourish on domestic and farm animals. Consequently, wolf hunting was intensified and in the second half of the 19th century, the predator was eradicated in Switzerland.

A whole century later, the wolves have returned to the Swiss Alps. Nowadays, 15-20 individual wolves are believed to live here, their number is on the rise, and the emergence of packs is forseeable. According to the national wolf monitoring project, wolves have killed at least 62 sheep and two cows so far in 2010. Last year a record-high 358 livestock were slain.

Ralph Manz, who works for the Valaisan section of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) considers the wolf’s return to Switzerland “a great event in environment conservation.” At the Federal Office for the Environment (FOEN), Reinhard Schnidrig says a majority of Swiss people welcome the wolf’s return, while aggrieved parties in the mountain cantons are against it.

Indeed in the Valais, there is fierce resistance against the wolf. “It’s not because we’re stubborn people, but because we’re the most affected. The Valais is the entry of the wolf to Switzerland,” says Roberto Schmidt, a local National Councillor of the Christian Democratic People’s Party (CVP). He argues that the wolf has no place in Switzerland. “Our country is too densely populated and the mountainous regions are too cramped.”

On a European level, the wolf is protected by the Bern Convention of 1979. Roberto Schmidt and several other parliamentarians have successfully pushed for a downgrading of the wolf’s protected status and the facilitation of its hunt in Switzerland.

“Our aim is to prevent the emergence of wolf packs. This way, the problem could at least be limited to the presence of individual wolves,” says Schmidt.

Reinhard Schnidrig of FOEN doesn’t consider the shooting of wolves a sustainable solution. “In order to minimise losses of farm animals in the long run, priority has to be given to protecting the herds,” he explains. Mirjam Ballmer, project manager for environment conservation policy at the non- governmental organisation Pro Natura agrees and adds: “The wolf is back, that’s a fact. We need improved herd-protection measures, even though they cost.”

Over the years, livestock breeding in the Swiss Alps has adjusted to the absence of predators. In the Valais, sheep herds are mostly grazing freely and unprotected, which has repeatedly been criticised by the WWF and Pro Natura. Kurt Eichenberger, responsible in the WWF for biodiversity, says there’s no alternative to adjustments. “Even if the wolf could be hunted, it would again and again immigrate from Italy and France and profit from unprotected sheep herds.”

Herd-protection measures usually involve dogs and shepherds. Small herds are joined in order to facilitate their protection. Reinhard Schnidrig of FOEN says such measures are working well. “There are hardly any wolf attacks on protected herds and even if it happens, only very few animals are killed.”

Unlike in other cantons, in the Valais such measures have hardly been implemented. There, sheep breeding is mostly done as a hobby or sideline and flocks are relatively small and heterogeneous. Kurt Eichenberger argues that in light of this, investment in herd-protection measures and shepherds is the only promising way for sheep-keeping in future.” National Councillor Roberto Schmidt says that capacious herd-protection measures would cost the canton Valais 14 million Swiss francs yearly; a sum he considers totally disproportionate.

The image of the Swiss Alps presented to visitors doesn’t meet reality. While as for tourists and ‘flatlanders’ the mountains are an idyllic area for recovery and sports, alp farmers do hard and low-paid work in an extremely harsh environment.

“There’s a lack of understanding between city and countryside,” says Valaisan politician Roberto Schmidt. The Valais, he say, shouldn’t “become an Indian Reservation, just because city-dwellers like to find pure and untouched nature here. We do also have the right to cultivate our region!”

Valaisan WWF spokesperson Manz meanwhile finds it “incredible to demand from the world’s poorest countries to protect lions and tigers, while we here are incapable of living with the wolf.”

Excerpt:

By Ray Smith
BERN, Jul 6 2010 (IPS)

The disputed ‘black sheep’ placards may soon return to Swiss streets. The country’s Federal Council and parliament have validated a right-wing initiative calling for the automatic deportation of criminal foreigners.

Foreigners make up almost 22 per cent of the country’s 7.8 million inhabitants. These include people of European origin. Campaigns against foreign residents have become regular to Switzerland.

In 2008, the right-wing Swiss People’s Party (SVP) handed in an initiative demanding automatic expulsion of foreign criminals. The list of covered crimes includes rape, murder, robbery, drug-dealing, burglary and betrayal of the social insurance system.

The SVP launched the initiative in 2007, only a few months ahead of national elections. Its campaign mainly built on a controversial banner depicting a black sheep being kicked out of the country, accompanied by the words “Establish security”.

The campaign was harshly criticized by migrants’ organisations, left-wing parties and the Federal Commission against Racism. The Swiss Refugee Council (SFH) called the initiative “extremely questionable” and said its implementation would violate international law.

Automatic deportation of convicted foreigners contradicts the non- refoulement principle in international law, which prohibits expulsion to countries where a person could face prosecution. The initiative also violates the Swiss constitution and the European Convention on Human Rights.

Because of the agreement on free movement of persons with the European Union, almost two-thirds of Switzerland’s foreign population can’t be expelled. The initiative therefore creates a discriminatory split within the foreigners, because it effectively only concerns people of non-European origin.

Despite the efforts of the Green Party and the Social Democrats (SP), the Federal Council and both chambers of the parliament have failed to invalidate the initiative. Swiss citizens will be asked to cast their vote Nov. 28 this year.

In the National Council, debates were heated. Walter Wobmann (SVP) said: “In Switzerland the people are sovereign and the sovereign doesn’t have to pay attention to an elastic, undefinable international law.” He said “Switzerland can’t become a land of milk and honey for foreign criminals.”

Andrea Geissbühler (SVP) claimed that “most of those foreign criminals are unteachable and laugh about our system. Once they leave prison, they straightaway commit the next crime.” She added that foreigners “don’t pay fines, as most of them anyway live at the state’s expense.”

Currently, 350 to 400 foreigners are being deported yearly in application of the existing law. Alard du Boys-Reymond, director of the Federal Office for Migration (FOM), expects the number to quadruple in case the initiative is approved.

Fearing the initiative’s success, the government and a parliamentary majority support a counterproposal which will be presented to the voters. But this is largely congruent with the deportation initiative. But it does seek practicability and accordance with international law. Under the counterproposal, the degree of penalty and not the commitment of specific offences will decide automatic expulsion.

The counterproposal split the left, as some representatives chose to support it. “We try to avoid the worse. It’s a choice between pest and cholera,”said Maria Roth-Bernasconi(SP).

“Most supporters of the counterproposal basically agree with the SVP’s agenda-setting, but regard it as poorly shaped,” says Balthasar Glättli, secretary-general of Solidarité sans frontières (Sosf).

Gianni D’Amato, director of the Swiss Forum for Migration and Population Studies at the University of Neuchâtel stresses that other parties have often tried to take the wind out of the SVP’s sails by making concessions. “This way the discourse is moved in favour of the SVP, putting the right-wing party into a hegemonic position.”

The success of the SVP in the past four elections has frightened the rest of the political spectrum. The right-wing party increased its share of the vote from 12 percent in 1991 to 29 percent in 2007. It holds 55 of 200 seats in the National Council.

The SVP launched or announced migration or asylum-related initiatives ahead of the past four elections. “In Switzerland’s direct democracy, initiatives not only force a nationwide vote, but also put political pressure on the legislature and shape the agenda-setting,” says Gianni D’Amato.

Adrian Hauser from SFH says foreigner criminality is often hyped up by the right-wing in order to spread fear. Gianni D’Amato adds that the discourse suggests that the origin of a person is the main cause for her or his deviant behaviour. “In contrast, deviance of Swiss citizens is usually explained with psychological factors.”

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By Ray Smith
BERN, Jun 18 2010 (IPS)

Only two years after its last revision, the Swiss Asylum Act is about to be ‘reformed’ again. The changes include a gag order on political activism for asylum-seekers and a modification of the concept of a refugee.

Ever since Switzerland adopted the Asylum Act in 1981, it has constantly been tightened, largely at the expense of the refugees, as in most European countries.

In 2007 and 2008, Switzerland implemented a harshly criticised reform of the Asylum Act. Soon after, in spring 2008, Justice Minister Eveline Widmer- Schlumpf announced new measures to “reduce the attractiveness of Switzerland as a target country for asylum-seekers.”

The latest reform proposals have now passed the consultation procedures and have been submitted to parliament for approval.

During the consultation procedure, 45 non-governmental organisations responded with a detailed statement slamming the proposed law revision as “unnecessary” and “baseless”. Denise Graf, refugee coordinator of Amnesty International (AI), says the reform is unnecessary. “The annual number of asylum requests has in the last three years constantly been between 10,000 and 16,000. We’re far from the record highs in the end of the nineties, when more than 40,000 applications per year were filed.”

A highly controversial part of the revision is the plan to punish “abusive political activism” by asylum-seekers. The Federal Council argues that a number of asylum-seekers engage in exile politics only for the purpose of fabricating new reasons to be granted asylum.

Graf says the offence is insufficiently defined. Balthasar Glättli, secretary- general of the migrants’ rights organisation Solidarité sans frontières (Sosf) says the provisions are “elastic”, as it is up to the court to judge in particular cases. Adrian Hauser, spokesperson for the Swiss Refugee Council (SFH), says authorities would face serious difficulties proving that someone’s political activities in exile are motivated by abusive motives.

Amnesty International’s refugee coordinator points out that in their home countries, refugees often operate underground, as their activism is considered illegal. “Once in Switzerland,” Graf says, “many asylum-seekers keep up opposition politics, but undercover. After a while, an exiled refugee may start to uncover his political activities, which could then be seen by the authorities as ‘abusive’.”

All three organisations regard the proposed measure as an attack on freedom of speech. “It’s a totally unacceptable attempt to silence asylum-seekers,” says Glättli. SFH’s Hauser stresses that the European Convention on Human Rights only allows for restrictions of fundamental rights if national security, territorial integrity or public safety are in danger or to prevent disorder or crime. “Here and now, this is not the case.”

Berhanu for instance had his asylum request rejected a few years ago. Having studied agricultural economics and development sciences, he once worked as an official in a regional administration in his home country Ethiopia. On a study visit to Europe in 1989 he learnt about ethnic unrest in his home region, and was warned that he’d be arrested if he were to return.

Berhanu, now staying illegally in an emergency centre near Zurich, says his political work ultimately aims at improving conditions in Ethiopia, that could enable him to return. His party, the Ginbot 7 Movement for Peace and Justice, opposes the authoritarian regime of the People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front.

“Exile politics is about trying to voice out the situation and human rights abuses in our country to the rest of the world,” says Berhanu. “At the same time, it’s also a transfer of ideas and procedures aiming at the democratisation of Ethiopia and an attempt to strengthen home-grown opposition parties.”

At a demonstration for the liberation of an imprisoned opposition leader in Geneva, Berhanu learnt about Switzerland’s plans to sanction political activism of asylum-seekers. The gag order is “a law aligning with dictatorial regimes,” he says. Even though open protest activities in the future may not be possible any more, Berhanu is optimistic that the Internet will allow him and his fellows to continuously mobilise to reach their objectives.

Switzerland is trying to modify the concept of a refugee. Until now, the country’s asylum law has mostly targeted “untrue refugees”, a distinction made to define people who migrate mainly for economic reasons. Under the new law proposal, people so far considered “true refugees” are being targeted, too.

This revision is a reaction to a decision by the former Asylum Recourse Commission (now the Federal Administrative Court) in 2005. The Commission had decided then that conscientious objectors and deserters from Eritrea would be granted asylum because their potential punishment in their home country would be politically motivated.

Fearing a rising number of asylum-seekers from Eritrea, the former right- wing justice minister Christoph Blocher and his successor Eveline Widmer- Schlumpf worked on measures to prevent the influx of Eritrean refugees. The number of asylum-seekers now seems to have become the decisive criteria.

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By Ray Smith
ZURICH, Mar 31 2010 (IPS)

Human rights organisations have been demanding an independent inquiry into the death of a Nigerian asylum seeker died while being deported and a stop to all forced repatriations.

Deportation prison at Zurich airport. Credit: Ray Smith/IPS

According to the cantonal police of Zurich, Uzowulu refused to board the flight and “could only be constrained by the use of force.” Uzowulu’s arms and legs were tied up and a helmet put over his head and police claim that, thereafter, “he suddenly showed health problems”. He was unbound but never revived.

The director of the Federal Office for Migration (FOM), Alard du Boys-Reymond, who happened to witness the deportation later told Swiss Television that the police acted professionally.

Eyewitnesses, however, accuse the officers of being brutal and acting “like animals.” Following Uzowulu’s death, the FOM has temporarily halted further special repatriation flights.

Uzowulu is the third casualty related to forced deportations from Switzerland in 11 years. In 1999, a Palestinian asylum seeker who was bound and gagged with tape suffocated to death. Two years later, a Nigerian asylum seeker died in deportation custody, after police officers pressed him to the ground.

A first autopsy by the Institute of Forensic Medicine of the University of Zurich offered no clear conclusions on the cause of Uzowulu’s death. The Nigerian had been on hunger strike for a few days preceding the deportation, the authorities admit. Fellow prisoners, however, claim the young man had refused food for a much longer time.

Du Boys-Reymond said it did not matter that the deportee had been on hunger strike, but that he was declared healthy on the day of deportation. In general, he added, ‘’it should be that only healthy persons can be deported.”

Christoph Hugenschmidt, speaking on behalf of the human rights group ‘augenauf’ (open eyes), accused du Boys-Reymond of hypocrisy. “We have documented dozens of cases where sick and unhealthy persons have been deported,” he said.

To the police statement that Uzowulu was listed as as a drug-dealer, Hugenschmidt reacted by saying: “What does that mean? He was never convicted as a drug dealer!” The activist accused the police of slander and defamation in order to condone the Nigerian’s death.

Switzerland has not adopted Schengen norms and still detains rejected asylum seekers for up to two years ahead of their repatriation.

Cristina Anglet, of the solidarity network ‘Solinetz’ in Zurich and who regularly visits deportation prisoners at the Zurich airport said that following Uzowulu’s death at least 10 of the inmates had gone on a hunger strike. “I visited on Monday (Mar.22). On the fourth floor, where mostly Africans are imprisoned, almost everybody refused food. Additionally, I knew about people on hunger strike on the second floor.”

Hugenschmidt is appalled by the authorities’ efforts to play down the hunger strike. “Someone may just have died from the consequences of a hunger strike,’’ he said. Several rights organisations such as Amnesty International and various cantonal left-wing parties have demanded an independent inquiry into Uzowulu’s death.

Balthasar Glättli, secretary-general of ‘Solidarité sans frontières’ (Sosf), an organisation promoting migrants’ rights, prefers an international body such as the Committee against Torture to investigate. “The department of public prosecution is the wrong body to probe, as its ties with the police are much too close.”

As a Schengen state, Switzerland is obliged to implement the European Union’s ‘Return Directive’ according to which it has to set up an effective forced return monitoring system by spring 2011. Amnesty International demands that no forced deportations are carried out without independent monitoring.

Sosf’s Glättli remains sceptical: “Monitoring only makes sense if the deployed observers are present during the whole process. I’d prefer if deportees were accompanied by lawyers who could legally represent and defend them.” Glättli says that during forced deportation detainees are often trussed up. “The authorities put up with the death of people.”

Sosf states that the right of individuals to physical integrity, and therefore their protection from potentially deadly deportation procedures, have to be regarded as more important than Switzerland’s desire to remove people from its territory.

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By Ray Smith
NAHR AL-BARED, Lebanon, Jan 18 2010 (IPS)

Recent inter-factional clashes in Lebanon’s Ain al-Hilweh refugee camp once more illustrated the fragile security situation in some of its Palestinian camps. Lebanese plans to take over security within the camps are rejected by the Palestinians.

The new year had hardly begun when the sounds of gunfire and rocket- propelled grenades rocked Ain al-Hilweh camp on the outskirts of the Lebanese coastal city Saida. The most recent clash broke out when fighters belonging to the militant Islamist group Jund ash-Sham attacked an office of the mainstream Fatah movement within the camp. The fierce fighting was contained and eventually stopped when the camp’s security committee intervened.

Ain al-Hilweh and other refugee camps are home to various Palestinian nationalist groups, but also host different Islamist forces that the Lebanese government considers a threat to the state’s security and stability. In 2007, one of those groups called Fatah al-Islam engaged the Lebanese army in a 15-week battle in Nahr al-Bared, the country’s most northern camp. Nahr al- Bared was reduced to rubble, and 30,000 fled.

Lebanon hosts around 250,000 Palestinian refugees, many living in 12 officially recognised refugee camps. They have no education or employment rights comparable to the Lebanese. The Cairo Agreement of 1969 put the camps under control of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), and banned Lebanese security forces from entering.

Although the Lebanese government withdrew from the Cairo Agreement in the late 1980s and theoretically reclaimed its rule over the camps, the state has refrained from exercising its authority. Politically, the camps have been ruled by popular committees, while security committees have been serving as an internal police force.

When in 2006 Fatah al-Islam trickled into Nahr al-Bared however, the camp only had a weak popular committee and no functioning security committee. The Palestinian parties were divided, and consequently failed to push the well-armed Islamist group out of the camp, effectively allowing it to take over.

At the 2008 international donor conference for the recovery and reconstruction of Nahr al-Bared, the Lebanese government declared that once rebuilt the camp would “not return to the environmental, social and political status quo ante that facilitated its takeover by terrorists”, but be put under its authority.

It announced that the rule of law would be enforced in the camp by community and proximity policing through the Internal Security Forces (ISF). Pointing to the destroyed camp as an experimental ground, the government stressed that success in Nahr al-Bared would promote a security model for other Palestinian refugee camps.

In October 2009, a senior ISF delegation toured the United States to study community policing. The visit was part of a programme sponsored by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Narcotics and Law Enforcement. Assistance under the programme includes construction of an ISF police station, and equipment such as patrol vehicles and duty gear. Since 2006, the U.S. government has provided Lebanon with more than half a billion dollars in security assistance.

Community policing is an approach to police work in specific, well-defined areas. In theory, it builds on mutually beneficial ties between police and community members, and emphasises community partnership and problem solving. The community police benefits from expertise and resources existing within communities.

Marwan Abdulal, the PLO person in charge of the reconstruction of Nahr al- Bared doesn’t like the idea of implementing the concept in the camps. “It doesn’t take into account the peculiarity of Lebanon and the Palestinians’ presence in Lebanon,” he says. If Lebanese law remained discriminatory, and is enforced, he said the experiment is doomed to fail.

“The concept is fashionable. The word ‘community’ sells,” says Amr Saededine, an independent journalist. He says community policing is about getting people to spy on one another, and report to the security service. Ghassan Abdallah, director general of the Palestinian Human Rights Organisation, points at polls indicating that a large majority of the refugees do not trust the Lebanese security forces, and object to them controlling the camps.

Beirut and the government palace are far from the ruins, rubble and muddy streets of Nahr al-Bared. Here, the reality is different. More than two years after the war, about 20,000 refugees have returned to the outskirts of the camp, which is still surrounded by army posts, barbed wire and five checkpoints. Access for Palestinians and foreigners is only permitted with extra permits issued by the Mukhabarat, the Lebanese army’s intelligence service.

The Mukhabarat constantly patrol the streets and have been recruiting scores of new informants. An atmosphere of fear has spread across Nahr al-Bared. People avoid talking about sensitive issues such as the Lebanese state or its security apparatus in the presence of people they don’t know.

Women especially are recruited. Informants mostly get paid in phone cards. Others receive practical benefits like easier access to the camp. A social worker who doesn’t want to be identified says, “It’s as if they planted a virus within society, which is difficult to get rid of.” Living under military rule and having no security committee, the camp’s residents are unable to clamp down on the informants.

The army’s control over daily life “makes people explode at some point,” says Sakher Sha’ar, a hairdresser in Nahr al-Bared’s main street. “Why do they treat us this way? Why don’t they treat us like the residents of the surrounding Lebanese communities? We’re not their enemies.” Many refugees remember the Palestinian revolution in the late 1960s which was a reaction to the humiliating rule of the army’s intelligence branch known as the ‘deuxième bureau’. The uprising started in Nahr al-Bared.

A few months ago, the ISF set up a police post at the northern edge of Nahr al-Bared. The PLO’s Marwan Abdulal welcomes steps to transform the military zone into a civilian area. But he says “the problem is that when the ISF entered, the army remained present.” Indeed, the ISF’s role in the camp is currently almost zero, while the army keeps control, intimidating and arresting people.

The Lebanese ministry of interior seems unsure how to let the ISF enforce the law. “They would have to imprison the whole camp,” says journalist Amr Saededine. “Palestinians are forbidden to own property, to work in many professions, to open a shop, to found a civil society organisation…” Serious law enforcement in the camps by the ISF would ultimately require a fundamental change in Lebanon’s discriminating law.

The issue at stake in Nahr al-Bared is not just its future security arrangements, but its governance in general. The PLO has realised the need for a reform of the popular committee. Abdulal suggests a civilian body similar to a municipality, consisting of the parties as well as representatives of the civil society.

On internal security, the PLO suggests self-governance to counter the government’s intention to introduce community policing. Pointing to the successful model practised in Syria, Abdulal says there should be a Palestinian police force attached to the popular committee and coordinating with the ISF, which should remain outside the camp.

A similar model has informally been practised in most Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon. Their security committees have been coordinating with the Lebanese authorities, and have repeatedly handed over suspects to the state. Amr Saededine argues that if there was a serious attempt to re- organise camp governance and security, one would have to look at how society itself used to solve its problems, “but dropping the Anglo-Saxon concept of community policing by parachutes on the camp is irrational.”

After some Lebanese media recently reported on a stun-grenade attack in Rashidiyeh camp in Lebanon’s south, Sultan Abu al-Aynayn, a Fatah official, accused them of bloating up this personal act and depicting it as having political and security dimensions. He argued that this steady focus on Palestinians as a security problem obscures their demands for civil and social rights.

Abdulal insists that it is impossible to have Lebanese state security without human security for Palestinians. “There has to be a general feeling of security among Palestinians, in the political, economic, social and cultural sense.”

In Lebanon, Palestinians are still seen solely through security eyes. In Nahr al- Bared, the government has allowed the army to play a major role in the reconstruction project. It hasn’t shown will to revise its treatment of Palestinians and finally – after more than 60 years of their presence – abolish the legal discrimination against them. Current developments in the laboratory called Nahr al-Bared point to a one-sided imposition of direct rule on Palestinians rather than a “mutually beneficial partnership” between them and their hosts.

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