[romania.indymedia.org] One of the disadvantages of current representative
democracies is the discrepancy between the agenda of the regular
citizen and the agenda of leaders and political elites. As the
practices of direct democracy lose ground to the dominant-elitist
decision making system, people’s interest in the fairness of state
policies decreases, and criticisms of governing actions are usually
isolated and more symbolic than mobilizing.
Romania’s foreign and defense policies of the last
decade are the result of such a representative system, in which the
population is alienated from decision making, rather than represented.
Even though this model of democracy based on alienation, manipulation
and militarist propaganda is also practiced successfully in Western
states in Europe and across the ocean, Romania represents an extreme
example of false democracy through the total lack of public debates,
referendums, critical civic stands on important foreign policy
decisions. The opening of U.S. military bases on Romanian territory,
the participation in the war in Afghanistan, the support for the U.S.
intervention in Iraq, the secret CIA detention centers, etc. — the
public’s opinion was not consulted in any of these cases, and the
attempts from the progressive part of civic society, the few pacifist
organization and the informal groups of anti-war activists to form a
visible public opposition to the dominant discourse failed because of a
lack of solidarity. The "euro-atlantic" propaganda launched by the
press in Romania has contributed greatly, over time, to Romanians‘
tacit acceptance of U.S. imperial ambitions, of the war against
"Islamic terrorism", and of the criminalization of anti-war resistance
(it is enough to remember the mass media abuse before the NATO Summit
in 2008, when almost every alarmist news report mentioned the dangerous
Western anarchists who were expected in Bucharest) — the military
adventures of the Romanian government thus become generally accepted,
considered normal manifestations of "national interest" even though
they are completely removed from public interest.
Upon joining the European Union, Romania pledged to help actively
ensure the security of the Eastern border of the fortress, by means of
surveillance through advanced technologies and the detection and
deportation of non-Europeans without proper papers to their countries
of origin. But few Romanians know about the involvement of Romanian
border police in the expeditions of the European agency dedicated to
the hunting of illegal immigrants — FRONTEX.
The Regulation passed by the Council of the European Union on
October 24th 2004 established the European Agency for the Management of
Operational Cooperation at the External Borders of the Member States of
the European Union — FRONTEX, which since 2005 is based in Warsaw,
Poland, and employs over 200 experts – http://frontex.europa.eu.
The main goal of the agency is to ensure the security of the external
borders of the EU through assistance and logistical support for the
member states, professional training of border guards, and organization
of deportations flights, but also through so-called joint-operations to
prevent unwanted immigration, far away from the borders of the Union.
These operations take place most often at sea and consist of the
capture of boats carrying tens, even hundreds of refugees or workers
from Africa and Asia, who are then arrested and deported to their
countries of origin, or at best placed in detention centers, in
inhumane conditions, where even cases of torture have been reported. In
the last year, FRONTEX has put into practice a new strategy of
immigration control — the sabotage of immigration attempts directly in
countries of origin, on the West coast of Africa (in Mauritania,
Senegal, Cape Verde), but also on the Libyan border, permanently
monitored by Agency ships. In cases when only some of the refugees in a
group are captured by FRONTEX teams, the rest either are able to escape
returning to destination or are declared disappeared in the Atlantic
Ocean, the Aegean Sea or the Mediterranean Sea. In July 2008 alone, the
official number for people who have died in an attempt to cross the
European Union border was 185 persons (http://fortresseurope.blogspot.com/2006/01/june-2008.html).
However, these statistics have no impact on European policies. The
European Union persists in hunting down illegal immigrants, with
Frontex operations prioritized over any potential common actions at
European level focused on prevention of the motives that lead people to
a desperate flight West and North to countries other than their own,
necessary and urgent actions that would support local development in
terms of the infrastructure, agriculture and industries of developing
countries.
One of the latest FRONTEX missions – Poseidon, is still taking
place on the Aegean Sea, between Greece and Turkey, close to the Lesvos
Island, and aims to capture Turkish and Afghan immigrants and then
place them in the Pagani detention center on Lesvos. The Romanian
border police have participated in this common hunt at European level
between August and September 2009, which has resulted so far in the
arrest of over 150 de immigrants, the efforts of our guards having been
recognized by Frontex: http://www.ziuaconstanta.ro/rubrici/eveniment/frontieristii-romani-laudati-la-frontex-galerie-foto-84976.html.
That was one of the very few cases in which the Romanian media has
mentioned this European agency in general, and the story was brief and
not published nationally. Usually, the authorities avoid disclosing to
the public Romania’s involvement in such missions. And the public is
rarely informed about how the security of European border is being
ensured. In the majority of European countries the missions of the
Frontex agency are monitored, debated and criticized, while the very
way in which the Union selects its immigrants from African and Asian
countries is questioned by activists, human rights supporters, and
non-governmental organizations. Countless anti-Frontex protests have
happened and continue to happen in France, Spain, Great Britain,
Poland, Germany, Belgium and other countries, and the gestures of
solidarity with criminalized immigrants are bringing together diverse
social groups. But in Romania, a country that until recently was a
constant source of "illegal" immigrants to Western countries, a country
where until recently people stood in never-ending line in front of
consulates, a country whose people have been and continue to be
discriminated in the West based on ethnic criteria, we are not
discussing almost at all Romania’s participation in the European
missions of refugee captures and in the selective European migration
policy, we know very little about the daily expulsions of Asian workers
from Romania, and we don’t know much about FRONTEX either, let alone
the less than orthodox methods that they use for ensuring the security
of the Eastern border. One explanation would be the ignorance of the
press, but there is also the low level of participation and pressure
shown by citizens. Even though Romanians have shown on several
occasions that they are capable of spontaneous gestures of solidarity
with immigrants (for example, the events in front of the Chinese
Embassy from last year), the interest in foreign policy decisions and
in Romania’s military and police involvement in the world is quite low,
and here there is only timid and sporadic critical thinking on these
topics. For the same reason the title of this article can stir
controversies and misunderstandings – international military and
security institutions have the trust and the tacit support of Romanian
people, so why should we need to be protected from them…?
The wars "against terror" send thousand of refugees to Europe every
year, the staggeringly large subsidies from the EU budget that are
pumped into the agriculture of Western countries contribute to a
continued increase in the exports to African countries and, in effect,
to the elimination from the market of local producers who cannot
compete with cheap European prices and flee to Europe where they become
"illegal" immigrants. The duty of a politically aware European (and
thus, Romanian) citizen is to question the policies of the Union that
produce these realities, to help, as much as possible, non-European
immigrants around him or her, and to look for alternatives to the
European model of migration management.
Below you can watch a short video about Frontex missions produced
by refugee rights activists before the No Border camp in Lesvos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOuFo5egBqE&feature=player_embedded#t=83
