All posts by Frank Elbers

Blog, Migration, Syrian refugee crisis

Will IOM joining the UN system result in better migration management and protection of migrants?

Last week the membership of the International Organization of Migration (IOM) approved a motion to join the United Nations. “We expect to soon have a seat and a voice at the UN table and the UN will soon have a dedicated migration agency,” said IOM Director General William‎ Lacy Swing.

But what will this mean for migrants around the world? One in every seven persons on the planet is now a migrant and 65.3 million of these are forced migrants and refugees.

Discussions about the IOM joining the UN go back a long time but were accelerated with the prominence of migration governance in the newly minted Sustainable Development Goals. Back in 2005, the Global Commission on International Migration (GCIM), appointed by then-Secretary General Kofi Annan, recommended the IOM become a part of the UN system as a “global agency for economic migration,” leaving UNHCR as the key institution dealing with forced migration. This put the IOM at odds with the International Labour Organization (ILO), already a UN specialised agency, which claimed to have the monopoly on mobility. At the UN High Level Dialogue on Migration and Development in September 2013 it appeared the IOM had beaten the ILO in the battle over who would become the central agency for migration.

Unlike its long-time rival the ILO, the IOM currently has no formal mandate for the protection of migrants. Established in 1951 it acts primarily as a service provider to its member states and donors. The IOM’s mandate is to help ensure the orderly and humane management of migration, promote international cooperation on migration issues, assist in the search for practical solutions to migration problems, and to provide humanitarian assistance to migrants in need, including refugees and internally displaced persons (the latter being the mandate of UNHCR, the UN refugee agency).

Although the IOM itself argues that protection of migrant rights is central to its mission, many non-governmental organisations, including Human Rights Watch and the International Catholic Migration Committee, have criticised the IOM in the past as being too state-centric in its operations, yielding to the agenda of governments with too little regard for migrants themselves. Assisted voluntary return programmes of the IOM have been criticised for not being genuinely voluntary, particularly when it involves migrants kept in detention centres.

However, the IOM does have a wealth of field experience in running programmes that have a strong emphasis on human rights and protection. It has worked for example on migrants’ health, the prevention of human trafficking, and has led migrants’ rights training programmes.

Upon acceptance into the UN family, the IOM would need to be given a formal legal protection mandate, guided by the core international human rights treaties, including the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families. And IOM’s staff, both at headquarters and in field offices, would need to be trained in human rights; it already has experience and expertise conducting such trainings.

The IOM certainly seems up to the task of being the “global agency for economic migration” from an operational point of view. The new UN agency currently has over 9,500 employees in 450 offices world-wide, which assisted an estimated 20 million migrants in 2015.

Whether this will result in better global management of migration flows, the protection of migrant workers against exploitation by employers and recruitment agencies or a more effective fight against smugglers and traffickers worldwide, only the future can tell.

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Blog, Migration, Refugees, Syrian refugee crisis

The lifesaving app that wasn’t

It sounded too good to be true: an app that let’s you save refugees in the Mediterranean from the comfort of your living room.

“Every person who has watched this tragedy unfold over the past two years will now have a chance to contribute to saving lives, even if it is giving a couple of minutes of their time on an app,” Christopher Catrambone, founder of Migrant Offshore Aid Station (MOAS), told Mashable.

Here is how it was supposed to work: The ISea app “crowd-sources the search of the sea for migrants by giving access to the satellite image of the sea to smart phone users.” It then lets you scour those satellite images to spot refugee boats in trouble and alert rescue teams to their location. Teams such as MOAS, which provides professional search-and-rescue assistance to refugees and migrants in distress at sea. MOAS collaborated with the Singapore-based Grey for Good to develop the app.

Yet one week after the launch of ISea, the first stories broke that the app did not live up to its promise. Users pointed out that the app displays the same image for every user. ISea was subsequently pulled from the AppStore. And Grey for Good turned out to be the pro bono arm of a global advertising agency.

Meanwhile, MOAS, which even without the app rescued more than 2,000 people in its first two weeks of its operations in the Mediterranean, has denounced Grey for Good and the ISea app. “We were dismayed to discover that real time images were not being used,” MOAS wrote in a statement following the revelations. “We have since discontinued our relationship with Grey for Good and spoken candidly about our disappointment to the media.”

So far 2016 has been the deadliest year on record on the Mediterranean: 2,888 migrants and refugees lost their lives, compared with 1,838 through the first six months of 2015.

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Baltics, Blog, Migration, Refugees, Syrian refugee crisis

39,399 Estonians sign petition against “mass immigration”

RIGA – Yesterday the Estonian Conservative People’s Party EKRE submitted to parliament a petition against mass immigration. The petition demands a referendum on the government’s immigration and refugee policy, the Estonian Public Broadcaster ERR reported.

EKRE is in the opposition and with seven (of the 101) seats the smallest of the six parties represented in the Riigikogu, the Estonian parliament. Mart Helme, EKRE’s chairman, told ERR that his party had begun to collect signatures last summer, after the European Commission introduced its controversial refugee relocation programme.

Under the EU relocation scheme, Estonia, with 1.3 million inhabitants, is set to receive 302 asylum seekers by the end of 2017 – a fraction of the 160,000 refugees EU member states agreed to take from Greece and Italy over the next two years. To date Estonia has taken in 19 Iraqi and Syrian refugees from Greece.

Only last year, immigration exceeded emigration for the first time since Estonia regained its independence in 1991. According to Statistics Estonia, 15,413 persons immigrated to and 13,003 persons emigrated from Estonia in 2015. The majority of the migrants – 52% of the immigrants and 69% of the emigrants – were citizens of Estonia. Ukrainians, Russian and Finns are among the largest non-Estonian migrants.

Together with Hungary, Czech Republic, Poland and Denmark, the Baltic states have opposed the EU policy to distribute refugees – not immigrants – based on quotas. Given this opposition, the European Commission is now expected to present a final proposal for the reformed Common European Asylum System, next month, which will no longer feature quotas.

Along with the petition, EKRE’s parliamentary group submitted a draft bill that calls for a referendum on 23 April 2017. It would like to ask voters: “Do you agree that the Republic of Estonia participates in the redistribution of immigrants arriving in the European Union?”

The question is: which “redistribution” and which “immigrants”?

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Human rights

Q&A with Monica Heller: The politics of language

In a recent book, Paths to Postnationalism: A Critical Ethnography of Language and Identity (Oxford University Press, 2011), professor Heller shows how hegemonic discourses of language, identity, and the nation-state are destabilized under new political and economic conditions. These processes, Dr. Heller argues, put us on the path to post-nationalism. She examines the notion of “francophone Canada” from the 1970s to the present through sociolinguistic practices in workplaces, schools, community associations, NGOs, state agencies, and sites of tourism and performance across francophone North America and Europe.

Dr. Heller sat down with us to discuss language choice as a political strategy, post-nationalism, and her current research project on language and identity in Canada and Europe.

Full article published on the Global Migration Research Institute’s website on 4 May 2016.

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European Union, Migration

4 myths about Brussels and jihad

The questions and criticism started only days after the March 22 suicide bombings in the Belgian capital of Brussels: Is the dysfunctional city the Jihadi capital of Europe? Could the terrorists have been stopped if not for inept security forces?

Full article published in Dallas Morning News on 19 April 2016.

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Baltics, Blog, Refugees, Syrian refugee crisis

Refugees could be returned from Latvia to their home countries: Interior Ministry official

RIGA – More refugees arrived in Latvia yesterday but Interior Ministry official says they could be returned home once conflicts are over.

A second group of refugees from Iraq and Syria – four families, a total of 15 people, including seven children – arrived in Latvia yesterday under the European Union’s refugee relocation programme, the LETA news agency reported.

Latvia is set to receive 481 asylum seekers from Greece and Italy by the end of 2017  as part of the EU’s relocation programme. In addition, the government has agreed to resettle another 50 refugees from outside the EU. The first six refugees – two families from Eritrea and Syria – arrived in Riga in February.

However, Interior Ministry State Secretary Ilze Pētersone-Godmane yesterday claimed that in the event of a halt in conflict, their refugee status would be reviewed and they may have to return to their home country, the Baltic Times reported. According to Pētersone-Godmane, the status of refugees who fled the Balkan wars during the 1990s is currently hotly debated in Germany. She asserted that according to German law they would have to return.

Pētersone-Godmane is correct that under the EU program there are no specific provisions about the exact status asylum seekers relocated from Greece and Italy will need to be provided by host countries. The Interior Ministry State Secretary is also right when she says that refugees may be returned to their home countries once conflicts are over.

Refugee (Geneva Convention) status versus subsidiary and humanitarian protection

Formally recognised refugees are judged to be facing a “well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or membership of a particular social group” and for these reasons are unwilling or unable to return to their home country. So-called “subsidiary protection” applies to those who do not qualify as refugees but would “face a real risk of suffering serious harm” if returned to their country of origin. Finally, rejected asylum seekers can be allowed to stay temporarily on “humanitarian status” to protect individuals such as the terminally ill or unaccompanied minors.

The table below illustrates the status of those granted international protection last year. The cross-country variance is striking: Germany granted 97 per cent of asylum seekers Refugee (Geneva Convention) status but Slovakia only six percent. The difference can be explained by different asylum policies, not the characteristics of asylum seekers themselves.

Typically, recognised refugees receive a temporary residence permit for three years, after which the government can indeed review the situation of the country of origin. (Those with “subsidiary” and “humanitarian” protection usually receive a one-year temporary residence.)

Yet it is unclear what debate in Germany the Interior Ministry State Secretary is referring to. The European refugee crisis of the 1990s displaced 2.5 million in the former Yugoslavia and its successor states. The 350,000 refugees from Bosnia-Herzegovina who fled to Germany were only provided temporary protection status, because European neighbours were not willing to provide them long-term asylum. Their cases were also not individually reviewed, as is required under the Refugee Convention. This meant that they were immediately repatriated after the 1995 Dayton Peace Agreement. Most, if not all, of the Bosnian war refugees returned, resettled in the United States or have become German citizens.

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Baltics, Blog, Refugees

Iraqi refugee family’s appeal rejected by Vilnius court

The Vilnius Regional Administrative Court yesterday rejected an appeal by an Iraqi refugee family who arrived in the Lithuanian capital under the European Union’s refugee relocation programme in December 2015, the Lithuania Tribune reported.

The family had appealed against the Lithuanian Migration Department’s decision in February to grant them subsidiary (temporary) protection instead of full-fledged refugee status.

Refugee status grants permanent residency whereas subsidiary protection provides only temporary residence, which can be revoked once the situation in the country of origin improves.

“The asylum seekers failed to provide sufficient arguments regarding individual persecution directed directly against them and their minor children,” the court motivated its decision to dismiss the case in a press release. Judge Arūnas Kaminskas told reporters that the Migration Department had adequately assessed the family’s situation in Iraq, according to the Lithuania Tribune.

The family of four was the first that arrived in Lithuania under the EU relocation scheme, through which EU member states will take 160,000 refugees that are stranded in Greece and Italy by the end of 2017.

Under the EU programme there are no specific provisions about the exact status (refugee or subsidiary protection) relocated asylum seekers will need to be provided by host countries.

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Blog, Football

Dutch soccer great Johan Cruyff dies at age 68

Football great Johan Cruijff today died at age 68 after a battle with lung cancer. Cruijff was probably one of the most famous Dutchmen and definitely the most well-known Dutch football player: wherever in the world I have been over the past 30-odd years, the name Cruijff was always a foolproof topic to strike up a conversation.

Cruijff was the first “modern” football player, an athlete who revolutionised the game in more than one way. He was a visionary and master of football tactics. He introduced, together with coach Rinus Michels, the concept of “total football” at Ajax Amsterdam and later as captain of the Dutch national team during the World Cup in Germany in 1974. (The first of three World Cup finals the Netherlands played, and lost, during my lifetime.) He helped Ajax win three European Cups in a row from 1971-1973.

Total football, with players passing the ball frequently to seek advantage, and switch positions seamlessly to adjust to the flow of play, electrified and influenced the game worldwide. This possession-based playing style Cruijff promoted, with an emphasis on relentless attack, has been widely copied since.

After his successes with Ajax he moved to FC Barcelona mid-season in 1973 and led the Catalan team to its first national title in 14 years. Most memorable was the 5-0 win at arch-rival Real Madrid, a team that was heavily supported by Franco’s dictatorship. Some Catalans still refer to Cruijff as “El Salvador,” the saviour.

Johan Cruijff revolutionised and professionalised the game in other ways too. The transfer fee FC Barcelona paid to Ajax (US$14 million in today’s dollars) was unheard of at the time and considered a milestone in the commercialization of sport. He was also one of the first football players to take on corporate sponsorships. For the 1974 World Cup the Dutch football federation had signed a sponsorship deal with sports brand Adidas whereas Cruijff had his own deal with rival Puma. He refused to wear the team’s official jersey and ended up playing in a custom-made shirt, and shorts, bearing only two stripes on the sleeves instead of Adidas’s famed three.

Cruijff’s virtuosity won him many accolades: he was awarded the European Footballer of the Year trophy in 1971, 1973 and 1974. And was named Europe’s best player of the 20th century. As coach of Ajax and Barcelona, with whom he won four Spanish titles, he won his fourth European club title.

Unfortunately I was too young to have seen Johan Cruijff play during his glory days at Ajax and Barcelona in the 1970s. My first memory of hearing his name was during the World Cup in Argentina in 1978, an event Cruijff had decided to boycott for reasons that are still not fully known. That there were frictions with other players on the national team was no secret; Cruijff has always been known for being dominant, stubborn, uncompromising and forceful. Another reason given at the time was that he opposed the military dictatorship in Argentina, which, a few years later, made him stand out for me among the mostly apolitical football players.

The first time I saw Cruijff play was on 6 December 1981, when, at age 34, he made his comeback at Ajax after his tenure in Barcelona and an interlude playing for the Los Angeles Aztecs and Washington Diplomats in the United States. He scored an absolutely magical goal, concluding a rush past several defenders with a subtle lob over the goalkeeper from the tip of the penalty box. For several years my generation had the privilege to enjoy Cruijff’s superb game, until his retirement in 1984, which he crowned with both the national cup and championship playing for arch-rival Feyenoord Rotterdam. As a teenager I, and many of my friends, always tried to copy the so-called “Cruijff turn” — a technique he used for passing defenders by faking toward them, then flicking the ball behind his own other leg in the opposite direction and darting after it.

Cruijff was larger than life. He announced last October that he was suffering from lung cancer but continued to write his popular –and in Dutch football very influential– weekly column in De Telegraaf newspaper. Last month Cruijff said he was “2-0 up in the first half” of his battle against cancer. Cruijff was known for his creative use –some would say, abuse– of the Dutch language, commonly referred to as “Cruijffiaans.” “Every disadvantage has its advantage” and “You can’t win without the ball” are oft-quoted classics.

As former Dutch tennis player Raemon Sluiter aptly put it: “‘You have to have lived, otherwise you may not die’ he would probably have said. Rest in peace, Mr. Cruijff.”

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European Union, Middle East and North Africa, Refugees, Syrian refugee crisis, Turkey

5 reasons the EU-Turkey deal won’t end the Syrian refugee crisis

After months of negotiations, the 28 European Union leaders and the Turkish government last weekend reached an agreement to slow the refugee influx from Turkey. In exchange for taking back Syrian refugees who crossed to Europe illegally, the EU will accept refugees from Turkey, along with 6 billion euros ($6.7 billion) and a renewed prospect for Turkey to join the EU.

Full article published in Dallas Morning News on 23 March 2016.

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Blog, European Union

Brussels attacks

BRUSSELS – Dozens were killed and hundreds injured in Brussels this morning in apparent suicide attacks.

Around 8 am local time two bombs went off in the departure hall of Brussels international airport, Zaventem, 11 kilometers from the city center. Shortly thereafter an incoming train exploded at the Maelbeek subway station, in the middle of the European Quarter in Brussels.

“This is our 911,” said Bart Somers, the mayor of neighboring Mechelen on Belgian public radio shortly after the attacks.

Belgian authorities immediately closed down all public transport and train stations in Brussels and advised everyone to stay inside while hunting down possible suspects involved in the attacks.

A few hours after the attacks downtown Brussels looks like a ghost town. Central Station is still closed. The famous medieval Great Market, which on a regular day attracts huge crowds, is nearly empty.

Yet public life in Brussels has not completely come to a standstill. In Schaerbeek, a Brussels neighbourhood bordering the European Quarter, men can be seen hanging around public parks, not sure what to do. A mother is picking up her daughter from a daycare. “I am in total shock,” says Nathalie DeHaene, who can’t wait to be reunited with her 3-year old.

Unlike during the manhunt for the Paris attackers last November, Brussels’s European Quarter is now completely locked down. Police and military are patrolling the streets. The EU flags at the buildings of the European Commission, the heart of Europe, at a stone throw from the Maelbeek subway station where at least 20 people died and more than 100 were wounded, are halfmast. Civil servants are leaving the numerous buildings of EU institutions, including the European Parliament. No one is allowed to (re)enter the area.

Meanwhile tourists gathered in places like the Parc du Cinquantenaire, are following the ensuing developments on their smartphones, waiting what happens next.

At 14:30 local time the sounds of ambulances bringing victims from the metro station to nearby hospitals can still be heard. And helicopters are hovering over the city to provide back up and surveillance.

At 15:45 authorities lift the lock down for most of the city. Office workers make their way to parking garages and the main train stations. The streets fill up. Brussels gets ready for the evening commute as traffic resumes. At Central Station in downtown Brussels commuters are waiting, patiently and visibly relieved, in an ever-longer line to access the one entrance that is open. Each passenger entering the station is strip-searched by police officers.

“We have been so lucky not to have been among the victims,” says Marie Teunstedt. She arrived at work in downtown Brussels this morning at 8:15, right after the bombs exploded at Brussels Zaventem airport. The Maelbeek metro station is three blocks away from her federal government office. Ms. Teunstedt has been following the events all day from her office via the Internet as telephones were down. “This is so difficult to comprehend,” she sighs.

Julie, a civil servant for the European Commission who did not want to give her full name, also stands in line in front of Central Station. She was on board of the subway to Madou station, one stop before Maelbeek station, when the bomb went off. Julie works as a communications officer in the Directorate-General for Competition of the European Commission. As far as she knows, none of the colleagues in her department have been wounded or killed. “Only an hour-and-a-half after did we receive an update. I guess they wanted to be certain that all information was accurate,” she says.

Brussels North Station is now also open. All but the main entrance to the train station has been cordoned off by police and military. The station is encircled by police vans and military vehicles.

The stores in the sprawling departure hall are still closed down. Police halt and search a young immigrant who stands by, which under normal circumstances would have been described as profiling.

In the heavily guarded departure hall commuters are waiting for their delayed trains. Koffi Djokpa waits for his ride to Brain-le-Comte, a –French-speaking– Walloon municipality south of Brussels. He arrived at work this morning after the attacks and just before public transport was shut down. “I guess I was lucky,” he says in fluent Dutch.

He admits that during his workday as a maintenance engineer in the Flemish Ministry of Education, one of the high rises next to North Station, he did not get much information about what was going on in the city.

“I did not expect this. In fact, Brussels has become safer over the past years in my view,” says Mr. Djokpa, an immigrant from Togo who has lived in Belgium for 15 years.

When I tell Taher Alkhteb an hour later that public transport is running again, he is surprised. He did not know. He is the Egyptian owner of a falafel restaurant in a buzzing commercial street with a Middle Eastern flavour in the nearby Schaerbeek district. His restaurant has been open all day. “Politics, always politics…,” says Mr. Alkhteb. “This is the darkest day in my life.”

Five minutes later police find a bomb and an ISIS flag during a search in an apartment two streets over from his restaurant.

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