Points of no return
16
THEY’RE washing up on beaches, pressing their faces against fences, squatting in camps, in abandoned buildings, in the space between countries. In 2015, those who must abandon their homes to survive are everywhere, their haplessness visible to all but those who matter — those who can provide the refuge, the slightly better existence that is their meagre goal. Pakistanis are among them, trying to penetrate Fortress Europe to claim asylum — in fact, permission for the better life unquestionably available to those born across the borders.
Some of them do not make it, and they comprise two groups: those who die and those who are returned. Last Friday, the interior minister made an announcement regarding the fate of the latter group. Speaking at a news conference in Islamabad, Chaudhry Nisar said that Pakistan had “suspended” readmission agreements with Western countries except the United Kingdom, owing to “blatant misuse”.
As per readmission, migrants who arrive in a foreign country without the requisite legal paperwork can simply be returned to their country of origin, which must then take them back. Prior to invoking the premises of readmission agreements, the country returning the would-be immigrant is expected to employ due diligence regarding whether they actually belong to the country to which they are being repatriated.
This, apparently, is not happening. According to reports from the news conference last week, the minister said that approximately 90,000 people were sent back under readmission agreements this year. Lately, however, the ministry says that Western officials are saying that the deportees are being sent back on charges of terrorism. They are not providing any verification of the basis of their suspicion. Furthermore, officials in charge of deportations are also failing to contact Pakistani consular officials to see if they can verify whether those being sent back are actually Pakistani.
European countries eager to turn away the increasing flow of refugees are running out of solutions.
The decision to suspend the readmission agreement is a surprising one; arrangements like this exist as a matter of course to allow those lacking paperwork to be returned to the country of which they are nationals. In recent months, while European countries have struggled to manage the daunting refugee flows coming into the continent, some concerns have been expressed about what would be done with the Pakistanis who are among the mix.
According to UNHCR, Pakistan is among the top 10 countries whose nationals are part of the refugee flow, Syria, Afghanistan and Eritrea forming the top three nations in this category. A day before the announcement in Pakistan, the Chinese news agency Xinhua reported that European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini had a meeting with foreign affairs adviser Sartaj Aziz in China ahead of the Asia-Europe Meeting. Matters discussed between the two included the refugee flows that Mogherini described as “partially coming from Afghanistan”. This is not all. The European Commission migration commissioner, Dimitris Avramopolous, is expected to visit Pakistan soon to discuss the return of Pakistani migrants who have made their way to Europe.
The set of developments is notable for several reasons. The first, of course, is that the desperation of EU countries to return migrants, whose flow has remained unabated and whose condition is expected to become increasingly dire in the coming winter months, is leading to some bizarre and unlikely situations. In this particular case, based on the interior ministry’s statements, the rush to return people is so great that investigations are shoddy and incomplete. The investigations are likely to be based on the individual’s own claims regarding where they came from or an assumption of their nationality.
European countries eager to turn away refugees whose numbers refuse to abate are running out of solutions. Commitments to human rights conventions and the blatant inhumanity of turning away those in need means that they must act promptly and with some semblance of attention to the humanitarian aspects of the crisis.
Given these constraints, an unusual recourse may be to capitalise on the ambiguities of refugee origins and speedy repatriations to wherever. Sending an Afghan man without any documents back to Pakistan, even when there is little evidence of whether he belongs there, is a way to send at least someone back.
Authorities in Pakistan, constrained by the terms of readmission agreements, cannot simply send the deportee back if he is unable to present Pakistani papers upon arrival in the country. In this way, a new pipeline of return is created via which migrants can be turned away from Europe and sent back somewhere, anywhere — other than Europe of course.
Pakistan has been bearing the brunt of refugees owing to wars instigated by Western countries for decades now. The flows of refugees that are so daunting to the Europeans eager to hold on to affluence and prosperity within Fortress Europe are familiar to generations of Pakistanis.
A similar situation has been faced by Jordan and Turkey, both of which have borne the brunt of the flow of refugees from conflicts instigated by Western countries. To sum it up, countries that have the misfortune to exist close to war zones selected by the West have no choice but to take in those that are displaced by conflict.
For European nations, of course, the rules have to be different. No matter how deep their own complicity in the conflict or whatever their history of exploitation that has produced refugee flows, the sanctity of their borders and their right to refuse those who wish to cross over from other parts remain supreme. However, while their right to identity, to demand respect for their rules of immigration, are considered unassailable, those of countries such as Pakistan are deemed more or less arbitrary. The objective is to return the refugees, send them as far away as possible from Europe. Until Pakistan’s announcement of the suspension of the readmission agreement, it was a strategy that almost worked.
The writer is an attorney teaching constitutional law and political philosophy.
Published in Dawn, November 11th, 2015
