The Western world is largely responsible for the economic exploitation and militarization of the so-called Third World. This leads to poverty, wars, debts and oppression. For many people, travelling to the affluent West is a logical reaction to these problems. We should not refuse refugees, but instead, do something that responds to the causes of their migration. All people have the right to choose the place were they want to live. Nobody is illegal!

N10 is a platform that has been established to counter the EU-conference in Groningen, Netherlands. N10 organises workshops, discussions, a Kristallnacht/‘Night of the Broken Glass’ memorial, demonstrations and manifestations.

MANIFESTO

The EU-ministers responsible for integration will convene in Groningen from the ninth till the eleventh of November to discuss one of the five spearheads of the Dutch presidency of the European Union.

The Dutch government says it wants to make the Union safer, free from terrorism and organised crime. The concept of the EU as “a space of freedom, security and justice” will be elaborated in Groningen. According to the Dutch government the Groningen-agenda is about: “taking definite steps towards a European asylum-, migration-, and integration-policy and paying attention to the fight against terrorism and organised crime. Whereby the intensification of the cooperation of police and justice of the member states is given priority.”

The ministers will come up with plans to create more obstacles for non-Western people to prevent them from building a safe and dignified existence. In Groningen the foundations are laid for a repressive EU-policy in the form of compulsory integration, selection and treating the refugees and immigrants like criminals. The aim of the policy is to keep out, lock up, shut out and deport the unwanted.

This is why the N10-platform does not want to let the summit go by unnoticed. Therefore we will criticise and protest against the treatment of refugees and migrants by the EU in and outside Europe. We will give solutions for the real problems, because migrating and fleeing is not something people just do without a good reason.


Integration
Despite the basic assumption of the policy that all newcomers must integrate and adapt to the Dutch ‘norms and values’, in reality the debates usually focus on people from non-Western regions. Here ‘their’ non-Western culture is considered as the central problem. It has become generally accepted to label non-Western cultures as retarded or even barbarian, to depict whole communities as criminal, guilty of ghetto forming and poverty and to imply that everyone on welfare is a danger to ‘our’ welfare state. But this only serves as a means of disguise and justification for the further break down of rights, achieved by struggle of the lower social classes. The legal inequality that is present worldwide, and maintained by violence, is growing every day. New enemies, more (racist) witch hunts, increasing control and repression, deteriorating labour conditions, cut-backs and exclusion from public services.
The migration and refugee policy and with that the integration policy is breaking new ground in this process of breaking down social rights.

In the Netherlands the integration policy will be firmer. The already existing ‘civil courses’ will be backed by firmer ‘entrance courses’ in the native country to non –Western immigrants. The introduction of personal devices of people who live here is an important pilot-project for the goal of separating the useful from the useless. These devices will indicate the level of integration using indicators like productivity, assimilation and loyalty to the authorities. At the European level, the idea of a differentiated civic citizenship was already included as an important part of the policy at the Tampere-summit in 1999. This means that migrants who are legally staying and working in a European country can only acquire certain rights after a period of time. Rights that are similar to the rights of refugees with a legal status. However, the exact period of time and the exact nature of these rights remain unclear. This means that the interpretation will remain with the individual member states. This way the EU can fully profit from the labour of migrants, and at the same time it can undermine the future of these people by reduced social security. Integration is meant to create restrictive conditions for migrants making them only useful for the economy: the ageing of the population demands the efforts of migrants. This policy is being made acceptable by forcing migrants to conform to western culture and western norms and values, and by the continuous break down of our social system.

The Enemy
After the 11th of September 2001, the whole western world declared the war on terrorism. But instead of recognising that they created the circumstances in which terrorism is created, the war was used as an excuse for repression and demolition of social achievements. Terrorism thrives on the unequal distribution of welfare in the world, the exploitation of the so-called Third World, occupations (Palestine, Iraq) and war (Afghanistan, Iraq, Chechnya). The sealing of the EU-border against people and products is presented as a measure in the fight against terror, but it is more a part of the problem than of a solution. The War on Terror is the excuse that is being used to spy on their ‘own’ civilians. This is executed by intensive police-checks (mostly of migrants) and exchange of information between the different EU-states and the US. Civil rights and social security are being broken down in the effort for increased ‘security’. Different communities are being incited against each other. Migrant (especially Muslims) are being branded suspicious. This smear campaign must be stopped. Solidarity between the different communities in the EU, but also internationally, must be the starting point.

Laws before humans
The deportation of 26,000 persons out of the Netherlands is causing a lot of disagreement at the moment. But for years deportations have been taking place to unsafe countries. The Dutch government uses violence and fraud (falsefied passports) for this. The deportations are not different to, but part of the policy against refugees and migrants that has started way earlier. These people are deported after years of insecurity and an unfair procedure.
The new rules put up difficulties in every part of the asylum procedure in order to withdraw refugees from a staying permit. A refugee who has to report for an asylum application in the Dutch reporting centre Ter Apel, gets about 2.5 hours for the application, but only 20 minutes of that are for the story and reasons for fleeing. The reasons of flight that give access to the asylum procedure are limited; sexual violence or discrimination are not acknowledged reasons for fleeing. The Dutch Immigration and Naturalisation Service can take 1.5 years for an asylum application. After that a temporary residence permit can be given for a maximum of five years, which goes with a compulsory naturalisation course. After these five years of an insecure existence the new asylum application is started for a permanent residence permit. In this procedure the threat to be deported to the country of origin is big. A refugee will not get a residence permit if the Dutch government declared the country of origin safe, which holds for about the whole world (including Northern Iraq, Iran, North Somalia, Sudan).
In Netherlands people without papers are excluded of society by means of several laws. They are made illegal, turned into the street and arrested in raids. A large group of people are made to live without rights, without access to social security, school, work or living place. Locking up migrants and refugees is also made a central part of the refugee policy. A lot of migrants and refugees (also children) are locked up in a ’hospitium’ or a deportation prison, although they did not commit any offence. The circumstances in these centres are often very bad, for instance the access to medical care is not guaranteed. All these measures violate human rights.

Fortress Europe
The individual member states of the European Union have said to work towards a common European refugee- and migration policy by endorsing the Treaty of Amsterdam. It is not only about keeping refugees and migrants out via the creation of Fortress Europe, but it is even more about controlling migration and fleeing. Migrants do get access to Europe if they can be of any use in the European labour market, but the borders are closed for the rest of the refugees and migrants. The outer borders of Europe are militarized by highly technological means, which is also a requirement for new member states of the EU. Wild pursuits on land and sea, with the use of live ammunition on boat refugees, bring about thousands of deaths on the outer borders of Fortress Europe. The European Union has been working for long on the formation of an outer shield around Europe to relieve the ‘pressure’ on the outer borders. Countries in Eastern Europe, around the Mediterranean and in Northern Africa at any cost have to prevent that refugees and migrants travel through to EU member states. These countries are forced to do this under threat of economic sanctions (freezing of trade with EU, lessening of development money). The result is that the southern border of Fortress Europe is already closed on the other side of the water.
Already in 1998 the EU via a strategy document has suspended the asylum status as described in the Convention of Geneva. She tries to control flight and migration by ‘refugee centres in the region of origin’. This denies people the right to an asylum application in another country.

Refugees are not a problem, but they do have a problem
The migration and integration policy of Fortress Europe is concentrated on keeping economic unusables out, while people have good reasons to flee or migrate to Europe. Migrating or fleeing is not an easy thing to do. Why are people fleeing and what is Europe’s role in that?
The base is the lack of chances on a humane existence in their country of origin. The reason for that can be poverty, oppression, war, sexual violence or a combination of these factors. The EU is, next to the USA and Japan, one of the biggest political and economical powers inside the violent process of globalisation. Examples of this process are amongst others neo-colonialism, burden of debt, war and support of dictators and warlords. The consequences of these are amongst others oppression, exploitation, poverty, genocide and formation of ghettos. This has to do with the unequal distribution of goods and means and the destruction of self-sufficient economic structures, which are caused by Europe and the rich west. It is true that Europe under strict conditions ‘gives’ development money to the so-called Third World, but at the same time Europe is responsible that the money cannot be used efficiently. This is not only shown by her own foreign policy, but especially via her support to the WTO (World Trade Organisation), the World Bank and the IMF (International Monetary Fund).

WTO, IMF and World Bank
The WTO is a by Western capital dominated institute that looks after the interests of the rich and powerful leaders or companies. Often they talk about stimulating economies in Third World Countries, but in practice they aim at creating investment possibilities. The WTO wants tax free zones with cheap labour and new markets. Seldom or never there has been a real development of local economies in the concerned countries.
The World Bank and the IMF are best discussed together. The World Bank is a semi-commercial financing bank, specialized in financing governments of non-western countries. The IMF is a connected economical institute that drafts up ‘development programs’ for countries. If a country wants to be considered for a loan from the World Bank, the whole economic policy has to be in agreement with the demands of the IMF. So the internal market of these countries should be opened up completely for the capital and products of western companies. This makes it very difficult for countries to build up their own industry and also western companies steal all their treasured natural resources. In the mean time western companies get the new market they need for securing their profits and to keep on growing. Also the countries have to promise not to use the loaned money for stimulating import-replacing industries. This is to guarantee that they will be dependent on western companies forever.
Third World countries, which refuse loans of the World Bank, because of the conditions of the IMF, do get hefty reactions of the western world. Such a country risks economic boycotts and even a western financed and often violent takeover. Local revolts and resistance of the local population lead to stricter measures.
Next to the explicit European support to these institutions, Europe keeps up high tariff walls for Third World products. At the same time western companies, via the demands of the IMF, have free access to their internal markets.
Besides there are the western weapon supplies and the large-scale military interventions and occupations under command of the USA. Regimes that are armed to their teeth can go ahead undisturbed against their own population, with oppression, terror, disappearings or sexual violence. In Netherlands in 2002 most refugees came from Afghanistan, in 2003 this was Iraq. This is a direct result of the foreign policy of western countries that supported local wars when it was any good to them. It may be clear that oil and other resources play a major role in supporting war. The hypocritical critic on violation of human rights is almost always parallel to the loss of economic positions.

Conclusion
The EU-plans for forced integration, selection between the useful and not useful and the criminalization of refugees and migrants are not a solution for the people who are forced to flee or migrate. We want to stand up for equal rights for refugees and migrants and at the same time fight the causes that force people to flee. Migration has been there for ages and will stay to exist. Migration is only a problem if people are forced to leave their homes, because of e.g. war, oppression, environmental disasters or economic circumstances. All people have the right to choose where they want to live. The world is from everyone! Their economical expenses or benefits should not make any difference. We think people count, not their economic use.
We conclude that refugees are mainly coming here as a consequence of the unequal distribution of goods and the involved oppression, poverty, exploitation and the by the rich west created war.
The social-economical-political system should radically change at world scale to come to structural and humane solutions. The migration and refugee policy is a spearhead for this. The causes of migration should be dealt with, but not by refusing admittance to the victims. The starting point should be that people anywhere in the world have the right to an existence worthy of a human being.
This needs struggle; we need to fight for a world like that, here and everywhere else. The struggle against oppression, class exploitation, racism and patriarchy is an international struggle, which is fought locally. We in the EU are responsible for the struggle here. The struggle involves all societal and political areas, whether it is housing shortage, unemployment, demolition of education and health care, racism, sexism, environment, animal rights, the war machine or refugees. Only if we join all these areas and succeed in establishing the common of these for ourselves, we will be able to deliver a contribution to a world with a just distribution of resources amongst all people. At the same time this will result in political, societal and economical justice without exploitation of any human being by anyone else.

THE WORLD IS FROM EVERYONE EQUAL RIGHTS FOR ALL NO ONE IS ILLEGAL