Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1235679
9 maltatoday | WEDNESDAY • 15 APRIL 2020 NEWS ANALYSIS Samaritan licit money from smugglers. NGOs are abetting human smuggling The UN Smuggling Protocol expressly prohibits the crimi- nalization of smuggled migrants, reflecting the reality of the expe- rience of people who may need to use smugglers' services to reach their destination. Scholars have recognized that "most asylum-seekers require smugglers at some, if not all, stages of their journey." Fe- lipe Gonzales Morales, the UN Special Rapporteur on the hu- man rights of migrants, has de- scribed smuggling as a poten- tially life-saving operation: "In history, smuggling saved count- less lives for Armenians exiting the Ottoman Empire, European Jews fleeing Nazi rule, Spanish Republicans, Central Europeans and Indochinese fleeing com- munism, Cambodians fleeing genocide, etc. Today, when no visa is available for anywhere, and one's life or one's family fu- ture is at stake, smuggling is of- ten the only option." Amnesty Internationals de- nounced that in recent years, EU leaders, determined and virtually single-mindedly concerned with stopping arrivals, have made policy choices that ignore the lack of opportunities for arriving safely and regularly into Europe, and that pay no attention to the frustrations of being stuck in the first country of arrival in Europe, while one's family and support- ive communities are in another. More importantly, policies in several EU countries have blurred the distinction between smuggling and trafficking, broadening the criminalization net to shield their borders. While, as noted above, the dis- tinctions between the two can sometimes overlap, as a study noted, "politicians and media frequently fail to distinguish trafficking and smuggling, often using the words as synonyms – usage which, deliberately or not, demonizes all transport of mi- grants and refugees as inherent- ly evil", thus making criminali- zation look justifiable, regardless of the specific circumstances and the adverse effects to the individuals in desperate need of protection. NGOs make the crossing more dangerous for migrants despite their good intentions The migrant mortality rate rose in early 2016 before NGO assets returned to the central Mediter- ranean following their winter break, and declined in parallel to their redeployment. The mor- tality rate rose again only when NGOs' presence decreased at the end of the autumn. There is therefore a striking negative correlation between the decreasing mortality rate and the rising number of NGO ves- sels, which shows that the latter made the crossing safer. NGOs have also been accused of encouraging smugglers to use even poorer quality boats and more dangerous tactics, making the crossing more dangerous for migrants. It is true that there has been a downward spiral in the practic- es of smugglers and conditions of crossing over 2015 and 2016. These include increasing use of bad quality rubber boats instead of the more solid wooden boats, providing less fuel, food and wa- ter, an increase of departures in more difficult weather condi- tions, and an ever higher degree of overloading. But at the heart of the contin- uous degradation of the condi- tions of crossing since 2013, has been the violent and chaotic sit- uation of Libya. At the end of 2015, a new model of militia-led smuggling emerged, which contributed to several of these shifts. The EU's anti-smuggling operation, EUNAVFOR MED also had a significant impact on smug- glers' tactics by interdicting and destroying the vessels used by smugglers. This decision con- tributed to the shift from larger wooden vessels to cheap and less stable rubber boats THE argument blaming NGOs for enabling the arriv- al of illegalised migrants on European shores was until recently confined to conspir- atorial far-right groups. On 15 November 2016 for exam- ple, GEFIRA, a Dutch-based think-tank, published an ar- ticle with the self-explana- tory title: "Caught in the act: NGOs deal in migrant smug- gling" in which it accused NGOs of being "part of the human smuggling network". The article, picked up in several xenophobic news outlets, was accompanied by the release of a video moni- toring the activities of NGOs through AIS vessel track- ing data, a tactic which only serves to impress those who are unfamiliar with the logis- tics of search and rescue. These spurious arguments however remained confined to the limited audience of these groups until the publi- cation of an article in the Fi- nancial Times on 15 De- cember 2016. The piece was based on "confidential re- ports" by Frontex, the Euro- pean Border and Coast Guard Agency, which according to the journalists accused the NGOs of "colluding" with smugglers. But the actual report by the EU border control agency Frontex described the NGOs as "unintentionally" acting like a "pull factor" for more crossings by saving migrants close to the Libyan coast. Frontex also made it clear that there exists no evidence of collaboration between the smugglers and NGOs. Catania's public prosecu- tor Carmelo Zuccaro has also accused smaller private NGO boats of cooperating with smugglers but has never presented any hard evidence to back up the claims, which have since been echoed by It- aly's populist Five Star Move- ment and right-wing North- ern League. The accusation that NGOs operate a 'taxi service' in the Mediterrane- an was coined by former Five Star leader Luigi De Maio in his bid to broaden the an- ti-establishment movement's support among right-leaning voters. Although an Italian senate investigation found no evi- dence of collusion between NGOs and smugglers, faced by the advances of the far right, the centre-left govern- ment panicked and intro- duced a restrictive code of conduct for NGOs. But this only served to legitimise the claims made by the far right, and ultimately contributed to the election of a populist gov- ernment. Upon being elected to government, far-right lead- er Matteo Salvini continued his crusade against NGO res- cue missions. But his attempt to arrest Sea Watch's Carol Rackete for allegedly for try- ing to sink a patrol boat, was thwarted by the law courts who released her. Who started the myth that rescue NGOs are in collusion with smugglers?