We Stand Together

A wave of anti-immigration sentiment is sweeping Italy, with populist political leaders appearing to profit from, even to encourage it. Matteo Salvini, head of the xenophobic Northern League, has seen his ratings rise after appearing in a T-shirt bearing the phrase: “Stop Invasion”. Even ex-comic Beppe Grillo, who leads the anti-establishment Five Star Movement, appears to have stepped up the anti-immigration rhetoric. In one of Rome’s suburbslocals chanting pro-Mussolini slogans attacked an immigrant holding centre, calling for the building in the Tor Sapienza district to be closed after blaming the migrants it houses for “insupportable” levels of street crime in the area.

But the nastier side of the protests were apparent as hundreds of people chanted: “The blacks have to go,” and dozens more shouting: “Long live Il Duce (Mussolini)”

National borders are repeatedly decimated in the name of ‘free market’ capitalism so that corporations can freely move their capital and profits around the globe to take advantage of cheap labour and natural resources, particularly in the global South. But while the economy is becoming increasingly globalized, workers often remains rooted in the nation-state. But the fate of the world’s population is the farthest thing from the minds of most workers. They are not concerned with—or fail to see—how the political, economic and military policies implemented globally by the government they elect negatively impact many people around the world. The consequences of prioritizing corporate profits and consumer lifestyles in wealthy nations have been devastating for many around the world. According to the World Health Organization, more than 10 million people die annually in Latin America, Africa and Asia due to a lack of access to adequate healthcare and medicines. This is the inevitable result of the capitalist system, which prioritizes profits over everything else. For example, it is more profitable for pharmaceutical companies to produce ‘lifestyle’ drugs to address such issues as baldness and other non-life threatening conditions for people in wealthy nations who can afford to purchase them than to manufacture essential medicines for the poor who do not constitute a viable market. The inevitable consequence is structural genocide; a tragedy that has be made visible by the Ebola epidemic in West Africa.

In September 2013 Australia launched Operation Sovereign Borders (OSB), a military-led initiative which includes the interception of boats carrying asylum seekers towards its shores, and detaining them at off-shore processing centres in Nauru, a small island nation, and Manus Island (part of Papua New Guinea).

According to government data, as of 30 September there were 1,060 people on Manus Island (all adult men) and 1,140 on Nauru, including 239 women and 186 children. Australia's off-shore processing centres,which house migrants mostly from Iran, Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Sri Lanka, have come under repeated criticism for their conditions of detention, including in 2013 when the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) said: 

"The physical conditions within detention, together with the slowness of processing and the lack of clarity regarding safe and sustainable solutions for refugees were likely, together, to have a serious and negative effect on the health and welfare of people transferred from Australia." 

On 26 September, Australia revealed a plan to transfer some 1,000 detainees from Nauru to Cambodia. In exchange, Cambodia will receive a $35 million assistance package, which will be delivered over a period of four years. According to Morrison, the money will go towards projects ranging from rice-milling to landmine-clearance. Cambodia currently has only 68 refugees and 12 asylum seekers. The Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS) provides most of their support, such as filing paperwork and finding accommodation. However, Sister Denise Coghlan, JRS Cambodia director, told reporters that JRS would not have enough money to support the additional refugees. The Australia-Cambodia MoU does not specify how much money will be allocated for temporary accommodation and basic needs - or who will decide how the money is budgeted. For example, the MoU mandates that temporary accommodation be provided until the refugees have achieved "basic Khmer language skills", a threshold that is undefined in the guidelines.

UN High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres called the arrangement "a worrying departure from international norms", and Human Rights Watch argued "Cambodia is not a third safe country."

"It is clear that Australia held some money back in their aid budget for this contingency in this agreement," said Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch (HRW). "What it shows is a further politicization of foreign aid by Canberra, where projects are not determined by development needs but rather by political convenience."

A team from the International Organization for Migration (IOM) visited Cambodia at the request of the government in October to assess whether they would be able to assist in the relocation process. "Cambodia will be an incredibly difficult place for refugees. And that's precisely the point," argued Webb. He explained: "The motivation behind sending people to Cambodia is the same as the motivation behind detaining them in camps on Nauru and Manus, turning back boats and denying permanent visas to the 30,000 people already - deterrence."

According to Vivian Tan, regional press officer for UNHCR in Bangkok, "local integration has been challenging for the existing refugees [in Cambodia]. Sending large numbers of refugees to Cambodia could challenge its ability to absorb them in a sustainable way."

Cambodia ranks 136 out of 187 countries in the UN's 2014 Human Development Index; 20 percent of the population lives on less than $1.15 per day, according to the World Bank, and "many people who have escaped poverty are still at high risk of falling back into poverty." The country of 15 million people received $1.06 billion in foreign aid in 2013; $68 million came from Australia. In December 2009 Cambodia forcibly returned 20 ethnic Uighurs from China who were seeking political asylum, drawing widespread criticism: Cambodia failed to adhere to its obligations under the 1951 Refugee Convention, which forbids such returns. It received Chinese aid within days of the move.

According to the Refugee Action Coalition, detaining a single asylum seeker on Manus or Nauru costs $309,000 per year, whereas the cost of supporting those living outside detention centres and in communities is only $9,300 per year. "We should be investing some of the billions of dollars we currently spend on border protection and detention into an efficient UNHCR-led refugee determination process in Indonesia," said officials at the Victoria-based Asylum Seeker Resource Centre.