War
is Not the Answer
Whilst
the media and the rhetoric from the White House and 10 Downing Street
may lead us to believe that we are inevitably on the road to war in
Iraq, there are strong voices who speak a different truth.
Over
the last few months, a number of Quaker organisations in Europe,
the USA, Canada and South Africa have been working together on ways
of supporting each others’ campaigning efforts against war
in Iraq. We have issued a joint statement on Security Council Resolution
1441 which has been distributed to a wide range of decision makers.
We also have regular telephone conferences to keep each other informed
of what is happening in the governments and legislative forums in
our countries and what grass roots action is being taken.
The
latest of these telephone conferences took place on 10 January 2003.
QCEA was able to report on the very recent statements on behalf
of the EU by both the EU Commission President Romano Prodi and the
current EU president, the Greek Prime Minister Costas Simitis, both
of whom acknowledged that war is not inevitable and that the EU
under the Greek Presidency is committed to doing everything it can
to head off a war. We now have an opportunity to support that stance
and encourage the EU to maintain this position even against significant
US pressure.
Europe
has a real stake in this situation. Not only are there strong voices
in all our countries which oppose war, but Germany, Spain, Britain
and France are members of the Security Council and can make opposition
to war heard there.
There
is therefore every reason for all those of us who oppose war to
make that opposition clear to our respective governments and their
representatives at the UN and at the EU. Letter writing campaigns
do work. Demonstrations and vigils are noticed by decision makers.
QCEA will continue to issue the joint statement to relevant decision
makers and try to find ways of engaging with them in discussion.
And
if war does start, that is no reason for us to stop speaking the
truth that we know: War is not the answer, not now and not ever.
War does not bring about peace. War does not bring about security.
War hurts innocent people and generates new resentment and new impetus
for revenge in generations to come.
Martina
Weitsch
Read
the Joint Statement on Security Council Resolution 1441
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The
Closure of Camp Sangatte
“Joseph
got up, took the child and his mother and left during the night for…”
…Europe maybe. “We
cannot meditate on the Gospel account of the Holy family’s
flight, the fear of persecution and the harshness of homelessness
and exile in a foreign land… without recognising His face
in the faces of the refugees we encounter today.”*
The
one European asylum centre which became notorious in 2002 was no
doubt Camp Sangatte, near Calais in France. Run by the French Red
Cross, it provided basic shelter and food mainly for undocumented
foreigners who had somehow managed to travel through the whole Schengen
area up to the British border formed by the Channel.
So
far, Sangatte has been unique in the EU. If Britain had signed up
to the Schengen Agreement, there would not have been the misery
of Sangatte. It is the result of Britain’s refusal to lift
controls on persons crossing the EU’s internal frontiers,
back in December 1992. There is no Sangatte between the Netherlands
and Belgium for example.
Asylum
seekers have become a major popular concern in the EU. This is despite
the fact that UNHCR figures show that the number of asylum seekers
in the EU in 2001 was just over half that of ten years ago. Clearly
abolishing the intra EU border controls did not bring more asylum
seekers to the Union. Maintaining border controls between France
and Britain created a bottleneck which provided a psychological
context for the demand for the movement onwards to Britain.
Research
by the International Red Cross indicates that the widely held belief
that asylum seekers are attracted to Britain by generous welfare
benefits, the lack of identity cards and the possibilities of work
in the cash economy are very unconvincing. The desire to move to
Britain has much more to do with how and why people end up in Sangatte
than any prior wish to go to Britain. Other strong reasons for wanting
to move to Britain are the presence of family members and knowledge
of English.
Toward
the end of December the Sangatte centre was finally closed. An agreement
had been reached between the French and the British governments
on repatriation, readmission, access to asylum procedure, alternative
accommodation, and on the number of Sangatte residents who would
be allowed to move on to Britain. Since then seven UNHCR teams have
been working in Sangatte to conduct more than 1,000 interviews,
assisting and preparing individual transfers either within France
or to Britain. Both countries agreed to accept that a number of
Sangatte residents were economic migrants rather than asylum seekers.
Generally,
Iraqis and Afghanis with family links in the UK were transferred
to the UK with a 4-year residence and work permit. The remaining
Sangatte residents were allowed to stay in France with an initial
3 months residence and work permit which is renewed automatically
for a further year. Vulnerable people such as Unaccompanied Minors
had already been transferred out of Sangatte to specialised centres
in France. Of the remaining 62 young people, only 2 Iraqis and 4
Afghanis proved to be under age.
Does
this mean that all is well in the Pas de Calais? Not quite. Over
the holidays some media reported on a possible impact that the closure
of Sangatte had had on the presence of irregular migrants and numbers
of homeless people in Belgian coastal towns. In the north of France
local residents and some parishes tried to give support to homeless
refugees who had either tried to return to a demolished Camp Sangatte
or were new arrivals. They may be the grown up sons of Joseph, the
new generation of young fathers whose faces echo those of Joseph,
his wife and the child.
Anita
Wuyts
* P-H
Kolvenbach SJ, Superior-General of the Society of Jesus quoted in
Christmas greetings received by QCEA from the Jesuit
Refugee Service.
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The
Road to Cancun
On
26 November 2002 we attended the Second International Conference on
Globalisation held in Leuven. There were two different faces of globalisation
clearly visible at the conference and, as you might have expected,
these largely featured on the two sides of the North-South divide.
The
EU represents all its member states at the World Trade Organisation
(WTO). As we listened to the speeches from Franz Fischler, EU Commissioner
for Agriculture, Rural Development and Fisheries and from Pascal
Lamy, EU Commissioner for Trade, both strong supporters of the WTO,
you could be forgiven for thinking that all was now well with the
Common Agricultural Policy and that the GATS (General Agreement
on Trade and Services) proposals on gas and water, for instance,
would not lead to deregulation and privatisation or adversely affect
the lives of citizens in developing countries.
When
we listened to Aminata Traoré, former Minister of Tourism
and Culture in Mali, now Co-ordinator of the Forum pour l’autre
Mali, we were transported to another world, one in which former
colonial masters were imposing free trade on Africa but keeping
all the advantages of that trade to themselves. Where is the reciprocity
here? We heard of their fears of the erosion of fundamental social
rights if gas and water became private commodities to buy and sell
and how EU agricultural export subsidies were driving local competitors
out of business by pushing down market prices artificially. “Europe
wants to remake Africa in its own image” claimed Dr Traoré.
These
contrasts continued throughout the conference. For Donald Johnston,
Secretary-General of the OECD, outwardly oriented countries can
look forward to a higher GNP, but are they open because they are
growing rather than the other way round? The counterclaim was made
that Africa had been de-industrialised in the last ten years as
a result of the liberalisation of trade.
To
give Guy Verhofstadt, the Prime Minister of Belgium, his due (it
was he who had called the conference), speakers were diverse and
from a wide variety of backgrounds. At the end of a long day we
left with Guy Verhofstadt’s words ringing in our ears “We
Europeans fight poverty with one hand, but stop it disappearing
with the other. We alleviate poverty, but we perpetuate it at the
same time”.
Surely
we can do better than this?
Liz
Scurfield
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Chechnya
News
The
OSCE will no longer
have a presence in Chechnya due to the Russian Federation’s
insistence that a new mandate should not include human rights and
political dimensions. The withdrawal will mean that there will be
no permanent international human rights monitoring of any kind in
Chechnya. Owen
WJ Espley
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New
Programme Assistant
It was
with great excitement that I arrived at Quaker House here in Brussels
on 4 January 2003. A year working with QCEA! The challenges seemed
large, but the opportunities even greater. QCEA’s programme
areas of conflict prevention, human rights and economic justice still
seem absolutely huge; what issues would pop up during the year and
what exactly would I end up focusing on? I
spent my time at university, aside from studying philosophy, organising
Amnesty International meetings and studying Spanish, so I could
do an exchange in Latin America. Preparation for this included spending
a month at the Eben-Ezer Quaker School in Sorata, Bolivia teaching
English. I realised my ambition of studying in Latin America by
completing an exchange to Buenos Aires in 2000. It feels like an
ironic twist of fate that French is much more useful here in Brussels.
However I am sure the time spent organising for and working on Amnesty
issues will serve me well. After studying at Manchester I completed
a Masters in Human Rights at Essex University, an extremely challenging
year, but one that helped to put disorganised knowledge and my sense
of needing to do more into a little more order. I particularly found
studying the interactions between economic policy and human rights
enlightening, important and challenging. All these things helped
to crystallise my desire to work in the not-for profit sector.
Since
starting four days ago it still feels a little overwhelming, but
the excitement is still growing. I am confident that the warm and
supportive environment of Quaker House will be a place where I can
stretch myself and learn much more about the EU and the delicate
judgments that are needed to put across a Quaker perspective on
European issues.
Owen
WJ Espley
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Greek Presidency of EU
On
6 January 2003 Greece took over the presidency of the European Council.
Greece has promised special emphasis on the areas of immigration and
security whilst emphasising the importance of the ongoing accession
negotiations for the first round of new member states due to be signed
in April. A
pressing issue for the Greek presidency is the accession of Cyprus
to the European Union. If UN talks on a settlement to the 28 year
deadlock fail, then Cyprus will accede to the EU as a divided island.
Signs have been encouraging: 30.000 Turkish Cypriots took to the
streets on Boxing Day to protest against the intransigent Turkish
Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash; and the incoming Turkish president
Tayyip Erdogan has said he wants to break with the previous longstanding
Turkish policy on Cyprus.
Greece’s
experience of migration with its long and porous northern borders
also appears to inform its agenda. The Greek presidency will emphasise
the positive aspects of legal migration. The Greek Foreign Minister
Papandreou’s comments on the issue of EU immigration cooperation
appear to indicate a softening of the language used about the issue:
“On the one hand we have to make it clear that we control
our borders. On the other, however, we should use the positive elements
in immigration to enrich our societies economically and culturally,
particularly in view of Europe's demographic problem. For that reason
we should get away from xenophobia. Hostility to foreigners is of
no use to our societies. It only creates bigger problems and greater
insecurity”.
The
Greek presidency has also been exploring plans to enable member
states to draw upon an EU fund to pay for the repatriation of asylum
seekers whose applications have been refused.
The
Greek viewpoint to EU external matters has been marked by an emphasis
on the EU’s closer neighbours (in particular the Balkans)
and by the need for an increasingly powerful EU voice. The strengthening
of the EU as a centre in an increasingly multi-centre world system
has also been put forward by the president. Papandreou highlighted
the role the EU’s position played in influencing the US to
use the UN over the issue of Iraq.
More
worryingly , the presidency has also been moving forward on the
establishment of a European Arms Agency that would establish common
rules on military procurement and EU level coordination of the Arms
industry. Additionally, the Greek presidency has been exploring
arrangements for increased European level funding for defence research.
This is an issue which QCEA will continue to monitor and on which
we make representations on where possible.
Owen
WJ Espley
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New
Clerks For QCEA
“I
am glad to welcome as Clerk and Assistant Clerk on three-year terms
of appointment from 1 January 2003, Bert Touwen of Netherlands Yearly
meeting and Judith Kirton-Darling of European Young Friends. Both
are well known and highly respected among Friends” says Neville
Keery, QCEA’s outgoing Clerk, who also expressed his thanks
to the outgoing Assistant Clerk, Martina Renz. Return
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