ITALY AND THE KURDISH REFUGEES: NO PANIC
In Italy, both authorities and the public have so far shown remarkable calm and dignity in coping with the alleged "mass influx" of forced migrants. The question is, however, how long the Italian government will resist pressure from its Schengen and EU partners.
On 28 December, the Turkish ship Ararat ran the aground off the Calabrian coast, with 850 undocumented forced migrants on board. 750 of the migrants were Kurds, while the remaining group of about hundred people were Egyptians, Palestinians and Sri Lankans. Just four days later, on New Year's Day, the Italian coast guard saved another 386 forced migrants (Kurds, Sri Lankans, Bangladeshis, and Pakistanis), on the freighter Cometa. The ship was drifting outside the Southern Italian port of Otranto, after having been abandoned by its crew.
The Ararat and the Cometa are not the first large ships transporting forced migrants over the Mediterranean sea.
XXad On 25 November 1996, 289 people drowned, when their ship, the Youham, went down;
XXad In July 1997, 40 Kurdish refugees died, when their ship sank off the Greek coast;
XXad In October 1997, 250 Kurds were saved, after preventing the crew of the Turkish owned Asiye Asa from sinking the ship beforeoff the Italian coast;
XXad On 2 November 1997, the Hassan Beirut was stranded outside the southern Italian town of St Maria di Leuca, with 769 Kurdish refugees on board.
Kurdish refugees are welcome, Italian Government says
The Italian authorities ordered the expulsion of the non-Kurdish migrants on board of the Ararat and the Cometa, claiming that they were not eligible for asylum. But statements by leading members of the Italian government, shortly after the two arrivals, indicated that Kurdish people from Iraq and Turkey could expect more understanding. Already on 30 December, Interior Minister Napolitano announced that the Government was willing to "examine favourably" the asylum applications of those Kurdish boat people who wished to submit an application, while those who preferred to refrain from an application in Italy, because they wished to join family members already staying in other European countries, would benefit from temporary protection in Italy. At his traditional New Year speech to the Italian people, President Scalfaro said: "When people come to our country, because they are being persecuted, our doors must be wide open". The following day, Prime Minister Prodi said: "We will grant asylum to all Kurds requesting it".
Italian attitude angers EU partners
These and other similar statements of leading Italian politicians and government representatives immediately drew angry reactions, mainly from Germany and Austria. The German Federal Interior Minister, Manfred Kanther, openly accused Italian authorities of lax border controls and demanded that Italy introduce random police controls on its national road network, in order to stop "illegal immigrants" from reaching Germany and other target countries. Among others, the Social Democratic Interior Minister of the Land of Lower Saxony, backed by a number of Members of the German Parliament, dramatically called for the immediate reintroduction of internal border controls at Germany's borders with France and Austria. Germany even threatened to block Italy's full accession to Schengen (currently planned to take place on 1 April). An allegation by the Chief of the Bavarian Border Police (Bundesgrenzschutz), widely publicised by the media, that a further 10,000 Kurds were on their way to Germany and other "attractive" EU countries, fuelled public fear in Germany and elsewhere of an imminent mass influx of "illegal" migrants. Several hundred additional Border Police were dispatched to Germany's borders with its Schengen neighbours France and Austria, and in the whole of Southern Germany, police and border police increased the number of random identity checks on roads and motorways.
France and Austria decided to reintroduce passport checks at the Italian border on a temporary basis. Austrian Interior Minister Karl Schlögl vehemently accused Italy of "dumping the problem [of illegal immigration] on others". Consequently, Schlögl ordered systematic and thorough checks on all persons entering the Austrian provinces of Tyrol and Carinthia from Italy. On 31 December he announced the start of what he termed a "border search operation", destined to prevent "all too many economic migrants" from entering Austria via Italy. The search operation in a vast zone behind the Austrian border was expected to go on for several weeks.
A number of EU countries, in particular Germany and Austria have, been criticising Italian authorities for not detaining aliens who have been denied stay in Italy. According to prevailing Italian law, no person not suspected of a crime may be held in custody. Aliens subject to a deportation order have 15 days to appeal against the order, during which they may not be detained. From the viewpoint of other EU countries, this amounts to an invitation to the aliens concerned to go underground and make their way to the rest of the EU.
In the light of the recent arrivals of Kurdish boat-people, German Interior Minister Kanther demanded immediate action by Italy and Greece so as to prevent illegal immigrants from going underground. Commenting on Mr Kanther's request, Christopher Hein of the Italian Refugee Council, CIR (Consiglio Italiano Rifugiati) told your editor: "Any internment of innocent persons is prohibited under prevailing Italian law. Consequently, any change of practice by the responsible Italian authorities involving liberty privative measures depriving people of their liberty would breach the law. One should expect some German understanding for the fact that we are living in states based on the rule of law".
Arrival of Kurds a touchstone for Italian asylum practice
Kurdish refugees from Northern Iraq and Turkey are comparatively well received in Italy, both by the authorities and the people. Asylum seekers must leave an address where they can be reached by the authorities, but are allowed to move freely pending the examination of their application. The stay of rejected Kurdish asylum seekers is tolerated, but the persons concerned often have no other choice than to live in camps, since they are not allowed to work.
Asylum seekers are allowed to stay in Italy pending a final decision on their application. They are also informed that, due to the first-country-of-entry principle established by the Schengen Agreement and the Dublin Convention, they have no possibility of applying for asylum in any EU Member State other than Italy. Asylum seekers returned by Germany and other EU Member States are granted full access to Italian asylum examination procedures.
However, bowing to massive pressure from other EU and Schengen countries, Italian authorities departed from prevailing practice in dealing with the Kurds who arrived with the Ararat and the Cometa. The majority of them were placed in closed camps, guarded by police. Christopher Hein from CIR is confident that these restrictions will be lifted shortly, since they are in obvious breach of Italian law pertaining to detention and the constitutional requirement of equal treatment.
In the longer run, however, Italy is likely to give in to mounting pressure from its Schengen and EU fellow brother-states. The Italian government has already announced its intention to abolish the controversial 15 days-limit between the issuing of expulsion orders and their implementation by an amendment of the law. The Italian Navy and Coast Guard have stepped up surveillance of the most sensitive parts of the country's 8,000 kilometres coast-line. A new, powerful radar system is being set up along the coast of Calabria, a 300 ton navy cruiser with advanced radar equipment has taken a strategic position off the Southern coast, and the Coast Guard has deployed 15 helicopters and 4 air planes for surveillance tasks. However, it is doubtful whether these measures will result in fewer arrivals of boat-people. As a matter of fact, detecting suspect ships with boat-people is one thing, coping with them another. Reacting to demands that Italy should do more to turn away ships with forced migrants from Italian waters, the Chief of the Italian Port Administration, Admiral Renato Ferraro, made it quite clear that it would "run counter to human decency and therefore is out of question to prohibit ships from disembarking at the risk of the lives of hundreds of innocent passengers, including women and children".
Extraordinary popular support for refugees
A vast network of voluntary refugee and immigrant assistance activities has developed throughout Italy. Many towns and villages are housing refugees, thanks to parish members or local Red Cross members working on a purely voluntary basis. Among others, the Association of Christian Labour Unions (ACLI) is running reception camps. One of them lies in Erba, near the Swiss border, and mostly houses forced migrants turned away by the Swiss border police. Swiss and German authorities regard the whole region around the northern Italian town of Como as a "waiting room" for forced migrants on their way to countries north of Italy. However, it seems that many of the refugees concerned have given up their initial plans and are prepared to stay in Italy.
Most of the Kurds who arrived with the Ararat and the Cometa actually never left Southern Italy. Only one small group of Kurdish families from the Cometa made its way to Northern Italy. They were offered sanctuary by the inhabitants of Sagnino, a small village near Como. The leader of the Red Cross volunteers in Sagnino told the Swiss weekly WochenZeitung that the refugees believed they were in France, when they were picked up by Italian police at a gas station near Como. "None of the refugees any longer wishes to leave Italy for Switzerland or any other country in the North", she added proudly. "Here, they are welcome".
Indeed, with regard to the Kurdish refugees there seems to be political consensus in Northern Italy. On the regional level, not even the notoriously anti-immigration Lega Nord has dared to question the general sympathy for the Kurds shown by local authorities and the population. The tactless German interference with Italian Home Affairs has undoubtedly contributed to the attitude of the Italian public. A satirical magazine in Rome probably hit the nail on the head with a cartoon showing an Italian demanding solidarity with the Kurds. "Do you like the Kurds?", another man asks him. Answer: "No, but I hate the Germans!".
Badolato's welcome to the Kurds: a model for an other European refugee policy
An isolated lost Calabrian mountain village near the coast became known throughout Europe, when its municipal council decided to permanently receive 211 Kurdish boat people. Badolato had 7,000 inhabitants in the early 50s, but has lost about half of its population since, due to mass emigration to Switzerland, Germany and Italy's industrial North. Many houses in Badolato stand empty. So, when the people of Badolato heard about the Kurdish boat people they decided to act. UpoOn the initiative of Mayor Gerardo Mannello, 12 houses were offered free to the Kurds by their owners, and additional apartments are currently being renovated. Gerardo Mannello was elected mayor less than a year ago, topping a "civic" list. As opposed to many local politicians in wealthy and densely populated areas, he sees refugees as an unhoped for last chance for Badolato and many other towns struggling for their survival, to halt depopulation and relaunch economic activities.
The mayor's immediate concern is to organise decent housing for the Kurdish refugees and have their children start school. As regards work, the mayor says there are plenty of seasonal jobs in the orange and olive plantations. In the longer term, however, he has other plans. Many of the Kurds from Northern Iraq are skilled workers, some of them with higher education, enabling them to start own businesses, much needed in Badolato. For the time being, the municipal council has no problems with the regional or national governments, but Mr Mannello is concerned that things might change, once Badolato will have disappeared from the news headlines. But the Mayor says he is determined to fight for his project, "even in Brussels".
Among the refugees in Badolato is a young couple from northern Iraq. Their baby, Angela, was born in mid-January in Italy. Angela bears the name of the police officer who saw to it that her parents, who had been separated upon their arrival in Italy, were reunited.
Additional police have been sent to Badolato after the arrival of the Kurds. But, so far, they have drawn attention to themselves only by their decision to donate their overtime supplements to the refugees, through the intermediary of the local Red Cross...
Sources: 'Boat-People aus Kurdistan', January 98, p ubl. by the Office of Ulla Jelpke, MP PDS at the German Bundestag; Migration News Sheet No.178/98-01; WochenZeitung, 8.1.98, 22.1.98; Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 3/4.1.98; Der Standard, 8.1.98; CEDRI-release on the reception of Kurdish refugees in Badolato, 30.1.98; our interviews with Massimo Pastore, Torino (26.1.98) and Christopher Hein, CIR, Rome (4.2.98). Badolato needs your support! Contact: Gerardo Mannello, Sindaco, Municipio, I-88061 Badolato (CZ), Italia; Fax: +39/967 85060