Refugees = terrorists (1)
01 January 1991
Refugees = terrorists
artdoc July=1994
As part of its efforts to define the world as `safe' for refugees
(as opposed to trying to make it safe) the Home Office has
recently devised some new formulae.
The Indian government, and in particular the Punjab regional
government, has come in for a lot of severe criticism for human
rights abuses by the security forces and police. An estimated
22,000 Sikhs are in prison, and another 50,000 have been killed
in the last decade, many in false `encounters' with the security
forces (where they are captured, shot and claimed to have fired
first). But if the victims of such abuses make it to Britain,
they are increasingly being told that they are not refugees:
either they are ordinary civilians, in which case they have
nothing to fear from the security checks carried out by the
authorities to protect them, or they are supporters of terrorist
groups.
The logic of the position is now being applied to Kurds from
Turkey: if they are supporters of the PKK they can't be refugees
as they're terrorists by definition; if they are not supporters
of the PKK they have nothing to fear. Same with Tamils from Sri
Lanka, 11,000 of whom, according to the Guardian, the Swiss
government is about to deport after sewing up an agreement with
the Sri Lanka government (Guardian 20.4.94, and see Statewatch
vol 4, no 2). This despite a series of recent (February 1994)
Amnesty International reports condemning waves of arrests,
detentions and torture of young Tamil men in and around Colombo,
and the continuing civil war engulfing the north of Sri Lanka.
Meanwhile, thousands of police manned checkpoints to prevent
protests when 13 Kurds went on trial in Munich charged with
occupying the Turkish consulate and seizing hostages in June
1993. There has been strong criticism of German arms sales to
Turkey totalling £400 million in the past three years, amid
persistent allegations that the arms are regularly used to
suppress the Kurds rather than for any external defence. The
recent ban by Germany on the PKK was warmly welcomed by the
Turkish government as symbolising the removal of any German
support for the Kurds. The Bavarian government announced that it
would deport Kurds who take part in violent protests such as
those which brought German motorways to a standstill in recent
weeks.
Statewatch, vol 4 no 3, May-June 1994
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