THE British government’s £120 million deal struck with Rwanda earlier this year for the country to take in people who had arrived in the UK as asylum seekers is still facing an almighty turbulence. Since the announcement, and payment of the £120 million, no asylum seeker has been flown to East Africa.
Legal challenges in the UK courts have delayed the implementation of the plan, which the then British Home Secretary, Priti Patel, claimed was a ‘world-first agreement’. But it has always been unclear why the UK chose Rwanda for this project and how it would work.
Unclear in the sense that the British government initially gave the impression that Rwanda would serve as a processing centre for the asylum seekers. And then the successful applicants would be returned to the UK for settlement.
Along the way, though, this was changed. The British government said that the asylum seekers sent to Rwanda would have to apply for asylum there and hope for settlement in the country. Nothing about them coming back to the UK.
In all this, it emerged that British civil servants had expressed doubts about Rwanda’s human rights record and pointed out that with the asylum seeker deal it would be difficult to hold the government in Kigali accountable for human rights violations. Which is understandable, because whatever the authorities in Rwanda are saying about the country’s “good” human rights record, there are many foreign governments and international organisations that think otherwise.
Patel overrode opposition to the plan by her officials by invoking a ‘ministerial direction’ that gave her sole responsibility for the decision; only the second time the Home Office had used such power since 1990.
But the UNHCR, which opposes the plan, cannot be wrong. The refugee body’s Assistant High Commissioner for Protection, Gillian Triggs, said the UNHCR remained firmly opposed to arrangements that sought to transfer refugees and asylum seekers to third countries in the absence of sufficient safeguards and standards.
‘Such arrangements simply shift asylum responsibilities, evade international obligations, and are contrary to the letter and spirit of the Refugee Convention. People fleeing war, conflict and persecution deserve compassion and empathy.
‘They should not be traded like commodities and transferred abroad for processing,’ she said. Given that the UNHCR specialises in global refugee matters, it would have made sense for the British government to have heeded the warning
Why then did the government decide to ‘export its asylum obligations’, as the UNHCR put it? Well, according to Patel, the whole asylum and refugee business had been usurped by people traffickers who were making a mint out of illegal immigration.
In the process, some of the migrants crossing the English Channel from France have lost their lives in one of the world busiest shipping lanes. There is no gainsaying that the British government has every right to put a stop to the illegal trafficking of people into the UK.
But the problem really lies with European countries – France especially. These migrants would have gone through several of countries that are conflict-free before finally reaching the UK.
Why didn’t they apply for asylum in these safe countries, as is normal under international refugee regulations? Were they being chivvied along by the French police who conveniently turned their backs when dangerous boats were been launched off Calais?
The problem with this situation is that real asylum seekers are being denied proper protection because of the operations of these people smugglers. Added to this is the movement of criminal gangs from Albania into the UK, which, naturally, the British government has to put a stop to.
So, the whole Rwanda asylum scheme is fraught with so many imponderables. What the British government should have done was to have despatched its officials to refugee camps recognised by the UNHCR to interview prospective asylum seekers
This has happened in many refugee camps in Africa over the years. Thousands of refugees from the civil conflicts in Liberia and Sierra Leone in the 1990s were safely relocated to Australia, the US and Canada. These were orderly affairs.
One thing about the asylum/illegal immigration debate is that Europe has to be held responsible for the chaotic nature that has developed. Take, for example, Libya, where boats are launched regularly with migrants heading for Europe.
Most of those arriving in the North African country these days are from sub-Saharan Africa. While Colonel Muammar Gaddafi was in power Libya was a destination for workers from the continent who were paid generous salaries for their services, given that native Libyans appeared to be work-shy.
But since NATO went in with all guns blazing in 2011 to remove Gaddafi from power, Libya has not been a safe environment for sub-Saharan Africans who were expecting jobs. NATO did not plan at all for the disruption it caused in a perfectly stable African country.
So, European countries have to be careful when they apportion blame on others for the migrant crisis. They are equally culpable. By dismantling a stable government in Libya, these countries have provided an opening for unscrupulous human traffickers.
This article is republished from the September-October edition of the Africa Briefing Magazine
