So spoke Sir Winston Churchill in 1935: “Want of foresight, unwillingness to act when action would be simple and effective, lack of clear thinking, confusion of counsel until the emergency comes, until self-preservation strikes its jarring gong – these are the features which constitute the endless repetition of history.”
Europe’s procrastination in meeting head-on the issue of irregular immigration has been characterised by the mixed signals it has sent out to human traffickers and irregular immigrants alike.
Dismantling human trafficking networks will entail operations in places as far south as Dar-es-Salaam, north along the ancient slave trade routes, through the North African launch points, all the way north through Malta and Rome.
Tracking banking transactions between known points of operation should have been part of any action long ago.
Security concerns would have made monitoring and tracking the movements of landed immigrants a priority.
Source countries have spawned such terrorist groups as al-Shabab, Boko Haram, ISIL and al Qaeda.
Statements which only serve to encourage the many hundreds of would-be migrants and, of course, the deployment of numerous search and rescue vessels have served to exacerbate the problem of irregular migration to very dangerous levels. The risk factor in undertaking the voyage north and fear of detention and repatriation has effectively been removed from the equation.
For the past several weeks, Italy’s southernmost reception centres have become so overwhelmed by the continuous flow of migrants landed by Europe’s ‘rescuing’ armada that the authorities have been forced to open reception centres elsewhere to Sicily’s north. Italy also admits that a number of migrants are slipping through the screening process.
And, despite Britain’s stand on illegal immigration, some may have already reached Calais and even made it across the Channel.
All of this illustrates the extent to which the EU has allowed illegal migration to spiral out of its control. Frontex, Europe’s border control agency, was set up to provide a ‘ring of steel’ around Europe.
In fact, it has quickly degenerated into a glorified search and rescue operation. Also, after the recent incident where a Kalashnikov-toting human trafficker demanded (and got) his boat back, many believe Frontex has turned into nothing more than a paper tiger and a toothless one at that.
Only a relatively low percentage of irregular immigrants actually qualify for refugee or protection status
European TV and other news media feature the rescue at sea of hundreds of migrants who drift northwards from Libya, perhaps not so aimlessly, in obviously overcrowded and unseaworthy vessels, on an almost daily basis.
Meanwhile, Europe’s naval pride, a veritable armada waits, deployed just off the North African coast.
Even Britain, which has adamantly refused to accept on its soil any migrants rescued by its navy, has its own domestic media on hand to broadcast ‘rescues’ to its citizenry back home.
To paraphrase British politician Enoch Powell in his famous 1968 speech: “We must be mad, literally mad to be permitting the [daily] flow [of illegal immigrants to our shores].
It is like watching a [Europe] busily engaged in heaping up its own funeral pyre. Quem deus vult perdere, dementat prius! That tragic and intractable phenomenon which we watch with horror, but which there is interwoven with the history of the [Mediterranean] is coming upon us here by our own volition and our own neglect.”
Also, waxing prophetic since Italy has borne the brunt of the latest influx of migrants: “As I look ahead, I am filled with foreboding; like the Roman, I seem to see the River Tiber foaming… Only resolute and urgent action will avert it even now. All I know is that to see, and not to speak, would be the great betrayal.”
Nobody in Europe is under any illusion that only a relatively low percentage of irregular immigrants actually qualify for refugee or protection status. The majority are fleeing in search of what they hope will be a better life in Europe. However, many feel Europe has not done enough to dissuade such adventurism.
The horrible fate that befell entire families while en route in the Mediterranean recently should spur Europe to put in place and enforce a strict policy against irregular migration. A model of compensating third countries to accept unwanted migrants should also be considered.
Many of the migrants who landed in Italy recently may not qualify for refugee status and should therefore be repatriated. Europe could offer technology, favorable contracts, all manner of assistance, including monetary compensation, to countries that would accept Africans who may require repatriation and give them temporary visas.