Press release regarding the incidents in Ceuta and Melilla

In recent days, the images of thousands of desperate people trying to jump over the divide that separates Europe and Africa, in Ceuta and Melilla, the death of some by shooting and injuries sustained from barbed wire fencing, the criminal abandonment of many of them in the middle of the desert with subsequent death, denounced by voluntary organisations, has struck the consciousness of many Europeans.
We denounce the hypocrisy of the Spanish and European authorities, that militarise the frontier while negotiating with a few million Euros for the possibility to move the problem a few kilometres further south, trying to leave the dirty work in the hands of the Moroccans.  This is short-sighted, undignified and also, it will not work.  We condemn the criminal brutality of the Spanish and Moroccan authorities; we call for the immediate intervention of the international courts.
These dramatic events are the tip of the iceberg and make manifestly clear that there is no solution to immigration through restrictive laws, imposed by the police or the armed forces.  They clearly show the failure of the so-called “policy of cooperation”, that has not resolved the problem in its base.

This policy of cooperation has failed because “help” has been given with imposed conditions, (I give you this and you buy that and that), because it responds to partial and uncoordinated interests and it is basically insufficient.  Because the cancellation of the debt that is spoken of now is a mirage (we forgive them X millions, that we are sure that they cannot pay and then we say all over the place that we have helped them with X millions more so that they can “develop”)... This “cooperation” is weighed down by an accounting lie, corruption and above all by a look that does not try to change things because it is not understood that the destiny of all must be worked out together.  While this situation is not approached from its roots, any solution will be a simple gesture and, at the extreme, it will expand this absurd gap.  There are people responsible for the poverty of these regions, those responsible for the destruction of culture and the exploitation of natural resources, those responsible for stealing their future.  Those responsible are the same ones that are pushing the peoples of Europe to a precarious situation in labour affairs, consumerism, individualism and fear.  They are the financial powers that, uncontrolled, concentrate wealth, exercise real domination over formal political power and dehumanise life.

Through necessity and coherence financial speculation must be taxed so that the blind careering towards nowhere that the great financial machines are now going generates funds that can be re-invested and can serve for the recuperation of the people and the planet.

Once upon a time, 60 years ago, a destroyed Europe received real economic help that allowed it to develop and “cure itself”.  This was done with 13,000 million dollars in money, food and machinery.  The world has changed a lot since then and the magnitude and the complexity of the need has multiplied, but coherence continues to have the same rules.

Europe needs immigration.  Immigrants need a future.  Independently of whether we need the immigrants for work, it is necessary to defend and apply their human rights.
We see two paths:
On one hand, an impossible escape, Europe can try to “protect itself”, to put ports in the sea, to widen the wire fences along the perimeter (and then continue building an interior wire fence, trying futilely to defend itself... From itself!).

And on the other, it can embark on an historical project that allows it to develop and help other continents to do likewise, to create conditions of life for itself and others, to take a step towards another world.  Europe can and must change the rules of the game, implicating all African countries in a common development plan.  A coherent plan must count on African agreement and initiative and must have great economic, social, political and cultural consequences for Africa... and for Europe.

MEANWHILE, humanists demand:

1. Put into effect international conventions starting with the resolutions of the UN that protects the right of asylum.
2. Clarify the deaths of the immigrants at the frontier at Ceuta and Melilla and that those responsible directly and indirectly are tried.
3. Investigate the attitude of the Moroccan government and the Spanish complicity in front of these facts and the expulsion of immigrants to the borders of Algeria and Mauritania, abandoning them to luck in the middle of the desert.
4. Immediate, real, broad and successive regularisation for all immigrants on a European scale.
5. Immediate closure of internment centres on European soil.