EU: mass clandestine expulsions (feature)
01 January 1996
A Belgian Journalist has revealed new details of the effects of the anti-immigration campaign now being waged by governments across Europe. In his book, Haal De Was Maar Binnen (Bring the Washing In) Chris De Stoop, a journalist who works for Knack magazine, exposes the huge increase in deportations in the last three years, the increasing involvement of private companies in the expulsions and some of the individual tragedies behind the statistics.
De Stoop's new book reveals how the figures for the last few years show a steep increase in the number of people being deported across the European Union. From 15,000 in 1990 De Stoop estimates that over 100,000 people were deported in 1993 and the figure doubled again to 200,000 in 1994. De Stoop says this started in a systematic way after the Berlin conference of 1991, which "declared war on illegal migrants". Germany in particular is regarded by De Stoop as a leading advocate of a hard deportation policy.
De Stoop also shows that as part of the Europe-wide offensive against migrants rights have been constantly abused. He describes the rise of the Asylum centres across Europe, pioneered in Holland with the Grenshospitium in Amsterdam, followed by infamous centres such as Campsfield in Britain, Transit Centre 127-bis in Steenokkerzeel, Belgium and Cortemark in Germany, a one-time garrison that has now become the biggest and most notorious asylum centre in Europe. At least one centre, 127-Bis, has been called a "concentration camp" after a government report described how people were getting caught in the razor-wire and then thrown into isolation cells with their wounds still open and bleeding. The Belgian government has now proposed a law which would allow asylum seekers to be detained indefinitely.
He describes how private companies are increasingly being employed to carry out deportations. Companies such as Manager Travel Service in Germany, who already carry out up to 12,000 deportations a year, or the Romanian Jaro company who employ former Ceaucescu bodyguards to deal with deported Roma. De Stoop interviews James. T. Budd, of the Budd Company, who explains how his company deals with deportations for the Belgian government to countries that are too dangerous for Belgian Government employees to go to themselves.
De Stoop also looks at the reality of deportation for the victims, called "depos" by the companies paid to deport them. De Stoop describes the special trains built in Germany, nicknamed Bavarian specials, constructed so that the doors and windows cannot open from the inside. He saw these "specials" at Germany's Regensburg prison where they were later hooked up to the Eurocity between Munich and Prague. He also discusses the Euro-charter, a Dutch idea that has a lot of support in France, in which a airplane would fly around Europe picking up refugees from the same part of the world at the various capitals. This exercise has already been tried out with Zairian refugees. De Stoop's claim that C-130 military aircraft had been used on at least one occasion in Belgium has led to an admission from the Internal Affairs Minister. A parliamentary inquiry is now under way into how a practise that had been thought of as an idea so barbaric that only the fascist Vlaams Blok had even considered it ended up being Government practise.
Deportation in such circumstances is obviously traumatic. It can also often end up being physically dangerous. De Stoop points out examples such as the Romanian Constantin Rudaru, who became severely brain damaged after having his mouth covered in sticky tape, in a case similar to that of Joy Gardener, who died in similar circumstances. Another fatality listed by De Stoop is the Nigerian Kola Bankole, who died after being given an injection of tranquilisers. De Stoop claims every European county has its own roll-call of fatalities in transit. The violence involved with deportation is so intense that even police forces have complain