The EU-Belarus Border Crisis: Is the EU Really a Paragon of Human Rights?
Since the ‘refugee crisis’ began in 2015, some asylum seekers have chosen to endure long and arduous journeys from their embattled home countries in the Middle East, Latin America, Asia and Africa for the chance to begin their lives anew in far afield EU states. Many have not - anti-immigrant rhetoricians exaggerate the number of refugees settling in the EU, when in fact the EU houses only 10% of the global refugee population. Yet for this 10%, whose countries of origin are often on different continents, getting to Europe must seem worth the additional expense, physical hardship and danger (most do not travel by air). Why is the EU worth it? Because it seems a veritable paradise. In the EU, violent political turmoil is witnessed from afar and on TV screens alone, water and electricity are in unceasing supply, and the human and refugee rights codified in international law are actually enforced. Or are they? The EU’s response to the accumulation of asylum seekers on Belarus’ borders with Poland, Lithuania and Latvia has exposed its deference to international law as little more than a mirage.
Belarus’ President, Alexander Lukashenko, is responsible for feeding the myth, alluded to above, that EU countries have generous asylum regimes. His misinformation programme, guaranteeing entry into the EU, has lured thousands of asylum seekers to Belarus’ western frontier. Why is it in Lukashenko’s interests to give asylum seekers false hope? The despot was attempting to blackmail the EU into lifting sanctions imposed on his government. Through these sanctions, the EU sought to punish Lukashenko for the brutal treatment and detention of protestors and activists following his fraudulent electoral victory in 2020. Successive sets of sanctions have been imposed since then. Sparking the border crisis were those announced on June 21st, after a Ryanair flight was diverted to Minsk so that a journalist critical of the Lukashenko regime could be arrested. In response to new sanctions, Lukashenko vowed to shield the EU from “drugs and migrants” no longer. “Now”, Lukashenko informed EU officials and those of their member states, “you will eat them and catch them yourselves”. His government has not only stopped intercepting migrants en route to the EU, but has actively enticed them to make their way to its eastern limits.
How does this undermine the EU? Lukashenko likely thought his plan would do so because those on Belarus’ borders with the EU would make their way into Poland, Lithuania and Latvia. He may have partially believed the lies he was spreading about the EU, calculating that the union would be humane enough to pressure its border states into opening their doors to migrants. As temperatures on the borders dropped whilst the crisis bled into winter, the EU would surely do something. In the event that many of the migrants Lukashenko, the pied piper of Minsk, led to the EU’s border breached it, nationalist (both anti-migrant and anti-EU) parties would be emboldened and see greater electoral success. Lukashenko may have dared to hope that this would lead to the disintegration of the EU. After all, Brexit was fuelled by anti-immigrant sentiment.
The Belarusian dictator’s plans have borne fruit. Though Poland’s response has been to strengthen the presence of border guards and push back migrants without looking into their asylum claims, over 11,000 migrants have entered Germany from Belarus via Poland in 2021. Yet it is not the influx of migrants itself, but the EU’s stony-hearted policy of supporting border states in turning away these migrants wholesale that has undermined the union so far. That said, the EU’s conduct has disappointingly been met with negative attention by Belarus and human rights organisations alone and has been little criticised in the press.
Both sides have demonstrated a flagrant disregard for international law, and in the EU’s case indifference towards compliance with its own laws. Poland, Latvia, Lithuania and Belarus are conducting pushbacks. They expel migrants who cross into their territory without giving them the chance to apply for asylum and wait until their claim is processed and rejected before being forcibly removed. This leaves migrants in a catch 22 as they are pinballed from the EU to Belarus. Yes, they have the opportunity to return home by boarding one of the repatriation flights being organised by the UN’s International Organisation for Migration and the Iraqi government. But for migrants who qualify for refugee status to have to do so violates the principle of non-refoulement, which states that “a refugee should not be returned to a country where they face serious threats to their life or freedom”. This is a tenet of customary international law, meaning that even those states that are not signatories of the Refugee Convention are subject to it. Not only do Belarusian border guards force migrants to cross its borders with EU states, but also charge them exorbitant amounts for food and water. They profit from the barring of aid organisations by both Belarus and Poland from the border area, which has left many starving and with no choice but to allow Belarussian border guards to extort them. All this may just be the tip of the iceberg, however. We cannot know the full extent of human rights violations along the EU-Belarus border, because press agencies have been denied access to the area by authoritarian Belarus and by supposedly democratic EU states.
Who are the pawns in this geopolitical chess game? Human-beings, among them many Iraqi Kurds. They cite “high unemployment, unpaid salaries, widespread corruption, poor public services, and patronage networks linked to two main families” as some of the reasons why they risk their lives to live the remainder of them elsewhere. Kurds who have attempted to reach Europe say that it is impossible to get a job in the Kurdish region unless you are well-connected. The Kurdish Regional Government blames an influx of internally displaced people forced out of regions of Iraq taken over by ISIS for Kurdistan’s troubles. This might yet be another instance of migrants being scapegoated for governmental incompetence. Many would rather die trying to get into Europe than continue to live in the Kurdistan.
And many are dying. When one Kurdish-Iraqi family made for Polish civilisation through the dense woodlands at its border with Belarus, a mother of five died from the combined effects of hypothermia and sepsis following a failed pregnancy. A minimum of 17 people have died at the border since September. The numbers of migrants on the border have dwindled recently owing to border crossings that Polish, Lithuanian and Latvian police have failed to intercept as well as repatriation efforts. However, many migrants have stood their ground, despite bone-chilling conditions in the warehouse in which those on the Poland-Belarus border are encamped. They do not wish to waste the hardships endured and money they have spent thus far and hold out hope that either Belarus or the EU will have a change of heart. Others still are willing to make more attempts at irregular border crossings with full knowledge of all the deaths that have occurred. For their sake, pressure must be mounted on both adversaries.
So, what should be done? The EU has so far allowed its border states complete autonomy in their response to the crisis. The union does not owe Poland a ‘thank you’ for shielding its wealthier heartlands from an influx of migrants. It ought to condemn Poland, Lithuania and Latvia for ejecting migrants without hearing them testify to the dangers and deprivation they might face upon returning home. It should force these states to allow aid organisations to help in preventing the deaths of those on the EU side of the border. Yes, these EU states may hope to deter migrants from illegal entry by making border areas as treacherous as possible. But deterrence is not effective when these migrants are being forced by Belarussians to make illegal crossings at gun point. Poland, Lithuania and Latvia may resent that their sovereignty has been compromised, but the EU should not sacrifice its principles in order to maintain its membership.
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