[Imc-birmingham] Imc-birmingham Digest, Vol 59, Issue 2

Tue Jul 15 15:36:42 PDT 2008

Looks good.

Mike

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> Today's Topics:
>
>    1. feature proposal: IOM Unwelcome in Birmingham (Shiar)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2008 14:56:19 -0700 (PDT)
> From: "Shiar" <shiar at riseup.net>
> Subject: [Imc-birmingham] feature proposal: IOM Unwelcome in
> 	Birmingham
> To: "Birmingham Imc" <imc-birmingham at lists.indymedia.org>
> Message-ID: <34673.127.0.0.1.1216072579.squirrel at swift.riseup.net>
> Content-Type: text/plain;charset=iso-8859-1
>
> Hi,
>
> I'd like to propose the following feature for the Birmingham
> startpage. I
> will publish it after 24 hrs if there are no objections or
> corrections/additions.
>
> --
> Shiar
>
>
> Title: IOM Unwelcome in Birmingham
>
> Author: IMC Birmingham
>
> Image: /images/2008/06/401913.jpg
>
> Abstract:
> <p>
> The International Organisation <em>against</em> Migration, aka the
> International Organisation for Migration or IOM, held a <a
> href="/en/regions/birmingham/2008/07/403079.html">'conference' in
> Birmingham</a> last month in preparation for opening a <a
> href="/en/regions/birmingham/2008/07/402417.html">new regional
> office</a>
> in the city. A handful of local activists did a <a
> href="/en/regions/birmingham/2008/06/401910.html">banner drop</a> at
> the
> four-star hotel where the event was held to unwelcome dodgy
> organisation.
> They also gave out leaflets to the delegates to tell them the truth
> about
> IOM, whose real mission is to help Western governments 'manage
> migration'
> and meet their deportation quotas.
> </p><p>
> <strong>Reports:</strong> <a
> href="/en/regions/birmingham/2008/06/401910.html">IOM Unwelcomed in
> Birmingham</a> | <a
> href="/en/regions/birmingham/2008/07/402417.html">IOM's new
> Birmingham
> office</a> | <a
> href="/en/regions/birmingham/2008/07/403079.html">Inside
> the IOM Birmingham conference</a> | <a
> href="/en/regions/birmingham/2006/01/332449.html">IOM Bribing Asylum
> Seekers to Return Home</a> | <a
> href="/en/regions/birmingham/2006/08/349649.html">The So-Called
> Voluntary
> Return</a>
> </p><p>
> <strong>Related:</strong> <a href="/en/2002/09/41733.html">Shadowy
> deportation organisation opens office in London</a> | <a
> href="/en/regions/scotland/2006/01/331389.html">New Home Office
> Scheme
> Against Asylum Seekers in Glasgow</a> | <a
> href="http://bristol.indymedia.org.uk/article/688302">IOM Picket in
> Bristol</a> | <a
> href="http://bristol.indymedia.org.uk/article/688509">No
> Platform for the IOM (Bristol)</a> | <a
> href="http://www.noborder.org/iom/index.php">No Border's IOM
> page</a>
> </p>
>
> Content:
> <p>
> The IOM was founded in 1951, under the leadership of the USA, mainly
> with
> the intention of creating a counter-agency to the UN High
> Commissioner for
> Refugees (UNHCR). Unlike this, IOM  does not have a Protection
> Mandate for
> its work with refugees and displaced persons and is not really
> accountable
> to anyone. From the beginning, the 'agency' has not been based on
> humanitarian principles but on economic considerations; its core
> policies
> are not concerned with the well-being of people but the well being
> of
> (Western) economies. During the Cold War, the Intergovernmental
> Committee
> for European Migration (ICEM), as IOM used to be called then, was
> instrumental in the manpower and brain drain from Eastern and
> Central
> European countries into Western Europe. It was as instrumental in
> the
> formation of ethnically or religiously defined nation-states in the
> Indian
> subcontinent and Eastern Africa. With the 'help' of ICEM, ethnic
> Asians
> were evacuated from Uganda, Muslim Indians were settled in Pakistan
> and
> so on and so forth. Over the years, IOM has assumed the function of
> a
> transnational organisation that controls, or helps control, global
> migration. (For the official history of IOM, see <a
> href="http://iom.int/jahia/Jahia/lang/en/pid/11">here</a>; for an
> alternative history, see <a
> href="http://noborder.org/iom/display.php?id=178">here</a>.)
> </p><p>
> Today, with 125 member states and a further 16 states with observer
> status, IOM has offices in over 100 countries. One of the undeclared
> functions of these branches is to serve Western governments as a
> "migration warning system", which makes sure that they are informed
> in
> advance about upcoming "mass migration flows". In the late 1990s,
> for
> example, the IOM used to publish a bulletin called <em>Trafficking
> in
> Migrants</em>, which contained extensive information on migration
> routes,
> clandestine methods, networking activities and such like.
> </p><p>
> IOM's role in '<a
> href="http://www.iom.int/jahia/Jahia/lang/en/pid/243">migration
> management</a>' is not confined to information, however. Through its
> <a
> href="http://www.iom.int/jahia/Jahia/pid/749">Technical Cooperation
> on
> Migration</a> (TCM) division, it provides governments and other
> agencies
> with technical, intellectual and strategic tools to "enhance their
> migration management capacities". Further, it has become an
> 'alternative
> agency' that helps Western governments meet their deportation quotas
> wherever deporting unwanted migrants is too costly, difficult or
> where
> they want to avoid their human rights obligations under
> international law.
> </p><p>
> In the UK, IOM started to operate in 1999. It was IOM who went to
> the UK
> government and told them, in the aftermath of the Kosovo war, that
> there
> are Serbs here who want to go back home but don't have the means to.
> And
> so it was: IOM 'helped' them return or, rather, helped the UK
> government
> get rid of them, starting a close cooperation that would last and
> grow
> over the years. In the nine years since 1999, IOM has 'assisted'
> more than
> 27,000 people to 'return' to some 130 countries from the UK.
> </p><p>
> In a remarkable move in 2002, Amnesty International and Human Rights
> Watch
> challenged the politics of IOM in a relatively strong <a
> href="http://www.hrw.org/press/2002/12/ai-hrw-statement.htm">joint
> statement</a> that said: "In particular, we are concerned that IOM's
> work
> in certain contexts is adversely impacting upon basic human rights
> of
> migrants, refugees and asylum seekers, including for example the
> right to
> be free from arbitrary detention and the fundamental right to seek
> asylum." It followed an earlier joint motion by Human Rights Watch,
> International Catholic Migration Committee and the World Council of
> Churches, which was passed to a UNHCR conference in June 2001. Other
> international organisations, such as the Roma National Congress in
> Germany
> (RNC), have expressed stronger criticisms. It is quite significant
> that
> the RNC <a href="http://www.romnews.com/a/32-01.html">dubbed IOM</a>
> as
> "the enemy of the Roma people" and accused it, back in 2001, of
> playing a
> crucial role in "expelling" the Roma from Western Europe and
> "breaking the
> collective resistance" by arranging their travel individually. (See
> <a
> href="http://noborder.org/iom/display.php?id=243">here</a> for more
> criticisms of IOM.)
> </p>
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
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> End of Imc-birmingham Digest, Vol 59, Issue 2
> *********************************************
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