"Plan targets African migration"
- From: yared22311@xxxxxxxxx
- Date: 7 Jun 2006 07:04:31 -0700
Plan targets African migration
Published June 7, 2006
DAKAR, Senegal -- Authorities in Europe and Africa yesterday drewFrom combined dispatches
up a joint plan to fight illegal migration that will combine tougher
prevention measures with more aid to persuade young Africans to stay in
their homelands.
Harrowing images of parched, exhausted young Africans washing
ashore in boats on Spain's Canary Islands by the thousands this year
have given added urgency to moves to improve international cooperation
to combat clandestine emigration.
Hundreds are thought to die in the perilous sea voyages of more
than 600 miles organized from Mauritania and Senegal by traffickers who
run a lucrative business carrying would-be migrants seeking a better
life in Europe.
Starting a two-day meeting in the Senegalese capital, senior
officials from more than 50 countries of Europe and Africa worked
yesterday on a joint action plan that foresees an integrated
multinational strategy on migration.
The plan -- originally drafted by Morocco, Spain and France, three
countries in the front line of the immigration problem -- is expected
to be adopted by European and African ministers at a summit on
migration July 10 and 11 in the Moroccan capital, Rabat.
"This is a political initiative of the highest importance that aims
to combine both managing migrant flows and managing development," said
Alvaro Iranzo, a senior Spanish Foreign Ministry official.
On Europe's southern flank facing Africa, Spain is the first target
of thousands of penniless sub-Saharan Africans seeking entry to Europe,
and Madrid has begun a diplomatic offensive in West Africa to try to
stanch the flow.
But while coastal patrols and surveillance can cut illegal
departures, European and African experts agree that such short-term
measures will be useless unless the unemployment, poverty and conflict
that prompt migration from Africa are tackled.
"If we don't go to the root causes, there's not going to be a
solution," Moroccan delegation chief Youssef Amrani said.
Delegates said the novelty of the joint European-African migration
initiative was that destination, origin and transit countries were
coming together to seek solutions.
"This affects us all. We need a global response," Mr. Amrani said.
Although a consensus exists for joint action, delegates said they
expected discussions on how to find a balance between improved controls
to halt illegal migration and long-term measures to help poor countries
whose young people were leaving.
The draft plan calls for aid and trade with Africa to attack the
root causes of migration and help keep young Africans in their own
countries.
But it also proposes stronger police and security cooperation on
land, sea and air to crack down on migrant-smuggling networks, which
Senegal Interior Minister Ousmane Ngom condemned as "modern-day
slavers."
The draft document also refers to the need for "readmission
agreements," which will allow receiving countries to send back illegal
or undesirable migrants to their nations of origin.
Senegal last week suspended repatriation flights from the Canaries,
saying its migrants had been mistreated by Spanish authorities. Madrid
denied this.
In a related development, an Associated Press-Ipsos poll released
yesterday showed that despite the fierce political debate in the United
States on immigration, American attitudes toward immigrants are
considerably more positive than in several European countries.
People in Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Spain are much more
inclined than those in the United States to think immigrants are likely
to get involved in criminal activity.
"Often the immigrants come here and can't find work; they are
forced to become criminals," said Leonardo Delogu, a doctor from
Sardinia who was visiting Rome.
More than a third of Germans, Italians and Spaniards think
immigrants are more likely to be involved in criminal activity than
people born in their countries. A fourth in France and Britain feel
that way.
Those European countries are about evenly divided on whether
immigrants are a good influence. In general, people who have higher
incomes and are more educated are more likely to say immigrants are a
good influence.
In the United States, 52 percent think immigrants are a good
influence on the country. Only about one in 10 Americans thinks
immigrants are more likely to be involved in crime, according to the
poll.
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