← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · hqz
Thread ID: 9805 | Posts: 1 | Started: 2003-09-15
2003-09-15 18:33 | User Profile
[url=http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/5115862.htm]http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/5115862.htm[/url]
Thousands in Djibouti try to escape expulsion by Jonah Fisher Reuters
AOUR AOUSSA, Djibouti, Sept 14 (Reuters) - Thousands of asylum seekers sat under a scorching sun in a Djibouti desert camp on Sunday to try avoid expulsion to impoverished and volatile homelands.
Sweltering in 45 degree Celsius (113 Fahrenheit) heat, the 6,000 at Aour Aoussa camp responded to a government appeal two weeks ago that all illegal immigrants apply for refugee status or leave the tiny country by midnight (2100 GMT) on Monday.
The government of the Horn of Africa state of 640,000 says the expulsion is a simple question of economics, security and public health: unemployment is estimated at nearly 50 percent.
Ninety percent of the immigrants, some 80,000 people, appear to have simply packed up and left. Those who remain are hiding or have been escorted to Aour Aoussa as would-be refugees.
Apprehension is everywhere in the camp of bush and scrub, which was designed for 2,000 and lacks sufficient water, food or medical attention for its larger than expected population.
The Somalis, Ethiopians and Eritreans who endure such inhospitable conditions are those who say they cannot go home: Djibouti officials will interview them in coming days to determine who can stay and who will be forcibly returned home.
Ethiopian camp inmate Ali Mumen, sheltering with his wife and five children, said that four years ago they left the Oromo region of Ethiopia fearing for their lives. Rebels of Ethiopia's Oromo ethnic group are fighting a low-level civil war against the Ethiopian government, and Ali says he can't go back.
"I'm very worried about being forced to return," he said. "I don't have any papers that prove that I'm an asylum seeker but if I go back to Ethiopia I'll be automatically killed."
Staying in Djibouti isn't a soft option -- Ali survives on occasional work as a labourer that earns him $6 a day.
Fifteen percent of Djibouti's population were said to be illegal immigrants before this crackdown began. Boosted by a booming port and the presence of U.S. and French military bases, wages here are considerably higher than in neighbouring states.
Immigrants formed the bottom rung of the economic ladder as maids or labourers but were not popular with the authorities.
"The security situation concerns us, the problem of unemployment concerns us and so does the problem of hygiene," said an interior ministry official who gave her name as Guedda.
"During the time the immigrants were here we did some research -- 80 percent of the violence, thefts and rapes have been perpetrated by the illegal immigrants. These people have no homes, they sleep in the streets and they go to the toilet in the streets. We could not allow this to continue."
The United States, with a counter-terrorist operation based here, is a friend of the government but denies suggestions by local pundits that it has pushed for the expulsions.
"It's the easy answer to blame us. We have played no role at all in this, no discussions, nothing," said Brigadier General Mastin Robeson, commander of the U.S. military base here.
One of the standard Jewish arguments against US immigration reform is that it would be impossible to deport the aliens already here. They have repeated this argument so often that it is accepted as fact by all "respectable" (ie, Semitically Correct) press and politicians. Now, the congenitally retarded jungle bunnies running Djibouti have proven the American networks, the New York Hebrew Times, Rush Limblab, FeebRepublic, G. Gordon Likudny, et al. to be wrong. They have expelled 90% of their aliens -- more than 10% of the country's population -- with barely a whimper and are now going after the remaining 10,000 holdouts.
Unfortunately, the vermin who are fleeing Djibouti are likely to wind up in Maine or Minnesota, hosted by brainwashed do-gooders in the local Methodist churches, who will pray for them when their daughters are raped.