The Dominion - migration

Once, We Welcomed Tamil Refugees

Tim McSorley — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 05:16:59 +0000

Twenty-five years later, Canada jails "boat people"

MONTREAL—"We thought we were going to die...because we were not seeing any land, or light, or any boat or anything."

Sooriyakumaran Sathananthan was among more than 150 Tamil asylum-seekers discovered in a pair of crammed lifeboats off the coast of Newfoundland in August, 1986.

The Tamil refugees, who had fled persecution in Sri Lanka, were quickly granted work permits by Canadian authorities.

Nearly a quarter-century later, when another boatload of Tamil migrants reached this country’s shores, Canada responded differently.

Of the 492 Tamil refugee claimants who arrived in August 2010 on the MV Sun Sea, nearly all were detained by Canadian immigration authorities; some remain in custody.

In the wake of the Sun Sea's arrival, the Canadian government has pledged to pass a bill that critics say will punish refugees deemed "illegal," with measures including a one-year mandatory jail sentence without judicial review.

"We see a very different government now," says David Poopalapillai, spokesperson for the Canadian Tamil Congress. "The compassion is not there."

Today, Sathananthan works full-time as a delivery truck driver in Toronto. Over the years, he sent remittances back to Sri Lanka, and sponsored several family members to come to Canada as refugees. He says he's happy to have built a better life for them. But his road to asylum was long and difficult.

In the early 1980s, still living in Sri Lanka, he was forced to drop out of school after the death of his father. He worked as a farmer to support his mother and four siblings, but life in the South Asian island country became unbearable when civil war erupted in 1983.

The government of Sri Lanka—under the control of an elite group of Sinhala Buddhist nationalists—had persecuted the Tamil-speaking population for decades. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, or LTTE, took up arms, demanding national independence. Atrocities were committed on both sides, with civilians caught in the middle.

"So many people died then," Sathananthan recalls.

He fled the country with his cousin to seek a better life abroad, first traveling to Yemen. But work there was scarce.

"That's when people said, you have to go to Canada," he says. "Your family will have a better life."

Sathananthan and his cousin flew to East Germany before crossing the Iron Curtain into West Germany. In July 1986, they embarked for Canada on the freighter Aurigae with more than 150 other Tamils.

Sathananthan said they spent about two weeks at sea before the captain of the crowded cargo ship set the migrants adrift in two lifeboats. For nearly three days they drifted with no sign of land.

"We didn't have any food, any water...we [were] thinking we were going to pass away," he says.

They were finally spotted by fishermen and brought ashore by Canadian officials on August 11, 1986. Upon their arrival, the migrants were met with enormous media coverage and an outpouring of public sympathy.

The asylum-seekers were released within days and quickly granted work permits.

"There was no aggressive detention," says Peter Showler, director of the Refugee Forum, an Ottawa-based think tank.

Two-and-a-half decades later, the federal government has adopted a harsh stance aimed at discouraging "illegal migrants" from entering Canada by sea in the wake of the MV Sun Sea's arrival, Showler says.

"The government clearly has admitted that they have got this aggressive detention policy because they want to deter additional boats from coming," he says.

As of May 30, 2011, the Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB) had ordered the deportation of four of the Sun Sea migrants, on the grounds that they were members of the LTTE, a group also known as the Tamil Tigers.

The Harper government listed the LTTE as a terrorist organization in 2006.

In March 2011, when the IRB ordered the deportation of one of the migrants—whose name cannot be released due to a publication ban—Public Safety Minister Vic Toews called the decision "an unmitigated victory for the rule of law."

Critics say the government is making criminals out of refugees, while downplaying the atrocities committed by the Sri Lankan state.

"When we're talking about violence committed by resistance movements, we're talking about violence that imperialism is quick to condemn, because state violence is never considered terrorism, when in fact it's the greatest form of terrorism," says Harsha Walia, an organizer with migrant justice group No-One Is Illegal.

Activists from the group began organizing to support the MV Sun Sea migrants even before Canadian authorities boarded the boat last August near Victoria, BC. The group opposed what Walia calls a climate of xenophobia fueled by the Harper government and mainstream media.

"There's a particular hysteria about boats arriving...coupled with the post 9/11 climate, and the criminalizing and the fear-mongering around terrorism," she says.

Janet Dench, executive director for the Canadian Council for Refugees, says the government has exaggerated the threat posed by the asylum-seekers to win political mileage.

"You condemn the Tigers for their bad deeds, but you don't take an equal position on emphasizing the abuses that many Tamils themselves have suffered at the hands of the Sri Lankan government," Dench says.

Lawyers for the Canada Border Services Agency have stated in IRB hearings that anyone who did business with the Tigers—including, in one case, a rice farmer who sold crops to the LTTE—should be considered inadmissible to Canada.

Critics say that since the LTTE acted as a de facto government in predominantly Tamil areas of Sri Lanka, with a military and police force at its disposal, it was practically impossible to avoid dealing with the group.

"Many of the Tamils who make refugee claims, they make claims against the Tigers," Dench says. "And yet you don't hear any sympathy for the Tamils who have suffered abuse at the hands of the Tigers, and they're asking for our protection on that basis."

The civil war that displaced Sathananthan and his family officially ended in 2009, amidst reports of mass civilian casualties at the hands of the Sri Lankan military and the LTTE.

Since then, the UN's refugee agency has noted improvements in the human rights situation in Sri Lanka.

But hundreds of Tamils suspected of affiliating with the LTTE are arbitrarily arrested annually and detained for months or years without charge, according to a report released in February 2011 by Amnesty International. Many are tortured in custody, the report adds.

Thousands of Tamil civilians live under military surveillance in "open air prisons" in the country's northeast, according to Ajay Parasram, a doctoral student researching Sri Lankan politics at Carleton University.

"I think that's especially concerning because really the civil war was about the systematic exclusion and subordination of the Tamil people," he says.

As migrants from Sri Lanka continue to seek refuge abroad, the federal Conservative Party has pledged to pass a bill that would keep people designated as "irregular arrivals" in jail for at least one year upon their arrival, without any chance for judicial review of their detention.

The Liberals, Bloc Quebecois and New Democrats vowed to oppose Bill C-49—which the NDP's then-immigration critic dubbed the "attack refugees bill"—when it was first introduced to the House of Commons by Vic Toews last October.

Harper now appears poised to impose the reforms, which he says will deter migrants who attempt to "jump the immigration queue."

Critics say the notion that asylum-seekers must wait in line for asylum violates international agreements including the 1951 Refugee Convention, of which Canada is a signatory.

"There's no queue," Poopalapillai says. "When you have the fear that you're being persecuted, you're being raped, you're being jailed, you're being gunned down, do you have the time to go...and ask for a visa?"

Groups of migrants designated as "irregular" by the government would also be barred from receiving permanent residency status for five years, leaving them in a state of legal limbo. University of Victoria refugee law specialist Donald Galloway calls the government's reforms "anti-humanitarian."

"What they're recognizing is that if somebody is found to be a genuine refugee, but hasn't been given permanent resident status, we can always take the refugee status away," Galloway says.

"You're not going to be able to get long-term work, you're not going to be able to get a credit rating in this country, you're not going to be able to settle down, or buy yourself a home," he adds.

He also noted that the bill would apply retroactively, giving the government discretionary power to name the Sun Sea migrants and others as "irregular."

"It seems that this is a level of viciousness, of anti-humanitarian venom, that we haven't seen before," he says.

Walia says activists should oppose C-49 while building an anti-racist culture.

"They're not just policies," she says. "They exist in climate of racism, xenophobia, and anti-migrant sentiment."

David Koch is a freelance reporter and a journalism student living in Ottawa.

Tamil children

tamil noise

Migrating Justice

dru — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 05:02:05 +0000

Globalizing labour rights, regardless of status

MONTREAL—As the G8 and G20 meet in Huntsville and Toronto from June 25 to 27, resistance movements in the making since 2009 will take to the streets. A major focus of the community organizing and protests is migrant justice. On June 25, a “Free the Streets” demonstration will highlight the differences between politicians and dissenters on the themes of migrant justice, women’s and queer rights, and economic justice.

Fred McMahon, a globalization expert at the Fraser Institute, an influential pro-free-market think tank, says these protests are misguided.

“Nobody forces anybody to become a migrant labourer to Canada,” says McMahon. “The people who are protesting on the streets should ask how the migrants would feel if they were disallowed from coming to Canada. They wouldn’t be happy with the rich-kids street protesters. Migrants come here and see a better life for their families.”

SK Hussan from No One Is Illegal Toronto and the Toronto Community Mobilization Network counters that the migrant justice movement’s opposition to the G8/G20 emerges from a widespread dissatisfaction within migrant communities.

“People are angry and afraid of being deported, of unsafe working conditions, and of the rise in workplace raids,” Hussan told The Dominion.

Mostafa Henaway, director of the grassroots Montreal-based Immigrant Worker’s Centre, calls attention to economic “push factors,” factors that compel people to migrate. He specifically names Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs) and their negative effects on the economies of the global South in recent decades.

“The de-regularization of labour laws has been an outcome of the race to the bottom, which is necessary in this system to remain competitive. In this time we’ve seen the largest migration in human history,” says Henaway.

Henaway believes this migration trend largely benefits the governments of the global North, due to the way migrant workforces are exploited by host countries such as Canada. Henaway says that changes to temporary worker programs bring workers rendered impoverished by SAPs to Canada, meaning companies don’t have to relocate for low wages.

“Since NAFTA, we’ve seen tens of thousands of Mexicans working in exploitative and precarious conditions under the Seasonal Agricultural Worker’s Program,” says Henaway, who explains the workers generally cannot challenge these conditions because they’re afraid of deportation.

Henaway notes that in previous generations, immigrants who worked in Canada became citizens, but that this is no longer the case.

“They do not have the same rights as those with citizenship, and under these programs it is impossible for them to [become citizens].”

The numbers of temporary workers has been steadily increasing, nearly doubling since 2004 according to the Canadian Council for Refugees. Simultaneously, the number of refugees allowed into Canada has been drastically reduced. According to the Ottawa Citizen, in 2008 almost 22,000 refugees were accepted; in 2010, the projected acceptance rate is between 9,000 and 12,000.

Hussan says increasingly more migrants are being brought to work in exploitative conditions through temporary workers programs, but not allowed the benefits of Canadian citizenship.

“The increasing use of ‘flexible’ workforces allows Canada to profit from migrant labour without allowing migrants the right to remain,” he says.

Citizenship and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney’s recently announced changes to immigration policy reflects these ambitions, deepening the “temporary” nature of these jobs. After having worked in Canada for a cumulative four years, temporary workers are not eligible to work in the country for six years, a move Henaway likens to a deportation order.

“If migrants are seen as good enough to work, then why aren’t they good enough to stay?”

Other proposed changes in Kenney’s newly announced “Balanced Refugee Reform” include measures that deny the right to appeal negative decisions to refugees deemed to come from “safe” countries, rather than evaluating claims on individual cases of persecution.

Henaway says it’s important to bring the voice of migrant justice to the anti-globalization movement. “The G8 and G20 [countries] are crucial to these policies that create migration, and are beginning to regulate migration. The G8 and G20 manage the global economy, and migration is becoming sort of a central pillar of the global economy. If they want to globalize capital then we have to fight for the right for the freedom of movement and for labour rights for all, regardless of status.”

The G20 protests this spring are attracting a wide variety of community members. Hussan expects around 5,000 people for the “Free the Streets” march, largely to be led by racialized people and immigrant communities.

“We have been and continue to host community forums in 15 migrant neighbourhoods in the months leading up to the G20. Each of these should bring out from 100 to 300 people,” says Hussan. “People want to talk about status, and about labour standards, about the world that they want to live in.”

Robyn Maynard is a radio journalist and community organizer based in Montreal, focusing primarily on issues of migrant justice, police violence, and racial profiling.

This story was published in The Dominion's special issue on the G8 and G20 summits in Ontario. We will continue to publish independent, investigative news about the G8 and G20 throughout the month of June.

For up-to-the-minute G8/G20 news from the streets of Toronto, visit the Toronto Media Co-op.

Permanent Status demo

Barrick Supported Police Who Carried Out Fiery Evictions in PNG

Moira Peters — Sat, 05 Jun 2010 05:22:55 +0000

Amnesty report confirms links between cops & Canadian mining company

TORONTO—Amnesty International (AI) recently made waves in human rights circles, publishing a new report focusing on Canadian mining giant Barrick Gold's role in violent forced evictions in the Porgera region of Papua New Guinea (PNG).

The publication marks AI’s first report detailing the human rights abuses occurring near a Canadian mine. Publishing such a report can be risky business; the threat of a lawsuit targeting individual journalists and publishers for reporting on the activities of extractive companies is not one that many NGOs can afford to face, and Barrick is known to take crippling legal action when challenged on its human rights record.

Although AI does not conclude that representatives of Barrick directly ordered the evictions, the international human rights organization does express its concern about the company's continued support for a police unit participating in illegal activities in the region.

The report, titled “Undermining Rights: Forced Evictions and Police Brutality around the Porgera Gold Mine, Papua New Guinea,” examines links between Barrick Gold and a special Mobile Squad of police officers which burned to the ground more than 130 homes in the Porgera region between April and July 2009. The report found Barrick Gold provided food, housing and fuel to the Mobile Squad during the period of the evictions, and continues to do so despite a PNG court ordering the retreat of the police.

The Porgera Joint Venture (PJV) gold mine is located in the Porgera region of Enga, a highland province of PNG. PJV has been in operation since 2006, and continues to be 95 per cent owned and operated by subsidiaries of Canada-based Barrick, the largest mining company in the world. The remaining five per cent is split between the Enga provincial government and select local landowners. Barrick had been exploring expansion of its mine site for two years, but ceased exploration one month before the evictions.

According to the AI report, in 2008 PJV produced 627,000 ounces of gold, worth approximately $US546 million.

Jefferey Simon, a resident and member of the Akali Tange Association—a human rights organization in the Porgera area that was formed in 2004 to document abuses at PJV—explained in an interview that there is a strong history of artisanal mining in the community, which has provided a source of income alongside subsistence agriculture.

When the government of PNG granted PJV exclusive exploitation rights to a large region known as the Special Mining Lease (SML) area, it effectively cut off the community's ability to support itself, according to Simon.

PNG's 1992 Mining Act states that "all land in the State is available...for exploration and mining and the grant of tenements over it." However, the country's constitution recognizes Customary Law, which dictates that all individuals—including unborn generations—have the right to use land and resources for livelihood and traditional activities. In 2000 the National Parliament enacted the Underlying Law Act, mandating the courts to pay greater attention to Customary Law when upholding the law of the country.

Under the pretext of addressing illegal mining activities and the general decline in law and order around PJV, a request was made by the Porgera District Law and Order Committee for a 30-member police unit to patrol the area. Instead, in April 2009, a 200-member elite Mobile Squad unit, typically sent to regions of high conflict and usually armed with assault rifles, arrived within SML, an area with some 10,000 Indigenous inhabitants.

According to AI's report, when police arrived in the area to begin Operation “Ipili,” PJV provided logistical support and conducted frequent briefings.

On April 27, 2009, police encircled houses in the community of Wuangima and proceeded to violently evict families from their homes and set fire to at least 130 houses.

According to the AI report, after refusing to leave his house, one man was locked inside while police set fire to his home. He escaped with the help of neighbours. One woman, while nursing her child, was struck on her shoulder by a police officer with the butt of his rifle.

Those who were away tending their gardens came home to find only the charred remains of their houses and their highly valuable livestock killed by police. Those who had been home met with violent confrontation: witnesses testify that police pointed their weapons at them, threatened and yelled at them to leave their houses. Others reported police officers shot at or near them.

At least three women independently testified to AI about being raped by police officers. AI is strongly pressing for further investigations into these reports.

In a meeting held December 3, 2009, between AI and Barrick Gold, the company insisted that PJV was only one of several parties that supported the April 2009 deployment of police to the area. Barrick denied having prior knowledge of police actions in Wuangima.

Barrick has publicly insisted that the buildings destroyed were nothing more than temporary shelters used by migrants to the area, and that they housed people participating in illegal mining activity.

However, AI's research provided significant evidence to the contrary. Taking lengthy testimonies of residents and religious leaders, examining photographs taken before and during the burnings, and relying on the physical evidence of the charred remains of the houses, AI concluded the buildings destroyed were solidly constructed with wooden frames and traditional woven bamboo walls.

The remains of established gardens and the existence of a church in Wuangima constructed in 2004 by residents provide further evidence that the community was not temporary. PJV surveyed the area in 2007 in the hopes of expanding the mine, and would have known the area was established with permanent homes.

According to the AI report, Barrick and PJV finally acknowledged in their meeting with AI that some of the houses in Wuangima were in fact occupied for quite some time. The company maintained, however, that it had not been in a position to authorize or dictate the activity of the Mobile Squad, and claimed it had no prior knowledge of the evictions.

Barrick Gold, like many other Canadian mining companies, claim they support strong human rights standards, and their operations fully support the Voluntary Principles on Security and Human Rights, a non-binding agreement signed by governments, companies, NGOs and observer organizations.

These principles dictate the company must document and report to the appropriate authorities cases where physical force is used by public security, as well as record and report any credible allegation of human rights abuses by public security. In addition, companies should urge an investigation and support action to prevent recurrence of such physical force.

Barrick maintains it did not know the intentions of police. However, according to the AI report, PJV had almost daily communications with police. PJV in fact participated in a police briefing meeting the morning of the evictions. Barrick told AI that PJV employees saw smoke only after the buildings were burning. Photos taken during the raid show PJV employees watching from the mine site.

According to the report, the General Manager of Corporate and Legal for PJV contacted the Commander of the Mobile Squad, but after his being told the evictions were legal there were no further investigations on the part of PJV or Barrick.

Corporate accountability is a large focus within Amnesty International Canada (AIC) for the next several years.

“One of the challenges of researching community concerns that relate to large corporations is the fear of a lawsuit or some form of legal action,” said Ian Heide, the coordinator for Business and Human Rights for AIC. “The complexity of the situation in terms of government responsibility versus corporation responsibility or obligation means that AI needs to be sure of our research before going public."

AI has good reason to be careful. Noir Canada—edited by Alain Denault and the Collectif Ressources d’Afrique and published in French out of Montreal—details the role of Canadian companies operating in Africa with the support of the Canadian government. In that particular case, lawyers for Barrick Gold claimed there were inaccuracies in the book’s detailing of Barrick’s role in the 1996 massacre in Bulyanhulu, Tanzania, where more than 50 small-scale miners were buried alive. Barrick Gold filed a SLAPP lawsuit (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation) against the writers, editors, translators and publishers of Noir Canada in order to block the translation of the book into English. Barrick Gold has also sued The Observer and The Guardian over articles they published about the Bulyanhulu massacre.

Simon explained the importance of the AI report. “Both the company and the state are bonded for development,” he said. “The only way to express ourselves is through media and connecting with international NGOs who can carry out adequate research and produce reliable reports.”

While acknowledging the quick response by AI—the report was researched and released within eight months of the evictions—Jethro Tulin, another resident of Porgera, thinks the report could have gone further. According to Tulin, there is no room for doubt that the company was responsible, but this was not made clear in the report. He maintains that even if AI did not have proof that Barrick was directly responsible for ordering the forced evictions, they could have recorded opinions of witnesses and made stronger recommendations to Barrick.

“AI has a reputation for being fair and impartial,” responded Heide, “so we only name governments and companies when we are certain that what we are saying is accurate and fair.”

Simon and Tulin agree with AI's report in its clear statement of the unanimous demand by people living near Barrick’s Porgera mine to be relocated to areas outside the SML.

AI has called on the Government of PNG to investigate the evictions and ensure that alternative accommodations and adequate compensation are provided for those who have been displaced.

Valerie Croft worked in Guatemala as an International Accompanier in 2008 and is active in issues relating to corporate accountability.

Mines causing environmental devastation in Papua New Guinea

Nine Women Arrested in Workplace Raid in Leamington, Ontario

dawn — Sat, 30 May 2009 03:10:00 +0000

Picture 4.png

--Reposting--

For Immediate Release
May 28, 2009

Nine Women Arrested in Workplace Raid in Leamington, Ontario

Justice for Migrant Workers and No One is Illegal-Toronto condemn the latest workplace raids in Leamington, Ontario. In the early morning of Wednesday, May 27th, Immigration Enforcement swarmed Lakeside Produce arresting nine migrant workers, all women, [o]ne of whom is pregnant. They are all being detained in the Windsor County Jail.

“We are outraged by these arrests,” says Chris Ramsroop of Justicia for Migrant Workers. “These attacks destroy our communities. Instead of attacking the immigration system, we are attacking workers who put food on our table.”

These latest arrests mark an alarming trend of workplace raids by the Canada Border Service Agency. In April, CBSA conducted large scale raids throughout the [Greater Toronto Area] and Southwestern Ontario, where over 80 migrants were arrested and deported.

Workplace raids will only serve to terrorize and intimidate workers into working for low wages and unsafe working conditions because they are constantly under the threat of deportation.

In the middle of this recession, the Tory government is spending money and resources on arresting people, throwing them into detention centers and buying their plane tickets, instead of supporting social services for those in need.

The Tory government is targeting racial and ethnic communities and is using the raids to inflame racism and bigotry. They are using migrant workers as scapegoats in this recession.

A Costly Commute

Moira Peters — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 10:32:59 +0000

Foreign migrant workers provide long hours of cheap labour on Canadian farms

MONTREAL, QUEBEC–Don Jorge* stands outside the St Joseph Oratory, looking at the Montreal landscape in awe.

Don Jorge is a peasant farmer from a small town in Central Mexico.

Every summer he comes to Canada to work for six months on a farm close to Montreal. He has been working that farm for the last 14 years.

Even though he comes every year, he doesn't know Montreal or its surroundings. His knowledge of Canada and Quebec is confined to the fields that he harvests, the IGA where he shops for his weekly groceries and Montreal's St Joseph Oratory – where agricultural workers go to mass once a year.

He cannot leave the farm except for Sunday afternoons, and his only human contact is with other farm workers like himself and with his foreman.

Don Jorge lives and works in Les Fermes du Soleil, a farm owned by the ex-Quebec MNA André Chenail. Don Jorge says Chenail does not really take care of the farm business anymore, leaving day-to-day operations to his family instead. Chenail’s retirement was good news for the workers.

"He used to ‘tabernacle’ us all the time.” Tabernacle – the receptacle for the sacrament in Catholic churches – is used in Quebec an insult. “We were not treated as people. It is as though he thought we were animals," Jorge says, looking at his hands, calloused and roughened by farm work.

Don Jorge is part of the Canadian Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program (CSAWP), a Canadian federal program that brings migrant workers from Mexico, Guatemala, and the Caribbean to work in the agricultural sector every summer.

The CSAWP began as a pilot project with Jamaica in 1966, when 264 Jamaican workers came to Ontario to harvest tobacco. The first Mexican workers arrived in Canada in 1974 after Mexico and Canada signed a memorandum of understanding.

The Mexican government plays a double role in this arrangement: it makes sure the program works smoothly, and it also functions as the representative of migrant agricultural Mexican workers in Canada.

For Caribbean workers, the program is run jointly with the governments of the participating Caribbean states, which recruit workers and appoint representatives in Canada to assist in the program’s operations. Workers come from Jamaica, Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago, and the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (Grenada, Antigua, Dominica, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and Monserrat).

For Guatemalan workers, the project was established in 2003 through an agreement with FERME (Foundation of Recruiting Enterprises of Foreign Agricultural Labor), which also lobbies the Canadian government for Canadian farm owners, under the supervision of the Department of Human Resources Development of Canada.

According to the Canadian United Farm and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW), 20,274 migrant workers came to Canada in 2005: 11,798 came from Mexico and 5,916 from Jamaica; the rest came from Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago, and the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS). In 2004, fewer than three per cent of participants in this program were women. In 2009, the number of migrant workers in Canada is expected to be over 156,000.

Seasonal workers like Don Jorge come to work in the horticulture and fruit and vegetable sectors. Most workers (nearly 16,500) are employed in Ontario; Quebec follows suit with 2,670 seasonal workers.

The temporary workers visa allows them to work only on a specified farm and for a limited period of time. Mexicans and Jamaicans can stay for a maximum of eight months.

Workers live in housing provided by the employer and are not allowed to spend the night outside the quarters. Employers are required to cover certain costs (which vary depending on the nationality of the worker), to ensure that the employee is covered by workers’ compensation and under health insurance, and to sign a contract with the worker.

"The Guatemalan workers pay $35 per week for their lodging but the farm owners pay for their plane ticket. Mexican workers pay for half their plane ticket (up to $550) but they don't pay lodging," says Edgardo Flores Rivas, General Consul of Mexico in Montreal.

Most workers are married with children, which ensures they have an "anchor" back home, preventing them from staying in Canada after their work term. They have health and labor insurance while in Canada, and when they fall ill their employers must take them to a doctor. Under the rules of the program, a worker cannot be repatriated due to illness.

Don Jorge says, however, that this is not always the case. He recounts an incident that happened during his first years in Canada.

"We were working in the fields even though they had announced a severe storm. When the storm hit, it hit hard. We had a bunch of boxes full of produce stacked up. They were knocked down by the wind and they were going to fall over a Quebecker. A young Mexican jumped in, risking his life. He was hit here and there, and afterward he was suffering from intense shock and trauma. He couldn't work and asked to see a doctor, and the patron” – the boss – “refused. Two days later, while we were all in the fields, they tried to repatriate him. But the young man left a message for his roommate and that's how we found out. They never thought we would find out," he says.

Don Jorge says the farm workers decided to take action. After lunch, they all refused to go to work. When Chenail found out about the strike he went to the workers’ quarters and threatened to send them all back to Mexico if they refused to go to the fields. The workers called the Mexican Consulate for support, but were baffled when Fanny Carranza, a Consulate staff member, told them to get back to work instead of looking for trouble.

But the workers refused, saying they would rather return to Mexico than allow such injustice to occur. The young man finally received medical attention and worked the Canadian fields that summer. He wasn't offered a job the next year.

Andrea Galvez works at a Temporary Workers Support Center (Centro de Apoyo) in St. Remi, Qc. She cites numerous problems that allow for worker abuse in the program.

"The workers sometimes work 14 hours per day. They don't get a break. They are afraid to complain because they fear they will be sent home," she says.

The majority of workers want to work as many hours as possible to maximize their earnings, since they have to cover for the costs of coming to Canada in the first place. No matter how many hours per day they work, migrant workers do not get paid overtime.

"What they earn is what the Canadian government establishes as the minimum wage for agricultural workers. People and media ask why they earn so little. We can't modify Canadian law. Those who come know this is how it is," says Flores Rivas.

"[The government omitted overtime pay] because they wanted to protect small family farms. The problem is that now agriculture is industrial, not family owned," says Galvez.

For René Mantha, General Director of FERME, low wages are essential to stay competitive in the global economy.

"They can’t be paid time and a half. Let’s use the lettuce harvest as an example. If workers are being paid too much the lettuce will be more expensive to compensate for the higher wages. If the lettuce doesn’t sell because it is too expensive we will not be able to hire any workers later. You see, we are in a global economy," he says.

Furthermore, a survey in the Niagara region showed that Canadian farm workers' hourly rates increased nine to 14 per cent over the past five years.

Bilateral government agreements call for a rest day after six days of work but employers can ask workers to volunteer to work their rest day during harvest periods.

"I wish they would work no more than 12 hours per day. It is what is stated in the contract," says Mantha. Nevertheless, he acknowledges that the workers sometimes face longer working hours.

"They are not here for one week. They are here for six or seven months, so if they are exhausted I can tell you they will not be as productive," he says.

Flores Rivas agrees, saying they are not supposed to work more than 12 hours per day ever. "This has been decided to protect their health," he says.

In Canada, agriculture accounts for several times more work-related injuries and deaths than other industries. Risks stem from operating heavy machinery, applying pesticides, and working long hours during extreme heat. These dangers are compounded with the fact that most workers have inadequate training and sometimes do not understand safety instructions.

According to the North-South Institute, one in three workers from St. Lucia, Grenada and Mexico and one in five workers from Trinidad, Jamaica and Dominica report injuries or sickness due to the combination of long hours and exposure to chemicals and other hazards. Between one half and one third of sick and injured workers go to work rather than risk being considered unfit for work or losing wages.

****

Paulino* has worked Canadian fields for seven summers.

He has been a peasant all his life. “My father showed me how to clean the corn, the yucca, the camote since I was a little boy,” he says.

He appreciates his job, since he says it is hard to find a job back home, but he bitterly complains about the expenses involved in working here, and the lack of wage increases in spite of a rising cost of living in Mexico.

“In Mexico everything is very expensive. We want our salaries to increase but it’s not like anybody asks us what we want. We are illiterate; we have no say in the negotiations,” he says.

To begin with, while still at home, Mexican CSAWP hopefuls bear the cost of traveling to Mexico City five times or more to fulfill the bureaucratic requirements of the program.

To be eligible for the program, workers must pay for and pass the medical screenings required by the Canadian government. Canadian Immigration Health Services has approved very few clinics that carry out required medical screenings, and all of them are in Mexico City.

Workers must also travel to Mexico City to apply and pay for their work visa with the Canadian government.

"We cannot force the Canadian government to open offices elsewhere to give the visa. In the Third World they use their own standards. Not all clinics can pass the standard. The worker who comes knows he will have these expenses," says Flores Rivas, adding that the Mexican government has opened several offices in Mexico to make the Mexican paperwork easier for the workers.

Mexican workers pay half the cost – $550 – of their plane ticket. An economy class round trip from Mexico can be bought by the general public for as little as $600. However, Galvez says the tickets are bought through a travel agency owned by FERME, and she believes this is clearly a conflict of interest. Flores Rivas disagrees.

“The only way they can reserve the seats with the airlines is to reach an agreement with them,” he says. For Paulino, the $550 amount is staggering.

Seasonal migrant workers have to pay income tax like all other workers in Canada. They also pay Canadian Employment Insurance (EI) and make contributions to the Canadian Pension Plan. In 2001, Ontario CSWAP workers contributed $3.4 million to EI even though they cannot claim such EI benefits as welfare.

Paulino says the money he is able to bring back home is spent fast, and he believes the Mexican government is unwilling to negotiate better salaries.

Given the great personal cost, why do so many agricultural migrant workers like Paulino keep coming to the Canadian fields year after year?

Paulino says he, like many others, comes from a poor rural Mexican family. His parents couldn’t afford to send him to high school. He says he leaves his sweat and health in the Canadian fields when he comes and that it is very difficult to be away from his family for so long. “I have two young children. They miss me and I miss them,” he says.

Even so, traveling to work every year is an act of love towards his family. “I want to give my children a better life. I want them to study. That’s the only reason I come so far to work: for them,” he says.

Flores Rivas believes the conditions of the program are the best the negotiations have allowed.

“It [the program] is not that bad since people keep on coming,” he says.

When asked if he will continue to come back to Canada, Paulino says he will. He says it is not because the program is good for the workers, but because there are not enough jobs back home.

“We come because we have to come,” he says.

*Workers' names have been changed to avoid problems with their employers.

Verónica Islas is currently completing a Masters degree in Public Policy and Public Administration at Concordia University.

TFW Fence

A Mining Refugee in Canada

dawn — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 09:46:06 +0000

Can one country be the hero and the villain?

MONTRÉAL, QUÉBEC–For some, Canada is a place to call home. For Enrique Rivera, it is a place where he's safe from thugs working on behalf of mining corporations.

Rivera fled to Canada to escape a Mexican mine's ever-expanding power and reach. A Canadian mining corporation owns that mine.

Rivera arrived in Montreal two years ago, demanding refugee status. Life for him in Canada is very different from his life in San Luis Potosi, his hometown in Mexico. Rivera washes dishes in Montreal. In Mexico, he was a lawyer.

"I cannot work as a lawyer here. I cannot even think about it. First of all, I have to learn the language and then I have to study Canadian and Quebec law. It will take me three or four years to be able to work as a lawyer here," he says.

Rivera has no family in Montreal. He misses the people he grew up with and the places he grew up in.

"I miss the food, the weather, my friends, the streets, my parents, my brothers and sisters, the gardens, the landscapes, my town. I miss the life that I had to leave behind and I wish to have it back again one day," he says.

****

Rivera's life changed when he started working as a lawyer and activist with Frente Amplio Opositor (FAO), known in Canada as the Broad Opposition Front. The FAO is a non-partisan grassroots organization that is trying to stop an open-pit cyanide-leached mine in Cerro de San Pedro, Mexico. Canadian company New Gold owns the mine.

New Gold is the result of a recent merger between three companies, including the Canadian mining company Metallica Resources, which owned the mine before the merger.

Rivera was working with FAO when several men attacked him on April 4, 2006, striking him repeatedly on the head.

Witnesses report they heard his assailants shouting, "If you continue talking, you are going to die."

On May 1, 2007, Rivera was called to represent five students who had been detained in a protest against the mine. He learned then that the students had been tortured to obtain their signatures on a document meant to incriminate him.

Rivera was forced into hiding and escaped Mexico as quickly as he could. He is now seeking political asylum in Canada.

"I had to leave my country since Mexico politically prosecuted me because I was defending Cerro de San Pedro," says Rivera.

"It has been a very tough and sad experience for me. What hurts the most is to be forced to leave it all because you did your duty as a human being and for following what your professional ethics dictate," he says. "To know that authorities in your country want to destroy you to protect corporate interests and that a transnational company can corrupt in such a way the institutions that are supposed to protect the law is what hurts the most. Fortunately I come from a family that is used to fighting for social justice and to protect human dignity and that makes it less tough on me."

Rivera misses Mexico immensely, but, "Given the violence and the human rights violations that are now prevalent in Mexico," he says, "I cannot think of going back."

Rivera's problems began when he got involved in the fight to protect Cerro de San Pedro in San Luis Potosi.

****

Cerro de San Pedro (translated as Saint Peter's Mount) was founded in 1592. It was the site of the first strikes of gold and silver in the area and its mines gave rise to the city of San Luis Potosí, now the state capital.

The Mount was the founding site for the town and is a symbol on the state's coat of arms. In September 1993, the Mexican National Institute of Anthropology and History [INAH] recognized the history of the region by declaring it an ecologically protected area. INAH even recognized the lack of water in the area as a fundamental problem and noted the need to protect it from heavy pollution and over-consumption. The town is one signature away from becoming a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The missing signature belongs to the Governor of the state of San Luis Potosi, whose reluctance to sign has been attributed to political alliances and collusion with the mining company.

Now Cerro de San Pedro is literally half gone - blasted away by dynamite - and the region is embroiled in one of Mexico's most important legal, social and environmental conflicts.

****

In 1993, Cerro de San Pedro and the surrounding region was accorded legal environmental protection due to its ecological fragility. The region is semi-arid and the local aquifer is already overburdened. Metallica's own environmental impact assessment recognizes the possibility of water contamination by cyanide and certain heavy metals.

Metallica Resources' environmental impact assessment acknowledges air pollution caused by the mine. Tons of dust resulting from the daily explosions mix with the chemical explosive TNT and approximately eight million litres of the water and cyanide combination (cyandric acid) evaporates into the air daily. This deadly mix lingers not only in the Cerro de San Pedro community, but also reaches the capital city of San Luis Potosi, which is fewer than 12km away and home to more than one million people.

****

In 1996, Baltazar Reyes, mayor of San Pedro, was gunned down. His son and successor Oscar Laredo publicly announced that high-ranking officials threatened to shoot him as well, unless he signed the permit that would allow the mine to operate. He had no choice but to sign.

Rivera says that Metallica (now New Gold) has used several tactics to scare off opposition to the mine.

"They weave webs with local government, with mass media, with enterprises, with some locals who [sic] they hire to physically attack any opposition," says Rivera.

This year, Mario Martinez Ramos, another activist who has been fighting to stop the mine in Cerro de San Pedro, was also beaten up. As a hydraulic engineer, Martinez Ramos had been very vocal about the long-term repercussions the mine's operations will have on the aquifer, such as water depletion and cyanide pollution.

Martínez Ramos says he was insulted and attacked by members of the Marquez family, a family whose members work for the mining company and who are known for their scare and bullying tactics. At the time of the attack, they were armed with machetes and guns.

The husband of the new mayor of Cerro de San Pedro attacked several townspeople this year - including a pregnant woman - by charging his van into a crowd during a demonstration against the mine.

Nobody has been charged for any of the attacks. Rivera believes that, like in his case, nobody will ever be charged.

Metallica Resources - now New Gold - has also been operating without several permits by using injunctions whenever they lose a case in court regarding their status.

"I am sure they are colluded. From the moment that the Environment Secretary disregarded the order of a judge which stated that the mine shouldn't work and gave a ‘permit’ that is clearly illegal, the collusion between Metallica and the PAN’s government became evident," says Rivera.

Rivera says corporations like New Gold take advantage of weak institutions and exacerbate the corruption that is rampant in countries like Mexico.

"These companies are very powerful. They have allies in all government structures. The difference will have to come from a grassroots movement and with the help and participation of Canadian civil society," he says.

While he awaits an answer regarding his refugee claim, Rivera has been trying to create awareness about the actions of Canadian mining corporations in the south.

"It is important to get Canadian civil society involved in these problems to stop these predatory enterprises," he says. "If we allow states and corporations to be the only ones involved in these issues, there will be no advances and projects like the Metallica one will continue to mushroom throughout the world."

Verónica Islas is from Mexico and has seen first hand the destruction of Cerro de San Pedro. She is currently completing a Masters degree in Public Policy and Public Administration at Concordia University.

Enrique Rivera II

Forgotten at the Gaza-Egypt Border

hillarybain — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 11:53:17 +0000

"His father died this morning," a hotel guest explained, gesturing to Raed, slumped and silent in his chair, face long.

It was Wednesday, August 20 in Sinai's al-Arish, a town about 50 kilometers west of the Gaza-Egypt border. Two days earlier, the approximately 450 Palestinians who had been waiting to enter Gaza were finally supposed to be permitted entry. Days before, the announcement had been made that the Rafah Crossing between Egypt and Gaza would open to allow passage into and out of Gaza. Many of the Palestinians at al-Arish had been waiting since the beginning of June for the border to open. Others had been exiled for over a year, outside of Gaza when Egypt sealed the border shut following Hamas' taking control of Gaza in June 2007.

Silenced and out of the international spotlight, the Palestinians waiting in al-Arish said that their plight at the closed crossing is either ignored or politicized. Many were running out of money, while others had completely run out, having waited for the opening of Rafah for weeks without earning an income. Approximately 200 of the Palestinians who waited to re-enter Gaza were in dire financial circumstances, many borrowing money, others begging, some sleeping in the streets.

Many came from countries where they hold work permits, taking vacation time to visit family not seen in years. "We risk losing our jobs and our residency permits," explained Mahmoud, a 28-year-old truck driver now living in Sweden. "Otherwise, we must leave Egypt without having seen our families in Gaza," he said. "We are now merely running on hope and faith that the border will open one day," added 22-year-old Sameh (not his real name), from Gaza's northern Jabaliya refugee camp and formerly a student at one of Cairo's universities.

There appears to be little support from the Palestinian Authority and its diplomats in Cairo. Many Palestinians who arrive to al-Arish have no idea how they can enter Gaza, asking others in the same situation or even foreign journalists for advice and help. The lucky are directed to the PA representative in al-Arish, who adds their name and passport information to the long list of those waiting. Some, however, feel it makes little difference if their name is on the list.

Waiting

"I've been waiting for two months now," said Sameh, the university student who hoped to continue his studies in Gaza. "I put my name on the list right away, but it didn't achieve anything. We've been told repeatedly that the border will open soon, but weeks have passed and here we are still here, wasting our money. No one is looking out for us, not our own representatives, not the Egyptian authorities," he added.

"I've been here since July 23," explained Muhammad, who left Gaza in 1996 to continue his university studies abroad. Recently his mother in Gaza became very ill but doctors were unable to diagnose her ailments. Worse, due to the deteriorated conditions in hospitals and clinics, the lack of medicines and equipment and sufficient staff, she is not a priority case. There are too many more critical patients, including those injured during Israel's frequent pre-truce military operations in Gaza.

Stuck waiting in al-Arish, Muhammad feared his mother would die before he could see her and was frustrated at the game being played with their lives. "My family is the sacrifice of a political problem. We aren't Fatah, Hamas, or any faction. My mother needs help for her condition, but can't get it, and I need to be with her, but can't get in," he said.

Muhammad explained the process of trying to leave Egypt to Gaza: "I went to the Rafah crossing and was told by Egyptian authorities to go back, that the crossing was closed. I returned to al-Arish and gave a copy of my passport to the representative from the Palestinian embassy and was told I must wait. But I have no idea how long they will make me wait, nor how long I can wait. I have a wife and my studies back in Europe."

Jaber was accepted to the Cairo University faculty of medicine in 2005. Since then, he has spent the last three summer vacations trying, and failing, to enter Gaza to see his family. He was not convinced he would succeed before the school year resumed. "I don't think the border will open," he said. "I think I'll spend another year here without seeing my family. It's very difficult staying here, waiting, hoping to see your family but realizing that you can't." He added that he is not alone in his separation from Gaza: "This isn't just my story. I have maybe five other friends also studying at the faculty of medicine who want to go back to Gaza."

When the rumors spread that the border would open, waiting Palestinians packed their bags and headed to the crossing. Most did so in vain, hoping they would be able to show their ID and cross into their homeland. However, the stranded inevitably ended up back at their al-Arish accommodations, waiting for the next rumor.

A handful of medical patients did pass through into Egypt, seeking treatment and then returning home. They held the coveted yellow cards, Egypt's recognition of the ill or injured, the key to the closed border gates. Seven crossed back into Gaza one day, 15 another day, five the last time. But they were a scant fraction of those who needed to return home.

Raed, a 34-year-old Ukraine-trained doctor, and his Ukrainian wife considered trying to return to Gaza in January with their daughter and young baby when the Rafah border wall was torn down by Hamas in a temporary break of the siege. "I need to be near my family, my birthplace. My children need to see their grandparents," Raed explained. He had unsuccessfully tried to enter Gaza a year before and ultimately returned to Ukraine to work. But in January, his newborn baby was too young, he felt, to travel and live in Gaza. He'd wait six months before trying to re-enter.

Entering Gaza became all the more urgent after Raed's father was placed in an intensive care unit due to acute respiratory problems. The family joined the hundreds of others waiting in al-Arish hoping to bid loved ones in Gaza a last goodbye. Raed lost this chance Wednesday, when he learned of his father's passing.

Policy of separation

"Fifty days. I've been waiting here for 50 days now," explains Mahmoud, the truck driver living in Sweden. "I was due to start work two weeks ago, and I keep telling myself I'll leave Egypt tomorrow. But then I hear that maybe the border will open. I can't give up this option. I can't give up my hope."

Meanwhile, Sameh, the university student, spoke of separation, not only between Palestinians in and outside of Gaza, but of Gaza from the West Bank. Referring to the 19 June ceasefire between Israel and Palestinian armed resistance in Gaza, Sameh said: "By enforcing the truce only in Gaza, Israel is trying to enforce the idea of separating Gaza from the West Bank, as two separate states. But West Bank Palestinians are just like us, and we can't ignore the oppression they in the West Bank face under occupation."

On August 30, just before Ramadan began, Egypt finally opened the Rafah crossing for two days, allowing in most of the Palestinians waiting in al-Arish at the time and letting hundreds of Palestinians and Egyptians inside Gaza exit to Egypt. However, this was a one-time measure and not a change in policy. With the Rafah crossing tightly re-sealed, the siege is still firmly in place. The thousands of patients still needing medical care outside of Gaza, the hundreds of students still cut off from their schools abroad, and the countless separated families continue to call for the border to open, and to remain open.

Eva Bartlett is a Canadian human rights advocate and freelancer who spent eight months in 2007 living in West Bank communities and four months in Cairo and at the Rafah crossing.

This article was originally published on The Electronic Intifada.

Forgotten at the Gaza-Egypt border

Death in the Field

hillarybain — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 13:00:36 +0000

An interview with Arturo Rodriguez of the United Farm Workers of America

Maria Isabel Vasquez Jimenez died in May after suffering a heat stroke while pruning grape vines at the San Joaquin County vineyard in California. Jimenez was a seventeen-year-old undocumented worker who had migrated from Oaxaca, Mexico to work in the United States. She was working in the fields with her fiancé and was pregnant at the time of her death. As an undocumented worker, Jimenez’s death points to the often severe realities faced by non-status agricultural workers in the US.

Since the signing of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), migration from Mexico to the US has increased dramatically. NAFTA has failed to deliver the economic boom for Mexico that was promised and thousands like Jimenez migrate to the US each year seeking a better life for themselves and their families.

Jimenez’s death sparked protest in California, including a caravan from Lodi, CA, to Sacramento, CA, coordinated by the United Farm Workers of America (UFW). Jimenez’s death reinvigorated calls for an amnesty program for undocumented workers in the US who often face appalling working conditions that frequently go undetected due to the precarious status of the workers.

Arturo Rodriguez, president of the UFW, spoke with Dominion contributor Stefan Christoff about the recent death of Maria Isabel Vasquez Jimenez and the political movement for regularization of non-status workers in the US.

Dominion: The death of Maria Isabel Vasquez Jimenez has drawn a great deal of attention to the case of undocumented farm workers in the United States. Commentators across the political spectrum are referencing this tragic event. Could you address the specifics surrounding her death?

Arturo Rodriguez: Maria Isabel Vasquez Jimenez was a 17-year-old farm worker who was pregnant while working in the fields in the San Joaquin County Vineyard, working with grape vines. Maria was working in the fields for long, long hours. The employer didn’t bring water until 10:30 that morning--work had begun at 6am. Maria had worked for over four hours without any water to drink and on that particular day, the temperatures soared above 95 degrees [Fahrenheit], and in the fields even hotter.

That afternoon, Maria Isabel Vasquez Jimenez collapsed after not having enough water, or having any shade provided and without any sufficient rest. Consequently, Maria fell into a coma. Supervisors took no action, not calling the ambulances, not calling an emergency vehicle, instead putting her in the back of a sweltering van. About two hours later, [they] finally brought her to a hospital where, upon arrival, the doctors pronounced that the body temperature had soared to around 108 degrees.

At this point Maria was admitted to the hospital and over the course of the next days her heart stopped beating a number of times and finally her heart simply stopped beating. Doctors said that there was no real chance to revive her or for her to survive. At this point the family made a decision to shut off the machines that were keeping her alive.

Could you provide a picture of the trek that undocumented migrants are making from throughout the Americas, due to economic factors, to work in agricultural fields in the United States and Canada?

Migration occurs throughout the United States and into Canada. Towns that the workers come from, in Oaxaca or Chiapas in Mexico, have economic conditions that are so bad, so poor, that people are forced to look externally for ways to provide their children with enough to survive in these states.

Often families will pay thousands of dollars to smugglers, known as coyotes, to take people across the borders to a place where another family member is, or a place where they can work as an undocumented labourer where they slowly start working in the field. These people are then indebted to that particular coyote, so they are working first to pay off their debt.

Literally thousands and thousands of people are crossing each day. Estimates indicate that at least five hundred people are dying trying to cross the border each year. People are dying while crossing the deserts, dying from thirst, heat exposure or starvation.

Can you talk about these demands for safety reform within the context of the larger demands for regularization or status for all non-status people or workers in the United States?

Our organization has been working extremely hard for the past decade because we know that Maria Isabel Vasquez Jimenez isn’t an isolated case. In the US, at least 70 per cent of the farm labour force is undocumented. Oftentimes, workers like Maria are abused, or exploited, or mistreated, simply due to their lack of status in the US.

Consequently, we feel that it’s extremely important that we change this situation, to ensure that undocumented workers are afforded the same rights as anyone else in the United States when they come to work in this country. A very important part of our work as an organization is to bring about real immigration reform in the US.

Recently we have worked very closely with Senator Dianne Feinstein, Senator Kennedy and Congressman Howard Berman on a special piece of legislation that would in particular deal with undocumented farm workers in the United States. Through this legislation, farm workers would bring proof that they have worked 150 days over a four-year period. This legislation would then provide a pathway to grant legal status for the workers and their spouses and children in the US.

We continue to work very hard on this legislation, as we think it’s the real solution to the current problem. [If the legislation were adopted], farm workers could enjoy the same protection as anyone else and they will no longer be discriminated against.

Do you see a parallel between the recent death of Maria Isabel Vasquez Jimenez and the current position of the US government to not grant farm workers status in the US today?

Maria Isabel Vasquez Jimenez is one of nine individuals that we know of who have died of heat stress just in California. Multiple other deaths have occurred due to equipment failures, due to heavy use of pesticides, and you can go on from there. The overwhelming majority of these deaths are undocumented people, so we know that these deaths are very closely linked to the legal status of these individuals.

Unfortunately, the legal status of undocumented farm workers needs to change for them to be treated as human beings. This is the reality that we face in the US and we are trying to do everything within our own power to ensure that these changes do come about. So it’s of utmost importance for us to ensure that farm workers receive the same type of legal status and protections that any other workers in the US [receive].

Throughout Mexico there has been unrest concerning the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Can you talk about the case of Maria Isabel Vasquez Jimenez within the larger context of NAFTA, which some argue is forcing increased migration of undocumented workers into the US?

Unfortunately, NAFTA hasn’t been the solution for Mexico’s economic concerns that it was presented as. Many companies went to Mexico looking for a cheap labour supply, [but] once they found a cheaper labour supply in China or other parts of the world, they often abandoned the communities or cities in Mexico where they had set up.

Along the US-Mexico border, near Tijuana [and] other areas, you can often find factories that have been completely abandoned as a result of these corporations finding other locations internationally where they could find a cheaper labour supply, a labour supply they could better use and exploit for their corporate economic benefit.

Many large regions or states in Mexico, for example Oaxaca, were not impacted by any of the proposed economic gains from NAFTA. Oftentimes the areas that NAFTA impacted, in terms of US companies setting up factories along the border regions, are no less destitute [today] as these factories or companies are now leaving.

Today, large, large numbers of people in these states are in situations of unemployment, even homelessness, as they had left their homes in other parts of Mexico and are now stranded without work or opportunity. Oftentimes, the only solution that they had was migration to the US, in order to seek some kind of relief, in order to deal with the economic stress that they were feeling in Mexico.

Profound economic changes that benefit people will never take place unless there is real economic revival within Mexico and across other parts of Latin America. Huge numbers of people are migrating from across the Americas to the US in order to find jobs, basically to find economic relief; this is a real challenge.

Economic stability in Mexico means that people will have self-reliance where they live, an economic situation locally where they can provide for themselves, their families and their local communities.

Migrant Farm Workers

A Nation of Carefully Selected Immigrants

dru — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 02:34:43 +0000

Liberal MPs abstain, leading to major changes to immigration policy

On March 14, Canada's Conservative government introduced a series of amendments to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (IRPA). Instead of being presented as an immigration bill, the new reforms were slipped into Bill C-50, the 136-page "budget implementation bill" that pertains to this year's federal budget. The government launched an ad campaign in hundreds of ethnic newspapers, at a cost of $1.1 million, touting the measures while they were still before Parliament. In addition, Stephen Harper's government raised the stakes for any opposition by making the bill a confidence vote.

If Liberal MPs had voted against the bill, along with the Bloc Quebecois and the New Democratic Party, it would have triggered an election.

While all opposition parties condemned the changes, the Liberals abstained en masse to avoid forcing an election. On June 10, with the seats of 80 Liberal MPs empty, Bill C-50 passed into law.

Vancouver resident, political science graduate, migrant justice campaigner, indigenous solidarity organizer and single mom Cynthia Oka notes that in spite of Citizenship and Immigration Canada's attempted infiltration of ethnic media for the purpose of defending the bill before it had even passed, there is opposition to be found in those same venues.

"Grassroots immigrant communities are speaking out against the bill, but they're not finding voice through institutionalized channels. Some ethnic media are taking a decidedly more critical angle of the bill, which is encouraging."

In Canada, there are three categories of immigrants: family class, independent or 'economic' immigrants (admitted on the basis of skill, capital and labour-market preferences) and refugees. Under the previous system, anyone who qualified to come to Canada would get in, though the process often took years. The new system will allow Immigration Minister Diane Finley and her department to prioritize some people over others. Applications that are not dealt with by the end of each year will be sent back. Under the new law, the minister has the right to reject an application without any court review, even after the established criteria have been met.

The reforms will allow Finley and future immigration ministers to issue quotas and restrictions on people based on their particular categories and countries of origin. Humanitarian and Compassionate applications no longer have to be examined if the applicant is outside Canada. The minister also has the authority to decide the order in which the applications get processed, regardless of when they are filed.

The government has cited a "backlog problem" in the processing of immigrants as the chief reason for implementing reforms that give the immigration minister unprecedented control. Harsha Walia of No One Is Illegal (NOII) notes that, “instead of getting rid of the inexcusably long waiting list by easing immigration bureaucratic controls, their solution is to give themselves the power to simply kick people off the list.”

The result is a decision based on the needs of the employers and industry, rather than family reunification or human safety. Further reinforcing the standard of employability by which immigrants to Canada are reviewed, are the 'improvements' to the country's Post-Graduation Work Permit Program, which Finley announced in late April. Previously, foreign students studying in Canadian universities were allowed to work in Canada for a year (or two, in certain areas) after their graduation. Once they had acquired a year of work experience, they often had to return home since it was difficult for them to have their work permits extended long enough to allow their applications for permanent residence to be settled. Now, students who complete a program of study of two or more years at an eligible post-secondary institution in Canada can qualify to stay and work in the country for three years. Toronto immigration lawyer and columnist Guidy Mamann sums up the logic behind this extension.

"Canada will have an immigration system whereby we can actually 'test-drive' the candidates before accepting them as permanent residents here."

This move, contrary to popular belief, is not merely beneficial to foreign students, but is likely to further promote the gap between those who can afford the higher tuition fees reserved for out-of-country students and those who cannot. Finley's "improvements" also serve to emphasize the particular kinds of people her department deems worthy of permanent residency in Canada.

A number of agreements signed in recent years signify an endorsement of indifference, prejudice and enmity toward migrants who do not fulfill their roles as labour market commodities. The Safe Third Country Agreement (STCA) was agreement implemented in 2004 between the governments of Canada and the US in which both governments committed to bar most refugee claimants at the US-Canada border in order to better manage the flow of migrants at their shared land border.

The North American Security and Prosperity Partnership(SPP), implemented in 2005, mandates the arming of border guards and a forceful increase in the number of border security initiatives to keep Canada, US and Mexico borders "closed to terrorism yet open to trade." There has been an exponential increase in the Canadian budget for "security measures"--estimated at over $24 billion since 2001. According to NOII Vancouver, Bill C-50 and the STCA allow Canada to reject up to 40 per cent of people seeking asylum.

Support for Bill C-50 came mainly from employer organizations and the business lobby. Critics say the Conservatives' treatment of immigrants sends the message that people without credentials and with lower income levels are far less likely to qualify for permanent residency in Canada, and if they do qualify they are often limited to being temporary workers in marginal, often abusive jobs where loss of employment can sometimes end in deportation. Canada has become an increasingly antagonistic environment for people from other countries who are seen as either a security threat or as an unwelcome foreign imposition.

Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day announced on May 6 that the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) had arrested 45 people alleged to be in the country illegally.

"This large-scale operation protects the integrity of our immigration program and reinforces the security and prosperity of Canada," said Day. "The government of Canada continues to take this issue very seriously and remains committed to ensuring that those who wish to live in Canada do so according to our laws and by respecting the proper legal channels."

NOII Vancouver observes that, “This is particularly revolting in a context where the Canadian government and Canadian corporations actively participate in the creation and reinforcement of a system of global displacement of migrants and refugees who are fleeing poverty, persecution, war and corporate exploitation of their lands.”

Canada's own history (and contemporary reality) of war, persecution and corporate exploitation of land also comes into play. On June 4, while Finley was speaking at the Hotel Omni in Montreal, Samantha-Lee Chew Quinn of Montreal's South Asian Women's Community Centre (SAWCC) addressed a crowd of demonstrators who were denied access to the conference.

"This cannot be said often enough. We are a country of immigrants, but we must also keep in mind that Canada as a nation has been built on the dispossession of the indigenous people. Canada owes its international reputation to all who dwell here but this minority government wishes to ignore the wishes of the people."

Journalists from The Dominion and Al Jazeera were barred from attending the conference. Select members of the press were granted access.

On April 4, Finley addressed the House of Commons, claiming that, "We were able to welcome 430,000 new Canadians last year to this country, the highest in over 100 years." In fact, every year since coming to power, the Conservatives have reduced the number of permanent residents admitted to Canada. According to Liberal Citizenship and Immigration Critic Maurizio Bevilacqua, the government has cut the total number of people by 36,000 over the last two years.

"This misinformation campaign is really hurting the credibility of the process," said Bevilacqua.

While the percentage of permanent residents in Canada is decreasing, there is an increase in the number of temporary migrant workers without basic rights. In Canada today, the number of people admitted each year on temporary work visas is greater than the number admitted as permanent residents.

Finley's newfound right to impose different migrant quotas on different countries has been compared to previous racist legislation, like the head tax that was once applied to all Chinese immigrants, or the Chinese Exclusion Act that was passed on Dominion Day, July 1, 1923. Until 1947, when the act was repealed, the Canadian Parliament excluded all but 50 Chinese immigrants from entering Canada.

The Chinese-Canadian community viewed this law as the ultimate form of humiliation, especially given that Canada's attempts to restrict Chinese immigration to Canada began in 1885, with the completion of the Canadian Pacific Railroad (CPR) and the resulting shift in the needs of Canada's labour market.

The Canadian Conservatives' racist Continuous Journey Law, passed to discourage Indian immigrants from entering Canada, was responsible for the Komagata Maru incident of 1914, where 20 people from India were shot dead by British authorities for challenging Canadian legislation.

Ukrainian-Canadian internment, part of the confinement of "enemy aliens" in Canada during and after the First World War, kept about 5,000 Ukrainian men of Austro-Hungarian citizenship in internment camps.

The Harper government has made announcements to acknowledge past injustices and compensate people both directly and indirectly affected by immigration policies of the past, but often to the dissatisfaction of many. For example, when the prime minister offered an apology in 2006 for the head tax once paid by Chinese immigrants and a redress of $20,000 for those who were alive at the time to pay it (an estimated 20 Chinese Canadians who paid the tax were still alive in 2006), many were critical of the apology. Peter O'Neil of the Vancouver Sun noted that “factions of the Chinese-Canadian community were set to do battle as the federal government announced a head tax redress plan that doesn't provide direct compensation to individuals, and their descendants, who suffered because of racist Canadian laws.” The Chinese-Canadian community continues to fight for an acceptable redress from the Canadian government.

According to Oka, what is needed in order to counteract the duplicitous Bill C-50 is "a mass and visible response of people, organizations and communities saying, 'no.'"

"A big part of that has to do with making immigrants, and the work they do, more visible. It is not a bill that is happening in a vacuum. It's happening in a context of securitization and hyper neo-liberalism. The war on terror, the Olympics, the tar sands--it's all connected, and C-50 makes perfect sense when considered in that web."

Anti-C-50 demonstrators

Samantha-Lee Chew Quinn

Finley Attendees Regard Protesters

Evo Morales on Europe and Migration

dru — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 22:07:23 +0000

An open letter from Evo Morales to the European Parliament

Up until the end of the World War II, Europe was an emigrant continent. Tens of thousands of Europeans departed for the Americas to colonize, to escape hunger, the financial crisis, the wars or European totalitarianisms and the persecution of ethnic minorities.

Today, I am following with concern the process of the so called "Return Directive". The text, validated last June 5th by the Interior Ministers of 27 countries in the European Union, comes up for a vote on June 18 in the European Parliament. I feel that it is a drastic hardening of the detention and expulsion conditions for undocumented immigrants, regardless of the time they have lived in the European countries, their work situation, their family ties, or their ability and achievements to integrate.

Europeans arrived en masse to Latin and North America, without visas or conditions imposed on them by the authorities. They were simply welcomed, and continue to be, in our American continent, which absorbed at that time the European economic misery and political crisis. They came to our continent to exploit the natural wealth and to transfer it to Europe, with a high cost for the original populations in America. As is the case of our Cerro Rico de Potosi and its fabulous silver mines that gave monetary mass to the European continent from the 16th to the 19th centuries. The people, the wealth and the rights of the migrant Europeans were always respected.

Today, the European Union is the main destiny for immigrants around the world which is a consequence of its positive image of space and prosperity and public freedoms. The great majority of immigrants go to the EU to contribute to this prosperity, not to take advantage of it. They are employed in public works, construction, and in services to people in hospitals, which the Europeans cannot do or do not want. They contribute to the demographic dynamics of the European continent, maintaining the relationship between the employed and the retired which provides for the generous social security system and helps the dynamics of internal markets and social cohesion. The migrant offers a solution to demographic and financial problems in the EU.

For us, our emigrants represent help in development that Europeans do not give us – since few countries really reach the minimum objective of 0.7% of its GDP in development assistance. Latin America received, in 2006, remittance (monies sent back) totaling 68,000 million dollars, or more than the total foreign investment in our countries. On the worldwide level it reached $300,000 million dollars which is more than US $104,000 million authorized for development assistance. My own country, Bolivia, received more than 10% of the GDP in remittance (1,100 million dollars) or a third of our annual Exports of natural gas.

Unfortunately, "Return Directive" project is an enormous complication to this reality. If we can conceive that each State or group of States can define their migratory policies in every sovereignty, we cannot accept that the fundamental rights of the people be denied to our compatriots and brother Latin-Americans. The "Return Directive" foresees the possibility of jailing undocumented immigrants for up to 18 months before their expulsion – or "distancing", according to the terms of the directive. 18 months! Without a judgment or justice! As it stands today the project text of the directive clearly violates articles 2, 3, 5,6,7,8 and 9 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948.

In particular, Article 13 of the Declaration states:

1. All persons have a right to move freely and to choose their residence in the territory of a State.
2. All persons have the right to leave any country, including their own, and to return to their country.

And, the worst of all, the possibility exists for the mothers of families with minor children to be arrested - without regards to the family and school situation - in these internment centers where we know that depression, hunger strikes, and suicide happens. How can we accept without reacting that our compatriots and Latin American brothers without documents, of which the great majority have been working and integrating for years, are concentrated in camps. On what side is the duty of humanitarian action? Where is the "freedom of movement," protection against arbitrary imprisonment?

On a parallel, the European Union is trying to convince the Andean Community the Nations (Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru) to sign an "Association Agreement" that includes the third pillar of the Free Trade Agreement, of the same nature and content as that imposed by the United States. We are under intense pressure from the European Commission to accept conditions of great liberalization of our trade, financial services, intellectual property rights and our public works. In addition under so called "judicial protection" we are being pressured about the nationalization of the water, gas and telecommunications that were done on the Worldwide Workers' Day. I ask, in that case, where is the "judicial protection" for our women, adolescents, children and workers who look for better horizons in Europe?

Under these conditions, if the "Return Directive" is passed, we will be ethically unable to deepen the negotiations with the European Union, and we reserve the right to legislate such that the European Citizens have the same obligations for visas that they impose on the Bolivians from the first of April 2007, according to the diplomatic principal of reciprocity. We have not exercised it up until now, precisely because we were awaiting good signs from the EU.

The world, its continents, its oceans and its poles know important global difficulties: global warming, contamination, the slow but sure disappearance of the energy resources and biodiversity while hunger and poverty increase in every country, debilitating our societies. To make migrants, whether they have documents or not, the scapegoats of these global problems, is not the solution. It does not meet any reality. The social cohesion problems that Europe is suffering from are not the fault of the migrants, rather the result of the model of development imposed by the North, which destroys the planet and dismembers human societies.

In the name of the people of Bolivia, of all of my brothers on the continent and regions of the world like the Maghreb and the countries of Africa, I appeal to the conscience of the European leaders and deputies, of the peoples, citizens and activists of Europe, for them not to approve the text of the "Return Directive". As it is today, it is a directive of vengeance. I also call on the European Union to elaborate, over the next months, a migration policy that is respectful of human rights, which allows us to maintain this dynamics that is helpful to both continents and that repairs once and for all the tremendous historic debt, both economic and ecological that the European countries owe to a large part of the Third World, and to close once and for all the open veins of Latin America. They cannot fail today in their "policies of integration" as they have failed with their supposed "civilizing mission" from colonial times.

Receive all of you, authorities, Euro parliamentarians, brothers and sisters, fraternal greetings from Bolivia. And in particular our solidarity to all of the "clandestinos."

Evo Morales Ayma

President of the Republic of Bolivia

Evo Morales

"We Are Tired"

hillarybain — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 13:30:58 +0000

Fate of Liberian refugees uncertain

There’s an African proverb that reads: “When two elephants fight, it’s the grass that suffers.” It’s an adage that rings all too clear in Liberia after nearly 15 years of civil war.

While leading a coup d'état in 1980, Samuel Doe murdered and subsequently replaced Liberia's president, William R. Tolbert. Doe reigned for 10 years until the notorious Charles Taylor and his National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL) attacked Liberia on Christmas Eve, 1989. Civil war ensued for the next 14 years.

The Buduburam refugee settlement, located an hour outside Ghana's capital, Accra, is home to some 35,000 Liberian refugees, a number that fluctuates daily as refugees constantly come and go. Some of Buduburam's inhabitants have been there for up to 18 years, while others have just arrived, but all have one thing in common: they are seeking asylum.

In the 14 years of war in Liberia, more than 200,000 people were slain, some 800,000 internally displaced, and an estimated 350,000 Liberians fled their country. Liberia's infrastructure, education, health system and economy crumbled.

Liberia has been relatively peaceful since the signing of the August 2003 Peace Agreement in Accra, moving the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) to launch a voluntary repatriation program in October 2004; the program came to a conclusion on June 30 of last year.

Under the UNHCR, registered repatriates were transported from their country of exile to Liberia via ship or air. Once in the Liberian capital, Monrovia, the UNHCR gave each repatriate $5 US and four months' ration of wheat, blankets and basic cooking utensils.

According to the UNHCR, 6,320 Liberian refugees from Ghana and over 110,000 people from other West African countries have passed through the UNHCR's repatriation program. This has still left an estimated 72,000 Liberian refugees in West Africa. Ghana is currently home to one third of those refugees, totalling some 36,000 people.

The UNHCR has been pressuring the Ghanaian government to reintegrate remaining refugees into Ghanaian society where they are currently not allowed to work legally. Starting from February 19, 2008, however, hundreds of Liberian refugee women began protesting the UNHCR’s stance. Protesters are demanding resettlement in a third country-–namely Europe or North America-–or $1000 US for each refugee to travel back home.

“Basically the refugees want an increase package from the UN in order to return to Liberia, or to be resettled in a third country of asylum,” says Leon Toe, 26, a resident of Buduburam and a Liberian journalist. “They want the UNHCR and the governments of Liberia and Ghana to either resettle refugees or take them back to Liberia and give them money. More than five dollars to restart their lives,” says Toe.

Many of the residents insist that five dollars and some grain simply will not be enough to sustain them while rebuilding their homes and lives.

“The camp is really heating up,” says Joseph Keanmue Tokpah, a resident of Buduburam for the past eight years. “The women even sleep on the field where the repatriation is done [in protest].”

“There is tension in the air. There is fear because most people fear that anytime the military can take action,” says Toe.

Ryan Bolton was living and reporting at the Liberian refugee camp from the end of July until September with Journalists for Human Rights.

Shortly before this article was published, the author received an email from colleague Leon Toe, a Liberian journalist living in the camps, who was also interviewed in the article.

"Before dawn Monday morning [Mar. 17] heavily armed police raided the camp and took more than 700 women and children to an unknown camp in the east of Ghana. The police took the women and children in about eight buses.

"I pray that things do not get out of hand, or we will all be dead and the world will only condemn the act.

"We are all now living in fear since the Interior Minister ordered the police to arrest our mothers, sisters, wives, and kids, because we do not know what will happen to us males next."

Liberian Refugee Protests 1

Liberian Refugee Protests 2

Fortress Europe

hillarybain — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 13:27:09 +0000

The Spanish/Moroccan Border

As the gap between rich and poor widens around the world, those in the so-called Third World are desperate to reach the countries where food, jobs and ‘security’ remain. Similar to the US/Mexico border that is slowly being sealed off to those from the south, Fortress Europe is working hard to close itself off from those on the ‘outside.’

This essay is part of a larger project focused on borders that are becoming increasingly militarized and deadly, and the people and land they are dividing. These shots were taken from Melilla, Spain, a Spanish enclave in the north of Morocco. Migrants travel for four, five, sometimes six years to reach this side of the line, only to be held in migrant holding centres, sometimes for years, awaiting their papers or a deportation order back to where they started.

Spanish/Moroccan Border 1

Spanish/Moroccan Border 2

Spanish/Moroccan Border 3

Spanish/Moroccan Border 4

Spanish/Moroccan Border 5

Spanish/Moroccan Border 6

Spanish/Moroccan Border 7

Spanish/Moroccan Border 8

Spanish/Moroccan Border 9

Spanish/Moroccan Border 10

Spanish/Moroccan Border 11

Spanish/Moroccan Border 12

Spanish/Moroccan Border 13

Spanish/Moroccan Border 14

Spanish/Moroccan Border 15

Spanish/Moroccan Border 16

France's Colonial History, Contemporary Conflicts

dru — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 17:14:37 +0000

A new wave of actions challenges escalating and violent deportation policies

In the early evening outside of Belleville metro in Paris, a crowd gathers for a demonstration demanding citizenship for France's hundreds of thousands of non-status immigrants, locally known as sans papiers (literally "without papers"). As protest chants echo through the Parisian streets, a sound-track to a powerful contemporary social movement is edged into history. Demonstrators embody a critical current of contemporary French politics in this ancient European city.

Protests throughout France have opposed waves of deportations confronting immigrant communities. In 2007, French President Nicolas Sarkozy announced an official government target of twenty-five thousand deportations for the year, igniting a storm of state-driven immigration raids across the country.

Intensity of popular opposition to the government-initiated crackdown has spiked in recent months, in response to violence and tragedy. A Chinese woman in the Belleville district of Paris died after plunging from a window as a police unit entered the apartment building; a Russian boy sustained head injuries after falling from a balcony while trying to escape immigration authorities; and a North African man fractured his leg after slipping from a window ledge in the French capital during a police raid.

Immigration is now a deadly issue in France-- in politics and in reality.

Political mobilization against the state-sponsored flood of deportations is spreading throughout the multiple districts or arrondissements of Paris, and throughout the country. French President Sarkozy stated recently that France is "exasperated by uncontrolled immigration." However any basic investigation illustrates that exasperation is limited to conservative sectors within a politically complex society. Many reject contemporary immigration policy.

Profound political networks have emerged in recent years to respond to the crisis of deportations facing the country, including Réseau Éducation Sans Frontières (RESF), a national network rooted within the French public school system, driven by students and teachers fighting for the regularization of non-status students and their families.

"Our focus is to protect families, also to ensure family unification in France, for all families in all situations, including families without papers," explains Armelle Gardien, a teacher at a French Lycée active within RESF. "As teachers it is critical to address the reality of students in our schools [who] have no papers, students and their families who are illegal in France, often living in terrible conditions, so we formed our network to fight for regularization."

Across Paris and throughout the country organizing committees of RESF have formed in schools and communities, sparking a wave of media attention internationally after the network announced plans to shelter sans papiers students in open opposition to government-backed deportation orders.

"Our battle is to fight against current immigration policy across France," says Gardien. "Also we are struggling from community to community, building support within each school for non-status students, attempting to build awareness on the realities facing sans papiers today in France."

Immigration battles in France

On the streets, in the schools and within the major political institutions of the country, political battles around immigration point to the critical importance of the issue. A growing number of street demonstrations have been occurring in Paris in recent months, often lead by sans papiers.

"I reject living a life of fear in France," says Karim Djebloun of 9ème Collectif des Sans-Papiers, at a demonstration in the Belleville district of Paris. Djebloun is a sans papiers originally from Algeria. "Each time entering the metro should I have to fear being captured by police simply because France has refused to grant me or my family French nationality?"

"I am not a criminal, I want to be treated as a full human being," Djebloun says amidst the chanting crowd in Paris. "I am demanding status for myself and all sans papiers in France, immediately."

"Today, I am attending this demonstration openly, speaking to the media because I refuse to live in fear," he continues. "It is only through a struggle on the streets that we can change government policy; all major political change in history began on the streets, even our struggle against the French in Algeria began on the streets."

In late 2007 the French government introduced a DNA testing program targeted at family members of immigrants applying for visas to the country.

Protests were organized across France in opposition to the DNA testing law that eventually passed with a slim majority in the French parliament. DNA testing for foreign nationals attempting to secure visas isn't compulsory under the new law. However, it is feared that visa applicants who don't submit to the test -- taken at their own expense -- will have their applications rejected by France.

Civil liberties groups across France and internationally – including Amnesty International -- condemned the new DNA testing law, an adaptation of existing practices already established in the US, Canada and other western European countries.

Across Africa, deportation policies adopted by successive French governments, which target non-status immigrants, often define political perception of modern day France.

In May 2007, Sarkozy's visit to Mali sparked large protests and widespread local opposition due to new immigration policies in France that have tightened visa requirements, while eliminating an existing law that allowed migrant workers to apply for citizenship after ten years.

"We are indignant about this visit and we honestly think that the arrival of Mr. Nicolas Sarkozy in our country at this time is purely and simply a provocation," explained a Malian member of parliament at the time of Sarkozy's visit. Activists from the Association of Malians Expelled from France organized a sit-in outside Sarkozy's hotel in Bamako, Mali's capital, in protest of French immigration policy.

France: Immigration and colonial history

As a former colonial power throughout the Middle East, Africa and Asia, contemporary migration to France can be traced to colonial history.

Diaspora communities throughout the country -- currently facing mass deportations -- find roots in southern nations across the globe struggling with the shadows of colonialism, a historical reality indisputably connected to the economic instability, civil conflict and war driving contemporary migration to France.

"France's current policies towards immigrants echo the colonial past," explains Atman Zerkaoui, from the Mouvement des Indigenes de la République. "In colonial times, in Algeria, we were expected to serve the French empire without question, as workers, as soldiers, while today recent laws passed by the French government basically allowing only professionals or the wealthy into France translates to the state reasserting a colonial ideology, in which people from the colonies exist to serve France, the French economy, while France sets the terms of our relationship unilaterally."

As France has moved in recent years to seal borders and stiffen immigration laws, legal moves have been made with regard to colonial history as well. In 2005, the French parliament passed a controversial law on the teaching of French colonial history in public schools, a law that critics argue attempts to erase from history France's numerous colonial crimes through North Africa, specifically in Algeria.

"School programs are to recognize in particular the positive role of the French presence overseas, especially in North Africa," reads the 2005 law, signed on the 60th anniversary of the 1945 Sétif massacre in Algeria, when French soldiers killed thousands of Algerians after celebrations in reaction to Nazi Germany's defeat turned into a massive Algerian independence rally.

"Roots of xenophobia today in France trace back to the Algerian war," explains David Common, CBC's Europe correspondent based in Paris. "Many people have written on this connection, as at the time of the Algerian war, France had a real shock, a loss of international prestige due to victory of the Algerian independence movement."

"Sarkozy has now said everything but sorry in regards to France's role in Algeria, in the former French colonies," continues David Common, "bringing forward instead the idea that the past is the past, without talking about healing, which is a similar position to Canada saying everything but sorry in regards to the history of residential schools for the First Nations."

Uprisings in the suburbs

Today, France stands at a crossroads of national identity, as history funnels into the contemporary debate on immigration, which in recent decades has redefined the nature of major urban centers in the country.

Deportation stands as only one state-backed difficulty within economically marginalized immigrant quarters across the precarious suburbs of Paris, epicenter of massive confrontations between state security forces and local residents that sparked international headlines in 2005.

"History is separated from the contemporary context, which is exactly what we are fighting to change," explains Sonia Barbacha of the Mouvement des Indigenes de la République. "We are struggling to break free of this colonial history that continues to persist until today."

"In Paris we are experiencing a colonial situation; the urban geography is very similar to the colonial situation in Algeria," says Barbacha. "There is essentially a white city center, while people from the former colonies surround the city center, living in the suburbs; it's a racist geography, which translates at times into social uprising as the world saw in 2005."

France remains a nation on edge. As political turmoil in recent years has defined French politics, from the popular explosions in the Paris suburbs driven by socially marginalized immigrant youth, to the growing grassroots rejection of massive deportations to former French colonies and serious prospects of a severe economic downturn, as a result of growing international economic turmoil, resulting in fewer economics opportunities in the country.

"Compound total social alienation with almost no economic opportunity-- you can begin to understand the situation in the suburbs," Common tells me over coffee in Paris. "Violence is compounded when young French police are sent into the suburbs, within the first few years of their service, arriving in a heavy handed fashion in already volatile suburbs and then the existing social violence, mainly due to poverty, feeds into violence against the police."

History etches deep impressions onto the contemporary French political reality, a history, which like the present, is a battlefield defined by opposing sides of a profound conflict which is best understood in colonial terms.

Parmentier: "“conjugaison des liens"

Paris: Parrainage républicain à la Mairie du 14è arrondissement

Bobigny: Journée Nationale de protestation de RESF

Laibar Singh background

dru — Sun, 13 Jan 2008 01:37:38 +0000

For a bit of background on the Laibar Singh story, check out NOII organizer Harsha Walia's article from December.

Hard Times Sold in Vending Machines

dru — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 18:48:30 +0000

Worker migration from Atlantic Canada to the tar sands

For Atlantic Canadians, the story of worker migration couldn't be more familiar. Leaving the region for the "boom town" of the day has practically been a rite of passage since the 1970s. The successive waves of worker migration from east to west have been many--the last Alberta energy boom in the seventies, the construction boom in Toronto in the '70s and '80s, the collapse of the cod fishery in Newfoundland, followed by the collapse of coal mining in Cape Breton--and have always resulted in a particular pull for young workers away from the region. This regional story was immortalized by Donald Shebib's classic 1970 film "Goin' Down the Road," which follows two men who leave Cape Breton in search of a better life in Toronto, only to end up bouncing from one poorly paid job to another. The shock of rural life colliding with urban poverty was aptly captured in Bruce Cockburn's song of the same name, which he wrote for the film: "I came to the city with the sun in my eyes/ My mouth full of laughter and dreams/ But all that I found was concrete and dust/ And hard times sold in vending machines."

Today, it is difficult to exaggerate the impact that worker migration to the Alberta Tar Sands has had for Atlantic Canada. Although credible estimates for numbers of workers who have been moving west are difficult to gauge, few doubt that they are in the tens of thousands. One would be hard pressed to find anyone in the region who does not know someone working out west.

But the move by thousands of Atlantic Canadians to Fort McMurray in recent years differs from past worker migrations.

"The key difference," says Reg Anstey, president of the Newfoundland Federation of Labour, "is that in the other outmigrations of significance, like when the fisheries shut down, a lot of people took pretty lousy jobs."

According to Anstey, unlike during other times of economic collapse in Newfoundland, when workers took jobs in fish or meat-packing plants in Atlantic Canada and Ontario, Newfoundland labour is now a much sought-after commodity.

"This is the first time where almost everyone who's working out there, their way up is paid and their way back is paid by the company," says Anstey.

As of 2006, the shortage of workers across the province was estimated by the Alberta government to be around 100,000 workers. Canadian National Resources Limited has begun offering three flights a week from Alberta to Newfoundland, while Air Canada has added a 'Fort McMurray Express.' The National Post reported in May that almost a third of the residents of Fort McMurray were believed to be from Newfoundland alone.

Anstey sees many advantages for Newfoundland from the oil boom. The province, like other regions of Atlantic Canada, is in the relatively early stages of developing its own oil and gas sector. Until the Lower Churchill Valley hydroelectric project and the Hebron offshore oil project are able to deliver high-paying jobs for Newfoundland's workforce, Anstey sees the migration of workers, whose return flights are likely booked in advance by their employers, as a method of training a generation of workers for these projects.

However, the pull of workers from the region is still somewhat alarming. The populations of Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia are shrinking, according to Statistics Canada, while New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island registered the lowest population growth rate of all provinces in Canada between 2006 and 2007. Newfoundland in particular, with an economy that has not yet recovered from the collapse of the commercial fishery in the early 1990s, is now in a state of population decline, with more people dying than are being born. Regional papers frequently carry stories about labour shortages for local trucking companies and fish plants. This shortage, in a startling parallel to Alberta's own industry "solution" to its own tar sands-fueled labour shortage, is prompting increasing calls from east coast business leaders to fill these positions by importing Temporary Foreign Workers.

However, for Atlantic Canadian workers travelling to Fort McMurray, the effects of this migration may not be fully known for years to come.

Steve Gaul, a resident of Halifax, worked various stints in the oil fields for a total of three years, most recently as a roughneck on a rigging crew. When asked about conditions on the job, Gaul says he discovered that exposure to harmful chemical agents was frequent.

"There's lots of Benzene and substances that you're gonna come in contact with fairly frequently. These kinds of things are very unhealthy, they even [result in] birth defects," said Gaul.

Material Safety Data Sheets detailing information about the various chemicals with which workers might come in contact were "diligently provided" to workers, but Gaul says that workers are not given time to read them.

Despite this, Gaul is quick to point out that his contractor instituted a "safety bonus" each hour for crews who maintained the safety of all members. Overall, however, he notes that rigging work is "a dangerous job by nature."

The effects of such chemicals may appear long after a worker has left a job site. As pointed out in an April 2006 column by Alberta Federation of Labour researcher Jason Foster, cancer caused by workplace exposure to chemicals like benzene are not recognized, nor even recorded by the Alberta Workers' Compensation Board (WCB)or the Alberta government.

According to WCB statistics, the WCB accepted 29 new claims for work-related cancer and recognized 38 fatalities due to occupational cancer in 2005. However, the Alberta Cancer Board estimates that eight per cent of all cancers in Alberta are work-related. This means over 1,000 new cases of work-related cancer are diagnosed and more than 400 workers die of occupational cancer each year.

Fewer than one in 10 occupational cancer fatalities are recognized by the WCB.

In addition, Alberta currently has one of the highest rates of workplace deaths in the country, and the number of workplace accidents reported in the province in 2006 was 181,159--an increase of 7.4 per cent from the previous year.

Stories of injuries and close-calls are not hard to come by. George Marshall, a 26-year-old PEI resident worked only a few days in 2006 as a labourer but "almost died twice" on the job. The first close call, according to Marshall, was on account of a fall, while the second was due to "a piece of the rig [that] disconnected and came hurtling toward me."

Jason Fraser, a 24-year-old iron worker from Chester, Nova Scotia, recently spent six weeks working in Fort Mackay. During his last week on the job, there were two serious injuries at his worksite: a structural steel worker injured both heels after a fall and a platefitter sustained facial cuts from a piece of steel. He believes that some contractors deliberately undercount the number of workplace injuries.

Fraser had difficulty adjusting to life within the work camps, which he says resembled university dorms, aside from the fact that they "basically look like a bomb dropped [on them]." After work, there was little to do within the camps.

"I've had problems with alcoholism and I just drank every night for five weeks."

Fraser also had a number of moral qualms with his work, which he believes may have contributed to his drinking.

"Nobody ever thought about the environmental impact," he says. "I had a lot of moral repression. I felt really bad for what I was taking part in."

Gaul also points out that few workers showed regard to the ethics and sustainability of the oil projects, and recalls that the subject of climate change was laughed at by instructors and workers alike during one of his training courses. He also believes that the long hours of work, coupled with the boredom of camp life, often leads to a general feeling of isolation.

"As far as the social atmosphere in the camps, it's not really the most healthy environment. There's a lot of negativity and built-up misery being shared and communicated. There are a lot of people that are in the situation where they're spending way too much time away from their family to have any kind of semblance of regular family life."

It is likely due to these "quality of life" issues that many workers from Atlantic Canada view their positions in Alberta as being largely temporary. Fort McMurray, with its overwhelming growth rate and its infrastructural inability to cope with this growth, is an unlikely candidate for long-term settlement for Atlantic Canadian workers. East Coast workers, though perhaps as naive to the hazards of the oil industry as their predecessors were to the reality of life in Toronto in the 1970s, are by now no strangers to moving to where the work is. Many recognize the higher cost of living in the West, as well as the sky-high rate of inflation in Alberta and realize that their money will stretch further on the East Coast than it will in Alberta. Some, like Anstey, see the abundance of Atlantic Canadians in the Alberta oil patch as an interim gig, as workers tide themselves over in advance of the opening of the Hibernia and Lower Churchill Valley projects. These mega-projects are likely to yield their own environmental and social impacts as well in the years to come, as the East Coast as a whole shifts its economy towards the production of oil and gas resources for export.

Still, many expect to one day see a similar job boom in the east, one that they believe might break their diet of "hard times sold in vending machines."

Acadie en Alberta