Editorial of the “World”. It takes a lot of confidence and cynicism for the British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, to announce, on Thursday April 14, at the very moment when more than 4.6 million Ukrainians fleeing the war are taking refuge in Europe, his plan of expulsion to Rwanda for asylum seekers seeking UK protection. Under the terms of “economic development partnership” signed in Kigali by its Minister of the Interior, Priti Patel, tens of thousands of asylum seekers can be taken against their will to the Rwandan capital, where their request will be supposed to be examined. Even if they are recognized as refugees, it is in Rwanda that they will have to stay.
London does not say clearly on what criteria the asylum seekers targeted by this policy will be chosen. ” one way ticket “ for Kigali. But the announcement comes ahead of the discussion, in early May, in Westminster, of a bill which distinguishes “good refugees”, those who arrive through state-approved admission procedures, from those who, in an irregular situation , seek asylum at the border and are presumed to be “false refugees”. Migrants from France crossing the Channel on makeshift boats are the first targets.
Violation of the Geneva Convention
Such a project is shocking on several counts. It ignores the fact that an asylum seeker is, by definition, in an irregular situation. It violates the Geneva Convention, which prohibits the refoulement of asylum seekers to a country where their freedoms would be threatened. However, Rwanda is regularly denounced for arbitrary detentions and unfair trials. The payment of 120 million pounds sterling (111 million euros) planned for the benefit of Kigali is presented by the regime of Paul Kagame as making it possible to finance “opportunities for Rwandans and migrants”. That the United Kingdom, a developed country, thus “subcontracts” to a poor country the burden of an obligation under international law says a lot about Boris Johnson’s respect for his commitments and the long tradition of defending human rights. man of his country.
The operation also illustrates the demagogic use that can be made of migration issues. By promising to “outsource” the processing of asylum applications to Rwanda, the British Prime Minister wants to dissuade migrants from crossing the Channel. But he is above all seeking, three weeks before the local elections where his party is threatened, to divert the attention of voters from the scandal linked to the fine which has just been imposed on him for having broken the health rules during the pandemic. Presenting the new procedure as a “Brexit dividend” fulfilling his promise to “regain border control”Mr. Johnson is also trying to make people forget the negative economic and diplomatic impact of leaving the European Union.
The parallel with the project of Marine Le Pen, who also wants to get out of European solidarity and sign “agreements” with foreign states to have asylum applications examined, is obvious. While the answers to migratory questions and to the real concerns they arouse require better European coordination to manage borders and distribute asylum seekers, the consolidation of national fortresses and migratory outsourcing in countries de facto in a situation obliged appear as so many dangerous impasses.