05.08.2009 Mali

Vagabonds left to fend for themselves

A Mai-based self-help organisation for deportees provides first aid and legal advice - and is making the social forums sit up and listen.

A small farmer in Africa and a city-dwelling European do not have a great deal in common. Nonetheless, when they travel the world in search of a better life, or some distraction, at least, both embody the unstoppable momentum of globalisation. Sociologist Zygmunt Bauman has come up with a phrase describing what the travellers have in common as well as the gulf between them, “tourists and vagabonds”. For the privileged inhabitants of the north - the tourists - travel, and the freedom of movement it provides, is one of life’s pleasures. For the underprivileged of the south - the vagabonds - migration is often their only hope of survival. Their right to freedom of movement is denied. A free-wheeling tourist destination the Mediterranean may be but, for many vagabonds it is nothing less than a death-trap. Many of our projects tackle the consequences of flight and migration. It was not until 2008, though, that medico began to establish migration as a separate area of work. The fast pace of globalisation, increasingly rigid “fortress Europe” policies in the EU with its inhumane FRONTEX operations, rising numbers of refugees drowned in the Mediterranean: all these factors have led us to start working with PRO ASYL. Our joint position paper “Migration and Refugee Protection against a Background of Globalisation” published in May 2008 broke new ground. For the first time, a development NGO and a national human rights organisation had taken a public stance together. In the paper, Medico and PRO ASYL point out how the underlying causes of migration are found in the north. We call for the human rights of migrants to be fully respected everywhere and, consequently, for far-reaching changes to European development and migration policy. We also reject EU politician’s populist fear-mongering and their spectre of a Europe swamped with economic migrants. The same politicians never mention the one fact neatly summing up the real situation: 85% of all refugees and migrants never come to Europe at all, remaining in their region of origin instead.

En route to failure

Even if the perilous journey to Europe is, quite literally, the final exit for many migrants, it is nonetheless the result of a conscious decision. Globalisation is turned into a subversive, bottom-up process by these journeys; not only do migrants use legal channels to press for their human right to freedom of movement, they actually enforce that right, albeit modestly. However, those setting off all too often fail in their endeavour because, they are denied a basic right in an increasingly cruel manner.
A group of deportees founded the Medico partner organisation, the Association Malienne des Expulsés (AME), the Mali Deportee Association. Having been living in France or other countries for years, they were sent back to their home country in 1996. Some had participated in the famous Saint Bernard’s Church occupation where the undocumented migrants movement was born, known as “les sans papiers”. Keita Mohamadou, now AME secretary general, spent many years undocu-mented in Paris himself. These days he makes a daily trip to Bamako airport in order to meet other deportees as they arrive. Otherwise, they would not even be able to afford the ride into town. “When we arrive in our home country and the border police have registered us, we are left to fend for ourselves,” says his colleague Ousmane Diarra. “All those years in another country and the deportees are left to go it alone once their old life has been destroyed.” Using their modest resources, AME volunteers try, at least, to mitigate the traumatic effects of forced return. Deportees without family or relatives in Bamako receive emergency accommodation for the first few days. AME provides medical care and legal counsel as well as paying the fare home for penniless arrivals. “We try to receive our throwaway immigrants with dignity”, says Keita bitterly. With Medico’s help a minibus for the daily trip to the airport was made available in 2008. The plan is for the vehicle to double as a shared taxi in order to provide some much-needed income. Medico also financed some of the overheads incurred helping deportees via a workshop for the deported.

Deported to a no-man’s land

In 2007 AME set up an office in the northwest Malian town of Kidal. Here, in the Sahel desert, migrants set off along an escape route that will take them over the Mediterranean into Europe. “Readmission agreements”, as they are known in cold, bureaucrat- speak are agreements between EU member states and African countries. Signed as a result of considerable pressure, the agreements are designed to stop migrants in their tracks long before they reach Europe’s borders. Many are sent from one border to the next before being dumped at Mali’s frontier, often with no food or water. Left to their fate in this Saharan no man’s land, some never reach Kidal. During its first six months of existence alone, the AME office helped 600 of the “repatriated”, to use the perpetrators’ terminology. It does not have the resources to provide long-term assistance, however, so AME demonstrates and attends conferences in an effort to draw the public’s attention to its work and the deportees’ existence. Invited by Medico, Keita Mohamadou participated in the World Social Forum and the Berlin “Poverty and Health” conference in 2008. In May 2008 Ousmane Diarra spoke of AME’s demands to Mali’s parliament: “We say no to deportation and repatriation! We demand reimbursement of social security contributions and taxes paid by deportees, publication of the repatriation agreements and a solidarity fund for the poorest to enable them to live in dignity”.

Medico funded the Association Malienne des Expulsés (AME) in 2008 with a total of € 23,007.