De Fabel van de illegaal 60/61, Autumn 2003
Author: Jan Tas
"Voluntary return" programs are not only implemented by the International Organization for Migration (IOM). (1) A growing number of refugee support organizations collaborate with these programs. Although they are aware that the Dutch government is withholding rejected refugees every means of survival, these organizations do not seem to question the "voluntary" nature of their "return".
Because of their daily contacts with refugees, refugee support groups appear the ideal partner to the IOM to join their "return" programs. These groups are starting to work more on "returning" refugees than that they are trying to help hem them survive in the Netherlands. This development is stimulated and carefully watched by the IOM.
To make these organizations perform more efficient, the IOM organizes the course "Dealing with returns".(2) "Not only IOM employees should inform people on returning. Fortunately more organizations which have contact with asylum seekers and undocumented people start to pay attention to the option of autonomous return. The IOM is happy with this development and wants to use this course to offer knowledge, insight and competence to talk about asylum seekers about the option of returning." The course is about "the backgrounds of migration, the help IOM can offer, and abilities how to make people think of returning". The course can be made to fit the wishes of the organization involved. Themes of the course are: "How can one speak with asylum seekers in a constructive way about returning?", and "What kind of support can people get who want to return to their own country?"
Nonsense
De Pauluskerk is a well known support group in Rotterdam. Except the undocumented, this church also helps the homeless, junks, sexual minorities and physically handicapped. They offer medical aid, a roof and financial aid to the undocumented. De Pauluskerk is, however, also cooperating with the IOM, officially since June 1, 2002. But according to Paula Rotteveel, coordinator of the IOM Pauluskerk project, they have been working together for years now.(3) Statistics show that already in 1999 some 60 people "returned" through De Pauluskerk.
Not only does De Pauluskerk connect refugees to the IOM, it also arranges their housing until they "voluntary return". The program is aimed at refugees from all around the world, but especially targets Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Ukraine, Belarus and the Russian Federation. A lot of refugees from these states live in Rotterdam, and De Pauluskerk often gets to deal with them. Not only does De Pauluskerk helps refugees return, it also investigates their motives to migrate. De Pauluskerk interviews them on their "background, situation and future plans" in order to enhance "the facilities offered". As an incentive to collaborate refugees get 15 euro for each interview.
According to Rotteveel, the theme of "voluntary return" cannot be stressed enough with the refugees. "We always immediately start talking about the possibility of returning. We show them the well-known blue and yellow flyer, which has been translated in many languages. It's remarkable that there are still people who do not know these flyers." (4) According to her refugees should get this IOM information already in the asylum seeker camps when they still have procedures running. Rotteveel can imagine why refugees do not want to return. "They are convinced that it is not safe. Maybe they still have images in their head of the situation when they left", she says as if they were children. She thinks she knows everything better than the refugees themselves. To her it is "just reality" that the governmental return policy is against the interests of the refugees. She nevertheless maintains that IOM return programs are "always voluntary. It's complete nonsense that these people are forced."
When asked why De Pauluskerk collaborates with the IOM, Rotteveel simply answers: "For the money. The EU sponsors projects on integration, housing and voluntary return. The IOM also gets extra grants for cooperating with other organizations in the field of voluntary return. At first this grant only went to the IOM, but now De Pauluskerk also gets part of it."
Decent
On a meeting in 2001 which was organized by the Projecten In Nederland (Projects in the Netherlands, PIN) fund Christian circles pleaded for a return organization which could make use of the networks of missionaries in "the third world".(5) Soon afterwards the Catholic organization for relief and development (Cordaid) and the Dutch Catholic Missionary Development Agency (CMC) founded the bureau "Maatwerk bij terugkeer" ("Tailor made return"). This bureau is sponsored by funds like PIN, the VSB Bank, the Europees Vluchtelingen Fonds (European Refugee Fund), the Stichting Katholieke Noden (Foundation Catholic Needs, Skan) and others.
"Until now the government is mostly acting repressive, but our starting point is: if you want asylum seekers to support returning, you will have to do it on a decent way", Cordaid and Maatwerk employee Wemmers said.(6) It's shouldn't surprise that with the "decent way" he means the IOM, because that organization governs the implementation of the "voluntary return policy" from the beginning to the end. Although Maatwerk hasn't been founded by the IOM, "we insisted that the IOM was included in our plans. IOM is central to the program Return and Emigration of Aliens from the Netherlands (REAN). We from Cordaid are supporting that program." This support consists of offering services in the country of origin like medical aid, education and housing. Maatwerk and IOM are closely collaborating: Maatwerk actually has its office in the IOM main office in The Hague.
Unlike De Pauluskerk, Maatwerk operates in the whole of the Netherlands. Refugees are being send to Maatwerk by official refugee support organization VluchtelingenWerk, state refugee organization COA, the IOM, youth trustee organization Nidos and others. Maatwerk also collects information on the countries of origin and the possibilities for "voluntary return". That information is stocked in a central database which can be used by all organizations involved in the project. Maatwerk also tries to stop immigration to the Netherlands, and uses sordid methods to do that. They for instance support a video project produced by the Ghanese community in the Netherlands, and show these videos about "the reality in the Netherlands" in Ghana to scare "potential migrants".
Credible
It is dangerous when large funds which also sponsor support groups start stimulating "voluntary return" through founding organizations like Maatwerk. A logical consequence will be that in time no money will be given anymore to support groups which aid rejected refugees surviving in the Netherlands. Maatwerk is not only a threat to the sponsoring of support groups, it also tries to influence national politics with the theme of "voluntary return". On March 27 2003 Maatwerk and social democrat think tank Evert Vermeer Stichting (EVS) organized the debate "Tussen wal en schip: vrijwillige terugkeer van asielzoekers" ("between quay and ship: voluntary return of asylum seekers"), through which they tried to put "voluntary return" on the political agenda. At the debate Wemmers pleaded for a privatization of "voluntary return". "Government, keep your hands of voluntary return! Facilitate, but leave it to non-governmental organizations."(7) The organizers wanted the debate to only be about allowing the ngo's to implement the return policy. Not wanted was a discussion on the in reality forced character of "voluntary returns".
According to Wemmers, the Dutch government always stresses the refugees' own responsibility. But in his eyes, too much force is not effective. "An recent example of a well meant but failed government project on returning is the foundation of a 'campus' for unaccompanied minor refugees (ama's) in the town of Vught. I really hope that policy makers will finally learn of this deception. Not in a sense of "if not voluntary, then forced", but by respecting the group of rejected asylum seekers." But most refugees are not "respected" at all. The government is not listening to them and doesn't care that they do not want to go back.
Wemmers also criticized the few support groups which still argue against the return policy. Just like the government, they would be looking at things too one sided. "Asylum seeker support organizations which protested loudest at the opening of the ama 'campus' and said that it had to be closed immediately, are the most hypocrite. Criticism on this project would have more credibility when these organizations would have come with other realistic possibilities to enhance the future perspectives of the youngsters involved." But such an enhanced "future perspective" is actually being denied to these refugees by the government.
Power apparatus
By collaborating with "voluntary return" support groups become part of the repressive government policy against refugees. Wemmers, however, wants to promote this collaboration as "humane" and "realistic". According to him, support groups can offer "new proposals" with "realistic possibilities" though their daily contact with refugees. These "possibilities", however, have already long been determined by the racist and capitalist government policy. According to Wemmers, these "proposals" cannot "be formulated by policy makers, politicians or large and bureaucratic organizations and they will also not be stimulated by these institutions. That is understandable and, representatives of the government, don't interfere too much, but offer these trials to give meaning to voluntary return some policy space and stimulate them more. Acknowledge that as a government you are suited for forced expulsions, you have the power apparatus for that." To stimulate "voluntary return" even more, part of the money that is now spend on helping refugees, should be put in return projects to rebuild the country of origin.
The social democrat EVS is very fond of this return promotion by Maatwerk. For "voluntary return" is cheaper and more durable than forced deportation. "There are chances for the new government to create a solid return policy as part of the complete asylum procedure. There is a world to win in this field: Christian democrats and social democrats, make something of it!"(8)
Notes