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Secret Balkan camp
built to hold UK asylum seekers
Britain to ship refugees to Croatian army base for 'offshore processing' Martin Bright, Paul Harris and Dominic Hipkins in Trstenik Sunday June 15, 2003 The Observer Asylum-seekers arriving in Britain will be shipped to an 'offshore' camp in Croatia as part of a radical move to process all asylum claims outside European Union borders, The Observer can reveal. In an attempt to crack down on rising levels of illegal immigration, supporters of the plan say it is logical to handle claims close to applicants' countries of origin, easing racial tension over the integration of refugees in European Union countries. But critics claim the camps will breach international obligations to refugees, attract people traffickers and make it impossible to police any human rights abuses. The Croatian camp will hold up to 800 people. It has been built in at the village of Trstenik, 30 miles from Zagreb near the town of Dugo Selo. The £1 million centre, funded by the European Commission, will take refugees arriving at British ports and airports from the Balkans and eastern Europe. They would be immediately shipped to the 'transit processing centre', where their applications for asylum in Britain would be assessed. The Home Office confirmed last night that Britain hopes to get approval at the EU summit at Thessaloniki in Greece this week for a trial series of processing centres and 'zones of protection' for asylum seekers in conflict regions. Britain already has the support of the Netherlands, Belgium and Austria for the scheme. Immigration Minister Beverley Hughes promised earlier this month the first non-EU asylum centre would be 'under way before the end of the year'. The Observer has discovered, however, that building at the Trstenik camp, a disused army base, is already nearly finished. Its 13 former barrack blocks, each with 26 rooms, will detain around 60 asylum-seekers. The Liberal Democrat Home Affairs spokesman, Simon Hughes, called on the Government to explain why the plans had been kept secret: 'If this camp has been negotiated, developed and made ready with nobody being told, there are serious questions to be asked. Secrecy or deception at this level is completely unacceptable.' At Tsrtenik a rusting watch tower dominates the one square-kilometre and a newly painted helicopter pad covers a concrete exercise yard. The base entrance is in the shadow of a nearby cement factory. A lone policeman confirmed that a truck in the camp car park was full of building materials 'because of this asylum business'. The website of the European Commission's delegation to Croatia confirms that contracts are being advertised to reinstall sewage, water systems and electricity at 'Trstenik asylum home'. A carpenter at the site said: 'Everyone has been told to finish their work by a six-month deadline ready for the asylum seekers.' Croatians are furiously about being kept in the dark about the camp's new role. Government spokesman Zarko Plevnik initially urged Britain to 'take care of its own asylum seekers' when the plans for the centre first emerged last April. But it is thought Zagreb's attitude has since softened. But Ivan Remenar, the mayor of nearby Rugvica, a bigger town south of Dugo Selo, warned: 'This will upset local people who have no experience of asylum-seekers.' The owner of a restaurant close to the camp said: 'This [camp] will destroy my business. Escaped asylum-seekers will be running around. Believe me, the police here can't catch them.' In Britain Refugee Action spokesman Leigh Daynes expressed grave concern. 'We urgently need every assurance that these centres will be compliant with the European Convention of Human Rights and the 1951 Refugee Convention.' The Observer has obtained a copy of a letter from Tony Blair to Greek Prime Minister Costas Simitis urging action on asylum at Thassaloniki. Attached to the letter are details of plans for Britain's vision of Europe's future asylum policy. The proposals have two main pillars. The first, of which the Croatian camp is the vanguard, are plans to set up a regional network of 'transit processing centres' outside the EU. Here asylum- seekers would lodge their claims and be detained while they are being processed. The camps will be placed in countries bordering the EU creating a 'buffer zone' from asylum seekers. Countries likely to play host to such camps include Russia, Belarus, Romania, Bulgaria, Ukraine and Albania. Any asylum-seekers arriving in Britain and seeking to lodge a claim would no longer stay in Britain while their claims were processed. Instead they would be transferred out of the UK and into one of the camps. Britain wants the camps to be managed by the International Organisation for Migration with a screening system approved by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees. Any applicants who are rejected will then be returned to their own countries . The second pillar of the policy is longer term and aims to create 'regional protection areas' in parts of the world which produce a lot of refugees and asylum-seekers, such as the Horn of Africa, Iraq and Afghanistan. These are likely to be less formal camps in countries like Kenya or Pakistan where eventually asylum claims could also be processed. However, critics have criticised the proposals as destroying the international framework for dealing with refugees set up by the 1951 Refugee Convention that has been a bedrock of international relations for more than half a century. Critics have warned that the policy will create a series of 'super Sangattes', a reference to the now closed asylum camp near Calais. They say the plans will solve none of the problems associated with the current chaos. 'This misguided policy will do huge damage to how we treat refugees and
asylum-seekers,' said Richard Williams, of the Refugee Council. The new MSN 8: smart spam protection and 2 months FREE* |
