West militarism behind refugee crisis: Analyst

Press TV has interviewed Jan Oberg, founder of transnational.org in Lund, about the European Union agreeing to fast-track the establishment of an EU border and coastguard force, as the 28-nation bloc is scrambling to curb the influx of refugees into Europe.

The following is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: Strengthening the security on European borders, is that the way to deal with some of the most vulnerable people of our world today?

Oberg: No of course not. This is fortress Europe and it does not take much imagination to see if the commission or whatever is deciding to have border controls established against the wish of member states or whatever. This is very conflictual, probably one more reason to believe that there is no guarantee that the EU will exist five or ten years from now as we know it today.

This is kind of violation of the Schengen and [for government] conventions too. Now if you add to it, it is ridiculous because it is all created by our own warfare. Behind every refugee basically, not empirically true, but basically all refugees behind them stands an arms trader and a war maker.

Third, we are not carrying the large burden of anybody in this world that is countries like Iraq, Pakistan, Syria, Lebanon and others. We have five hundred three million people in Europe and we are carrying 1.2 this year. It is a very small burden because we have created the problems by all these bombings in the Middle East and elsewhere.

Press TV: So wouldn’t you agree then it will be more prudent for the European Union leaders to sit and talk about tackling the root causes that create these refugees rather than strengthening it borders and creating a fortress around the continent?   

Oberg: Exactly, and sensible people like you and me can see right through this nonsense. It is militarism, militarism, militarism. Are you aware that we have a coalition under US leadership and a coalition under Saudi Arabian leadership which is 99 countries, they are not all bombing but they are behind bombing and then we have Russia. That means 100 countries of the world’s 193 UN members are behind or support the idea of bombing even more in Syria. We are ending up having everybody in Syria running away and the Syrian civilization destroyed and everybody else destroyed and then we won’t handle it.

Let me give you two cases very quickly. Denmark has now taken upon a right to take away belongings, jewelry and other things from refugees if they think they have too much which is something like more than 600 dollars. This is what Nazi Germany did to Jews.

Secondly, I have a concrete case because my wife and I took care of a Burundian woman this summer for four months. She had her documents faked, falsified by the Swedish Migration Board and was forced to go and be treated as an asylum seeker in Germany which she could not do and would not do and where she did not land in and which was against the Dublin Convention. Everybody is trying now to get rid of refugees that we have created ourselves by our bombings and stupid policies.

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