Open%20borders%20The%20case%20against%20immigration%20controls%20-%20Teresa%20Hayter

Refugees: Tightening the Screw 103
they did not know they had human beings in the back of their lorry, they are
liable to end up in prison, sometimes taking the rap themselves rather than
accusing others because of their fear of the gangs. The Guardian of 7
September 1999 reported that ‘security experts’ from the government’s
National Criminal Intelligence Service (NCIS) warned that ‘The Albanian
mafia is targeting Britain in an effort to expand its European-wide illegal
immigration, drug trafficking and arms dealing operations’, and that ‘many
Albanians seeking asylum in Britain were criminals posing as refugees’. The
Albanian mafia, the article added, ‘is thought to control many of the peoplesmuggling
routes from east to west and has muscled in on the heroin
trafficking trade run by Turkish mafias’. However the article added that John
Abbott, the NCIS director-general, said that ‘the trafficking of illegal
immigrants into Britain was currently run by 50 gangs’, nearly all of which
were British led.
Not surprisingly, all this has led to great hardship, and even deaths, for
refugees and migrants themselves, whether or not criminal networks are
involved. UNITED, a refugee support organisation based in Amsterdam, has
documented over 1,000 deaths related to governments’ enforcement policies
between 1995 and 1998. Stowaways risk being killed and thrown overboard
if they are discovered, partly to avoid carriers’ liability fines. Or they may be
locked into containers in holds, in appalling temperatures and without food
and water, and unable to make themselves heard. They may be sprayed with
pesticides or crushed by moving cargoes. Sometimes they die before they are
discovered. Many drown in overloaded small boats; at least 1,000 people are
said to have drowned since 1988 crossing from North Africa to Spain, and
a further 547 crossing the Adriatic to reach Italy. Others drown swimming
the river Oder between Poland and Germany. In North America, the
Financial Times of 23 February 2000 reported, US border patrols ‘yearly find
about 300 corpses at desert and river crossings’; some drown in the Rio
Grande, others die of heat exhaustion and in road accidents with exhausted
drivers. Two Indian brothers travelled to Britain in the undercarriage of a
plane; one of them miraculously survived. In August 1999 two stowaways,
aged 15 and 16, from Guinea were found dead in the landing gear of a plane
when they arrived in Brussels, having landed in Mali on the way; a note was
found with one of them which said:
Excellencies, gentlemen – members and those responsible in Europe, it is to your
solidarity and generosity that we appeal for your help in Africa. If you see that we
have sacrificed ourselves and lost our lives, it is because we suffer too much in Africa
and need your help to struggle against poverty and war. ... Please excuse us very
much for daring to write this letter.
In December 1996 a ship carrying hundreds of refugees, organised by
traffickers, was rammed in the Adriatic, and 280 people drowned. In 1995,
18 Tamil asylum seekers, having paid £500 each in Romania to a smuggler
who promised to get them into Germany, were locked into a lorry trailer