Bulletin de liaison et d'information - Institut kurde de Paris

REVUE DE PRESSE-PRESS REVIEW-BERHEVOKA ÇAPÊ-RIVISTA STAMPA-DENTRO DE LA PRENSA-BASLN ÖZET;
By Henry Kamm
N~' York TImes ServIce
STOCKHOLM - A new kind of
"boat people" are landing on ~he shorfil
of the Nordic countries, especially Sweden,
whose liberal asylum policies have
made it a prime destination.
They are the product of a traffic. in
people by which smuggle~s are making
large profits from the desire of refugees
to reach safer and more pro&perous
shores.
The new refugees, mainly Iraqis but
also families fleeing the fighting in the
former Yugoslavia or the devastation of
Somalia, pay large amounts of money te,
be delivered to Sweden or other Nordic
countries by "people smugglers," whose
trade is centered in Moscow.
So far, five ships. carrying a total ~
614 refugees, mainly Kurds from Iraq buf.
also other Iraqis, have crossed the Baltic
Sea since October from Russian, Latvian
and Estonian ports.
One boatload of 150 Iraqis reached.
Derimark last autumn, and last week 108
stepped ashore in Helsinki. About 1,500
Somalis have been smuggled to Finland
from Moscow on the ferry across the.
Gulf of Finland from Tallinn, Estonia, to'
Helsinki.
Many others have reached Sweden by,
similar routes. An Ethiopian encountered.
in Rinkeby, a section of Stockholm largely
populated by immigrants, said he had
bought "a European passport" in Khartoum.
Sudan, and "arranged" for travel
here.
Others have come from the Horn of
Africa with "passports" issued by. a
group calling itself the World Semc,e
Authority which a United Nations official
said ~as linked to a "world citizen"
movement founded by Gary Davis, an
American.
The UN High Commissioner for Refu:
gees estimates that 5,000 to 6,000 Iraqi
Kurds are now in Moscow to arrange
transportation to Sweden; the Swedish
Red Cross has received even higher estimates.
The going rate, according to es-
CtIpees interviewed, is S2,500 to S3,000
ptÎr adult for the journey to Stockholm
from Moscow, with half fare for children.
The refugees who have arrived bave
n:quested political asyl';1ffi.which under
international conventions should be
sought in the first "saf( coun~ a ~e~ugee
reaches and is contingent onJustifled
fear of persecution in the home country.
Because of doubts that the asylum-
'seekers meet these conditions and fear
that if asylum is granted, s~ugg\in! will
take on far gr~ter proport1~ns, governrtients
have Withheld granting refugee
status.
Most Western European governments
are worried by the sudden increase in
asylum-seekers. Germany, where antiforeigner
violence has caused the several
deaths, is tightening its liberal asylum
laws.
The United States is also a destination
in the lucrative traffic, as a growing num.
ber of ships from China have headed
there packed with poor farmers and laborers.
The flood of refugees trying to get '0
INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE, TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 1993
Refugees Are Big Business
on Moscow-Nordic Route
Eurvpe has also provided a flourishing
bu~mess for enterprising smugglers in
Poland. Thousands of ethnic Albanians
from the former Yugoslavia have arrived
in Sweden after buying "bus tours" cost.
ing around S500 that delivered them via
Poland.
In interviews at the Soderby reception
center near Stockholm - where 240 passengers
who arrived from Riga, Latvia,
last month in a ~oup of 396 people are
awaiting a deciSIOnon whether Sweden
will let them stay - Iraqi Kurds and
Christians said many families from the
northern Iraqi region under international
protection were planning to follow their
route.
All the Iraqis said Moscow was the
main staging post in their trek, because
contact with what they cali "the Mafia" is
made there. Those who arrange the trips,
according to the refugees, are young men
from various Arab countries, possibly
students who have lived there.
According to the refugees' accounts,
the meetings take place in public places
in downtown Moscow, including certain
subway stations and a McDonald's.
Prime Minister Carl Bildt of Sweden,
who visited Moscow last week, called on
Russia to make effective its agreement
earlier this month to the international
refugee conventions, which would oblige
Russia to accept the return of the Iraqis
from Sweden for asylum there.
There are two main routes to Moscow
for the Iraqi refu$ees - via Turkey or
Jordan. Some nugrants, like Shorash
Atroshi, 18, a Kurd who reached Stockholm
with his father, his mother, his
father's second wife, three sisters and two
brothers, paid about Sl25 a person in
Iraqi dinars to be transported by car to
the Turkish side of the border. There they
were hidden in a house for six days.
After a day and a half on a train, they
reached a Turkish city that the youth
thinks was Trebizond. After 12 hours in
the hold of a boat on the Black Sea, the
family disembarked in the Russian Black
Sea port of Sochi for the long train ride to
Moscow. The next leg of the trip was by
train to Minsk, the capital of Belarus, and
then to Riga a few days later.
Haitham Sholomon, 22, an Iraqi
Christian from Mosul who evaded the
Iraqi draft, bought a forged passport for
S25. He fled with his mother by bus to
Amman, Jordan, in July. It took them six
weeks and SI,600 to arrange for a flight
to Moscow. A "travel agent" procured 'J!
Russian visa, included in the fare.
The wait in Moscow was four months.
They paid S5,OOOfor a two-week rail trip,
~d ~aid more f~r stays in squalid hotels
10 Minsk and Riga. The refugees now in
Soderby described the Baltic crossing as
a nightmare.
Birgit Fri$8ebo, Sweden's minister of
culture and 1D1Jnigration,does not share
the Iraqis' joy on their arrival here.
"It is not acceptable that people commercialize
this process," she said in an
interview. "If we can send them back, we
will."
But she said some might be granted
asylum after screening. To discourage the
smuggling rings, Mrs. Friggebo said
Swedish police officers have been aso-.
signed to the Baltic countries and a similar
arrangement was being concluded
with Russia.
Swedish asylum policy has aimed not
only at granting shelter to persecuted
people, but also at inte~ating them into
Swedish society as rapidly and fully as
possible.
Like many Swedes across the political
spectrum, Mrs. Friggebo said she fearéd
that the rush of asylum-seekers with dubious
claims had heightened anti-foreigner
feelings in a country that until
recently had known little antagonism to
foreign workers or refugees.
'Pte wave of firebombing of foreigners'
hostels in Germany reopened old wounds
and raised new fears throughout Europe.
Between 1989 and 1991, about 30,000
people a year applied for asylum here.
Lasi year, the number soared to 83,500,
with 85 percent coming from the former
Yugoslav republics.
"Skinheads" in Sweden have also
~t~ed incidents directed against foreign-
!IfS over. the last couple of years, usually
tF.rowing small firebombs at refugee cen-
~ or burning crosses near them.
A new party, the New Democrats, has
JDadethe issue of foreigners seeking asylum
a main plank in its platform and
received 6.7 percent of the vote in the
t99l parliamentary elections.
Its leader, Ian Wachtmeister, scorned
accusations of racism often leveled at the
party. "It's nonsense," he said in an interview.
",One ôf my best friends is 100
p'crcent Jew."
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