A CHARITY rescue vessel, the Alex, on Saturday brought 41 shipwrecked migrants into port in Lampedusa. This is the second boat to defy Italy’s right wing Interior Minister, Matteo Salvini’s decision to close all Italian ports to migrants, and to let them drown in the Med as the best way of dealing with some of the poorest people in the world.
After the Alex reached port, Salvini said that he would raise the maximum fine to one million euros. The Alex had requested to disembark those rescued, saying ‘Shipwrecks and crew are exhausted … people rescued need to be cared for … this is a surreal situation and it is an unnecessary cruelty to prolong the wait.’
Carola Rackete,the German captain of the first boat, the Sea Watch 3 charity ship, said she disobeyed orders not to dock in Lampedusa in order to get ‘exhausted and desperate’ people on to dry land. She said some migrants had already started self-harming and she was ‘afraid it would lead to suicides’.
She added: ‘For days, the crew had taken turns to stay on call, even at night, for fear that someone would throw themselves overboard. For those who cannot swim, that means suicide.’
Salvini responded: ‘I do not authorise any landing for those who couldn’t care less about Italian laws and help the people smugglers.’ Salvini last month signed a decree that would bring fines of up to 50,000 euros ($57,000) for the captain, owner and operator of a vessel ‘entering Italian territorial waters without authorisation’.
Authorities on Lampedusa last week arrested the Sea Watch captain, Carola Rackete. An Italian judge this week ordered Carola Rackete to be freed. However, two other investigations, on charges of helping people smugglers and resisting the authorities are still underway.
A third rescue ship, German charity Sea-Eye’s vessel Alan Kurdi, carrying 65 shipwrecked migrants rescued off Libya is now in international waters off Lampedusa.
It is a matter of record that Libya under Colonel Gadaffi had such a vibrant economy that it was able to provide jobs for the hundreds of thousands of people who are now desperate to risk their lives to get to Italy and the EU.
Under the leadership of Sarkozy and Cameron, the French and UK airforces bombed Libya and sent special forces to lead Islamist bands to overthrow Gadaffi. He was tortured to death by Islamists after they captured him following a French air raid on his convoy. The situation of acute crisis in the Med is a direct result of the EU’s war to smash Gadaffi.
The attitude of the EU-supported Libyan regime, based in Tripoli was seen when during the recent Khaftar air raids on Tripoli detention centres, guards machine gunned detained migrants that sought to escape the air attack in case they should make it to Lampedusa.
As far as the EU is concerned getting its hands on Libya’s oil is their number one issue. Migrants can literally go to the bottom of the Med.
The USA has the same attitude to the migrants who are seeking to escape from US imposed poverty regimes in South America, and are then detained by the hundreds on the Mexico-US border, along the Rio Grande river.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other Democrats visiting Texas facilities run by the US Customs and Border Protection stated that migrants are subjected to inhuman treatment by CBP officials who are forcing migrants to drink out of toilets. She reported: ‘Officers were keeping women in cells with no water and had told them to drink out of the toilets.’
Rep. Judy Chu of California also echoed similar views and recounted the scenes she saw at detention centres. ‘If you want water, just drink from a toilet.’ That’s what border patrol told one thirsty woman we met on today’s #DemsAtTheBorder trip,’ Chu tweeted. She also shared a video that presented the appalling conditions at the camp.
The workers of the EU states, including the UK and the workers of the USA, cannot just stand by and watch the poor of the world being abused and left to drown in the Med or the Rio Grande.The EU and the US are currently involved in a trade war to sink each other, during which workers wages both in the US and the EU will be slashed to Greek levels to help the bosses win that war.
If they are able to get away with drowning migrants they will shortly be telling workers that if they want to keep their jobs, then there will have to be speed-ups and mass sackings, and even wage cuts, as the trade war heats up.
US workers should never forget that in the 1930s millions of US workers were forced onto the roads to march across the USA in search of jobs.
The US, the UK and the EU trade unions must tell their governments that they will take industrial action of they continue with the policy of allowing migrants to drown in the Med or the Rio Grande.
The working class of the world must take action to get rid of capitalism to move forward to a world socialist republic, where the most advanced planning of an automated socialist society will produce a situation where the norm will be: ‘From each according to their ability, to each according to their need.’ Capitalism will be consigned to museums and there certainly will not be a single migrant to drown!