Evo Morales Challenges EU’s Returns Directive
June 17, 2008 by 
OCI · 3 Comments
As someone whose days are numbered in the Europe Union because of an increasing burning desire to return to the motherland; this current evil wind may not augur well with those that have chosen to remain and would be motherland escapees.
The ‘Returns Directive‘ was first brought to my attention by Black Looks in the Nigerian Bloggers feeds and I took a while to familiarise myself of the content and it beats me how far Europe is going to bar everyone from steppin on it.
Enters Evo Morales of Bolivia, the supposed raving lunatic from South America that is becoming a thorn in America’s flesh like Chavez who are both at the same time trying to step into Castro’s colossal boots. Once again Morales has risen to the challenges of the times to remind Europe of the times past. Evo Morales may not be the perfect defender/crusader; but he has a case and can speak up unlike others in Africa and elsewhere with vested interest.
We are indeed in troubled times and the gates and the way are becoming rough(er) and narrower; we may not have anywhere else to go, other than the motherland. It is time we start making our beds the way it will suit us to lie on, in the days to come. Europe is coming, they are uniting, the doors are closing; when it is looked in, the cleansing will start. It is time to clean out or get cleaned.
Although, I can hadly pass as a fan of the Morales, Chavez and Castro’s but, I do stand with Morales on this present ground to ask these pertinent questions and reminders as posed to those in Brussels and all over Europe.
I present President Evo Morales to You:
Open Letter from Evo Morales Regarding the European Union’s “Returns Directive”
Until the end of the Second World War, Europe was a continent of emigrants. Tens of millions of Europeans left for the Americas in order to colonize, escape famine, financial crises, wars and European totalitarianism and the persecution of ethnic minorities. Today, I’m following the process of the so-called “Returns Directive” with concern. The text, approved on June 5th by the Interior Ministers of the European Union’s 27 member countries, must be voted on in the European Parliament on June 18th. I feel that it drastically hardens the conditions for detention and expulsion of undocumented migrants, whatever their length of stay in the European countries, their work situation, their family ties, their will and their achievements at integration.
Europeans arrived en masse in the countries of Latin America and North America, without visas or conditions imposed by the authorities. They were always welcome, and they continue to be, in our countries on the American continent, which therefore absorb the economic misery of Europe and its political crises. They came to our continent to exploit its wealth and transfer it to Europe, with a very high cost for America’s original population. Such is the case in our Cerro Rico, in Potosi, where the fabulous silver mines provided the European continent its coinage from the 16th to the 19th centuries. The goods and personal rights of the European migrants were always respected.
Today the European Union is the main destination for the world’s migrants, as a consequence of its positive image as an area of prosperity and public freedom. The vast majority of the migrants come to the EU to contribute to this prosperity, not to take advantage of it. They occupy jobs in public works, construction, personal services and hospitals, which Europeans can’t or don’t wish to fill. They contribute to the European continent’s dynamic demographic, to maintaining the relationship between the active and inactive that in turn makes possible its generous systems of social security, internal market stimulation and social cohesion. Migrants offer a solution to the EU’s demographic and financial problems.
For us, our migrants represent the development aid that the Europeans don’t give us - considering that few countries actually manage to achieve the minimum objective of 0.7% of their GDP in development aid. In 2006, Latin America received $68 billion dollars in remittances; more than the total foreign investment in our countries. At a world level, they reach $300 billion dollars, which surpasses the $104 billion dollars granted through the concept of development aid. My own country, Bolivia, received more than 10% of its GDP through remittances ($1.1 billion dollars), or a third of our annual natural gas exports.
This is to say that the migration flows are just as beneficial for the Europeans and marginally for those of us in the Third World, considering that we’ve also lost the equivalent of millions of skilled workers, in which our states, poor as they are, have invested human and financial resources in one way or another.
Unfortunately, the “Returns Directive” complicates this reality terribly. If we conceive that each state or group of states may define its fully sovereign migratory policies, we cannot accept that fundamental personal rights should be denied to our Latin American brothers and compatriots. The “Returns Directive” provides for the possibility of incarceration of undocumented migrants for up to 18 months before their expulsion - or “removal,” according to the terms of the directive. 18 months! Without trial, or justice! As it is today, the Directive’s text clearly violates Articles 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8 & 9 of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Specifically, Article 13 of the Declaration states:
