James Paul: The roots of the European refugee crisis lie with western intervention

"The aggressive nationalist beast in the heart of the political class of Europe and the United States is ready to engage in more military adventures. These leaders are not ready to learn the lesson, or to beware the 'blowback' from future interventions. This is why we need to look closely at the 'regime change' angle, to beware upcoming proposals for more intervention, and to increase public resistance to further war. It is clear enough that the crisis of migration and war has been 'Made in Europe' and 'Made in USA."  

James Paul

As the European refugee crises deepens, James Paul* calls for clear understanding of the roots of the crisis. Paul writes:

 

 "The huge flow of refugees into Europe has created a political crisis in the European Union, especially in Germany, where neo-nazi thugs battle police almost daily and fire-bombings of refugee housing have alarmed the political establishment. There is also the wider crisis in the EU over which countries will take in refuges and how many. The public has been horrified by refugee drownings in the Mediterranean, deaths in trucks and railway tunnels, thousands of children and families, caught in the open, facing border fences and violence from security forces. Religious leaders call for tolerance, while EU politicians wring their hands and wonder how they can solve the issue with new rules and more money.

  "Meanwhile, the refugee flow has been increasing rapidly, with no end in sight. The German government has estimated that it will take in 800,000 asylum-seekers during 2015. The overall flow into Europe for the year will probably be well above a million. Germany and Sweden are the main destinations.

 

Paul writes that: 

 

"Only a clear understanding of the origins of the crisis can lead to an answer, but European leaders do not want to touch this hot wire and expose their own culpability. In the U.S., there is little sensible analysis either

 

He writes  that the political and humanitarian crisis in Europe over refugees has been created by the flood of 'regime change' refugees  from countries torn apart by war and is  a crisis that was largely ‘Made in Europe’, with the active connivance of Washington.

 

James notes that the refugees are all from countries with  vicious conflicts  that  began with Western military intervention, direct or indirect and continued to be fueled by Western intervention.

    "The migrants coming to Europe are mostly fleeing conflicts. The data on origins make that clear. The migrants are coming primarily from Syria, Afghanistan, Libya, Iraq and Pakistan in the Middle East, and to a lesser extent from Eritrea, Somalia and Nigeria in Africa. These are all countries with vicious conflicts -- conflicts that (with the exception of Nigeria) began with Western military intervention, direct or indirect and continued to be fueled by intervention. In Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia the intervention was very direct. In Syria, Pakistan and Eritrea, it has been less direct but very clear nonetheless. 

    "The term 'regime change refugees' helps focus on where the primary responsibility lies. It changes an empty conversation in the direction of reality. Official discourse in Europe and the United States frames the civil wars and economic turmoil in terms of fanaticism, corruption, dictatorship, economic failures and other causes for which Western governments and publics believe they have no responsibility. The Western leaders and media stay silent about the military intervention and regime change, interventions that have torn the refugees’ homelands apart and resulted in civil war, state collapse and extremely violent conditions lasting for long periods. 

    "Some European leaders, the French in particular, are arguing in favor of further military intervention in these war-torn lands on their periphery as a way to 'do something' and (ironically) 'end the violence.' Overthrowing Assad appears to be popular among the policy classes in Paris, who choose to ignore how counter-productive their overthrow of Gaddafi was just a short time ago and how counter-productive has been their clandestine support in Syria for the Islamist rebels. The intensive Western bombing campaign in Syria (now joined by France), aimed in theory at the forces of the Islamic State, are killing many civilians and further destabilizing the war-ravaged country.

 

* James Paul is executive director of the Middle East Research and Information Project, author of Syria Unmasked  and for 20 years was executive director of Global Policy Forum, a think tank that monitors the UN. 

The Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) and the historical significance of April 14th

Today- April 14th 2014- is an important day in the fight against fascism. But one that won't be widely publicized in the mainstream corporate press anywhere, perhaps with the exception of Spain.

On April 14th 1931, the Second Spanish Republic was proclaimed, after the Spanish people voted overwhelmingly for a leftist Government, only the second time in their history that the Spanish people had been able to vote for their Government. 

(the photo shows crowds in Madrid on the proclamation of the Second Republic in 1931)

The Second Spanish Republic, only the second ever elected Government of Spain (a Republican-Socialist Government), lasted until its dissolution in 1939, when the forces of the fascist right, led by General Franco won victory in the Spanish Civil War. 

The Second Republic came about after parties of the left won the 1931 election on the basis of a reform agenda, which included the establishment of a Republic and proposals for serious economic and political reform, including dismantling the structures of privilege in Spanish society, implementing a new Constitution, land reforms, anti-militarist policies, the vote for women, separation of Church and State and removal of the power of the Monarchy.

The Government of the Second Republic faced serious internal economic and political instability, particularly from the right, including the Church, parts of the military and wealthy Spaniards who supported the monarchy and the Spanish nobility, but also from sections of the left who believed the reforms did not go far enough.

As a result of the internal political tensions and the economic fallout from the Great Depression, Spain experienced a series of profound political upheavals, economic crises and intense instability which resulted in strikes, uprisings, armed insurrections, increasing violence and political killings, as groups fragmented on both right and left.

In 1936, the Spanish Civil War began after a group of Spanish military officers led by General  Francisco Franco, and with the support of right wing, conservative and fascist groups, attempted a military coup against a reformist Government, that was met with armed resistance. The Spanish Civil War war lasted until 1939 when Republican forces finally surrendered to Franco's forces.

General Franco and his forces were backed politically, militarily and economically by Nazi Germany and Mussolini's Italy, whose intervention was critical in determining the final outcome of the war. The Spanish Civil War provided Nazi Germany with the opportunity to develop and test their military power and military strategies in preparation for the larger European conflict that erupted in 1939. Republican forces received some support from the Soviet Union and particularly from volunteers fighting in the International Brigades.

In her book The War and its Shadow: Spain's Civil War in Europe's Long Twentieth Century, Helen Graham notes that Franco's forces:

... authorized and presided over an extermination of those sectors associated with Republican change – especially those who symbolized cultural change and thus posed a threat to old ways of being and thinking: progressive teachers, self-educated workers, ‘new’ women. In the Republican zone, resistance to the coup also led to the murder of civilians. This extrajudicial and communal killing in both zones would fundamentally make new political and cultural meanings that changed Spain’s political landscape forever.

At the completion of the war in 1939, Franco established an autocratic dictatorship with himself as head of State and Government. He defined Spain as a totalitarian state with one legal political party, a merger of the monarchist and fascist parties that had supported him during the war.

Although hostilities ended in early 1939, Franco continued to wage war against the defeated Republicans, who he labeled as "red" and the "enemy within"(despite their social, political and religious diversity).

But why did the election of the Second Republic and the Spanish Civil War unleash such horrific bloodletting and terrible atrocities during and after the war?

In his book The Spanish Holocaust Inquest and Extermination in Twentieth Century Spain, Paul Preston documents the prejudice that led Spain's reactionary right into their bloodletting.  Preston argues that among Franco's forces and the reactionary and fascist right there was absolute, and often paranoid, conviction that the Republican enemy was evil. 

In his review of Preston's book Giles Tremlett writes:

Democrats, reds, Jews, freemasons, Marxists, Muslims, "free" women, trade unionists, socialists, socially concerned priests and social liberals were, simply because of their beliefs, considered to be guilty of crimes against the fatherland, God and the natural social order.

In his harrowing book Paul Preston uses the word holocaust to describe what took place in Spain during and after the Spanish Civil War, comparing it with the mass killings that occurred in the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany.

Preston exposes the murders and cruelty of both sides. He argues that under Franco's command, murder and terror were official policy, whereas in Republican areas, with some glaring exceptions, it was more often the result of chaos, fear, ignorant hatred, criminal thuggery and anarchy. 

After the war, there were harsh reprisals by the Franco Government against anyone suspected of sympathy with and involvement in the Second Republic and Republican forces. Estimates are that Franco Government was responsible for between 50,000 and 2000,00 deaths including 30,000 executed. Thousands of Republicans were imprisoned and put into forced labour camps and forced into prison type work such as building railways, drying out swamps and digging canals.

Hundreds of thousands of Republicans fled abroad, with some 500,000 fleeing to France
The Government in exile of the second Republic survived as an embassy in Mexico till 1976. General Franco ruled Spain until his death in 1975.  

The events of 1931 and the war of 1936-1939 continue to have profound contemporary resonance in Spain. 

Recent protests in Spain against the social and economic dislocation and devastation resulting from neoliberal and market fundamentalist polices and imposed austerity regimes, evoke the spirit of the Second Republic. 

And families and communities are reclaiming the remains and the memories of family members, loved ones and others who died during and after the Spanish Civil War, as evidenced in events like this one, where family members of Republican political prisoners who died in prisons and labour camps are gathering their relatives' remains to give them a proper burial.

Golden Dawn and the rise of fascism in Europe

A recent post (here) featured the views of Richard Evans (a leading historian on the rise of Hitler and the Nazis) who draws parallels between the current situation in Europe and the circumstances that gave rise to Hitler and the Nazis during the 1930's.

In Roar Magazine Jerome Ross takes up the theme and warns of the rise of fascism in contemporary Greece, as exemplified by the ascendancy of Golden Dawn, the far right neo-Nazi party which is now the third most popular political party in Greece.

Golden Dawn attracts around 20% of the Greek vote, a level that is comparable to that of Hitler’s National Socialist German Workers’ Party in 1930, three years before rising to power and setting the world on course for WWII.

Golden Dawn has a high profile and prescence on the streets in Greece and is actively involved in attacks and violence directed at immigrants and Greek citizens. It has also infiltrated Greek institutions, particularly the Police Force. Ross reports that Golden Dawn is supported by 60% of the Police Force.

Ross questions why the European political and economic elite have been so silent about the rise of fascist groups such as Golden Dawn.

Never again, we used to say. Never again. How much more blatant does the situation need to get for Europe to at least express its concern and admit that the problem exists? How is it possible that a Nobel Peace laureate simply ignores the rise of violent neo-Nazi elements in its midst? Perhaps the answer is simply that European leaders realize how deeply implicated they are in the rise of Golden Dawn. Perhaps they prefer to stay silent because they know that admitting the resurgence of fascism on the continent could greatly complicate the austerity agenda they are pushing unto the European periphery. Perhaps, then, even a strong flavor of fascism might be tolerable — as long as Greece continues to service its debt.

Ross writes:

For clarity’s sake: the comparison made between National Socialism and Golden Dawn is by no means an exaggeration. We are talking about an extreme-right organization whose emblem deliberately resembles a swastika; whose leader publicly gave the Nazi salute upon his election to Parliament; whose magazine regularly features articles and pictures of the Führer himself; whose spokesman recently assaulted two female rivals on a live TV show; whose manifesto pledges to raid all immigrants out of hospitals and all non-Greek children out of kindergartens; and whose MPs actively participate in racist pogroms against Greece’s immigrant population. (Oh, and by the way, Golden Dawn’s favourite band is called Pogrom, known for such hits as “Auschwitz” and “Speak Greek Or Die”. Incidentally, its former bassist is now one of Golden Dawn’s 18 MPs.)

No surprise, then, that even the mild-mannered BBC is now making eerie comparisons with the early days of the austerity-stricken Weimar Republic. It is happening again. Fascism is once again on the rise in Europe. And what do EU leaders have to say about this? Nothing, it seems. As neo-Nazi militia run amok in the streets of Athens, Brussels and Berlin remain forever shrouded in a deafening silence. The only thing European leaders seem to care about is that Greece repays its debts. Democracy, human rights and the rule of law have all been relegated to secondary concerns — to serve financial interests, even a strong flavor of fascism now appears to be tolerable.

Earlier this month, Golden Dawn MP Ilias Panayiotaros was caught on video during a mob attack on a theatre, hurling homophobic abuse at the director of a critical play, beating up anti-fascist protesters trying to protect the theatre and a journalist trying to do his job, and finally freeing an arrested fellow fascist from a police van. All this time, police officers stood by and did nothing. No wonder: Golden Dawn proudly claims “60 percent support” among the police force. Not only do officers deliberately ignore criminal complaints and emergency calls by immigrants and activists; it is now commonly known that they actively refer Greeks who have “problems” with immigrants to Golden Dawn. As the Greek state crumbles under the weight of its debt repayments, Golden Dawn has stepped in to fill the void.