Thread by @vmorkevicius

There is no doubt that the manufactured migrant crisis along Belarus’ border with Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland is a deliberate political tactic aimed at punishing these states for their critique of #Lukashenko’s authoritarianism and at sowing division between EU states. /1

https://twitter.com/tadeuszgiczan/status/1457348366040502280

Lukashenko has made getting a visa to enter #Belarus easier, made getting a flight to Minsk easier, and used the military to make crossing the border to the EU easier, too.

But I want to talk about the ethical dimensions. /2

bbc.com/news/world-589…

infomigrants.net/en/post/36063/…

#Lukashenko is engaging in state-sponsored human trafficking.

Language matters.

When we speak of “hybrid warfare” or “weaponized migration,” it becomes all too easy to imagine the migrants themselves as weapons, as threats. /3

infomigrants.net/en/post/36100/…

reuters.com/world/europe/g…

It is a slippery slope from imagining the migrants as threats in themselves (rather than, mostly as pretty ordinary people trying to escape violence or economic disaster at home) to accepting militarized/securitized responses. /4

recercat.cat/bitstream/hand…

e-ir.info/2018/09/03/fro…

This is not to say that #Lukashenko’s human trafficking doesn’t pose a security threat.

But the migrants themselves aren’t the threat. Most are fleeing insecurity & economic desperation at home. Many are minorities facing targeted violence. /5

lrt.lt/en/news-in-eng…

If the migrants themselves, as human beings, aren’t the threat, what is?

1) The fact that non-European, mostly non-Christian, migrants are crossing the border provides convenient fodder for far-right elements within Latvia, Lithuania, & Poland. /6

Using migrants as an “existential threat” to bolster far-right parties isn’t unique to this region, nor is it new. (& we know from Czechia’s experience, it doesn’t even require the presence of migrants./7

theloop.ecpr.eu/why-centre-rig…

gnet-research.org/2021/10/04/bet…

reuters.com/article/us-cze…

2) My own ethical commitments to toleration & equality make me see the expansion of the far-right as undesirable. But there are other reasons to reach a similar conclusion.

Hyper-partisanship erodes social cohesion & democratic institutions. /8

theconversation.com/extreme-politi…

3) When we can’t trust each other — in fact, when partisanship leads us to hate each other — our societies are weakened.

And there is a lot of evidence to suggest this is exactly what #Lukashenko is hoping for. /9

After all, this has been the aim of #disinformation operations coming from the #Kremlin and #Minsk for some time.

States that are internally weak are less likely to be able to mount any sort of resistance to external pressures. /10

aei.pitt.edu/97042/1/disinf…

4) Furthermore, the migrant crisis itself — and particularly harsh/hostile responses thereto — helps #Lukashenko and his friend in the Kremlin accomplish a second aim: undermining the unity of the EU, and more broadly the democratic trans-Atlantic coalition. /11

How? In two ways.

If Latvia, Lithuania, & Poland feel that the EU doesn’t “have their back” (for example, on the issue of the border wall), more voters in those countries may feel skeptical about the efficacy of the EU and its value to them. /12

theguardian.com/world/2021/oct…

Of course, more Euro-skepticism means more internal problems within the EU itself.

But there is a second way in which the EU can be undermined by the sort of response the migrant crisis generates, and this has a particularly ethical and legal bent. /13

Policies such as building a fence/wall and especially migrant pushback have ethical and legal implications.

Building a fence to channel migrants to certain areas along the border so that they can be met and processed in a less haphazard way certainly makes sense. /14

Particularly as winter approaches, the situation along the border between Belarus and its EU neighbors is becoming more and more of a humanitarian disaster.

Lives are very much at risk. /14

blogs.prio.org/2021/10/migran…

When the rest of the European (and North American) public sees images of Polish border guards pushing migrants back across the border or sees desperate people looking for a way around the fence with armed Belarusian guards pushing them forward… /15

or over-crowded conditions in migrant housing, these more distant publics may respond by thinking “Why don’t the Poles/Lithuanians/Latvians show more empathy? Why are they so hard-hearted? How terrible!” /16

And they might very well ask legal questions too — after all, under international law, it is illegal to return a potential refugee to a place where his or her life or freedom would be at risk. /17

treaties.un.org/doc/Treaties/1…

treaties.un.org/pages/ViewDeta…

Indeed, #Lukashenko’s policy seems especially formulated to generate just this sort of legal dilemma for the purpose of turning public opinion against Poland, Lithuania, and Latvia. (This technique is called “law fare,” by the way.) /18

lawfareblog.com/belaruss-lawfa…

When we focus on the problem as not the migrants themselves but the way in which they — and their plight — are being manipulated by #Lukashenko, alternative ways of approaching the crisis emerge. /19

Fundamentally, the human rights of the migrants must be respected. They must be treated with dignity and care at every turn.

Leaving them stranded between the borders is unacceptable. Pushing them back over the border is unacceptable. /19

And this matters not only for ethical and legal reasons, but for security ones. /20

Now, to head off a critique that I’m sure is coming — nothing in what I’ve just said suggests that Poland, Lithuania, and Latvia (or the EU more broadly) must house every migrant who crosses the border.

But each migrant should be able to present his/her case for asylum. /21

Those migrants who qualify for asylum/refugee status should be admitted (and welcomed). Those who don’t should be repatriated with dignity.

This process takes time and money, but it is important for legal and ethical reasons to get it right. /22

This means investing not only in border patrols to find people crossing illegally (finding them, of course, has both ethical and security benefits — they can be rescued from cold & hunger and screened properly), /23

But also in the infrastructure necessary to confirm each individuals’ identity, to take their asylum claim properly, to provide legal guidance, and to provide decent living conditions while their cases are being processed. /24

All this requires money of course, but it also requires a change in attitudes.

The migrants at the border aren’t weapons, but rather victims of #Lukashenko’s cynical use of human trafficking. We play into his game when we dehumanize them — a game we play at our own peril. /fin