Lithuania: Solidarity with imprisoned
refugees in Pabrade
by Steve Cohen & Dave Landau
The town of Pabrade in East Lithuania. A major industry in the town
is imprisoning asylum-seekers and migrants. Pabrade Prison (known
officially as the Foreigner's Registration Centre) has about 200
detainees - men, women and children. A couple of years ago it held
about 1000 prisoners. However the International Organisation of
Migration then became complicit in paying for and arranging the
deportation of the majority of prisoners. This was presented as
a Îhumanitarian' exercise. However it was an offer many prisoners
could not refuse. Lithuania has no concept of temporary release
or stay on compassionate grounds - so the alternative is indefinite
imprisonment. This is imprisonment in a camp where there is no formal
education for children, where there are no work opportunities, where
prisoners are controlled by the threats of violence. There are reported
examples of a Sri Lankan refugee being beaten in front of his family
because he refused an order to remove garbage from the camp and
another Sri Lankan being beaten by several guards because he wanted
to use the telephone.
Why refugees in Lithuania?
The camp is full of refugees from all over the world. Many are from
the old USSR. However many are also from the Indian sub-continent.
This begs the question as to what are Indians,Pakistanis, Bangladeshis,
Sri Lankans and Afghanis doing in Lithuania? There is a two-fold
answer. First they were double-crossed by criminal racketeers who,
for a fortune, promised to get them into mainland Europe. Second
the countries of the European Union are intent on creating a ring
of buffer or client states which will operate as a first line of
exclusion from Fortress Europe. The Nordic countries, in particular
Sweden, Norway and Denmark, are acting as financiers for the erection
of immigration controls around the Baltic states of Lithuania, Estonia
and Latvia. These Baltic countries are in effect on trial. Not yet
fully capitalist, but in transition to capitalism, their role is
to act as buffer zones to control migration into Europe. Once they
have shown they can fulfil this role then they too may be offered
the holy grail of millennium capitalism - membership of the European
Union.
The Nordic states and Sweden in particular are quite open about
this process. Each year the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs
issues a report on its Immigration and Refugee Policy. Its 1997
Report states: "A main objective of Sweden's and the other
Nordic countries co-operation with Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania
is to approximate these countries' refugee and migration policies
to those of Western Europe . . .
As a result the Baltic states will cease to be attractive to refugees
as transient countries. This should also facilitate these countries
eventual accession to the EU. . .
As a result of the Swedish initiative in the summer of 1996 that
led to the setting up of a Council for Baltic Sea co-operation,
exchange and co-operation on migration policy in the Baltic Sea
region will be intensified. The Task Force that has been set up
to combat organised crime in the area will also deal with the smuggling
in human beings and illegal immigration"
Fortress Lithuania
Lithuania is itself becoming a fortress. Each year it submits a
progress report to the EU as part of its preparation for membership.
Its 1997-98 report describes the development of controls on the
Belarus border: ã... an additional 1000 border policemen have been
placed at the border - all the subdivisions of the border police
have been supplied with modem radio communications equipment (Motorola),
means of transportation (152 Land Rover all-terrain vehicles furnished
with radio communications equipment), watch towers are built (10
of 20 planned towers have already been built) where the observation
equipment of the form Thompson-C8F in installed .... Following the
contract with Siemens Nixdorf AG computerised border information
is being installed and will become one of the basic elements of
the future integration into the Schengen information system".
The only crumb of comfort in all this is that it is Siemens who
have a contract with the British Home Office - and it is the incompetence
of Siemens that has now totally disrupted the operations of the
Immigration and Nationality Directorate.
More on Pabrade
All refugees awaiting expulsion from Lithuania are now kept in Pabrade.
The only black people in the country appear to be in this camp.
The Lithuanian Red Cross has established an excellent project to
support these refugees - The Legal Assistance Project for Refugees.
Pabrade is not a concentration camp or a death camp. It has no gas
ovens. However its physical presence of barbed wire and emaciated
faces echoes the potent imagery of these camps. The racism of immigration
laws that necessitate prisons like Pabrade is no more justifiable
than the anti-semitism of the Nazis. Lithuania is itself a graveyard
of the Jews. Throughout the country are memories and memorials to
the tens of thousands liquidated by the Nazis. There is one such
memorial in the town of Pabrade. There is another memorial a few
kilometres away in the town of Svencionys. It is ironic to learn
that Pabrade prison camp is today under the administrative control
of the police at Svencionys. The moral of this story seems to be
that history does not automatically teach any lessons. Learning
has to be a conscious effort. Half a century of Soviet occupation
has manifestly blocked all such efforts.
Release the Pabrade Prisoners
Contact - Campaign Against Pabrade,
c/o GMIAU, 400 Cheetham Hill Rd,
Manchester M8 9LE, UK.
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