It seems like a notion from some dystopian novel. The British government have been hatching plans to fly uninvited asylum seekers, migrants and refugees to a processing facility in Rwanda, Africa. PM Johnson and his hapless Home Secretary seem to imagine that this will disrupt the activities of people smugglers and staunch the flow of queue-jumping migrants into our country. Yesterday, a reported six hundred of them came over from France in inflatable boats. Thousands more are bound to follow this summer.
The government haven't talked through their half-baked ideas in The Houses of Parliament. They have just announced the scheme. Some cynics have suggested that this is all about Johnson distracting the public and the media from his own domestic woes. Like Sunak, he has received a fixed penalty notice for partying during the height of the coronavirus pandemic and he is likely to receive two further fines. Ironically, he broke his own rules. You just couldn't make this stuff up.
Compared with many African countries, Rwanda seems more prosperous, settled and forward looking. However, is it the right place to process thousands of would-be migrants who have left their homes in search of a better life? Will the migrants be imprisoned? How will they be treated? And what is to stop them from leaving Rwanda and making new attempts to get into Britain?
There are so many questions to be asked about this arrangement, not least - how can it possibly succeed? How much will it all cost? How will the Rwandan people react? Will there be teams of translators? Will Ukrainian migrants be sent to Rwanda with everyone else? Are there no better ways of tackling the continuing migrant crisis?
Personally, I would rather see Johnson, Patel and Sunak sent to Rwanda. Apparently, matoke (green bananas) occupy one third of Rwanda's farmland. I feel sure they could secure manual jobs in the matoke plantations or join mountain gorilla viewing expeditions in The Volcanoes National Park.
It wasn't long ago that she was planning to send asylum seekers over here for processing. Not that she bothered to discuss it with our government first of course.
ReplyDeleteHuh! There seems to be a theme here. Ignore the usual democratic and diplomatic niceties.
DeleteMy daughter-in-law is from Rwanda and it is a beautiful country. Kigali has grown to be a large and bustling city and land is becoming more valuable as the "suburbs" spread out from there. I will have to ask Edith how she thinks immigrants will do there. Eventually, she and my son will probably retire there some day after their boys are grown.
ReplyDeleteSince the internecine brutality of the 1990's, Rwanda seems to have turned a corner. Most foreign visitors feel safe there now. But that does not mean it is the right place to fly in thousands of migrants and refugees. The idea is almost ludicrous.
DeleteEarlier today I read an article about this, on the BBC website, with mounting horror. Surely it wasn't that long ago that terrorism and civil war were rife in Rwanda? Is it really stable? Will it really welcome people with open arms, or is it just the money it wants?
ReplyDeleteAnyone sent there will feel that their long struggle to reach the UK has been in vain, but perhaps that's the whole point - to use it as a deterrent.
The questions you ask are valid YP, and they need to be asked in Parliament - not swept under the carpet - and there need to be answers. Time for the country to vote for or against the scheme?
In the photograph Patel looks pleased with herself, but heaven help everyone if she decides to widen the scope and start a witch hunt, ridding the UK of other "annoying" uninvited migrants, refugees, queue jumpers etc.
Am I the only one who finds it strange that a woman of obviously immigrant stock herself, should spearhead such a campaign?
We all know that the only certain way to prevent those sent to Rwanda from trying to return to the UK, is to imprison them.
I can see you are as anxious about this proposed scheme as I am Carol. It really does not seem like cricket.
DeleteI can't help remembering the Rwandan genocide in 1994. I was in France at the time and the newspapers were full of the most horrendous photographs.
ReplyDeleteI think the idea is ludicrous. And inhuman.
As I have contemplated this matter today, I think it won't happen or if it does happen it will be on a very limited scale.
DeleteI too was thinking of the Rwandan genocides, still very much in the memory of many all over the world. The country is just getting back on its feet, healing broken souls and recovering in both reputation and economics, but it is still not ready to accept an influx of refugees whose pain is so bitingly raw. The people of the Ukraine have had devastating things happen to them, including rape used as a war weapon, and leaving everything they have and love; to shunt them on to further, serious culture and emotional shocks, is too inhuman and cruel to contemplate, as lovely, gentle, kind and ever welcoming as the people of Rwanda would no doubt be. I've sat and wept as I've seen uncompassionate, uncaring and barbaric bilge being rolled out, over and over again, by our government over so many matters in recent times. Lives have been shattered physically, emotionally and mentally by so many issues, and they just can't take much more. There has to be a tipping point, or we are going to end up with an irreparably broken world.
DeleteThis is such a controversial topic I'm a bit afraid to comment. I can safely say immigration is needed in many parts of the world to boost the economy; the east coast of Canada for example. I dare say so more. This would be a great topic to hash out in person at a pub.
ReplyDeleteI can understand your nervousness Melinda.
DeleteI don't have a thing to say about this. It sounds like a joke.
ReplyDeleteIt is a very sick joke but real nonetheless.
DeleteThis is how we treat people, refugees and asylum seekers?
ReplyDeleteJohnson must have picked up some ideas from the Trump era.
DeleteThis plan does not make any sense at all. Are these people going to be left in Rwanda? Who's paying for their trip to Rwanda?
ReplyDeleteIt all beggars belief Red. And Johnson even has the gall to call this plan "humanitarian". If it begins to happen, it will all end in tears.
DeleteI heard about that on the radio news a couple of hours ago and I just thought, What? Why Rwanda? All very strange but not my country
ReplyDeleteAustralia has plenty of spare land. A better destination for would-be migrants and asylum seekers than Rwanda.
DeleteMost of Australia's "spare" land is dry and uninhabitable, also a lot of it belongs to our indigenous peoples and is "sacred" ground, so can't be built on, if I'm remembering it right.
DeleteWhere are your migrants and asylum seekers coming from? Can they just be sent home? if they are Ukrainians there is no longer a home for them, but they wouldn't be arriving in inflatable boats either.
This is one of those very difficult things to deal with. It would be great to deal with all immigrants with welcoming arms and compassion. But unchecked, especially in a country as small as yours, it wouldn’t take too long to overwhelm everything and make life inhumane for those who are citizens and legal immigrants.
ReplyDeleteThis looks like it's modelled on Australia's offshore detention policy for refugees. Asylum seekers - including children - are flown to a detention camp on remote Nauru Island [a former phosphate mine] or the more hellish Manus Island former military barracks. Tens years on there have been scores of suicides, assaults, rapes and people going insane in the camps. Medical care was terrible, some people died from cuts going septic. And the cost was astronomical - literally billions. I think someone calculated it cost a million dollars per detainee.
ReplyDeleteBoris Demon land. Once a Colonialist....
ReplyDeleteSo don't deal with your problems, pass them along to someone else. I know a few people like that.
ReplyDeleteWithout knowing a thing about this crazy plan aside from what I've read in this post, I'll wager they expect this relocation to be so far away that the migrants won't try to come back. It will be interesting to see how they respond. The whole thing seems potentially inhumane. I'm surprised Rwanda went for it, actually.
ReplyDelete