While Rwanda can grow economically, it is still among the 25 poorest countries in the world. The United Kingdom is one of the 10 richest countries in the world. Recognizing the wealth inequality between the two nations and deciding that Rwanda is better able to accommodate people attempting the insidious trip to the Channel requires a huge leap of imagination. The deal announced by Home Secretary Priti Patel in Kigali on Thursday demonstrates the government’s persistent commitment to positioning Britain as a country closed to the world and those most in need of shelter. There has been much political debate and condemnation since the policy was announced, and the government has arranged for the arrival in Rwanda of the British media who deemed it best to help terrorize this maneuver in the run-up to the local elections. However, there are still questions we need to ask to determine whether this is a cynical ploy or a thoughtful policy. Is it because Rwanda has more geographical capacity? More free land or housing infrastructure? Is Britain really breaking out? Rwanda has a population density almost double that of Britain. It is a country almost twice as big as ours. However, it already hosts five times as many refugees per capita as the United Kingdom. In addition to receiving refugees from the Congo and Burundi, Rwanda has recently been offered a host country for the emergency evacuation of refugees trapped in miserable conditions in Libya. Introducing the Interior Ministry’s memorandum of understanding with Rwanda, the UK boasts of accepting 25,000 Syrian refugees as a way to demonstrate its “long proud history of providing protection to those in need”. This claim is for laughter. More than 6 million Syrians have fled their country in the 11 years since the start of the war. For much of the crisis, Lebanon has hosted 2 million Syrians – representing a third of Lebanon’s 6 million population. Bangladesh, one of the most densely populated countries in the world, hosts almost 1 million Rohingya refugees from Myanmar. Poland currently hosts 2.7 million Ukrainians. These numbers frame what it really means to protect those in need. The memorandum speaks of “burden sharing” during the refugee crisis. Rwanda, a country that has experienced its share of crises, is already bearing its share of the burden. The UK has a comfortable capacity to receive people crossing the Channel. She neglects her share of the weight, while convincing Rwanda to bring more. The way in which the interior minister managed to persuade the Rwandan government to accept this arrangement can be seen in due course. When Australia used the tiny island state of Nauru for a similar purpose, it provided aid in return. Australia – an extremely privileged country – has essentially paid a less fortunate country to oust desperate people, in some cases for years. The British government is recklessly copying the Australian playbook, while its public relations agents in the press are trumpeting this coup as a kind of triumph. “Rwanda is planning to crush the Channel gangs,” wrote the front page of the Daily Mail. “A bold plan to send migrants by boat to Rwanda,” the Daily Express reported, as if the prime minister had overseen a selfless act of logic, humanity, bravery – a blow of compassion, rescuing England from the scourge of people simply trying to escape death. the poverty. When Boris Johnson referred to people “entering the country illegally” in his speech on Thursday, he was using the worst kind of semantics. Refugees fleeing conflict or persecution cannot afford to enter Britain legally. If they had the time and opportunity to apply for a UK visa, they would not actually be refugees. Asylum usually involves entering an area without prior permission. When the director of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees in Asia and the Pacific, Indrika Ratwatte, visited Nauru in 2018, he said he was shocked by the huge tax impact that long-term detention had on people’s mental health – over 80 % was diagnosed with PTSD, trauma and depression. “The feeling of hopelessness and despair was extremely palpable,” he told the press. In Greece in 2020, asylum seekers living in the reception center of Moria on the island of Lesvos burned it in what was considered by many to be a protest against the poor conditions and dangerous levels of overpopulation. We should not automatically assume that the Rwandan model of hosting asylum seekers will follow that of Lesvos or Nauru. Indeed, there is some good news about the integration of refugees there. But Rwanda, which Johnson describes as one of the safest countries in the world, is also a country that violates the rights of its citizens. What guarantees can we have that non-citizens will be well received? Rwanda has in-house transit centers that send people it deems “undesirable” – including beggars – to keep the roads attractive to tourists attracted by the country’s international marketing campaigns. Rwandans who oppose or criticize the government may be informed by neighbors, put under surveillance, blackmailed, tortured, sent to rehabilitation camps, or even killed. Many Rwandans returned violently from refugee camps in neighboring countries in the years after the 1994 genocide. Many continue to risk their lives or their freedom to walk through remote jungles to escape and take refuge in Uganda as refugees. When was the last time someone fled the UK seeking asylum abroad? Citing the Patel and Johnson plan, the Daily Telegraph said “immigrants will be encouraged to settle” in Rwanda. The agreement does not seem to give them many options in the matter. Their options, if Rwanda does not prove to be a safe or viable place for them, will be somewhat limited. “Rwanda will ensure that any resettled person is treated and their asylum application processed in accordance with the Refugee Convention,” the memorandum said. But what about the UK’s obligations to abide by the agreement it has signed? What about this long and proud protection story? The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the organization designed to abide by the convention, has said it will delay its judgment on the legality of the Patel deal until its legal groups in Geneva analyze the details. Her position, however, is clear. “The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees does not support the outsourcing of asylum obligations,” it said in a statement. There are longer-term solutions to the ongoing refugee crisis in the world, such as tackling the deeper causes that endanger people’s lives and livelihoods. But a fundamental principle of any morally functioning government is to defend the human rights of people seeking security and not to shift that responsibility to countries with less developed asylum systems.
