Ethiopian and Yemeni Migrants under the Saudi Crackdown

[Migrant Rights. Image from migrant-rights.org] [Migrant Rights. Image from migrant-rights.org]

Ethiopian and Yemeni Migrants under the Saudi Crackdown

By : Jadaliyya Reports

[This report was originally published by Migrant Rights under the title of "Spotlight on Ethiopian and Yemeni Migrants" on 6 December 2013.]

The Saudi crackdown has impacted migrants across a spectrum of nationalities, but here we focus on two groups facing particularly adverse reverberations of Saudi’s unrelenting crackdown, in part due to pre-existing predicaments and mismanaged policies of their origin countries.

Saudi’s deportations compounded the pre-existing humanitarian crisis at the Yemen-Saudi border, a frequent crossing-point for economic migrants prior to post-nitaqat securitization.  Over fifty-one thousand Ethiopian migrants arrived in North Yemen this year alone, and since July, over twenty-five thousand have been stranded following their forced return to the border town of Haradh. Many of these migrants reported abuse at the hands of border agents or traffickers.

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) has worked to provide services and repatriation to migrants, but pre-existing funding shortages have been exacerbated by the recent expulsion of thousands of Ethiopian migrants. The IOM has funding to assist only those in the most severe conditions.

So far, over one hundred thousand Ethiopians have already been repatriated by the Ethiopian government and the IOM. The IOM predicts the repatriation of at least fifty thousand Ethiopian migrants will conclude by conclude by mid-December.

At least two Ethiopians have died in clashes with citizens and police. Video-clips of the Manhoufa incident as well other evidence of brutality went viral, eliciting a strong response from the Ethiopian diaspora. The troubling video below is just one of several uploaded to YouTube in the past two weeks. Transcribed in English, Ethiopian migrants express their fear of "vigilante" citizens:

Protests erupted across the globe against the mistreatment of Ethiopian migrants as well as the Ethiopian government’s failures to protect its overseas citizens. Explosive social-media reactions brought long enduring issues to the forefront of Ethiopian and international discourse.

Yemeni migrants encountered similar predicaments, an estimated eighty percent having traveled into—and now out of—Saudi Arabia undocumented, via the same route. Yemeni and Saudi authorities predicted the serious impact of nitaqat on Yemeni migrants, though neither pursued significant strategies to alleviate the repercussions. Over thirty thousand Yemeni migrants were deported by May, prior to the end of the amnesty period, and between fifty-five thousand and seventy-three thousand are estimated to have been deported or otherwise returned after the amnesty, some having faced protracted detention. Yemen analysts predict the number of returnees could reach one million.

Yemeni citizens similarly criticized the Yemeni government’s failure to adequately provision support to citizens during and after the amnesty period, subjecting them to perilous raids and mass deportations.  Criticisms have also been lodged against the estimated two point three million dollars used to host the Yemeni Ministry of Expatriates’ conference, which could have been used to assist migrants and facilitate their re-entry into Yemen’s economy.

One deported Yemeni migrant is reported to have committed suicide upon his return.  Even those who sympathize with migrants’ humanitarian and economic plight question why so many thousands of migrants failed to "take advantage" of the amnesty, or why they "failed to plan" for deportation. The grace period did not apply to migrants who had entered the country "illegally"—these migrants could only pursue repatriation without financial penalty, but could not obtain other employment. This meant giving up work to secure exit visas from embassies, and it meant potential detainment upon "turning themselves in," or being left to the whims of bureaucracy—many migrants who sought amnesty were left in makeshift camps for weeks, as governments tried to source money for their repatriation. Those who could legally correct their status may still have faced obstacles in obtaining a transfer of sponsorship, particularly difficult for part-time workers who are not recognized under the sponsorship system, despite the demand for their work.

Still, some hold that undocumented migrants must face the repercussions of their "choices," that the Kingdom cannot be held accountable for their consequent legal or financial issues. Yet this perspective obscures the structural causes of undocumented migration. Without subverting migrants’ agency, it must be recognized that this “choice” is engendered by the policies created by the Saudi government itself.  Many migrants were forced to work without visas by employers who wished to avoid sponsorship costs, or to circumvent recruitment quotas. During the amnesty, many were unable to correct their status because their employers would not issue them visas, in an attempt to avoid extra fees.

And while migrants face disproportionate, permanent penalties for the perceived unintended consequences of these very deliberate structures, Saudi continues to benefit from the fruits of their labor. As an anonymous Saudi contractor incisively observed: “These people have worked in this country and their blood is in the stones and buildings.”

Furthermore, though states hold the right to detain and deport undocumented migrant workers, international conventions stipulate minimum standards for their implementation.  According to the IOM, “(m)any returnees have been brought to the border with no belongings, sometimes barefoot, and often dehydrated and exhausted due to overcrowding while detained and transported by the Saudi authorities.”

Thirty-five percent of Yemeni migrants also reported theft and beatings by Saudi border authorities. Migrants are not empowered by regular, or even minimal, access to translators, lawyers, or even the opportunity for recourse and most origin embassies are too incapacitated, or corrupted, to support the profusion of cases from their constituency.  Migrants are consequently left to the whims of Saudi agents, who are fully aware of their effective impunity; unsurprisingly, the minimal regulation and accountability systematically exposing migrants to abuse at the borders mirrors the kafala systems effects within the Kingdom.

The issues facing both migrant groups are the result of chronic issues that exploded following the crackdown; Saudi’s unrelenting deportations, in combination with the unpreparedness of origin countries, exacerbated the difficulties migrants faced.  Their experiences evidence the need to eschew "crackdown" strategies and approach irregular migration from a rights based approach, to work closely with origin countries, as well as the growing importance of diaspora networks in unifying strategies for accountability and solidarity.

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Past is Present: Settler Colonialism Matters!

On 5-6 March 2011, the Palestine Society at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London will hold its seventh annual conference, "Past is Present: Settler Colonialism in Palestine." This year`s conference aims to understand Zionism as a settler colonial project which has, for more than a century, subjected Palestine and Palestinians to a structural and violent form of destruction, dispossession, land appropriation and erasure in the pursuit of a new Jewish Israeli society. By organizing this conference, we hope to reclaim and revive the settler colonial paradigm and to outline its potential to inform and guide political strategy and mobilization.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is often described as unique and exceptional with little resemblance to other historical or ongoing colonial conflicts. Yet, for Zionism, like other settler colonial projects such as the British colonization of Ireland or European settlement of North America, South Africa or Australia, the imperative is to control the land and its resources -- and to displace the original inhabitants. Indeed, as conference keynote speaker Patrick Wolfe, one of the foremost scholars on settler colonialism and professor at La Trobe University in Victoria, Australia, argues, "the logic of this project, a sustained institutional tendency to eliminate the Indigenous population, informs a range of historical practices that might otherwise appear distinct--invasion is a structure not an event."[i]

Therefore, the classification of the Zionist movement as a settler colonial project, and the Israeli state as its manifestation, is not merely intended as a statement on the historical origins of Israel, nor as a rhetorical or polemical device. Rather, the aim is to highlight Zionism`s structural continuities and the ideology which informs Israeli policies and practices in Palestine and toward Palestinians everywhere. Thus, the Nakba -- whether viewed as a spontaneous, violent episode in war, or the implementation of a preconceived master plan -- should be understood as both the precondition for the creation of Israel and the logical outcome of Zionist settlement in Palestine.

Moreover, it is this same logic that sustains the continuation of the Nakba today. As remarked by Benny Morris, “had he [David Ben Gurion] carried out full expulsion--rather than partial--he would have stabilised the State of Israel for generations.”[ii] Yet, plagued by an “instability”--defined by the very existence of the Palestinian nation--Israel continues its daily state practices in its quest to fulfill Zionism’s logic to maximize the amount of land under its control with the minimum number of Palestinians on it. These practices take a painful array of manifestations: aerial and maritime bombardment, massacre and invasion, house demolitions, land theft, identity card confiscation, racist laws and loyalty tests, the wall, the siege on Gaza, cultural appropriation, and the dependence on willing (or unwilling) native collaboration and security arrangements, all with the continued support and backing of imperial power. 

Despite these enduring practices however, the settler colonial paradigm has largely fallen into disuse. As a paradigm, it once served as a primary ideological and political framework for all Palestinian political factions and trends, and informed the intellectual work of committed academics and revolutionary scholars, both Palestinians and Jews.

The conference thus asks where and why the settler colonial paradigm was lost, both in scholarship on Palestine and in politics; how do current analyses and theoretical trends that have arisen in its place address present and historical realities? While acknowledging the creativity of these new interpretations, we must nonetheless ask: when exactly did Palestinian natives find themselves in a "post-colonial" condition? When did the ongoing struggle over land become a "post-conflict" situation? When did Israel become a "post-Zionist" society? And when did the fortification of Palestinian ghettos and reservations become "state-building"?

In outlining settler colonialism as a central paradigm from which to understand Palestine, this conference re-invigorates it as a tool by which to analyze the present situation. In doing so, it contests solutions which accommodate Zionism, and more significantly, builds settler colonialism as a political analysis that can embolden and inform a strategy of active, mutual, and principled Palestinian alignment with the Arab struggle for self-determination, and indigenous struggles in the US, Latin America, Oceania, and elsewhere.

Such an alignment would expand the tools available to Palestinians and their solidarity movement, and reconnect the struggle to its own history of anti-colonial internationalism. At its core, this internationalism asserts that the Palestinian struggle against Zionist settler colonialism can only be won when it is embedded within, and empowered by, the broader Arab movement for emancipation and the indigenous, anti-racist and anti-colonial movement--from Arizona to Auckland.

SOAS Palestine Society invites everyone to join us at what promises to be a significant intervention in Palestine activism and scholarship.

For over 30 years, SOAS Palestine Society has heightened awareness and understanding of the Palestinian people, their rights, culture, and struggle for self-determination, amongst students, faculty, staff, and the broader public. SOAS Palestine society aims to continuously push the frontiers of discourse in an effort to make provocative arguments and to stimulate debate and organizing for justice in Palestine through relevant conferences, and events ranging from the intellectual and political impact of Edward Said`s life and work (2004), international law and the Palestine question (2005), the economy of Palestine and its occupation (2006), the one state (2007), 60 Years of Nakba, 60 Years of Resistance (2009), and most recently, the Left in Palestine (2010).

For more information on the SOAS Palestine Society 7th annual conference, Past is Present: Settler Colonialism in Palestine: www.soaspalsoc.org

SOAS Palestine Society Organizing Collective is a group of committed students that has undertaken to organize annual academic conferences on Palestine since 2003.

 


[i] Patrick Wolfe, Settler Colonialism and the Transformation of Anthropology: The Politics and Poetics of an Ethnographic Event, Cassell, London, p. 163

[ii] Interview with Benny Morris, Survival of the Fittest, Haaretz, 9. January 2004, http://cosmos.ucc.ie/cs1064/jabowen/IPSC/php/art.php?aid=5412