Refugee crisis needs long-term solutions, not half-measures

EU’s $2-billion package for Africa akin to a Band-Aid on a gunshot wound

Desperate times often require desperate measures, and that’s exactly what happened last week when the European Union offered African governments a $2-billion inducement to help stem the mass migration that has been convulsing Europe.

The UN estimates that some 800,000 refugees have poured into Europe this year. Of that number, about 150,000 are people fleeing war, oppression and poverty in Africa. The 650,000 fleeing the violent Syrian conflict make their way to Europe through Turkey and Greece, while those from Africa go through the Sahara to Libya and then to Malta and Italy.

What European governments want desperately is to find a way to stop the massive flow into their countries, and failing that, be able to quickly return failed refugee applicants back to their homeland. But with the Syrian refugees basically having no country to return to in the present circumstances, the EU has set its sights on African refugees as the best option to reduce the numbers. European officials believe that most of the people coming from Africa are actually economic migrants, and if they can be sent back home, it will ease the pressure considerably.

“We need to break the link between people making the journey across to Europe and reaching Europe and being able to settle there,” British Home Secretary Theresa May said. “In order to do that … we need to be able to return people to countries in Africa.”

Under a deal worked out in Malta between African and European leaders, the two sides agreed to work together on both short and long-term plans to make it easier for people to stay home, rather than flee to Europe.

Some African leaders are unhappy with the plan, accusing European governments of taking the easy way out by picking on Africans. Still, they have accepted the controversial agreement, at the heart of which is an immediate commitment by African leaders to accept repatriated migrants and keep them from heading back to Europe. It is a tough task but the sweetener in the agreement is a $2 billion “trust fund” that countries on the African migration routes to Europe — the Horn of Africa, the Sahel region and North Africa — can tap into.

Few however believe the plan would succeed because it is not attacking the root of the problem — the conditions that force people to flee. Ironically, the very leaders whose greed, mismanagement and penchant for conflict are causing people to flee in the first place, are the same ones the EU is recruiting to help. It will not end well. Corruption is so rampant in African politics I wouldn’t trust governments with $2 billion. It is not hard to imagine most of the money ending up in private pockets or foreign bank accounts, while the poor and desperate are subjected to even more repressive measures to keep them from escaping a lifelong sentence of deprivation. People risk all to head for Europe because they have no hope of a better future at home. And even if somehow, African governments can rise to the challenge, $2 billion is not nearly enough to make life better for people and prevent mass migration to Europe.

European governments want to be seen as doing something but the refugee crisis can’t be resolved with half measures. In Syria, the solution lies in the removal of dictator Bashar Assad and the creation of a new national government to end the war. After all, it is Assad’s brutal rule and civil war atrocities that are forcing people to flee. In Africa, the solution lies in finding a way to end the civil strife that is devastating vast swaths of the continent, and the corruption that confines people to perpetual poverty and destitution. People who don’t see a better future for themselves or their children, and those who live in constant fear of death and destruction, will risk everything to seek better lives elsewhere. The 3,200 who perished last year and the 3,400 who have died so far this year trying to reach Europe prove it.