Reactions to the refugee agreement signed between the EU and Tunisia continue. International Conference of Marxist Leninist Parties and Organisations (CIPOML): "We reject the transformation of Tunisia into a refugee concentration camp!"
The refugee deal reached between the European Union and the Tunisian government in mid-July continues to be debated.
Tunisia's controversial President Kais Said, who has been criticised for establishing a civilian dictatorship, pledged to prevent African refugees from crossing into EU countries in exchange for financial aid. The International Conference of Marxist Leninist Parties and Organisations (CIPOML) also reacted to this agreement between the EU and the Tunisian government.
In a joint statement issued by the European components of CIPOML and the Workers’ Party of Tunisia (PCOT), it was stated: "We reject the transformation of Tunisia into a border guard and a migrant and refugee concentration camp for the benefit of imperialist and capitalist EU countries!"
The full text of the statement is as follows:
"In mid-July, the European Union (EU) reached an agreement with Tunisian dictator President Kais Saied under which the Tunisian government will help keep refugees out of the EU.
The Tunisian government is to receive around 1 billion euros in return, if it will adopt also IMF economic neoliberal “reforms”.
In the process, the reactionary populist President Saied is massively agitating against migrants and refugees. His police abandon sub-Saharan people, including children, in the desert, where they are without water and any help.
The EU, with its supposed moral values, is also mercilessly watching refugees drown in the Mediterranean every day. Yet the increasing numbers of migrants and refugees are primarily a consequence of imperialist policies – including those of the EU. Especially the countries of Africa are exploited by the imperialist countries until today, their resources are plundered and their economy is ruined by cheap imports from the industrialised countries. This is how they want to keep the countries in eternal dependence.
Climate change, for which the large imperialist countries bear the responsibility, leads further to the fact that the living conditions in Africa worsen partly dramatically. This is another cause of the escapes. The people in the exploited countries bear the consequences for the economic crimes of the exploiting states.
The wars of the imperialist states, including now the Ukraine war, also aggravate the situation of the people in the plundered countries. Rising food and energy prices increase misery and hunger.
The resistance of the workers, the farmers, the masses against this plundering is held down with the help of dictatorial regimes, which also receive so-called “aid money” from the EU. Since thereby still more humans are driven to the escape, one turns ever more strongly on dictators, on reactionary measures, on the isolation of Europe against the victims of the politics of the EU and builds a fortress Europe with ever higher walls.
Also within Europe the policy becomes more and more reactionary and anti-worker. Far right and racist forces are needed like the Meloni government in Italy. The EU is a stronghold of reaction – against the peoples and against its own people.
We oppose this reactionary, inhuman policy and the capitalist system that creates it!
We reject to make Tunisia a border guard and a concentration camp of migrants and refugees to the benefit of imperialist and capitalist EU countries!
We stand with the people and organisations of these countries which fight for democratic rights, social and national liberation.
We fight for a society without capitalist and imperialist exploitation, for a world of solidarity!
Therefore we demand:
CIPOML European Parties and Organisations:
and
Yusuf Karadaş