Artificial mass migration as imperial policy has a long history. To illustrate this, we will cite a few historical examples. According to Bulgarian historian A, Eminov, civil wars in the Balkans in the 13th and 14th centuries led to significant population decline, which greatly facilitated colonisation of the Balkans by the Ottoman Empire. The deportation of nomads and organised transportation of Muslim refugees by the Ottoman Empire played a significant role in the colonization of this region.
…. In seventeenth century Ireland the British government settled lands in the northern province of Ulster with Protestant and Presbyterian settlers who lived in fear of the Catholic neighbours they had displaced. It was an imperial policy of divide and rule which lasted for centuries. In the nineteenth century, famine and mass emigration from Ireland to America were caused by the British state’s refusal to allow Irish peasants the right to eat the fruit of their labour. The mass migrations benefited the emerging ruling class of the United States who required cheap labour as well as the British government who wanted to reduce the population of Ireland.
In other words, mass migration enabled the trans-Atlantic Anglo Saxon financial elite to turn the very social and economic problems they had created to their own advantage. The loss for Ireland was irreparable. Western Europe’s oldest literary vernacular language was reduced to minority status, while the loss in youthful resourcefulness worked in favour of the status quo, ensuring Ireland’s subjugation to the British imperial elite, both before and after formal independence.
A more recent example of migration used as a tool of imperialism is Eritrea. Since the country’s independence from Ethiopia in 1991, Eritrea has chartered a unique independent path to national liberation and socio-economic development. The results have been astounding, with economic growth rates surpassing most other developing countries. However, the socially-oriented policies of the Eritrean government have brought it into conflict with neo-colonial interests. As a consequence, sanctions were imposed by the United States in 2009 on the only country in the Horn of Africa that has never failed to feed, clothe and educate its children.
Meanwhile, millions flee hunger and poverty in the US client state of Ethiopia, which is currently occupying part of Eritrea since the US backed Ethiopian invasion of that country in 1998. US geo-strategy against Eritrea involves smuggling Eritreans into Europe in a vast, logistical operation involving officials in the United Nations and ‘human rights’ NGOs such as Watch the Met.
This neo-colonial outfit is heavily involved in the smuggling of Middle Eastern and Central Asian refugees from Turkey.
Watch the Med is a cogent example of how petty bourgeois European prejudice against developing nations is harnessed by elites to further their globalization agenda. The NGO, which claims to oppose the EU ‘militarization’ of the Mediterranean and fortress Europe’ slammed Colonel Gaddafi’s Libya for its alleged ‘abuse of migrants’ rights’, in spite of the fact that Gaddafi’s Libya was praised by the UN for its respect for human rights and was integrating thousands of sub-Saharen migrants in the Libyan Jamahirya, where they were able to work and benefit from free health care, education and accommodation.
A key figure in this criminal operation is a Nobel Prize candidate who goes by the name of “Father” Mussie Zerai, a phony Catholic priest who has been coordinating the smuggling of East Africans to Europe from war-torn Libya, earning him lots of cash, kudos and the epithet ‘Archangel of Refugees’. Zerai collaborates closely with Watch the Med.
It is impossible to tell if Watch the Med is receiving funding from captains of globalization such as George Soros, but these European do-gooders would certainly deserve decent salaries from the Jewish oligarch.
As part of the destabilization of Eritrea, the EU is giving preferential treatment to refugees if they register as Eritreans. Eritrean researchers have shown that most of the migrants from East Africa are from Ethiopia and Somalia. Yet, they register upon arrival in the EU as Eritreans. The migrants are often lost at sea. Al Jazeera recently did an interview with a trafficker from Ethiopia who confirmed that thousands of citizens from that country are being smuggled into Europe. Yet Eurostat figures for 2013-14 show no Ethiopian citizens whatsoever while Eritreans are astonishingly high.
In a Market Watch article entitled “Here’s my plan to solve the asylum chaos”, George Soros slams Victor Orbans’ policies stating that they threaten to ‘divide and destroy the EU’. Soros strongly advocates the creation of ‘NGOs’ to facilitate the mass migration into Europe.
Orban has pointed out that those welcoming the refugees/migrants into Europe are playing into the hands of Soros and global financial oligarchs.
The Eritrean government has proof of the CIA’s role in smuggling desperate people from the Horn of Africa. They also have proof of Amnesty International’s attempt to foment political unrest and violence in the country.
The phony ‘Eritrean’ refugee crisis is being cynically used by the corporate media to slander Africa’s only free and truly democratic, post-colonial nation, hampering its development while filling the coffers of the heinous ‘human rights’ murder machine, all in the service of empire. This again attests to the weaponization of the refugee. The current escalation of the refugee crisis in Europe should be analyzed in this context.
So what is the purpose of weaponizing refugees?
In the book Weapons of Mass Migration: Forced Displacement, Coercion and Foreign Policy, Kelly M. Greenhill, US foreign policy consultant, argues that coercive engineered migration is a strategy which has been used by governments to gain concessions from other governments. In other words, governments often use refugees as weapons in order to exert pressure on other governments for political ends. Greenhill documents over 59 examples of refugees being used as weapons since the Second World War.
While there are undoubtedly many women and children and innocent victims of NATO fomented war among the flux of people migrating to Europe who deserve all the help they can get, it is deeply reactionary and dishonest to ignore the obvious instrumentalization of migration by imperialism.
Rational and honest analysis of this complex phenomenon tends to prevail in developing countries such as Russia and Iran, whose press agencies have provided extensive evidence of this problem. However, spurious political correctness often stifles constructive debate in Western countries with some analysts such as this author being slandered on social media as ‘fascists’ and ‘racists’ by soi-disant ‘leftists’ for discussing these facts. George Soros and company would certainly agree with them.
NOTE: This is article is only an abridged format. Full text can be found HERE.
Gearóid Ó Colmáin is a journalist and political analyst based in Paris. His work focuses on globalization, geopolitics and class struggle. He is a regular contributor to Global Research, Russia Today International, Press TV, Sputnik Radio France, Sputnik English , Al Etijah TV , Sahar TV,and has also appeared on Al Jazeera and Al Mayadeen. He writes in English, Gaelic, and French.
