Weaponized migration

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"Refugees as weapons" is a term used to describe a hostile government organizing, or threatening to organize, a sudden influx of refugees into another country or political entity with the intent of causing political disturbances in that entity. [1] The responsible country (or sometimes a non-state actor) usually seeks to extract concessions from the targeted country and achieve some political, military, and/or economic objective. [2]

Contents

The United States military U.S. Army Center for Army Lessons Learned released a handbook entitled "Commander's Guide to Support Operations Among Weaponized Displaced Persons, Refugees, and Evacuees". The handbook provides a basic overview of considerations and methods of reaction should CBRN warfare be executed using dislocated civilians. [3]

Migration coercion

Migration coercion is the utilization, or threatens to utilize, migration as an instrument to induce behavioral changes, or to gain concessions from the receiving target. In 1966, Teitelbaum and Weiner stated that in foreign policy governments create mass migrations as a tool to achieve non migrant goals. [4]

An example during Afghanistan conflict (1978–present) is Soviet attempt to influence Pakistani decision-making by driving Afghans to seek asylum across the Durand Line. [5]

Operation Peter Pan & Rafter crisis

Cuban exiles fled from or left the island of Cuba after the Cuban Revolution of 1959.

Between November 1960 and October 1962, over 14,000 children were sent to the U.S. by their parents with Operation Peter Pan in response to the CIA and Cuban dissidents spreading rumors of a project by the castrist government to remove the parents' custody of their children to indoctrinate them. Authors John Scanlan and Gilburt Loescher note how the United States acceptance of Cuban emigrants after the 1959 Cuban Revolution was done in hopes they could help the United States forcibly remove the Fidel Castro government from Cuba. The acceptance of Cuban emigrants during the Freedom Flights was done in hopes of weakening the Cuban economy by draining it of workers. The United States also was generally able to paint a negative picture of Cuba by participating in the mass emigration of many who disliked Cuba and wished to flee the island. The Department of State painted Cuban emigrants in the 1960s as freedom-seeking refugees. The United States had lost its total aggressive foreign policy towards Cuba and instead viewed the island as a nuisance rather than a security threat after the Mariel boatlift. The Mariel boatlift was soon canceled after it was initiated and received little public American support. The 1994 Cuban rafter crisis was the emigration of more than 35,000 Cubans to the United States via makeshift rafts. In response to the crisis Bill Clinton would enact the Wet feet, dry feet policy where only Cuban rafters that make it to U.S. soil will be allowed to remain. The U.S. will also only approve 20,000 immigration visas a year for Cubans. [6]

Fidel Castro benefited from the exile because he was able to remove disloyalty by directly removing disloyal citizens from Cuba, which is #Migration Exportive.[ clarification needed ] [7] Fidel Castro after sending more than 100,000 Cuban migrants (including criminals and the mentally disabled) to Florida, coerced the United States into foreign policy concessions. [8]

Several cases or alleged cases

European migrant crisis basis for EU-Turkey Joint Action Plan and Valletta Summit on Migration which ended with an Emergency Trust Fund (EUR1.8 billion in aid and development assistance of EUR20 billion every year) to help development of African countries and to take back their migrants. Map of the European Migrant Crisis 2015.png
European migrant crisis basis for EU-Turkey Joint Action Plan and Valletta Summit on Migration which ended with an Emergency Trust Fund (€1.8 billion in aid and development assistance of €20 billion every year) to help development of African countries and to take back their migrants.

Second Libyan Civil War (2011)

During the 2011 Libyan civil war, Muammar Gaddafi threatened to "flood" the European Union with migrants if it continued supporting the protesters. [1]

Syrian Civil War

The Syrian Civil War is a multi-sided civil war in Syria fought between the Ba'athist Syrian Arab Republic led by President Bashar al-Assad, along with domestic and foreign allies, and various domestic and foreign forces opposing both the Syrian government and each other in varying combinations. NATO's four-star General in the United States Air Force commander in Europe stated on the issue of indiscriminate weapons used by Bashar al-Assad, and the non-precision use of weapons by the Russian forces - are the reason which cause refugees to be on the move. [11]

Together, Russia and the Assad regime are deliberately weaponizing migration in an attempt to overwhelm European structures and break European resolve. [11]

— Gen. Philip Breedlove to United States Senate Committee on Armed Services.

Iran

In Iran, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad expelled a number of displaced Afghans seeking refuge in Iran since 1979 to back to Afghanistan to stop United States operations (CIA). [12]

Great Lakes refugee crisis

The Great Lakes refugee crisis saw the exodus of over two million Rwandans to neighboring countries of the Great Lakes region of Africa. Many of the refugees were Hutu ethnics fleeing the predominantly Tutsi Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), which had gained control of the country at the end of the Rwandan genocide. [13] [14]

Reversal of this process is the repatriation of the refugees, which is the process of returning to their place of origin or citizenship. That happened after the First Congo War, when RPF-supported rebels invaded Zaire.

South Ossetia

The Russo-Georgian War was between Georgia, Russia and the Russian-backed self-proclaimed republics of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. The war took place in August 2008 following a period of worsening relations between Russia and Georgia, both formerly constituent republics of the Soviet Union. The fighting took place in the strategically important Transcaucasia region. Humanitarian impact of the Russo-Georgian War was devastating on the civilians. In the aftermath, ethnic Georgians were expelled from South Ossetia and most of the Georgian villages were razed. Ethnic cleansing of Georgians in South Ossetia was a mass expulsion of ethnic Georgians conducted in South Ossetia and other territories occupied by Russian and South Ossetian forces. According to the 2016 census conducted by the South Ossetian authorities, 3,966 ethnic Georgians remained in the breakaway territory, constituting 7% of the region's total population of 53,532. [15]

Russia is pushing for the international recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia (will be satellite states). Abkhazia and South Ossetia are disputed territories in the Caucasus. The central government of Georgia considers the republics under military occupation by Russia. They are partially recognized as independent states by Russia, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Nauru and Syria. Russia's initial recognition of the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia occurred in the aftermath of the Russo-Georgian War in 2008.

Hong Kong

83,000 Chinese with fake identities migrated to Hong Kong during transition from British to Chinese control, they served as Beijing's "invisible hand". [16]

Indonesia

In 2006 the Indonesian Army manipulated the voyage to Australia of 43 West Papuan asylum seekers in a secret psychological warfare operation. [17] between 2009 and 2013, more than 50,000 asylum seeker made their way to Australia by boat, with the help of Indonesian transporters and in 2017 it was discovered that Indonesian security forces provided security for immigrant smuggling operations. [18] In 2015 Indonesia minister warned Australia, Indonesia could release a “human tsunami” of 10,000 asylum seekers to Australia if Canberra continues to agitate for clemency for the death row pair on Bali Nine [19]

Turkey

In February 2016, Erdoğan threatened to send the millions of refugees in Turkey to EU member states, [20] saying: "We can open the doors to Greece and Bulgaria anytime and we can put the refugees on buses ... So how will you deal with refugees if you don't get a deal? Kill the refugees?" [21]

In November 2019, again Erdoğan threatened to send millions of refugees in Turkey to EU member states. [22] [23] [24] [25]

In late February 2020 migrants started to gather at the Greece–Turkey border after Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announced that he would no longer "block" refugees and migrants' "access to the border", and opened the border with Greece. [26] [27] Turkey's government was accused of pushing refugees into Europe for political and monetary gain. [28]

Belarus (2021–present)

President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko has been accused by Germany and the European Union of weaponising the flow of Middle Eastern refugees into Poland, as revenge for European Union sanctions against his government. [29] [30]

Russia (2023–present)

Since 2023, The Finnish government has also accused Russia of deliberately using refugees as weapons as part of its hybrid warfare strategy. [31]

Further reading

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">International Organization for Migration</span> Intergovernmental organization

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) is a United Nations related organization working in the field of migration. The organization implements operational assistance programmes for migrants, including internally displaced persons, refugees, and migrant workers.

Non-refoulement is a fundamental principle of international law anchored in the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees that forbids a country from deporting any person to any country in which their "life or freedom would be threatened" on account of "race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion". The only exception to non-refoulement according to Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees are "reasonable grounds" of "danger to the security of the country" or "danger to the community of that country". Unlike political asylum, which applies only to those who can prove a well-grounded fear of political persecution, non-refoulement refers to the generic deportation of people, including refugees into war zones and other disaster locales.

Illegal immigration is the migration of people into a country in violation of that country's immigration laws, or the continuous residence in a country without the legal right to do so. Illegal immigration tends to be financially upward, from poorer to richer countries. Illegal residence in another country creates the risk of detention, deportation, and other imposed sanctions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">International Catholic Migration Commission</span> International non-governmental organization

The International Catholic Migration Commission (ICMC) is an international organization that serves and protects uprooted people, including migrants, refugees, and internally displaced people, regardless of faith, race, ethnicity or nationality. With staff and programs in over 40 countries, ICMC advocates for sustainable solutions and rights-based policies directly and through a worldwide network of 132 member organizations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">International recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia</span>

Abkhazia and South Ossetia are separatist regions of Georgia in the Caucasus. Most countries recognise them as part of Georgia, while Russia, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Nauru, and Syria regard them as independent. Russia's initial recognition of the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia occurred in the aftermath of the Russo-Georgian War in 2008. The government of Georgia considers the republics to be Russian-occupied territories.

The Sochi agreement was a ceasefire agreement ostensibly marking the end of both the Georgian–Ossetian and Georgian–Abkhazian conflicts, signed in Sochi on June 24, 1992 between Georgia and Russia, the ceasefire with Abkhazia on July 27, 1993.

Turkish Afghans are citizens of Turkey and non-citizen residents born in or with ancestors from Afghanistan. This group is part of the larger Afghan diaspora around the world. According to latest reports, there are around 129,323 Afghan refugees and asylum seekers in Turkey. The government of Turkey claims that the total Afghan population in its country is around 300,000. At the same time others have mentioned a total of 420,000. This number likely includes citizens, legal residents, visitors, and the aforementioned refugees and asylum seekers. The reason for the different numbers is that there is no proper way to count undocumented foreign nationals in a country.

Refugees of the Syrian civil war are citizens and permanent residents of Syria who fled the country in the course of the Syrian civil war. The pre-war population of the Syrian Arab Republic was estimated at 22 million (2017), including permanent residents. Of that number, the United Nations (UN) identified 13.5 million (2016) as displaced persons in need of humanitarian assistance. Since the start of the Syrian civil war in 2011 more than six million (2016) were internally displaced, and around five million (2016) crossed into other countries, seeking asylum or placement in Syrian refugee camps. It is believed to be one of the world's largest refugee crises.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Russian-occupied territories in Georgia</span> Georgian territories occupied by separatist and Russian forces

Russian-occupied territories in Georgia are areas of Georgia that have been occupied by Russia since the Russo-Georgian War in 2008. They consist of the regions of the Autonomous Republic of Abkhazia and the former South Ossetian Autonomous Region of Soviet Georgia, whose status is a matter of international dispute.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2015 European migrant crisis</span> 2010s refugee crisis in the European Union

The 2015 European migrant crisis was a period of significantly increased movement of refugees and migrants into Europe, namely from the Middle East. An estimated 1.3 million people came to the continent to request asylum, the most in a single year since World War II. They were mostly Syrians, but also included a significant number of people from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Nigeria, Eritrea, and the Balkans. The increase in asylum seekers has been attributed to factors such as the escalation of various wars in the Middle East and ISIL's territorial and military dominance in the region due to the Arab Winter, as well as Lebanon, Jordan, and Egypt ceasing to accept Syrian asylum seekers.

A refugee crisis can refer to difficulties and dangerous situations in the reception of large groups of forcibly displaced persons. These could be either internally displaced, refugees, asylum seekers or any other huge groups of migrants.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Timeline of the 2015 European migrant crisis</span>

This is a timeline of the European migrant crisis of 2015 and 2016.

Refugees in Poland were, until 2022, a relatively small group. Since 1989, the number of people applying for refugee status in Poland has risen from about 1,000 to 10,000 each year; about 1–2% of the applications were approved. The majority of applications were citizens of the former Soviet Union.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Greece–Turkey border</span> International border

The Greece–Turkey border is around 200 kilometres (120 mi) long, and separates Western Thrace in Greece from East Thrace in Turkey.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Turkish migrant crisis</span> Migrant crisis experienced by the Republic of Turkey in the 2010s

The Turkish migrant crisis, sometimes referred to as the Turkish refugee crisis, was a period during the 2010s characterised by a high number of people migrating to Turkey. Turkey received the highest number of registered refugees of any country or territory each year from 2014 to 2019, and had the world's largest refugee population according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). The majority were refugees of the Syrian Civil War, numbering 3.6 million as of June 2020. In 2018, the UNHCR reported that Turkey hosted 63.4% of all "registered Syrian refugees."

The migration and asylum policy of the European Union is within the area of freedom, security and justice, established to develop and harmonise principles and measures used by member countries of the European Union to regulate migration processes and to manage issues concerning asylum and refugee status in the European Union.

The following is a timeline of the Syrian Civil War from September–December 2019. Information about aggregated casualty counts is found at Casualties of the Syrian Civil War.

Since at least 2008, Greece has pushed back tens of thousands of migrants, especially at the Evros border with Turkey and in the Aegean Sea. On land, the pushbacks involve taking people who have arrived at the Greek side of the border and transferring them to the Turkish side; most cases involve some form of abuse. Maritime pushbacks typically involve taking migrants who have either entered Greek territorial waters or landed on Greek islands and depositing them in Turkish territorial waters on craft without any means of propulsion. The number of pushbacks has increased following the European migrant crisis and breakdown in EU–Turkey relations in 2020. This incident occurred as a result of Turkey ceasing to prevent migrants from leaving for the European Union in February 2020, and in some instances actively encouraging them.

Externalization describes the efforts of wealthy, developed countries to prevent asylum seekers and other migrants from reaching their borders, often by enlisting third countries or private entities. Externalization is used by Australia, Canada, the United States, the European Union and the United Kingdom. Although less visible than physical barriers at international borders, externalization controls or restricts mobility in ways that are out of sight and far from the country's border. Examples include visa restrictions, sanctions for carriers that transport asylum seekers, and agreements with source and transit countries. Consequences often include increased irregular migration, human smuggling, and border deaths.

References

  1. 1 2 Greenhill, Kelly (21 April 2011). "Using Refugees as Weapons". The New York Times . Retrieved 20 August 2019.
  2. ↑ Steger, Nathan D. (2017). THE WEAPONIZATION OF MIGRATION: EXAMINING MIGRATION AS A 21st CENTURY TOOL OF POLITICAL WARFARE (PDF). MONTEREY, CALIFORNIA: NAVAL POSTGRADUATE SCHOOL. p. 6. Archived (PDF) from the original on March 31, 2019. Retrieved 20 August 2019.
  3. ↑ Department of the Army, Commander's Guide to Support Operations Among Weaponized Displaced Persons, Refugees, and Evacuees, Center for Army Lessons Learned, 14 no. 10 (August 2014): 3-8
  4. ↑ Thomas Schelling, 1966, "Arms and Influence" New Haven, CT: Yale Univ. Press, page 4
  5. ↑ Myron Weiner, "Security, Stability, and International Migration," International Security The MIT Press Volume 17, Number 3, Winter 1992 page 101.
  6. ↑ Santiago, Fabiola (16 Aug 2016). "A revisit to the Cuban Balsero crisis and the people who found freedom in America". Miami Herald. Retrieved 21 July 2019.
  7. ↑ Scanlan, John; Loescher, John (1983). "U. S. Foreign Policy, 1959-80: Impact on Refugee Flow from Cuba". The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. 467. Sage Publications: 116–137. doi:10.1177/0002716283467001009. JSTOR   1044932. S2CID   145239730.
  8. ↑ Kelly Greenhill, 2010, Weapons of Mass Migration, Cornell Univ. Press, Ithaca, NY), 89–106
  9. ↑ "Asylum quarterly report – Statistics Explained". ec.europa.eu.
  10. ↑ Grech, Herman (12 November 2015). "Live commentary: Valletta summit – the final day". Times of Malta . Retrieved 12 November 2015.
  11. 1 2 Staff (2 March 2016). "NATO Commander: Russia uses Syrian refugees as 'weapon' against West". Deutsche Welle. Retrieved 20 August 2019.
  12. ↑ Ahmad Majidyar, 2010, "Iranian Influence in Afghanistan: Refugees as Political Instruments," AEI Middle Eastern Outlook, 5: 1.
  13. ↑ "The Rwandan Genocide - Facts & Summary - HISTORY.com". HISTORY.com. Archived from the original on 2016-03-25. Retrieved 2016-03-26.
  14. ↑ Greenhill, Kelly M. (March 2008). "Strategic Engineered Migration as a Weapon of War". Civil Wars. 10 (1): 9.
  15. ↑ Svanidze, Tamar (12 August 2016). "South Ossetian Authorities Release Results of 1st Census in 26 Years". Georgia Today. Retrieved 31 December 2017.
  16. ↑ Yin Qian, "Beijing's Fifth Column and the Transfer of Power in Hong Kong: 1983–1997", in Hong Kong in Transition, ed. Robert Ash (Basingstoke: Palgrave McMillan, 2000), 113–129.
  17. ↑ "Indonesian strategy 'defeats' Australia". www.theage.com.au. 13 August 2006.
  18. ↑ "De-demonising 'people smuggling' between Indonesia and Australia". www.IIAS.asia.
  19. ↑ "Indonesia 'could release human tsunami of 10,000 asylum seekers on Australia'". TheGuardian.com . 10 March 2015.
  20. ↑ "Erdogan to EU: 'We're not idiots', threatens to send refugees". EUobserver. 11 February 2016. Archived from the original on 2 June 2016. Retrieved 30 April 2016.
  21. ↑ "Turkey's Erdogan threatened to flood Europe with migrants: Greek website". Reuters. 8 February 2016. Archived from the original on 26 June 2017. Retrieved 1 July 2017.
  22. ↑
  23. ↑
  24. ↑
  25. ↑
  26. ↑ Aris Roussinos (3 April 2020). "What the Hell Is Happening With Migrants in Greece?".
  27. ↑ "News Over 13,000 migrants gather on Turkey-Greece border". Deutsche Welle. 29 February 2020.
  28. ↑ Seth J. Frantzman (15 March 2020). "Turkey cynically pushes migrants toward coronavirus-hit Europe". Jerusalem Post.
  29. ↑ Delfs, Arne (20 October 2021). "Germany Accuses Belarus Government of Weaponizing Refugees". Bloomberg. Retrieved 16 November 2021.
  30. ↑ Gera, Vanessa; Scislowska, Monika; Moulson, Geir (10 November 2021). "EU accuses Belarus of 'trafficking' migrants toward border". Associated Press. Retrieved 16 November 2021.
  31. ↑ Tanner, Jari; Gera, Vanessa. "Why Finland is blaming Russia for a sudden influx of migrants on its eastern border". Associated Press . Archived from the original on 2023-11-25. Retrieved 2023-11-25. Finnish Foreign Minister Valtonen told the AP that there is no doubt that Russia "is instrumentalizing migrants" as part of its "hybrid warfare" against Finland
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