(The following article is from the July 1-31, 2008, issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers - $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 133 Herkimer St., Unit 502, Hamilton, ON, L8P 2H3.)

     On June 20, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez issued a blunt challenge to the European Union's new anti‑immigrant Return Directive. He promised that no Venezuelan oil would be sent to any European country that applies the directive, and that if any Latin American is locked up or deported under this directive, Venezuela would study what investments that country has in Venezuela and apply its own "return directive."

     Sitting next to Fernando Lugo, the progressive president‑elect of Paraguay who was visiting Caracas, he called on all Latin American governments, whether left or right, to take joint action against this shameful European regulation.

     Bolivia's Evo Morales had already raised the option of reciprocal action, and several other Latin American governments have expressed opposition.

     On June 18, the European Parliament voted by a large majority to adopt the "Return Directive" which was opposed by a broad range of progressive opinion in Europe. The text, previously adopted by EU Interior Ministers, includes an administrative detention period for "irregular" migrants of up to 18 months. This effectively criminalizes these migrants, who will be deprived of their freedom without having committed any crime.

     The directive foresees the possibility to detain and expel unaccompanied minors, to return migrants to transit countries, different from their home countries, plus the possibility of enforcing a re‑entry ban valid for the whole of Europe for up to 5 years. Many procedural guarantees and legal benefits for migrants wishing to appeal against a return decision have disappeared from the final text.

     The most penetrating critique of the Directive was issued several days earlier by Evo Morales:

     "Up until the end of the World War II, Europe was an emigrant continent. Tens of thousands of Europeans departed for the Americas to colonize, to escape hunger, the financial crisis, the wars or European totalitarianisms and the persecution of ethnic minorities...

     "Europeans arrived en masse to Latin and North America, without visas or conditions imposed on them by the authorities. They were simply welcomed, and continue to be, in our American continent, which absorbed at that time the European economic misery and political crisis. They came to our continent to exploit the natural wealth and to transfer it to Europe, with a high cost for the original populations in America. As is the case of our Cerro Rico de Potosi and its fabulous silver mines that gave monetary mass to the European continent from the 16th to the 19th centuries. The people, the wealth and the rights of the migrant Europeans were always respected.

     "Today, the European Union is the main destiny for immigrants around the world which is a consequence of its positive image of space and prosperity and public freedoms. The great majority of immigrants go to the EU to contribute to this prosperity, not to take advantage of it. They are employed in public works, construction, and in services to people in hospitals, which the Europeans cannot do or do not want. They contribute to the demographic dynamics of the European continent, maintaining the relationship between the employed and the retired which provides for the generous social security system and helps the dynamics of internal markets and social cohesion. The migrant offers a solution to demographic and financial problems in the EU.

     "For us, our emigrants represent help in development that Europeans do not give us - since few countries really reach the minimum objective of 0.7% of its GDP in development assistance. Latin America received, in 2006, remittance (monies sent back) totalling 68 billion dollars, or more than the total foreign investment in our countries. On the worldwide level it reached $300 billion, which is more than the $104 billion authorized for development assistance. My own country, Bolivia, received more than 10% of the GDP in remittance ($1.1 billion) or a third of our annual Exports of natural gas.

     "Unfortunately, the Return Directive project is an enormous complication to this reality. If we can conceive that each State or group of States can define their migratory policies in every sovereignty, we cannot accept that the fundamental rights of the people be denied to our compatriots and brother Latin‑Americans. The Return Directive foresees the possibility of jailing undocumented immigrants for up to 18 months before their expulsion - or "distancing", according to the terms of the directive. 18 months! Without a judgment or justice! As it stands today the project text of the directive clearly violates articles 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948.

     In particular, Article 13 of the Declaration states: 1) All persons have a right to move freely and to choose their residence in the territory of a State. 2) All persons have the right to leave any country, including their own, and to return to their country.

     And, the worst of all, the possibility exists for the mothers of families with minor children to be arrested ‑ without regards to the family and school situation ‑ in these internment centers where we know that depression, hunger strikes, and suicide happens. How can we accept without reacting that our compatriots and Latin American brothers without documents, of which the great majority have been working and integrating for years, are concentrated in camps. On what side is the duty of humanitarian action? Where is the `freedom of movement,' protection against arbitrary imprisonment?

     "On a parallel, the European Union is trying to convince the Andean Community nations (Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru) to sign an `Association Agreement' that includes the third pillar of the Free Trade Agreement, of the same nature and content as that imposed by the United States. We are under intense pressure from the European Commission to accept conditions of great liberalization of our trade, financial services, intellectual property rights and our public works. In addition under so called `judicial protection' we are being pressured about the nationalization of the water, gas and telecommunications that were done on the Worldwide Workers' Day. I ask, in that case, where is the `judicial protection' for our women, adolescents, children and workers who look for better horizons in Europe?

     "Under these conditions, if the Return Directive is passed, we will be ethically unable to deepen the negotiations with the European Union, and we reserve the right to legislate such that the European Citizens have the same obligations for visas that they impose on the Bolivians from the first of April 2007, according to the diplomatic principal of reciprocity. We have not exercised it up until now, precisely because we were awaiting good signs from the EU.

     "The world, its continents, its oceans and its poles know important global difficulties: global warming, contamination, the slow but sure disappearance of the energy resources and biodiversity while hunger and poverty increase in every country, debilitating our societies. To make migrants, whether they have documents or not, the scapegoats of these global problems, is not the solution. It does not meet any reality. The social cohesion problems that Europe is suffering from are not the fault of the migrants, rather the result of the model of development imposed by the North, which destroys the planet and dismembers human societies.

     "In the name of the people of Bolivia, of all of my brothers on the continent and regions of the world like the Maghreb and the countries of Africa, I appeal to the conscience of the European leaders and deputies, of the peoples, citizens and activists of Europe, for them not to approve the text of the Return Directive. As it is today, it is a directive of vengeance. I also call on the European Union to elaborate, over the next months, a migration policy that is respectful of human rights, which allows us to maintain this dynamics that is helpful to both continents and that repairs once and for all the tremendous historic debt, both economic and ecological that the European countries owe to a large part of the Third World, and to close once and for all the open veins of Latin America. They cannot fail today in their `policies of integration' as they have failed with their supposed `civilizing mission' from colonial times.

     "Receive all of you, authorities, Euro parliamentarians, brothers and sisters, fraternal greetings from Bolivia. And in particular our solidarity to all of the clandestinos."

     Evo Morales Ayma, President of the Republic of Bolivia