RPT: REVIEW - EU Members Slam Croatia For Tough Policy Toward Migrants Following Brutality Reports

BRUSSELS (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 16th June, 2020) Croatia, which is a forefront state in the resurging arrival of undocumented migrants, has long been accused of mistreating people trying to illegally get into the country, mainly via Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro and Serbia, though successive Croatian governments have always denied the allegations, proffered by Amnesty International and other NGOs promoting the welcome of migrants.

When the coronavirus pandemic broke out, Croatia closed all borders, including inside the European Union. Now that the borders are reopening, Croatia, which is in the EU but not yet a member of the Schengen zone, has been the first country to welcome European tourists from 10 member states starting May 28, without imposing any special restrictions. On Monday, Croatia reopened borders for the rest of the EU members.

Despite reopening borders and welcoming tourists and other people arriving in the country, there is a dark side to the presence of foreigners in Croatia. Migrants pay a sum of 300 to 700 Euros ($340-800) for the illegal crossing of the Croatian border, pretend that they are beaten and robbed by border guards if they are caught during their attempts to enter the country, before being pushed back to Bosnia and Herzegovina, mainly in the region of the frontier city of Bihac.

Back in 2019, former Croatian President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic held a press conference at the country's border in the wake of media reports on police brutality against migrants. The leader told journalists not to believe allegations on mistreating migrants by Croatian border guards, explaining that these people were attempting to enter Croatia illegally through rough terrain, where they could easily get scratched and hurt themselves.

REPEATED INSIDENTS OF ALL KINDS IN BALKAN TINDER-BOX

There have been numerous reports about violent incidents on the Croatian border, including an incident in which a migrant was shot by police, as well as situations with the elements of humiliation and torture. The latest border incident that took place on May 26 when a group of migrants from Pakistan and Afghanistan was stopped by border patrol has been described at length by NGO workers helping migrants.

According to The Guardian newspaper, citing the Danish Refugee Council, which provides health care for migrants in Bosnia, 11 Pakistani and five Afghan young men were stopped by border patrol, wearing black uniforms and balaclavas in Plitvice Lakes, quite far inside Croatia from the Bosnian border. The migrants were tied around a tree, so their wrists were bound and they had to turn their faces toward the trees, after which the patrol fired several shots in the air with guns placed close to the ears of the Pakistani and Afghan people. The migrants were then taken to the border at the village of Siljkovaca.

Apart from that, last week, Amnesty International reported what it says is "fresh evidence of police abuse and torture of migrants" by Croatian police at the border with Bosnia. According to the human rights watchdog, the group of migrants was first brutally beaten with "metal sticks, batons and pistol grips" and then "tortured by officers who mocked their injuries." The officers, in particular, purportedly "rubbed ketchup, mayonnaise and sugar that they found in one of the backpacks on migrants' bleeding heads and hair and their trousers."

In a press release, issued in response to Amnesty International's report, the Croatian ministry rebuffed the allegations, saying that "unsubstantiated" allegations of abuse of migrants have become an "established practice." Meanwhile, Croatian police assert that the campaign to defame their employees is an attempt to "distract attention from clashes between migrants in neighboring Bosnia and Herzegovina," which have reportedly led to the deaths of several people in late May.

The situation in the migrants' camps in Bosnia, where Bosnian police fears being overwhelmed by the influx of migrants, is, in fact, difficult. For example, a violent fight broke out on Saturday evening, in the Miral camp in the northwestern city of Velika Kladusa between two large groups of refugees. A camp resident was badly injured with a stabbing weapon and was transferred to the cantonal hospital with a life-threatening diagnosis. The Bosnian police arrested the person suspected of having carried out the blows.

The former president of Croatia, Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic, pursued rather conservative policies providing strong support for law and order, as well as for the country's police and border guards. The ex-leader wanted to establish good relations with Austria � which closed its border tightly with Croatia and filters all incoming visitors � and Germany, which are the destinations of all migrants taking the Balkan route, coming from Turkey.

Meanwhile, incumbent Croatian President Zoran Milanovic, who took office in January 2020, launched a new policy that will certainly envisage a more flexible attitude at the borders, and less tough instructions regarding undocumented migrants.

"The former Croatian government applied policies very close to that of Hungary that has sealed its borders with the Balkans, including Croatia. They do not want illegal economic migrants to get into the country, and to reach leftist NGOs whose main aim is to help the illegals start a procedure asking for asylum," Pierre Henrot, a retired high-ranking Belgian officer and a former UN peace observer at the border between Croatia and Bosnia, told Sputnik.

According to the expert, only a few undocumented migrants are war refugees from Syria, while most of them are economic migrants from as far as Pakistan. The fact that they are Muslims sets the Croatian border guards � staunchly Christians � against them, especially after the civil war that tore Yugoslavia apart.

"The former Yugoslavia went through a terrible civil war, with each community committing atrocities. So the police or border guards in the region are still marked by those awful fightings. The border guards are not very nice and kind as they would be on the German or French border," Henrot added.

The ex-peace observer believes that Croatia wants to stop undocumented migrants at the border and expel them immediately, to prevent them from entering the asylum process, as after the process is launched it gets difficult to expel them even if they are denied the right to asylum.

"These migrants are not better off in Bosnia [and] Herzegovina, where the squalid conditions in the camps only entice them to try and reach the aim of their quest: Germany or Western Europe," Henrot concluded.

CROATIA IN DENIAL AND EUROPE ILL AT EASE

Brutality against migrants at the southern and eastern borders of Croatia is denied by the government, which is now holding the six-month rotating presidency of the EU. Given that a scandal involving undocumented migrants would seriously tarnish the Croatian presidency, Zagreb is trying to keep the lid tight on the issue.

The European Commission is also ill at ease with the issue. Brussels is afraid of seeing a new flare-up of anti-migrant and populist attitudes in Europe and does not want the presidency of Croatia tarnished, neither does it want to hamper the accession of Croatia to the Schengen zone.

In 2018, the European Commission had established a supervisory mechanism to ensure "the humane treatment of migrants at the border," which was a condition of a 6.8 million euros injection to strengthen Croatia's borders with non-EU countries. The mechanism was set to "ensure that all measures applied at the EU external borders are proportionate and are in full compliance with fundamental rights and EU asylum laws."

In 2019, several Croatian ministers claimed that the funds had been handed over to the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) and the Croatian Law Center to establish the supervisory mechanism. But both organizations deny receiving the money, saying they have dealt with the issue using their own funds.

Clare Daly, an Irish member of the European Parliament, who took the issue to heart, has questioned the European Commission and obtained email exchanges between European civil servants that could indicate that the EU body had the intention of doctoring the report. According to The Guardian, citing internal emails of the EU governing body on Monday, the EU officials decided against a full disclosure of Zagreb's lack of commitment to a monitoring scheme agreed by EU ministers to fund with bloc's funds.

A European Commission official warned a colleague from the Croatian government in an email in January that in the light of numerous reports about border police brutality toward migrants, the Croatian government's failure to use the money previously earmarked for the border police "will for sure be seen as a 'scandal,'" the news outlet said, citing the email.

Responding to the allegations, a spokesman for the European Commission told the media outlet that the information on Croatian border police brutality had been withheld from members of the European Parliament since it was believed to have been "incomplete." The official added that the European Commission was committed to establishing a fully independent border monitoring mechanism and cautioned "against drawing misleading conclusions from reading the internal email exchanges in isolation."

Jochen Haug, the Federal executive board member of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, told Sputnik that in view of the recent increase in illegal border crossings on the Hungarian southern border with Serbia, Croatia and Romania, border protection measures should not only take place temporarily.

"Illegal migration and asylum abuse are daily reality. Germany must reach agreements at European level that aim to ensure that nation states have their borders in a sovereign and permanent manner," Haug said.

Meanwhile, Pierre Vercauteren, a professor at the Catholic University of Louvain-Mons in Brussels, told Sputnik that Europe like Croatia would probably "play the watch" on this issue of the immediate expulsion of undocumented migrants, "even if the EU has somehow to sit down on asylum principles."

"The European Commission must remain in its role as guarantor of the treaties, of course, but it has an enormous amount of work to do with the end of the pandemic, the recovery plan and the budget review. This is their priority, not Croatia," Vercauteren said.

In addition, according to the professor, several states such as Austria or Germany, though they do not announce it, are satisfied with Croatia's firm policy on the external borders of the EU, as it reduces the flow of migrants arriving by the Balkan route.