Time to end the EU's left-to-die policy
<
http://www.opendemocracy.net/author/charles-heller> CHARLES HELLER and
<
http://www.opendemocracy.net/author/lorenzo-pezzani> LORENZO PEZZANI
25 June 2014
Researchers participating in the reconstruction of the 2011 "Left-to-die
boat" case in which 63 migrants lost their life under NATO's eyes, summarize
three years of inconclusive demands for disclosure and justice. As the
European Council addresses the EU's long-term migration policy, they say
deaths of migrants at sea will continue short of ending the EU's policy of
closure towards non-European migrants.
Two years ago, we published
<
http://www.forensic-architecture.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/FO-report.p
df> a report on what came to be known as the "left-to-die" boat case.
Co-authored with the architectural office SITU Studio, the report used
imaging, mapping, and modelling technologies in order to produce a
<
http://www.forensic-architecture.org/case/left-die-boat/#toggle-id-2>
visual and spatial picture of how, in March 2011, sixty-three migrants lost
their lives in the Central Mediterranean while attempting to reach the small
Italian island of Lampedusa from the coast of Libya.
The passengers of the "left-to-die" boat were amongst the over 27,000 people
who fled Libya towards European shores (
<
http://www.unhcr.org/4e0201a09.html> over 1,000,000 people fled to
neighbouring countries in North Africa) after the beginning of the uprising
against Gaddafi and the following international military intervention. These
crossings occurred in particularly precarious conditions - with the Gaddafi
regime playing an active role in forcing migrants onto boats without regard
for even the minimal safety measures. As a result, over
<
http://www.unhcr.org/4f27e01f9.html> 1.500 deaths were recorded among them,
one of the all-time highs. These deaths however occurred at a time when the
militarization and surveillance of the EU's maritime frontier was at its
apex. The usual assets of national border police from both sides of the
Mediterranean, were reinforced by over forty military ships and many patrol
aircrafts deployed by western states off the Libyan coast in support of the
NATO-led international military intervention. This placed these deaths
squarely in the most highly surveyed waters in the entire world, and there
were strong indications that military forces were
<
http://www.gisti.org/spip.php?article2304> failing in their obligation to
rescue migrants in distress, despite possessing the requisite means of
surveillance to witness their plight.
The initial testimonies of the nine survivors of the "left-to-die" boat case
provided a devastating indictment of this deadly inaction: they claimed that
they were left to drift for 14 days in the area monitored by NATO, despite
sending a distress call as well as encountering at least one military
helicopter and a military ship. With the aim of identifying direct
responsibility for these deaths, a loosely associated network of
<
http://www.hrw.org/news/2012/03/26/nato-clarify-response-deaths-sea>
journalists, NGOs and institutions such as the
<
http://assembly.coe.int/ASP/Doc/XrefViewPDF.asp?FileID=18234&Language=EN>
Council of Europe launched parallel investigations on the case.
In support of this endeavour, our report corroborated the survivors
testimonies with a wide range of digital mapping and remote sensing
technologies - from drift modelling to determine the trajectory of the
drifting migrants' boat to satellite radar imagery to detect military
vessels in proximity.
As narrated in the video animation that we release today, by using
surveillance technologies against the grain, we were able to read the traces
left on the surface of the sea. Turning the ocean itself into a witness for
interrogation, we reconstructed and mapped as accurately as possible what
happened to this vessel.
Watch the Video below:
<
http://vimeo.com/89790770>
http://vimeo.com/89790770
Liquid Traces: The Left-to-Die Boat Case, Charles Heller and Lorenzo
Pezzani, 17 min, 2014. Animation produced for the exhibition
<
http://www.hkw.de/en/programm/projekte/2014/forensis/start_forensis.php>
"Forensis",.....
........Read it in PDF below.......
Received on Wed Jun 25 2014 - 17:49:49 EDT