[Nettime-bold] Refugee Crisis in Vermont!

["Ivo Skoric" <ivo@reporters.net>]

When Serbs in Bosnia first embraced on the policy, later labeled 
by the U.S. as 'ethnic cleansing', their first step was to register all 
non-Serb men of fighting age. Then, they rounded the up, threw 
them in concentration camps, or shot them. 

During the course of wars for Yugoslav succession, the 'policy' was 
with varied degree of success implemented by all parties to the 
conflict, creating vast number of refugees abroad (including in the 
U.S.) and displaced persons within the territories of the former 
Yugoslavia.

Now, the U.S. is having their first experience with internally 
displaced persons. Is the 'international community' going to appoint 
a High Representative to the U.S. to relieve the suffering people of 
the U.S. from their near-insane leadership?

Fearing the humiliating and potentially disastrous "Special 
Registration", as of January 20th, about 2000 Pakistanis fled US 
and sought refuge/asylum in Canada. 
(http://www.dawn.com/2003/01/21/top11.htm).

This is perhaps the first time in history that refugees are fleeing 
from the US. And Bush's U.S. is not handling it much better than 
Milosevic's Serbia handled the flight of Kosovo Albanians to 
Macedonia: Patrick Giantonio of Vermont Refugee Assistance 
reported that as of February 14, NY State Police and immigration 
agents had set up roadblocks near the Lacolle/Champlain port of 
entry to Canada on highway 87 north of Plattsburg. Is NATO going 
to bomb the U.S. for that?
 
Facing that obstacle, Pakistani refugees from the U.S. changed 
their path to their perceived safe haven of Canada: now they are 
trying to cross the border from Vermont. Canadian immigration 
officials, being overwhelmed with the number of refugees, are 
scheduling interview appointments with them in two weeks. 
Meanwhile the refugees are being returned to the U.S.

Those whose U.S. immigration papers are not completely 
satisfying, face deportation hearings following long detention 
periods. Others are temporarily given shelter at the local Salvation 
Army premises in Burlington, Vermont. Now the Salvation Army is 
fully booked and Vermont Refugee Assistance is currently asking 
for volunteers to offer shelter to those families! 

The U.S. and particularly Vermont is experiencing a refugee crisis. 
Those Pakistani families became what in Bosnia was called 
'internaly displaced persons' as a direct consequence of the Bush's 
war on Arab Muslims, which is mislabeled as the 'war on terror' in 
this country.

http://www.vermontindymedia.org/feature/display/294/index.php
http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/Northeast/02/12/immigrants.limbo.ap/
http://www.pagb.org/pagbweb/

Vermont Refugee Assistance  802-223-6840 or
vtrefuge@together.net

ivo

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