Turkish Forum

Category: Bulgaria

  • AMERICAN BOYZ N THE HOOD

    AMERICAN BOYZ N THE HOOD

    Turkish Soldiers Hooded by America Sulaymaniyah, Iraq. 4 July 2003
    Turkish Soldiers Hooded by America
    Sulaymaniyah, Iraq. 4 July 2003

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    Istanbul: 13 November 2014

    Yesterday, three sailors from the uncontrollably violent neighborhood called America met the true face of Turkey. Poor boys, they don’t even know what they represent. They don’t even know that their so-called leaders have made them punching bags for its criminal enterprise called American imperialism. They don’t even know how America and its treasonous internal agents, in particular the Turkish government, are attempting to destroy the future of the Turkish youth.

    Perhaps these American boys got a quick lesson in the true nature of Turkish-American relations yesterday? But, sadly, probably not. The American boys ran back to the false safety of their warship, re-entering their “safe” world of imperialist propaganda, economic excess and hypocrisy. But there is no safety anywhere any longer. That is the gift of America to Turkey, and to the world. As usual, America authorities and its treacherous collaborating Turkish puppets screamed in outrage. And, as usual, the youth of Turkey, the true defenders of the Republic of Turkey, went to jail for exercising their patriotic duty. Nothing has changed, except one thing. Turkish young people, the nation’s true patriotic voice, will not take American crap anymore. And America should understand that. Listen and learn, America. You owe it to your own youth. Think of it this way, think of it as a symbol.

    That’s the way the resident American-imposed agent of destruction, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, thought about his hooding of Turkish women into a grotesque series of Middle Age costumes that squeeze feminine brains into numb submission. So what, declared the then prime minister, if the head scarf is a political symbol? So what, indeed! Erdoğan used his compliant covered women to destroy democracy in his own country. He and his collaborators hid behind their women’s headscarves to do America’s dirty work. And now they cannot safely visit any neighborhood in their own land. No “hood” is safe for the hoodlums. And now the new president hides in a billion-dollar illegal palace, his inadvertent monument to treason. So what if he and his ilk cannot appear in public! So what!

    So what if in 1980 the American president celebrated the success of his CIA-engineered military coup by proclaiming “Our boys did it!” Yes, then his gangster BOYZ did it. And yesterday, today’s Turkish youth remembered. And yesterday, our Turkish boys did it to America, symbolically, of course, because Turkish youth is civilized. They can be no other way; they are the current-day “soldiers of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.” This is something that the treacherous opposition political polities can neither say nor understand. Yes, Turkish young people are civilized and enlightened by the patriotic principles of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. That’s why, yesterday, no one, neither American boy nor Turkish boy was hurt. No one was tortured. No one was hung. No one was shot, exploded, beaten, gassed, or otherwise maimed. And that’s a lot more than America can ever say about their overt and covert interventions in Turkey’s affairs.

    So what if America and its craven ambassador, Francis Ricciardone, aided and abetted the Turkish government in its beating, gassing, maiming and murdering of democratically assembled Gezi Park protestors. “The Turkish government is having a conversation with its people,” said the deceitful ambassador, as he arranged to have more poisonous gas sold to Erdoğan and his hoodlum police. A “conversation?” So what!

    So what if the same ambassador conspired with the main opposition party leader to assure the election of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to the presidency!

    So what if yesterday the American boys’ heads momentarily felt the experience of being symbolically hooded! Symbolically hooded, not actually hung like so many patriotic Turkish young people have been. And by their own government! The Turkish people have been strangled and hooded by America, by its CIA meddlers and by its corrupt politicians for decades. And in the past decade of Erdoğan’s treacherous rule, America’s CIA “boys” have done it again. Or tried to.

    So what if America has used its youth to kill hundreds of thousands of Iraqis in its deceitful, illegal war of aggression!

    So what if America has humiliated the Turkish military by hooding its soldiers in Iraq in July 2003!

    So what if America has conspired with Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Jordan to kill hundreds of thousands of Syrians in its deceitful pretext of bringing democracy!

    So what if America has supported the treasonous, under-educated, Islamic zealot, CIA-asset, Fethullah Gulen for decades in the Pennsylvania countryside!

    So what if Gulen and Erdoğan have collaborated for decades in treacherous union to do America’s bidding in the subversion of the Turkish Republic! So what if the Turkish Army has been destroyed! So what if the independence of the Turkish judiciary has collapsed! So what if rivers have been stopped, farmers’ fields uprooted, forests felled, eternal olive trees murdered, lakes polluted, mountains plundered, the air made poisonous, all in pursuit of private profit, all indicative of massive governmental corruption! So what if the government has looted public funds! So what if the Turkish mass media slithers like a reptile on its overstuffed belly doing the bidding of its governmental master! So what if Turkey stinks from America’s subversion like a rotting corpse in the noonday sun!

    Yes, SO WHAT?

    Yesterday, clearly, directly, in a street-theater performance, Turkish “boyz” encountered American “boyz” in the Turkish “hood.” The US embassy in Turkey called the incident “appalling.” What is appalling is the embassy’s ignorance and arrogance. What is appalling is the criminal behavior of its criminal boss, the president of the United States. It is he and Erdoğan and all their co-conspirators, all the ones who need protection by regiments of armed-to-the-teeth goons, who deserve to be hooded. And now they can never step foot in our hood, ever again. Not ever! That’s the message from yesterday. Take your warships and your political puppets and go!

    James C. Ryan

    Istanbul

    13 November 2014

  • WE ARE WITNESSING THE DISASTER

    WE ARE WITNESSING THE DISASTER

    JR

     

    13 October 2014
    Istanbul

    Aydinlik Daily correspondent Mustafa Birol made an interview with former US Army officer and columnist James Ryan concerning his criminal complaint towards the governments of United States, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, France, Great Britain, Jordan and Romania regarding violations of Article 7 and 8 of the Rome Statute.


    Mustafa Birol:
    I talked to James Ryan, a graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point and also a columnist in Aydinlik Daily, concerning his criminal complaint entitled “Criminal Carnage in Syria by the Criminal Cabal for Perpetual War” towards 12 countries including the US and Turkey to the International Criminal Court regarding violations of Article 7 and 8 of the Rome Statute which deal with war crimes and the crime of aggression.



    — You have very recently made a criminal complaint against 11 countries including the USA and Turkey for alleged infringements of Articles 7 and 8 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. Your criminal complaint constitutes a detailed summary of the war crimes conducted by the countries which can be defined as the anti-Syria coalition. Can you please tell me about the process which prompted you to make the criminal complaint and also the political developments that shaped your application?

    Just living is a process, and not an easy one. The seeds for my filing this Complaint came from living in a foreign land, in my case, Turkey. Living abroad is the best way to see one’s native country as a foreign land. It’s called objectivity. I am a graduate of West Point, the United States Military Academy. It has an honor code—cadets will not lie, cheat or steal. And they are bound by honor to report themselves if they do. They face expulsion for an infraction. That moral behavior is intended to last long after graduation. A deceitful military officer is a danger to all. 

    In 2006, there was great concern that the illegality of Bush’s attack on Iraq could lead to war crimes charges being made against US military personnel. I and two other classmates began an organization called West Point Graduates Against the War ). We were appalled by the deceitful, murderous behavior of the government of the United States. The commander-in-chief of the military, George W. Bush, was a liar. And we had hundreds of fellow graduates who agreed and joined the organization. And so we come to today to the horrors in Syria and the awful truth about America and its criminal accomplices.  

    The political developments can be described by two words—greed and immorality. For oil, for power, for new markets, for post-bombing reconstruction contracts, anything and everything to do with money. America and its criminal accomplices live by the rule of the jungle, demonizing all who stand in their way, the latest target being Bashar al-Assad, president of Syria. Syria is a secular, culturally diverse, religion-tolerant country, something America should surely encourage. It is bewildering to me that America is so intent on destroying all the secular nations in this region, including its long-lasting, and apparently successful project in Turkey. Although they finally seem to have awakened from their thirty-four year sleep since the 1980 military coup.   

    — If we consider that the USA, Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia are not State Party signatories to the Rome Statute, do you still have hopes that your complaint will be examined carefully and result in a fair verdict?

    Absolutely. The USA, Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia are within the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court because their crime of aggression and war crimes against sovereign Syria were planned, prepared and initiated on, in and over those nations who are State party signatories. And Jordan, Belgium, Croatia, Bulgaria, France, Great Britain and Romania ARE signatories. No guns, no war, and most of the guns came from Turkey via Libya and an array of European “donors.” Such generosity… to displace three million Syrians, kill hundreds of thousands and bathe the sovereign nation in blood. 

    Think of it this way—the weapons and ammunition for the mercenaries didn’t rain from the heavens.  When Ilyushin 76 Jordanian transports flying under Jordanian military call signs leave Pleso Airport in Croatia and land in Esenboğa Airport in Ankara, when Qatari air force C-17s make 36 roundtrips between Amman and Zagreb, Croatia, when Qatari and Saudi Arabian C-130s make 30 roundtrips between Zagreb and Ankara…Are they hauling baklava and simit? No, they are hauling the stuff of war crimes and aggression. The evidence is overwhelming. And the law is clear.

    Jordan has even given its territory to terrorist training camps run by the intelligence agencies of the United States, France, Great Britain and itself. This is in clear violation of Article 8(e), Crime of Aggression. What national leader gave the order to do this? Hopefully, we shall find out in court. 

    None of these countries live by the rule of international law, even those who signed the Rome Statute pledging their word to abide by its provisions. Jordan is a particularly hypocritical example. And those who did not sign? They think they are exempt. But they are not. The reason for including Jordan and the others is because they DID sign the Rome Statute. And Article 12(2)(a) and (b) are quite clear. And for this reason the four non-signatory nations should fall under the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court. Their crimes are ICC statutory crimes. Therefore under Rome Statute Article 12(2)(a) the Court has jurisdiction to prosecute them because their crimes were committed on, in and over ICC member states. Jordan and its fellow signers of the Rome Statute provide the jurisdictional legal leverage to get to the principal criminals, what I call the Criminal Cabal for Perpetual War, that is the US, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Jordan.

    One of the beautiful things about the law is its respect for and emphasis on language. One word emphasized by the International Criminal Court is “impunity,” that is, “to be free of punishment. 

    According to the Court, those perpetrators that commit grave crimes that threaten the peace and security of the world must not go unpunished. The preamble to the Rome Statute says it clearly, that the Court is “determined to put an end to impunity for the perpetrators of these crimes and thus contribute to the prevention of such crimes.”

    So I say, let justice begin with these eleven nations and its so-called leaders and their lamentably vicious advisors. The names are in my Complaint. Interested readers can see the entire document on my website, Brightening Glance. 

    Finally, I have utmost confidence in the International Criminal Court. It is the last, best hope for peace and, importantly, to guarantee a lasting respect for international law and its enforcement. Without that, we have nothing.

     

    — What do you think are the major strategic and financial goals of the US, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Jordan, the nations most responsible for the crimes committed in your criminal complaint, on the path of developing such a covert war against Syria?

    There is a nonsensical idea called Full Spectrum Dominance that the US military came up with a few years ago combined with the neo-con hallucination called the Project for the New American Century. It’s a two-headed monster that says America knows best and the world will understand, sooner or later, or else. And so this war-driven, financial machine has been grinding away at humanity, aided and abetted by the subversive help of its collaborating allies. The primary, motivating force for these disastrous policies is the sublimely arrogant and illogical idea that somehow, some way, America is “exceptional.” Obama loves to profess how much he believes in American “exceptionalism.” This is an historical extension of “winning” World War II and dropping the atomic bomb on two defenseless Japanese cities to get Russia’s attention. Thus the Cold War began. And as the world knows, Ronald Reagan won the Cold War and America has lived happily since. Setting this nonsense aside, there is a tremendous similarity between the powerful American forces of that era and those of today. One of Eisenhower’s last acts as president was to warn of the dangers of the Military-Industrial Complex. He was solidly ignored, except by one man, the man who succeeded him as president. Today, Eisenhower’s warning could be called the Military-Globalization Complex. These seem to be the deep-state monsters that must be obeyed at all cost. Democratic ideals are irrelevant. 

    When John F. Kennedy delivered an address entitled A Strategy of Peace in 1963, he also delivered his death sentence.  “Mankind must put an end to war,” he said, “or war will put an end to mankind.” Five months later, another criminal cabal put an end to him. And to the prospects of peace, perhaps forever. And every president since then has paid attention to that criminal fact of Kennedy’s murder in full daylight in a street in Dallas, in particular, Barack Hussein Obama, Nobel Peace Prize laureate. 

    But you asked about the major strategic financial and strategic goals of the five Cabal members. Without getting stuck in a lot more words, here’s a one-word answer—MORE!

    –You have openly stated in your complaint that the terrorist Islamic State of Iraq and Levand organization (ISIS), infamous with mass murders and brutal catastrophes in Iraq-Syria line, had been created by the United States and and funded by Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar. So, what is the aim of the operations conducted again by the same anti-Syria coalition under the guise of stopping the ISIS atrocity?

    Stopping the ISIS atrocity is a feeble attempt to stop the monster the Cabal created. And it cannot put the genie back in the bottle. We are witnessing the disaster that is US foreign policy and Turkish incompetence. And unless we face these absolute facts, nothing will improve. ISIS could have been destroyed two months ago as they charged along the roads from Syria into Iraq. I remembered the so-called Highway of Death in Iraq where the retreating, helpless Iraq army was destroyed by a relentless air attack. George Bush, the father, was so shocked by the atrocity that he called off the attack and declared victory. That same condition prevailed this summer but no one attacked. President Maleki requested air support to no avail. A great silence prevailed. Obama and his fellow felons were thinking. And so we arrive at today. A paralyzed Turkey. A confused America. And lots of people are dying. It is one of the blackest, sickest jokes in history. And the politicians that created this massive war crime, this massive crime against humanity must pay the price. Arrest. Trial. And if convicted, jail, and perhaps worse. And the International Criminal Court has the jurisdiction and the power to do this. 

    We face the following picture when we examine your criminal complaint in detail: The United States of America, of which you are also a citizen, is establishing terrorist organizations to achieve its strategic objectives. It is also establishing the logistics network of the said terrorist organizations and managing the transfer of militants, weapons and ammunition. Isn’t this fact sufficiently known by the citizens of the United States? Why can’t the people of the United States develop an effective anti-war opposition just as they have organized in the period of the invasion of Vietnam? 

    America is an expert in establishing terrorist organizations. It was their most important tool for their military coup business. SAVAK, the secret police in Iran. The Contras in Nicaragua, Augusto Pinochet, himself, in Chile. Kenan Evren, himself, in Turkey. And don’t forget the School of the Americas in Fort Benning, Georgia. That’s where the South American CIA-inspired bombers perfected their assassination skills. The so-called school was renamed the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation. I think I hear George Orwell laughing uproariously. 

    America always has willing accomplices. My Complaint names a few. There are many more. Power seeks out power. So when Obama speaks of America’s “partners” he really means accomplices. 

    Regarding the anti-war movement in America, I ask, “What war?” No draft of American youth into military, no war. Why do you think America went to the moon? To see if it was really made of green cheese? Such was a childhood myth. Why did America send satellites into outer space? To see if there were really little green men on Mars? Next question. Aren’t cell phones and I-phones wonderful? Sure they are. They tell us almost everything…except one thing…who is targeting us…for that’s what they are, a targeting system.  All of these space-age heroic endeavors were but to develop a total targeting system. It’s part of Full Spectrum Dominance, it being the dominance of outer space. It being the domain of so-called “smart bombs.” “Smart” weapons systems eliminated the need for “boots on the ground.” “No boots needed” means American young people have no fear of being called to military service to defend the deceitful purposes of today’s America. So the deceit continues. So the hundreds of millions of parents are safe from having their children killed or maimed. Oh, there are some youngsters who volunteer for the glory of defending America from Saddam Hussein’s nuclear weapons. And these few are enough to maintain the illusion of boots being available to be on the ground. As far as Americans are concerned, someone else is fighting these wars. For them, America is exceptionally “exceptional.” And its all because their cell phones can tell them where they are. And its technology can kill anyone that threatens to kill them or their children. 

    — When I read your columns in different media organs in the specific dates I realized that you have faced disappointment with the foreign policy adopted by Barack Obama after being elected as the President of the USA. What had you been expecting and what did you face?

    I, and many, many others like me, viewed Obama as the great hope. A highly intelligent, educated lawyer, he spoke sense, and spoke it well. On election day I wept in joy. And I never wept for a politician before. Now I weep, almost every day, for what might have been, for what didn’t happen, and for my native country in general. 

    Everything he could have done, he did not do. In fact, he became a greater killer than Bush. And now he even sounds stupider than Bush. I am sad, very sad, for this. He spoke so glowingly of change. And change things did. Now the world is in a catastrophic state. And what is to come? No leader speaks sense. Corruption is general all over. Who will save the children of this world? The likes of religious fakes? The likes of hack, sold-out politicians? The likes of boot-licking journalists on the CIA  payroll? The likes of singers, and writer and actors that conspire with pseudo-fascist governments to sing and act the safe, party-line? Who will save the children? Smart Bombs?  

    This is what we face. This is why I filed my Criminal Complaint with the International Criminal Court. 

    The hero of the epic called LIFE will be the people blessed with the energy and brains of youth. These are the vast majority of people in the world, all of whom have put up with the nonsense of so-called democratic living for decades. They see clearly the disaster that incompetent leadership has brought. The world is on the edge. Brutality is everywhere, from the mouths of politicians to the knives in the bloody hands of ISIS.

    So who will save us? We will. There is no other way.

    I remember a story on this subject:
    A man once asked his gardener to plant a tree. The gardener objected that the tree was slow growing and would not reach maturity for a hundred years. The man replied, ‘In that case, there is no time to lose, plant it this afternoon.”

    So let’s do something this afternoon.

    — The charges attributed to Turkey in the criminal complaint are the providing of chemical and war weapons as well as logistics, intelligence and financial support to several terrorist organizations fighting against the Assad administration in Syria. Can you please tell us about the role of Turkey in the broader plan?

    Are you asking me whether a country like Turkey, basically a state with a thoroughly politicized and dysfunctional legal system could be expected to abide by international law? Because that is the problem. With such a judiciary system, that allows politics to determine the law, how can one expect Turkey to do anything but participate with America in the rape of Syria as it participated in the earlier rape of Libya? And that’s why the principals should be brought to trial. Things will only worsen if they are not. 

    As far as Turkey’s role in the broader plan…it was America’s naughty errand boy, doing the dirty work and making some money on the side from black market oil and the like. I think that the duplicity and corruption is, at last, obvious to the world. Turkey’s foreign policy is a disaster and fully responsible for the catastrophe in Syria. That’s the reason for the Syrian catastrophe, that and American stupidity. Turkey did not realize that the Syrian army was well-equipped, well-trained and had high morale. How irresponsible of the prime minister and the general staff! Indeed, it was the height of reckless ignorance. Now it’s zero friends and nothing but enemies for Turkey. And no way out. Due to its cheap thinking and small-minded bargaining, to say nothing about the destruction of the Turkish army, navy and air force, Turkey cannot even defend the borders that its politicians have erased. So a role in a broader plan? What plan? No role, in anything. How Turkey will recover from this domestic and international fiasco is beyond my understanding.     

    Finally, do you have any message for the pro-peace readers Aydinlik?

    Being pro-peace is not enough. But that does not mean making war. It does mean realizing that we have a lot more power than we think we do. We have vastly more collective brain power than the ignoramuses who have brought this world to its current sad condition. 

    For openers, read my Criminal Complaint to the International Criminal Court at:

    http://www.brighteningglance.org/criminal-complaint-international-criminal-court-6-october-2014.html 

    If you support it, tell the Chief Prosecutor at: 

    otp.informationdesk@icc-cpi.int 

    And finally a few closing words from the last pro-peace American president, John F. Kennedy: 
    “Our problems are manmade; therefore, they can be solved by man. And man can be as big as he wants. No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings.”

    I believe that. But first we have to get the criminal politicians out of our way.

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  • A Cast-Iron Church In Istanbul

    by Sean McLachlan

    This church on the shoreline of Istanbul looks ornate yet pretty normal – that is until you go up and take a closer look. The Bulgarian St. Stephen Church isn’t made of stone but rather of cast iron. It’s a rare survival of a 19th-century craze in prefab cast-iron churches.Also known as the Bulgarian Iron Church, its parts were cast in Vienna in 1871 and shipped down the Danube in a hundred barges to be assembled in Istanbul. This building marks an important time in the Bulgarian Orthodox Church. Bulgaria and Greece were both ruled by theOttoman Empire. Bulgarian Christians were under the domain of the Greek Patriarch, but the Bulgarians complained that he favored Greeks over Bulgarians. So the Sultan granted the Bulgarians their own Exarch, giving them a religious independence that they have to this day.
    If you’re in Istanbul, head on over to this church, pull a coin out of your pocket and tap it against the wall. You’ll hear a loud ding ding ding that proves it’s really metal! Needless to say, iron buildings need love and care. Currently the building is undergoing restoration work so that it can amaze visitors and churchgoers for generations to come.

    Liverpool can boast two cast-iron churches, St. Michael’s and St. George’s, although they are only partially iron. For the full prefab effect, you need to go to Istanbul.

  • Turkey files 307 applications for opening polling stations for Bulgaria early elections

    Turkey files 307 applications for opening polling stations for Bulgaria early elections

    Sofia. There are 307 initially filed applications for opening of polling stations for the Bulgarian parliamentary elections in Turkey, announced spokesperson of the Bulgarian Foreign Ministry, Dimitar Yaprakov, speaking at a briefing, FOCUS News Agency reporter informed.

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    “There will be at least two polling stations in Istanbul. Polling stations will be definitely opened in Bursa, too,” Yaprakov remarked.

    “There are 61 paper applications from the U.S. but more expected to be filed electronically. 59 applications were already filed from Germany, 144 from Cyprus, 130 from the Great Britain, 88 from Spain, 20 from Ireland, 48 from Luxembourg, 27 from France, and 44 from Switzerland. These are just analogically filed applications – by post or personally,” Yaprakov explained, adding that the online applications are not included in the abovementioned figures.

    via Turkey files 307 applications for opening polling stations for Bulgaria early elections – FOCUS Information Agency.

  • Bulgaria, Greece and Turkey: The Syrian refugees at Europe’s gateway

    Bulgaria, Greece and Turkey: The Syrian refugees at Europe’s gateway

    A letter from the border.

    BY REBECCA OMONIRA-OYEKANMI

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    A Syrian women and her son wait for help to erect their tent at a refugee camp in Bab al-Salam on the Syria-Turkey border. Photograph: Getty Images

    A question for the European politicians thrashing out a plan to provide“assistance” to Syria: if a bedraggled Syrian escapes the war, if he escapes the chaos of the refugee camps in Iraq or Jordan or Turkey, if he arrives tired but hopeful on your doorstep, what will happen to him?

    Reporting at the European Union’s most porous borders where Greece and Bulgaria merge with Turkey I was struck by the story of a Syrian refugee who risked drowning to avoid the clasp of the EU’s tortuous asylum and immigration system.

    After relating the story of how he was deposited on the banks of Turkey by border patrol officers in Greece, I assumed my interview with Farouk, a Syrian refugee, was finished. It was twilight, and the shabby cafe on the edge of the tiny Bulgarian village was empty. I sat at the head of a small wooden table scribbling into the silence as a dozen pair of striking eyes, various shades of green, watched me curiously. They were all Syrian, thrown together by the war. The two teenage boys were awkward, goofy grins even as they imitated the sound of bombs. The old man, stooped and pot-bellied, eyed me suspiciously. Farouk’s friend spat furiously in Arabic, insisting that he keep quiet. They ate from a large dish of sunflower seeds. I swallowed the remains of a thick, bitter Bulgarian coffee, clumps of sugar clung to the tiny shot-sized glass. “So after that you travelled from Turkey to Bulgaria? How did you cross the border?” I asked.

    “No, that’s another story.” We ordered more coffee and Farouk told me about his second “push-back”.

    Following his encounter with the border police on River Evros in Greece, Farouk went back to his smuggler, who sent him to the Aegean Sea. He was packed into a large wooden boat bound for Italy with more than 100 other people. Very soon they lost control of the boat, and could do little as it spun in the middle of the ocean between Turkey and Greece.  “After three or four hours people started to throw up,” he said. “There was a problem inside the boat, the water started to enter. Everyone was scared and thinking about dying. We had suffered too much.”

    On this occasion the Greek maritime police tried to rescue them, but the appointed captain of the boat, another Syrian refugee, deliberately thwarted the attempt. “He had a problem with Greece because he had been caught in Greece before,” said Farouk. Rather than find himself back in Greece, the desperate captain threw an anchor into the sea, which caught on something solid, so even as the Greek officers tried to pull the boat to safety it would not budge and looked certain to capsize. Farouk’s rising terror was compounded by the screams of his fellow passengers, among them young children.

    It was the Turkish maritime police that eventually saved them. One of their officers jumped aboard the boat, wrested control from the captain, and steered the boat back to Turkey. All the while the refugees cheered, clapped and sang, “Long live Turkey”.

    What made the Syrian captain risk the lives of everyone on the boat to avoid Greece?

    The fingerprints of any non-European person who has travelled “unofficially” across borders are taken on arrival in any European Union country. If you want to make a claim for asylum, under the EU’s Dublin II regulations you must do so in the first EU country you enter. There is a European database containing the fingerprints of all irregular migrants and refugees (Eurodac) to track their movements. If you try to make a claim in another EU country, your fingerprints will pop up on a central database indicating the country of entry, and you will be deported back there.

    Dublin II could only work if each and every EU country operated an efficient, fair and humane asylum and immigration system. Most EU countries appear to have coherent structures in place, but in reality all over Europe there are hundreds of genuine refugees and children detained in prisons or holding centres, sometimes for months, living in extreme poverty, and stuck in limbo for years while their applications are processed.

    From the signing of the European Convention on Human Rights more than 60 years ago to the first tentative steps towards a common asylum system in Dublin in 1990, every piece of EU legislation on asylum and immigration policy has reiterated the continent’s commitment to freedom and justice for all. Indeed when the European Council met to discuss a common asylum system at Tampere in 1999, it was said that to deny those from less free and democratic societies would be to betray Europe’s liberal traditions. But the poor implementation of the current system means Europe is edging toward the betrayal of those traditions, and why a terrified Syrian refugee would rather drown than go back to Greece.

    Greece is a tragic example of where Europe’s common asylum system is failing. Up to November last year 26,000 refugees and irregular migrants entered Greece illegally, with Syrians the largest group after Afghans. Around 90 per cent of all migrants and refugees entering Europe unofficially enter through Greece, which embodies the worst of the differing national asylum and immigration systems across the European Union’s 27 member states. Greece’s system had already collapsed before its financial problems hit. By 2010 the backlog for asylum claims had crept towards 70,000; Médecins Sans Frontières declared the state of immigration holding centres “medieval”; and a quarter of a million undocumented migrants and refugees haunt the city of Athens alone trapped in various states of destitution, unable to leave legally because of the Dublin II regulations.

    Najib tried to escape his Greek nightmare several times. The 25-year-old Afghan made it as far as Germany, where he lived for one year before he was caught and told to leave within 10 days. He went to the Netherlands; they sent him back to Germany, where he spent a month in prison before being deported back to Greece, the country of his first fingerprint. Confined to Athens, Najib contends with daily harassment from the police and Golden Dawn. When a Golden Dawn supporter beat him up, he went to the police, who asked for his ID, and on seeing his temporary residence permit was out of date, jailed him for 10 days.

    I don’t know what happened to the captain who panicked, but others on the boat were forced to go back to the Aegean Sea. Many could not afford to find a safer passage. They drowned when their boat sank killing 60 people on 6 September last year.

    Shaken, Farouk decided to stick to land for the rest of his journey, and hoping for a warmer European reception elsewhere, he crossed the border into Bulgaria.

  • Bulgaria, Greece Must Unite against Macedonia, Turkey in Agriculture

    Bulgaria, Greece Must Unite against Macedonia, Turkey in Agriculture

    Bulgarian Minister of Agriculture and Foods Miroslav Naydenov. Photo by BGNES

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    Bulgaria and Greece should team up to offer strong competition in the area of agriculture against non-EU neighbors Macedonia and Turkey, argued Bulgarian Agriculture Minister Miroslav Naydenov.

    Saturday Naydenov visited Greek livestock breeding exhibition Zootechnia in Thessaloniki.

    “There is a competition pressure in agriculture on the part of Turkey and Macedonia, who are not part of the EU and their agriculture sectors can enjoy privileges not available to agriculture producers in the EU,” said the Bulgarian minister in an interview for ANA-MPA.

    “We are neighbors with Greece and our ambition is to be able to increase mutual exchange,” stressed Naydenov.

    The Bulgarian Agriculture Minister noted that Greek agriculture companies already have the established practice of using Bulgarian raw products, and suggested that this can be boosted.

    He also called for an increased trade exchange of produce, with more Bulgarian grain products to be imported in Greece, and more Greek fruit and vegetables to be imported in Bulgaria.

    In particular, Naydenov stressed that Bulgaria has still work to do in the absorption of EU subsidies in agriculture to achieve the full potential of the sector.

    Tags: greece, Greek, Thessaloniki, Miroslav Naydenov, agriculture, greece, turkey, EU, subsidies

    via Bulgaria: Bulgaria, Greece Must Unite against Macedonia, Turkey in Agriculture – Bulgarian Min – Novinite.com – Sofia News Agency.