Front Burner - Migrants 'trapped' in Belarus-Poland border crisis

Episode Date: November 16, 2021

A crisis is unfolding at the border of Poland and Belarus, where thousands of migrants are stranded in freezing temperatures, hoping to reach Europe. Belarus, under authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko, is accused of deliberately creating this crisis by shepherding migrants from the Middle East to the Polish border as revenge for sanctions imposed on his regime. Poland, with the support of the European Union, has responded by fortifying its border in a massive show of force. Almost 20,000 police and soldiers have been deployed to the area, and there are claims that they have illegally pushed people back across the border into Belarus. Today, Guardian correspondent Lorenzo Tondo on the geopolitical standoff and the people trapped in the middle of what is increasingly looking like a humanitarian disaster.

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. Hello, I'm Angela Starrett. Attention, attention, attention. The police inform.

If you don't follow the orders, force may be used against you. If you don't follow the orders, force may be used against you. That's a message from Polish authorities being looped over loudspeakers in multiple languages and played at migrants currently stuck at the border between Poland and Belarus. Thousands of people are stranded there in freezing temperatures hoping to get to Europe. We are like homeless. We don't have any place to sit, stay there. It's about whether it's too cold. We just collect fire and burn our trees to make our bodies heat. But still we hope we never give up. Belarus is accused of deliberately creating this border crisis by shepherding migrants from the Middle East to Minsk, promising them safe passage through to the rest of the continent.

Poland, with the support of the EU, has responded by fortifying its border with a massive show of force. Almost 20,000 police and soldiers have been deployed to the area, and there are claims that they are illegally pushing people back. Today, Guardian correspondent Lorenzo Tondo on the geopolitical standoff and the real people trapped in the middle of what is increasingly looking like a humanitarian disaster. Hi, Lorenzo. Hi. So we just heard a bit from a migrant stuck at the border of Poland and Belarus. He said it was very cold, that they didn't really have anywhere to stay. Can you tell me a bit more about what we know about the conditions people are in there right now?

Well, the situation is very dramatic. Thousands of asylum seekers, hundreds of families, hundreds of children are literally trapped in this situation. They can't go back and they can't continue their journey to Europe. They're trapped in this piece of land, the gate of Europe. In the night, temperatures go below zero. It's very cold. People are living in small tents. We talked to dozens of them in a reception facility in Bialystok in Poland.

And these are all families who have managed to cross the border recently. We met a Syrian family and they didn't have any footwear when they arrived in Poland. There are children, newborns who are sleeping in a tent with no medical assistance, no food, no water. When Belarusian aid workers arrive with food and water, the scenes are even more full. Death are rising in the area. At least 11 people have died, and the majority of them have been found frozen to death while trying to cross the border.

We can't stay more because the weather is too cold. The people, maybe day by day, will die here from cold. We're not sleeping because of cold, and our baby is sick. Her eyes have problem, otherwise out of water, her baby. Because she can't sleep, she's crying because of that. According to media reports, there are between 4,000 and 5,000 migrants trapped at the border. But the reality is that it's really hard to get an exact sense of the situation. Much of the area is that it's really hard to get an exact sense of the situation. Much of the area is blocked.

Police authorities have created a two-mile-deep militarized zone. They built a razor wire fence, and journalists and volunteers are not allowed in. It's a very tense and dramatic situation. As you say, you were just in Poland reporting from as close as you could get, and you encountered a group of migrant families who actually had made it across the border to Poland. Tell me about that. Yes, we met these families, actually, at least three families, 16 people in total, eight children.

We had a source and he sent us a location in the forest near Narevka, literally in the middle of nowhere. It was starting to get dark. You know, when we found that, volunteers and doctors were already taking care of them. And the police had just arrived. They told us they were fleeing from ISIS retaliation and there was a newborn. He was four months old. The boy was six years old and this boy was actually crying. He started to cry when he saw the police and understood after why this family had attempted to cross the border nine times, being pushed back each time.

And his father had the early signs of hypothermia and his mother could barely walk. It's literally a race to who can get to them first, police or volunteers. Because if the Polish police arrived before the doctors, they would send the migrants back to Belarus with the risk that their health condition could become fatal. I want to get into a little bit later the police, as you say, and I've definitely seen videos of people with black eyes and dog bites, but I want to talk about what is actually happening here. I understand that the accusation here is that Belarus is deliberately provoking the situation at the border. What is the basis for these claims? Well, first of all, I think it would be very difficult for thousands of migrants to enter a regime like the Belarusian one and just walk to the border and try to enter Europe without the help of the Belarusian

authorities. But anyway, all the migrants told us that the Belarusian troops gathered groups of up to 50 people and then cut the barbed wire with shears to allow them to cross. It is pretty shocking that that would happen. But Belarus's involvement here actually seems to go further than that, right? Back to the countries where many of these migrants are coming from? Yes, well, that's what the migrants told us. We interviewed dozens of them. A few months ago in Syria, in Iraq, the Belarus embassy started spreading the news that they were going to give tourist visas to people. And the news spread really quickly. People realized there was another way

to reach Central Europe without having to walk for a month in the Balkan route or to cross the sea between Turkey and Greece. So there are all these travel agents in the Middle East, specifically in Iraq and Syria, who, according to migrants, they have strong connection with the local Belarusian embassies. And they're offered in packages, travel packages, 3,000, 5,000 euros on average. And the package includes a seven-day tourist visa, a flight ticket one way to Minsk,

two days in a hotel in Minsk. Belarus gave us visa. We came here. It is our way to go to Europe. How much did you have to pay for the whole package to come? Two thousand dollars. Do you feel that Belarus sold you a false hope? I don't know. We are waiting. We don't know what will happen.

Now, so far, we don't have evidence, official evidence, if Lukashenko is making money smuggling people. But what is very likely is that there is a strong connection between the travel agents and Belarusian authorities. Why would Belarus be doing this? Well, Lukashenko has been in power in Belarus for 26 years. There is strong evidence that he actually lost the latest elections, but he's still in power. The Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab says the UK doesn't recognise the result

of what he called the fraudulent re-election of the President of Belarus. There have been further demonstrations in the country against Alexander Lukashenko, who's been in power for more than 25 years. And his opposition candidate was arrested right after the election. So the European Union imposed a long list of sanctions on Lukashenko's authoritarian regime. So Lukashenko is accused of provoking a new refugee crisis in Europe by organising the movement of people from the Middle East to Minsk and promising them a safe passage to Europe in revenge for those sanctions.

And I should note that just on Monday, the EU announced it would actually step up sanctions against Belarus in response to this crisis. So it means that the EU can now target individuals and entities that they say are organizing or contributing to activities by the Lukashenko regime that facilitate the legal crossing of EU borders. So that's really quite a wide scope. And we actually did an episode about Alexander Lukashenko and his authoritarian rule in late May

when he was accused of basically hijacking a plane to arrest a dissident. Has he or any Belarusian officials taken any responsibility for what's happening at the border? What do they say to the charge that they're bringing this migrant crisis on as revenge? Well, so far he has rejected all the accusations. Today he says that his government is working to convince people to return home. But guess what? Nobody wants to go back. You'll have to go back to your country, no?

Never. We never go back to our home. We better die here, not go back to our country. In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization. Empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. Hi, it's Ramit Sethi here. You may have seen my money show on Netflix. I've been talking about money for 20 years. Industry Connections. 50%. That's because money is confusing. In my new book and podcast, Money for Couples,

I help you and your partner create a financial vision together. To listen to this podcast, just search for Money for Couples. I want to talk now about the response we've seen from Poland and from Europe more broadly. How is Poland treating these migrants that are showing up at their border? So Poland has deployed nearly 20,000 between soldiers and police officers at the border. It is a show of force unknown in the country since the end of the Cold War. We were staying in this hotel, just to give you an idea.

And when we arrived to check in, we thought we had the wrong address because there were dozens of military trucks in front of the building. But it was the right address. It's just that there are so many military that they're staying at hotels because there is no room in the nearby barracks.

So Poland is using these soldiers and police officers to push back migrants violently. Migrants had broken legs, bruises everywhere. They told us that the Polish police had beaten them up. I just want to say that pushbacks are illegal. Any pushback is a violation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Geneva Convention and the EU legislation. And this is not the first time that Poland is pushing migrants back to other countries.

Now, Lukashenko is definitely provoking this crisis, but it looks like Poland is actually exploiting this crisis to reinforce their anti-immigration policies. Now, let's not forget that an anti-immigration right-wing government is in power in Poland. Poland's president made a speech earlier today in another part of Warsaw on Pilsudski Square, where he said it's time to step up and defend the fatherland, alluding to that migrant crisis. In President Duda's speech, he kept referring to European unity, but also to the fact that Europe is founded on Christian values. This Christian values was the term that was most frequently repeated in his speech, clearly wanting to

underline Poland's unwillingness to take in Muslim migrants. underline Poland's unwillingness to take in Muslim migrants. And how does Poland respond to the charge that they are violating international law by pushing people back into Belarus? Well, so far, they've just said it is their duty to defend Europe's border. I mean, there are rumors that are also spreading fake news about the Belarus. When I was there, we received actually, because we have filled a locator form once we landed in Poland, we received a message. And of course, it was a message directed to the migrants. But we received this message on our phones. And the message says, go back toarus belarus is telling you lies and don't take pills from the belarusian authorities and we asked you

know we asked volunteers and people about these pills and basically sounds like early in October, the Polish government was saying that Belarus was drugging migrants because they said that migrants were acting strangely when they saw them at the border. Of course, it sounds like a fake news. That's what the volunteers and other people were saying. It sounds like a fake news to make the migrants look dangerous and the Belarus look bad. You mentioned that there have been reports of Polish guards being violent against the migrants. And to be clear, there are reports of brutality by the guards actually on both sides. There is a Belarus soldier just this side. He kicked me in the face with his foot.

So I passed off for about a couple of minutes, broke my nose and broke a bone in here. It sounds like just a horrific situation for these people, stuck with Polish guards on one side and Belarusian guards on the other. Can you tell me a little bit more about that? Yes, the migrants told us that the Belarusian troops are also beating them up. Several migrants told us, confirmed this to us, that they were beating them,

you know, in order to push them to the other side of the fence. Wow. And I understand that the EU, the European Union, is actually supporting Polentier. the EU, the European Union, is actually supporting Poland here. The president of the European Commission expressed solidarity with Poland in this crisis. And the UK has sent a small team of British troops to help reinforce the border fencing.

I mean, why are the EU and the UK backing Poland's actions here? This is a big question. I was actually surprised when I heard that Germany was defending Poland. You know, my idea is that Lukashenko is a handy villain to mask fortress Europe, what we call fortress Europe. This is the policy being enforced for years now, not only in Poland, but in Greece, in Italy, in Croatia. They don't want migrants. Migrants are perceived by the public opinion as parasites who are coming to steal people's job. And authorities, they care about the public opinion. They care about their votes. And when it comes to votes, they don't care about the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Wow. I mean, the whole situation strikes me as very inhumane. And it doesn't really seem to me that any of the countries involved can really claim moral high ground here. Yeah. At the end, it's the migrants who are paying the highest price of this. They are just scapegoats trapped between the violence of the Polish authorities and the false promises of the Belarus, trapped in this political game. You know, people are being exploited by both sides. You know, we saw Afghans and that was the thing that struck me the most. Afghans and that was the thing that struck me the most. All this hypocrisy with Afghanistan after the fall of Kabul, everybody was ready to welcome Afghans. I've seen Afghans at the border, I met them and they're being pushed back. There was this father, he was from Kabul and he told me that the

Polish police had pushed him back with his family violently to Belarus. He told me the police, they kicked him like a soccer ball. I think this is history. The weak and poor always pay the highest price of the political crisis. I heard that the head of the Norwegian Refugee Council on CNN condemning both sides. It is so shameful what's happening now. Poland, on behalf of Europe, denying people access, sending the army, erecting barbed wire against youth, men, women, migrants. But it's also equally shameful that Belarusia uses these people in their power play with the European Union. And also commenting that, you know, this is a resolvable issue, a solvable issue, because there aren't actually that many people trying to to migrate there.

Grown leaders have to speak with each other and solve this. The two countries have to take responsibility for this relatively small group of migrants. Not a single more person should freeze to death because of this power play. It is. I mean, if you compare these numbers to the central Mediterranean or to the Balkan route, in terms of number, they could solve the situation in one day. I mean, in Sicily, you know, they sometimes welcome thousands of migrants in one day. Wow. And there are currently attempts to stop people from arriving before they even get to Belarus. In the last few days, for example, Turkey has banned Iraqi, Yemeni and Syrian citizens from boarding flights to Minsk. And just finally, I mean, what happens to these people who are stuck now, the ones who are trapped? Well, those are the ones who are trapped.

They will still attempt to cross the border every day and multiple times a day. That's the only choice. They don't want to go back to their home countries. So they will attempt to cross the border literally every day. And now, I mean, winter is coming and the temperature will go way below zero. And I fear that we're going to see more death. Lorenzo, thank you so very much for for bringing us this this difficult story today. Thank you. Before we go today a major blow has been dealt to conspiracy theorist Alex Jones in the legal action against him,

spearheaded by families of the victims of the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School. For years, Jones falsely suggested that the massacre, which killed 20 first graders and six educators, was somehow a government plot created to take people's guns and that the victims' families were actors. Now, a court in Connecticut has declared Jones guilty of defamation in a lawsuit brought by eight Sandy Hook families. The judge found him guilty by default because he refused to turn over documents ordered by the courts. The ruling comes just weeks after three similar rulings in Texas, the courts. The ruling comes just weeks after three similar rulings in Texas, giving families of 10 Sandy Hook victims victories in all four defamation suits they've brought against Jones. In both states, juries will now decide how much Jones should pay the families and damages,

and those trials are slated for next year. That's all for today. I'm Angela Starrett, in for Jamie Poisson. Thanks for listening to FrontBurner.