This story is from about 10 days ago (I am so behind in my piled up stories). We are learning that the new and wonderful democracy that the US State Department (and President Obama) helped create is looking pretty ‘unwelcoming’ these days. I guess they didn’t get with the socialist (we are one big happy borderless world) program!
From The Cable:
The Egyptian government is refusing to allow adequate construction of shelters for migrants and refugees fleeing the violence in Libya, according to U.S. government officials and experts.
Over 200,000 people have fled east into Egypt since the outbreak of war in Libya and another 240,000 have poured over the western Libyan border into Tunisia, but the two governments are treating their new visitors quite differently. In Tunisia, the new government has worked aggressively to house the temporary refugees and speed their path to their next destination. In Egypt, the military-led government has left thousands of people to suffer in horrid conditions.
“The government of Tunisia, I have to say, has been fantastic in terms of the hospitality they have provided to these large number of people that have come across their border,” said Reuben Brigety, deputy assistant secretary of State at the Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration. “In Egypt, it’s a very different situation.”
There are “transit camps” on both borders to aid refugees and migrant workers fleeing Libya get back to their home countries. But at a State Department briefing today, Brigety voiced frustration that Egypt isn’t moving quickly enough to combat this crisis. “We’ve been working with the Egyptian government to make sure people have sufficient access to shelter, but frankly it has taken some time to get those shelters built and to have those people cared for appropriately,” said Brigety. “We have continued to ask the government of Egypt to be strong partners in this regard and we continue to work with them to ensure that happens.”
Aid organizations have been even more explicit in their criticism of the Egyptian government’s handling of the refugee flow from Libya.
“Egypt’s ruling government has significantly blocked [the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees] from providing adequate assistance for all people currently stranded at its border and must immediately reverse this position,” Refugees International stated in an April 13 report, following the visit of its officials to the Tunisia-Libya and Egypt-Libya borders. “On the border, many people are forced to live under quite inhumane conditions.”
Meanwhile, Europe is being over run by tens of thousands of North Africans trying to escape. Or, was that the plan all along? (See Camp of Saints at Gates of Vienna, here)
Organizers’ Forum to the rescue!
Hang in there Egypt because Wade Rathke (ACORN founder) and the boys from the Organizers’ Forum are on the way and they plan to “dialogue” with you all in September. Check it out here. Note that two “immigrant and refugee” activists, Josh Hoyt head of ICIRR (also connected to Obama’s early days as a ‘community organizer,’ here) and Gustavo Torres head of CASA de Maryland (formerly the Central American Solidarity Association) are among Rathke’s boys. They will tell those bad old Muslim Brotherhood guys to knock it off and get with the Marxist “democracy” program for Egypt, yes they will! Community Organizers to the rescue!