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Posted on: 29/06/2020 07:24
A year ago the captain Carola Rackete he drove the Sea-Watch 3 without authorization in the port of Lampedusa, after his crew had rescued 53 shipwrecked. The then Interior Minister Matteo Salvini had refused entry of the ship into the port and during more than two weeks of stalemate the situation on board had reached the extreme. So on June 29, 2019 Carola Rackete docked the ship in port without authorization and was arrested. In January, the Italian Supreme Court ruled that his arrest was not justified.
” A year ago, I entered the port of Lampedusa without authorization, after my crew and I saved 53 people from the wreck and after all of Europe has abandoned us for more than two weeks. Our crew had to do it as part of the civilian rescue fleet because the European Union had withdrawn all its ships, despite knowing that refugees fleeing the ongoing war in Libya are attempting the crossing, ” he told the Dpa . ” Our crew had to be at sea because we know that human rights are universal and maritime law does not care about passports: I thought that we had to be at sea not only to carry out the rescue, but also as a sign of resistance against the structural racism of the European authorities, ” he added.
The activist therefore makes an appeal to ” all EU citizens ” who ” should know: those people who are drowning in the Mediterranean – at least 96 dead within this month – are not victims of an unexpected accident or disaster natural. They drown because the EU wants them to drown, frightening those who might attempt to cross. They drown because Europe denies them access to safe routes and leaves nothing but risk their life at sea. And no one would have entered such a boat, unless it was safer than the coast! ” He said. ” As European citizens, we must stop this policy! We must tear down the fortress Europa, created to make the poor die from the Mediterranean coast where nobody sees them. There must be equality and freedom for everyone, to live and move without fear for one’s life, ” he continued. Until this becomes a reality, civilian rescue will continue to be like voluntary firefighters attempting to extinguish fires intentionally on fire by incendiaries of the EU and the wider North of the world. And although the Italian Supreme Court has validated my decision to enter the port and bring people safely in accordance with maritime law, the criminalization of sea rescue continues; in my case and in investigating others who act in solidarity with people on the move, ” continued the activist.
Moreover European countries are taking advantage of the crisis caused by the coronavirus to “put human rights aside.” and to stop respecting the law of the sea. ” ” I must stress once again that, although the new coalition of the Italian government is in power, nothing fundamental has changed within the EU and at the external borders of the EU. If there has been a change, things have gotten worse over the past year, ” continued the activist. Malta in the first place, but also other European states, including Germany, are using the coronavirus pandemic as an excuse to abandon human rights and to stop respecting the law of the sea. On Easter weekend, despite their position being known to the EU authorities, the castaways were left adrift for days in the Maltese rescue area, before being intercepted by a private “ghost fleet ship” that the Maltese government he had hired to illegally bring back the 51 survivors and 5 bodies to Libya. Seven others had already drowned. Since then, little is known of further similar cases, because civilian eyes at sea are unwanted. Several European states, including Spain, Malta, Italy, the Netherlands and Germany, continue to hinder rescue and monitoring of missions at sea and in flight, ” he said.
Explaining his decision not to give interviews a year after his arrival in Lampedusa, Rackete says that ” this story, however, should not concern me at all. This is why I don’t want to be the one to speak. The persistent framing of me and other rescue volunteers in the Mediterranean as heroes is a deeply problematic narrative. It removes the spotlight from the people we have saved and mistakenly creates the illusion that some people are unique or different. But like most Europeans, we – as Sea-Watch 3 crew members – are above all one thing: the privileged. This does not mean that we do not face any problems in life. It means that in my case, as a white woman, I wasn’t afraid for a second that the police could kill me during the arrest or afterwards in the cell as happened to many black people, even in Germany. And that’s why we have to act, ” he explained.
” If there are heroes in that story, they are the people we met at sea and who survived much more than crossing the sea in an unworthy boat. It is not necessary for a white person to go on stage as an alleged “voice of the voiceless”, ” he explained. ” The people we save may have lost many things in their lives, but they have not lost their voices and are the experts of their own experiences. If we want to overcome structural racism, we should start by listening to them. This is why I won’t be doing interviews for the anniversary of the Sea-Watch 3 mission last year. Instead, I ask everyone to listen to those whom Europe would prefer to drown rather than allow it to reach its shores, ” he concluded.
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