“Coming from another country, you find yourself in a completely unusual location and amongst completely different people. Everything is unfamiliar and you, like Alice in Wonderland, walk and watch.”

That’s how Anastasija Kostenko summed up what it was like arriving in Vilnius, Lithuania, in 2022, having traveled over 700 miles to flee the destruction and devastation in Ukraine caused by the Russian invasion.

Needing to start a new life but not knowing where to begin, Anastasija signed up to become a mentee in the city’s BeFriend Vilnius program, run by International House Vilnius, an organization aimed at helping foreign newcomers find a “soft landing.” The program matches foreign mentees with local mentors, with pairs encouraged to meet at least twice a month.

BeFriend Vilnius was founded to help Ukrainian refugees feel more at home in Lithuania, but also to find a social way of fielding their questions. Courtesy of BeFriend Vilnius

Anastasija’s mentor Rūta and Rūta’s friend helped her navigate what seemed like a never ending array of forms and applications. “Were it not for them, it would have been incredibly difficult to arrange a huge number of documents and top priority issues,” Anastasija told BeFriend Vilnius coordinators.

“It’s been a matter of filling out documents, applying for grants and applying for payments and payment cards. I am sincerely grateful for their help with some really important issues. I would not have understood them myself.”

Anastasija and Rūta, who have not shared last names for privacy reasons, are part of an initial cohort of around 500 Ukrainian mentees and Vilnian mentors. They were matched by BeFriend Vilnius during the first iteration of the program in 2022, initially designed to help the influx of Ukrainians find their footing amidst a new culture and language.

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With a population of around 86,000, Ukrainians are now the largest foreign community in Lithuania, making up around 3.2 percent of the country’s overall population of about 2.7 million.

For International House Vilnius project manager Agnė Goldbergaitė, who has been project manager at BeFriend Vilnius since the beginning, the original idea was not only to make Ukrainian refugees feel more at home in Lithuania, but also to find a social way of fielding the inevitable influx of questions around basic information.

“When Ukrainians first started coming to Lithuania, there was a huge flow of people needing all kinds of information, like how to register for a doctor’s appointment, how to find a school for their children, how to buy tickets for the public buses or even where to drink coffee,” says Goldbergaitė. “They were really just in need of a friend.” 

“Every time we host an event, we’re surprised at how many different countries people come from,” says Agnė Goldbergaitė. Courtesy of Befriend Vilnius

“We decided that they could register with us, and share a bit more about themselves, whether they are a single mom with two kids, or a young woman who is into photography. We then connect them with a local Vilnian with a similar situation or interests, to try and lift some of that burden from the government institutions that are also taking care of them. So many of our first mentors joined because they wanted to help Ukrainian people coming from the war.”

Another mentor/mentee pair is Irina and Jovita. Irina came from Ukraine with her eight-year-old daughter, and she met Jovita within a week of her arrival in Lithuania. Jovita’s 11-year-old son comes up with the activities and meeting places, and while the moms are able to communicate in Russian, the kids speak to each other in English, supplemented with hand gestures.

Meanwhile, mentor Kristina was initially anxious about whether she could provide the help her mentee, Iryna, would need. But when they met, she was reassured to hear that Iryna was simply looking for someone to talk to. “I’ve met a great person who I’m now very happy to call my friend,” she told the program. Vilnius local Jurga has also been offering in-depth emotional support to Ukrainian Eteri, and the two have developed a strong bond.

Seeing how well the program has worked, coupled with Vilnius’ overall increasing attractiveness to migrants, the BeFriend Vilnius team expanded the program last year to all foreign newcomers. It also moved away from the time-consuming process of hand-matching mentors and mentees, instead developing a website with the ability to match pairs based on their circumstances and interests. Since the initial launch, BeFriend Vilnius has been receiving up to 15 applications per week for mentors and mentees.

BeFriend Vilnius pairs, from left: Jovita and Irina; Jurga and Eteri; and Kristina and Iryna. Courtesy of BeFriend Vilnius

“We realized this would actually be the best thing for all foreigners. There are around 73,000 international people living in Vilnius at the moment, making every ninth Vilnius resident a foreigner. Our city is becoming more international,” says Goldbergaitė.

“Every time we host an event, we’re surprised at how many different countries people come from — Zimbabwe, Nigeria, Ecuador, Philippines, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Georgia — all kinds.”

The number of foreigners living in Lithuania has risen rapidly, totaling 203,157 as of September 2023, up from the 145,118 recorded in 2022. This is partly due to local marketing efforts. The tongue-in-cheek “Vilnius: the G-Spot of Europe” campaign hit global headlines, while government-funded organizations Work in Lithuania and Invest Lithuania have made it their mission to attract skilled foreign workers to the country. Visa processing times have been cut from eight months to just one, and there’s even an arrival allowance of €3,444 (around $3,764) awarded to migrants in high-value occupations considered to be in local shortage. 

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Quality of life in Lithuania also appeals to migrants: It’s in the top 25 percent of the world’s safest countries and has 15 public holidays a year, the second-highest number in the EU. Just one percent of employees work very long hours — well below the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development of 38 countries) average of 10 percent — ranking it 11th for work-life balance in this group. 

The next evolution of BeFriend Vilnius will be to complement the mentoring initiative with a more formal integration program of events and seminars.

“Vilnius is super compact and understandable, and if you take just two steps outside the city, you’re in the forest. Everyone speaks English, and most people do love it,” says Goldbergaitė. “We want people to fall in love with Vilnius and thrive here. We’re always excited to have an impact on real people, and build our community.” 

The post Friendly Mentors Help Ukrainians Find Their Footing in Vilnius appeared first on Reasons to be Cheerful.

When 39 asylum-seekers were discovered at Beagle Bay, 150 kilometres north of Broome on 19 February, Opposition leader and former offshore detention jailer, Peter Dutton, thought he was on a winner for the Dunkley by-election just a couple of weeks away on 2 March.

Dutton went feral, hoping to play the refugee card once again. He warned darkly, “We’ll end up with an armada of boats.”

Dutton claimed that Labor had slashed the budget for Operation Sovereign Borders and that Anthony Albanese is “a weak Prime Minister being tested by people smugglers” and that Operation Sovereign Borders is not the same “as we knew it when the Coalition was in power”.

The tragedy is that Operation Sovereign Borders is exactly the same as when the Coalition was in power.

Labor’s Home Affairs Minister, Clare O’Neil, bragged that Labor’s commitment to Operation Sovereign Borders “is absolute”. “Every person who has attempted to reach Australia by boat since I have been minister is back in their home country, or in Nauru,” she said.

Albanese responded to Dutton, “I’m very comfortable that the Operation Sovereign Borders has been put in place. It’s the same system that operated before … Our position on Operation Sovereign Borders is very clear, and people who attempt to arrive here by boat will not settle here.”

The February boat was the third group of asylum-seekers to be taken to Nauru since September; 11 people were transferred in September and another 12 who were also found on the Western Australia coast were transferred in November.

There are now about 54 asylum-seekers being held on Nauru, after eight (including a child) who were taken there last September returned to Sri Lanka.

At least four people on Nauru have been found to be refugees. They face the same fate as the refugees sent to Nauru in 2013—years and years on Nauru. Labor has no resettlement options. New Zealand’s offer to resettle 150 people a year from Nauru does not apply to people taken there after June 2023.

Labor is spending $420 million to contract a US company notorious for detention abuses, MTC, for garrison support services on Nauru to September 2025. All the indications are that the refugees are being held in closed detention in RPC1, which has been the administrative centre of detention on Nauru.

The Albanese government is denying permanent visas to the more than 1000 refugees who were transferred to Australia from Nauru and PNG on medical grounds between 2014 and 2023.

About 52 refugees that Australia sent to PNG in 2013 are still there. Labor continues to deny responsibility for refugees in PNG although their services have been cut since October.

All the contradictions of Australia’s discrimination against boat arrivals are back on display. While Labor will continue to take asylum-seekers who arrive by boat to offshore detention, last year 22,916 people who arrived by plane made an onshore protection claim, and if found to be refugees will get permanent visas.

Now, despite the horrors in Gaza, Labor is denying consular assistance to many Palestinian refugees, although that consular assistance is needed for refugees to get through the Rafah crossing and out of Gaza. This is despite the government issuing them tourist visas for Australia. Some of the visas are expiring before they can used to get out of Gaza.

With every denied visa and every asylum-seeker transferred to Nauru, Labor digs itself deeper into a ditch of human rights abuses.

Labor easily won the Dunkley by-election. Labor’s embrace of Operation Sovereign Border has nothing to do with Dutton’s scare-mongering—it is part and parcel of Labor’s shift to the right, to govern from the centre. Albanese is “comfortable” with offshore detention.

To end Operation Sovereign Borders, we will need to build a movement strong enough to make Albanese very uncomfortable indeed.

Rallies around Australia on Palm Sunday, Sunday 24 March, will be demanding the closure of Nauru, an end to turnbacks, the evacuation of refugees from PNG and permanent visas for all refugees.

By Ian Rintoul

The post ‘I’m comfortable’ says Albanese as Labor embraces offshore detention first appeared on Solidarity Online.

To fully understand the genocide taking place in the Gaza Strip, we need to look at how Israel has strategically distanced itself from any responsibility for the fate of the Palestinian refugees. Israel has consistently used lies and fabrications to lay the blame for the Palestinian refugees on others.

Initially, it was the fault of the “Arabs” for promising the Palestinians they could leave while the Arab armies kicked the Jews out of Palestine, after which they would be able to return. The Palestinians fell for this, so the Zionist story goes, and now it is too bad for them they cannot return. Even if this was true, it does not explain why, from the end of 1947, the Zionist terror groups were violently displacing Palestinians, nor does it explain why the refugees were not permitted to return.

Following the creation of the State of Israel, the Gaza Strip, parts of the West Bank and large areas within the countries that border Palestine became homes to refugee camps. From that point on, Israel claimed that it was the responsibility of the host countries to solve the refugee crisis by integrating Palestinians. In other words, it was not the responsibility of the party that committed the crime of ethnic cleansing but of the countries that were forced to host them.

Because Israel occupied Gaza, it is faced with a problem it cannot solve. Doing the only thing that makes sense and allowing the refugees to return to their land and their homes is out of the question because Israel is a genocidal racist regime. Leaving Gaza as it is isn’t working either, so killing as many Palestinians in Gaza as possible and blaming it on them has been the policy for decades, and it has been successful.

Since the early 1950s, when the Gaza Strip was created, Israeli forces have been committing massacres there and then blaming it on the Palestinians, claiming they present an existential threat. This strategy of killing has been so successful that even now, in 2024, the world is willing to allow Israel to commit acts of genocide uninterrupted.

Furthermore, as these acts of genocide take place, Israel has succeeded in accomplishing yet another facet of its strategy to undermine the rights of the Palestinian refugees. It managed to get the world to reduce its support of UNRWA. The resources that were once available to UNRWA were barely enough to provide the services that its mandate demands. Now, the need is greater than ever, and many of the resources have dried up thanks to Israel’s undermining of the organization.

Last but not least, Israel and its allies are accusing Egypt and even Jordan of not “taking” any of the survivors of the genocide in Gaza. It is these countries, say the Zionists, who should take the Palestinians and save them. Once again, the responsibility is shifted from the perpetrators of the crimes to parties that have nothing to do with it, while Israel enjoys diplomatic cover and material support that allows it to continue the genocide in Gaza and the brutal oppression throughout all parts of Palestine.

Miko Peled is a MintPress News contributing writer, published author and human rights activist born in Jerusalem. His latest books are”The General’s Son. Journey of an Israeli in Palestine” and “Injustice, the Story of the Holy Land Foundation Five.”

The post Miko Peled: The Predicament Of Palestinian Refugees Amid Genocide appeared first on MintPress News.

The long-awaited review of Australia’s offshore detention by former ASIO boss, Dennis Richardson, was finally made public on 12 February. However Labor’s Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil has been sitting on Richardson’s report since October last year.

It is no coincidence that the report was only made public after PNG Prime Minister James Marape addressed the Australian parliament last week. Corruption remains endemic in the arrangements between Australia and PNG to provide services for the 55 refugees and their families still stranded in PNG.

Labor last made a payment to PNG in July 2022, but the refugees have been left destitute since services were cut off in October 2023. Refugees have no income, no food vouchers, no electricity, no access to health care and have been threatened with eviction. But Labor has done nothing to support refugees in PNG or evacuate them to safety.

The PNG Chief Migration Officer, Stanis Hulahau, has stood aside while an investigation takes place into manifest corruption of the PNG humanitarian program that has left refugee service providers owed hundreds of millions of kina.

Corrupt history

Corruption in offshore detention arrangements is not news. In January 2017, the government’s own National Audit Office issued a scathing report into the first five years of detention on Manus Island and Nauru saying the Immigration Department (now Home Affairs) had spent $2.2 billion without proper authorisation.

Spending of $1.1 billion was approved by departmental officers who did not have the required authorisation and for the remaining $1.1 billion there was no record at all of who had authorised the payments.

The 2017 report complained that contracts were signed, “in great haste to give effect to government policy decisions and the department did not have a detailed view of what it wanted to purchase”.

The report was also scathing of the conditions in the camps, saying the chief medical officer had drawn attention to, “increased risk of infections and disease due to vermin and pests; water pooling; extensive mould and inadequate cleaning of wet areas; inadequate food hygiene; and overcrowded accommodation.”

In January 2019, the Financial Review reported that Paladin Group was one of the biggest government contractors in Australia, having won tenders worth $423 million for its 22 months of work on Manus Island. The company’s registered headquarters was a beach shack on Kangaroo Island.

Five years later, the Richardson report shows that Paladin Group’s founding director, Craig Thrupp, is estimated to have personally made more than $150 million from contracts worth more than $500 million over four years to run offshore processing on Manus Island up to 2019.

Paladin is facing an Australian Federal Police investigation into allegations that it paid bribes in 2018 totalling $3 million to PNG officials to secure the contracts.

The Richardson report very carefully only blames public servants for the widespread corruption revealed by the inquiry. The “left arm did not know what the right arm was doing”, he said. But the corruption was public and well-known; the politicians, Liberal and Labor, did know.

Labor’s Home Affairs Minister is pointing the finger at Peter Dutton. He deserves to be condemned. But corruption is an inevitable part of offshore detention, just part of the price paid for entrenching human rights abuses.

Labor bribed both the governments of PNG and Nauru to establish offshore detention in 2013, paying PNG almost $500 million in increased foreign aid just to agree to open Manus Island.

Now Labor has turned a blind eye to the corruption and to the refugees left behind in PNG. Labor is paying MTC, a notorious US detention company, $420 million for just 30 months to keep offshore detention operating on Nauru. Fifteen refugees are being held on Nauru with no concern for their human rights after arriving on two boats in September and October.

Eight others who arrived with them, including a child, were sent back to their country of origin.

The Richardson report is damning but ultimately it lets the politicians off the hook. Labor can’t hide its responsibility for offshore detention.

The refugees in PNG must be brought to Australia. Those already in Australia on temporary bridging visas, after being medically evacuated from PNG and Nauru, must be allowed to settle here permanently.

By Ian Rintoul

The post Corruption shows offshore detention is rotten to the core—Labor can’t hide first appeared on Solidarity Online.