Indymedia Portugal: Exércitos nas ruas

Um interessante artigo publicado no Indymedia Portugal cuja leitura recomendamos vivamente. Um debate que está na "Ordem do Dia". Aqui.

Autorizaram a ocupação de Portugal?

EXÉRCITO SECRETO EUROPEU

Autorizaram a ocupação de Portugal?

Existe um EXÉRCITO SECRETO EUROPEU, que também pode ser chamado de FORÇA SECRETA POLICIAL DE INTERVENÇÃO PARA O ESMAGAMENTO DE REVOLTAS NA EUROPA.

Já se encontra dentro da União Europeia, porém apenas muito poucos sabem disso.

A força possui os mais amplos direitos, tem de momento 3.000 homens e responde pelo nome de "EURO GENDFOR (EUROPEAN GENDARMERIE FORCE)", ou seja, TROPA DE POLÍCIA EUROPEIA. O seu comando encontra-se em Vicenza, na Itália, longe do Centro da UE.

Quem deu vida a este projecto foi a Ministra da Defesa Francesa, Alliot-Marie, com o objectivo de mais facilmente esmagar levantamentos populares, como os que têm surgido frequentemente em cidades francesas.

Esta força, já existente, pode agora ser empregue por toda a União Europeia, anulando os direitos nacionais e as soberanias dos Estados Membros!

O Tratado de Velsen (Holanda), decidiu de forma inequívoca, que vai ser um CONSELHO DE GUERRA, que vai decidir sobre a sua actuação. Este conselho compõe-se dos Ministérios de Defesa e de Segurança dos países membros da UE, inclusivamente do país onde vai ser aplicado.

Aos olhos dos observadores trata-se de uma clara manifestação de um DIREITO DE OCUPAÇÃO DA EUROPA. Porque, desde que tenha sido decidido por unidades da EURO GENDFOR a ocupação de edifícios e regiões, ficam estas debaixo da sua alçada, já não podendo sequer ser visitadas pelos organismos oficiais do país a que territorialmente pertencem. De facto, existe assim um DIREITO DE OCUPAÇÃO EUROPEU. Porém, a situação pode vir a piorar ainda mais.

A EURO GENDFOR não possui apenas os direitos policiais, mas também a competência sobre os serviços secretos, e, pode, em estreita colaboração com forças militares, restabelecer a lei e a ordem nas zonas consideradas convenientes. Em caso de necessidade, deve esta tropa possuir todos os direitos e acessos a todos os meios considerados necessários, para executar o respectivo mandato.

Graças à EURO GENDFOR encontram-se os governos europeus à vontade. Desta forma podem ordenar o abrir fogo contra as próprias populações em caso de demonstrações de massas, colocar regiões inteiras sobre quarentena militar e prender os principais cabecilhas, sem ter de chamar militares, ou polícias, da sua própria nação, visto existir o perigo destes se solidarizarem com os revoltosos.

A EURO GENDFOR, por sua vez, graças às suas excepcionais atribuições de direitos civis e militares, não pode ser responsabilizada por ninguém.

Este cenário, que parece incrível, tornou-se agora possível através da entrada em vigor do TRATADO DE LISBOA, que não é mais do que a Constituição da UE sob novo título.

http://www.grifo.com.pt/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=292&Itemid=1

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Esta noticia deixou-nos particularmente curiosos, tendo alguns dos membros ido investigar melhor e eis o que se descobriu acerca desta temática.

Esta força existe mesmo: http://www.eurogendfor.eu.

Reparem no que está escrito na pagina de introdução:

"The European Gendarmerie Force (EGF)is an initiative of 5 EU Member States - France, Italy, The Netherlands, Portugal and Spain – aimed at improving the crisis management capability in sensitive areas. Since Wednesday, 17th December 2008, the High Level Interdepartmental Committee Meeting (CIMIN) decided to welcome the Romanian Gendarmerie to become a full member of the EGF. Therefore the EGF consists from that moment of 6 member states."

Iniciativa de Portugal?! Porque nunca ouvimos falar disto antes?!

"EGF responds to the need to rapidly conduct all the spectrum of civil security actions, either on its own or in parallel with the military intervention, by providing a multinational and effective tool.

The EGF will facilitate the handling of crisis that require management by police forces, usually in a critical situation, also taking advantage from the experience already gained in the relevant peace-keeping missions."

As suas funções são:

- responder à necessidade imediata de conduzir todo o espectro da acções desegurança civil.

Como?

- Sozinhos ou em cooperação cm as forças militares intervenientes.

Reparem que são uma força multinacional, o mail está correcto também nesse ponto.

"Based in Vicenza in the "Generale Chinotto" barracks, the EGF HQ is now developing a comprehensive and coherent operational system, which will permit to be ready in case of prompt deployment to crisis areas."

O quartel general (HQ) está em Vicenza, Italia (confirma) e reforçam a prontidão das forças.

"EGF goal is to provide the International Community with a valid and operational instrument for crisis management, first and foremost at disposal of EU, but also of other International Organizations, as NATO, UN and OSCE, and ad hoc coalitions."

Olhem só o objectivo:

Providenciar a Comunidade Internacional com um instrumento valido e operacional para a gestão de crises, à disposição total da EU, mas também para outras Organizações Internacionais, como a Nato, NU e a OSCE e suas coligações.

Mas ainda há mais!

Vejam quem é o Comandante da Força!

"Colonel Jorge ESTEVES (Portuguese GNR)"

É português?! E nunca passou nas noticias nacionais uma coisa destas?!

Segundo o site ele comanda desde 26/6/2009, cargo que deixará em 2011.

É da GNR! Agora se percebe porque é que escolhem a GNR para ir para manutenção de paz (como Bósnia, Timor, Afeganistão, Iraque, etc.) em vez das tropas mais especializadas…. Estão a treina-los em situações reais.

O homem é de Abrantes, tem 52 anos e veio do Regimento de Cavalaria, vejam o CV do personagem:

"As a high-ranking Officer he has been Territorial Group Commander, Head of the 3rd Territorial Brigade Operations and Information’s Office, Head of the 3rd Territorial Brigade Criminal Investigation Office, 3rd Territorial Brigade Chief of Staff and 3rd Territorial Brigade Deputy Commander (2000 – 2007). During 2006 he integrated the Working Group for the Reform of the Portuguese Internal Security System. From 2004 to 2007 he was Assistant Lecturer of Military Sociology at the Military Academy in Lisbon. From July 2007 till June 2009 he has been the European Gendarmerie Force Chief of Staff.

He attended several courses related with Crisis Management Operations among them the United Nations Police Commander Course, the Strategic Planning for European Union Police Mission Course, the European Security and Defence Policy Orientation Course, the NATO Staff Officer Force Planning Course and the NATO Partnership for Peace Staff Officer Course."

Ora bem vamos lá analisar o que podem fazer!

A nível estratégico:

- Fazer policiamento em operações de gestão de crise, com base nas conclusões dos Conselhos de Santa Maria da Feira e de Nice:

http://www.ena.lu/conclusions_santa_maria_da_feira_european_council_1920_june_2000-02-27325%20target=
http://www.ena.lu/conclusions_nice_european_council_7_9_december_2000-02-17960

- Quem pode usar esta Força?

EU, NU, OSCE, NATO, outras e coligações.

- Quem ordena?

A Estrutura de Comando é a CIMIN (Comité InterMiistériel de haut Niveau) composta pelos representantes dos responsáveis pelos Ministérios de cada Pais, que assegura coordenação político-militar, nomeia o Comandante da Força e provisiona-lhe directivas e orientações para o emprego.

Qual a estrutura da Força?

E a nível táctico?

- A Força pode ser posta sob o comando quer tanto de autoridades militares como de civis, por forma a assegurar a segurança publica, ordem publica e o funcionamento pleno das tarefas judiciais. (Entrega de alimentos, cuidados médicos não interessa!)

- Não é uma força permanente (é só para repor a ordem… a ordem deles, é uma Força de Intervenção).

- A força é formada num máximo de 800 oficiais de policia, em menos de 30 dias. Para quem ainda não perceba como é que funciona, explicamos, existe um HQ permanente em Itália e quando necessitam formam uma força e essa é enviada para a crise, depois de fazer o que tem a fazer esta força é desmantelada.

Mas afinal o que é que eles tem a fazer?

– Missões gerais de segurança publica;
- Missões de manutenção da ordem publica- Combate ao crime;
- Investigação criminal (detecção, recolha, analise de informação);
- Processamento, protecção e assistência de indivíduos;
- Controlo de tráfego;
- Desactivação de explosivos;
- Combate ao terrorismo e crimes maiores e outros especializados;
- Armazenamento, gestão, recuperação e evacuação de equipamentos, transportes, e ajuda medica (não se deixem enganar por este último ponto, pois reparem que não existe distribuição nem de propriamente a ajuda, apenas a organizam);
- Monitorizar e aconselhar a policia local no seu trabalho do dia-a-dia;
- Vigilância do publico;
- Policiamento das fronteiras;
- Serviços secretos;
- Protecção de pessoas e propriedades (esta até é cómica! Vamos ver quem são essas pessoas e propriedades…);
- Treino de oficiais de policia e de instrutores.

Por fim vamos aos símbolos, este é o logótipo da força em questão:

- O mote "Lex Paciferat" (A Lei trará a Paz);
- A espada como cruz invertida;
- O louro maçónico;
- A granada a rebentar (parece uma planta, mas é uma granada e as chamas a sair dela) – Pacifistas vê-se…

Sendo tudo isto tão interessante porque não passou nos média nacionais e europeus?

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PS - recebido por correio electrónico de fonte devidamente identificada.

Assinemos a Declaração contra o Programa de Estocolmo

Para não dizermos que não sabíamos (nós soubemos graças ao António Pedro Dores) ...

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Dear ECLN supporter,

As you might be aware, the EU is preparing its next five-year plan (2010-2014), on the basis of the EU Future Group's final report of July 2008 - which is examined in depth in The Shape of Things to Come by Tony Bunyan. It is expected the programme will be adopted in December.

After a series of workshops on policing issues held at European social fora, where growing concern about civil liberties violations in Europe became apparent, it was decided to launch a Statement on the Stockholm Programme, complementing existing initiatives such as 'gipfelsoli', an online information pool on (anti-)repression and solidarity around summit protests (http://www.gipfelsoli.org/). This Statement is published in the name of the ECLN, in an attempt to encourage campaigns and give publicity and a more collective voice to the opposition of rights' violations in Europe.

The ECLN founding members have endorsed this Statement - attached - which we hope your group will also sign up to as ECLN supporter and/or individually. Next to providing background and analysis to the EU's security-driven Justice and Home policy, and the future plans outlined in the Future Group report in particular, the Statement calls on civil society to "engage in the discussions on the Stockholm programme, to inform yourselves and others and make your views known, and to defend freedom and democracy against the surveillance society that the EU is becoming."

We expect to launch the Statement on the ECLN site at the beginning of April, inviting other groups in Europe to sign up as well. We will be posting meetings, commentaries, analyses, links to other sites and developments with regard to EU institutions and civil society on the ECLN noticeboard (http://www.ecln.org/noticeboard.asp) - so do send us any initiatives you take or know of.

Please send an e-mail to info@ecln.org if you want to sign up to the call.

We are looking forward to hearing from you,

Katrin McGauran
for the ECLN


April 2009

Oppose the "Stockholm Programme"

Statement by the European Civil Liberties Network* on the new EU five-year plan on Justice and Home Affairs

The "Stockholm Programme" will set the agenda for EU justice and home affairs and internal security policy from 2009 to 2014. The EU has already taken a dangerously authoritarian turn, putting in place militarised borders, mandatory proactive surveillance regimes and an increasingly aggressive external security and defence policy. Ongoing discussions among EU policy-makers suggest that this approach will be deepened and extended over the next five years. It is expected that the “Stockholm Programme”, which is based on the final report of the EU's Future Group, analysed in-depth in The Shape of Things to Come**, will be adopted by the European Council (the 27 governments) under the Swedish Council Presidency of the EU in December 2009.

We are deeply concerned about these developments and have therefore taken the initiative to inform the public about this assault on their democratic rights and the deterioration of the human rights situation in Europe and beyond. We call on civil society groups and individuals to voice their opinions about the Stockholm programme and work towards a democratic Europe.

Background: Tampere, Hague and Stockholm

The EU has been developing the so-called 'Area of freedom, security and justice' – law and policy on police cooperation, counter-terrorism, immigration, asylum and border controls – for more than a decade. It claims to have upheld civil liberties and balanced people's privacy with its policies but many disagree, arguing that the EU has failed to uphold the human rights and democratic standards upon which the European Union claims to be founded.

The Stockholm programme will build on the two previous five year plans - the Tampere (1999-2004) and Hague (2005-2009) programmes - both of which were drawn up and adopted without any input from parliaments or civil society. While EU treaties like Amsterdam (or Lisbon if adopted) provide the legal basis for legislation, the five year plans spell out how the powers will be used, by setting the parameters for future policy and practice.

The process this time is slightly different. In 2007, the Council (27 EU governments) set up the ‘Future Group’ which issued its report** in July 2007. This sets out the agenda for a Commission proposal and national and European parliaments are being “consulted” - but the final say will lie with the Council alone.

It is already clear how much has been lost and how much is at stake.

Implementing total surveillance

The EU has gone much further than the USA in terms of the legislation it has adopted to place its citizens under surveillance. While the PATRIOT ACT has achieved notoriety, the EU has quietly adopted legislation on the mandatory fingerprinting of all EU passport, visa and residence permit-holders and the mandatory retention – for general law enforcement purposes – of all telecommunications data (our telephone, e-mail and internet usage records) and all air traveller data (on passengers into, out of and across Europe).

Under national laws implementing EU legislation, state agencies are beginning to build up a previously unimaginably detailed profile of the private and political lives of their citizens, often in the absence of any data protection standards, judicial or democratic controls.

According to the EU ‘Future Group’, this is just the beginning of a ‘digital tsunami’ that will revolutionise law enforcement, providing an enormous amount of information for police and internal security agencies. EU data protection law has already been left behind, with surveillance all but exempted. Individual rights to privacy and freedoms are being fatally undermined.

The EU is also funding the development of a European ‘Homeland Security’ industry, providing billions of Euros of subsidies to European corporations to help them compete with the US's military-industrial complex in the lucrative global market for security equipment and technology. In turn, corporations are exerting an increasing and unaccountable influence on EU security policy.

What to expect from the next five years: an EU ID card and population register, ‘remote’ (online) police searches of computer hard drives, internet surveillance systems, satellite surveillance, automated exit-entry systems operated by machines, autonomous targeting systems, risk assessment and profiling systems.

Fortress Europe: from border controls to social controls

Since the late 1970s, EU Member States and, more recently, EU institutions, have embarked on a selective war on migration. In the 1970s, labour immigration opportunities were restricted, followed in the early 90s by the creation of substantive and procedural barriers to applying for and getting asylum. Since the late 90s, external border controls were stepped up and militarised, followed by the gradual externalisation of migration control, with third country readmission agreements and detention centres surrounding the EU and FRONTEX patrolling the Mediterranean Sea.

It is a selective war against migration, because the EU's restrictive measures specifically target those fleeing from poverty and persecution: whilst industrialised countries remain 'white-listed', poor countries are relegated to the EU's visa 'black-list', and restrictive control measures are deployed against their citizens. Whilst a rapidly developing and military-oriented EU Border Police (FRONTEX) and a series of central databases (SIS, SIS II, Eurodac, VIS) are being deployed to 'combat' undocumented or irregular migration at a global level. Highly skilled migration is being encouraged to replace the EU’s ageing workforce and to maintain its living standards while ensuring the EU's 'competitive edge' in the global market economy. At the same time, the labour of undocumented migrants, working and living without labour and social rights – and under constant threat of deportation – is being shamelessly exploited in Europe. This labour benefits the EU's productive industries, such as agriculture and construction, as well as the service and reproductive economy, in particular the cleaning, hotel, restaurant and private domestic household sectors. It has been widely noted that the EU economy depends on this migrant labour, yet governments systematically deny workers their labour and human rights, in clear violation of international protection standards laid down by the EU's own human rights conventions, as well as those of the UN or the ILO.

Whilst EU politicians have consistently ignored and even encouraged breaches of international human rights law, social justice activists have recorded the ‘fatal realities’ of exclusionary immigration and asylum policies. They have documented almost 10,000 deaths that are the direct result of ‘Fortress Europe’. It is a damning indictment of neo-liberal globalisation that while travelling the world to generate profit in certain industries is encouraged, travelling to survive is condemned. At the same time, the economic contribution that migrants working in low-paid sectors are making to destination countries is not recognised by those countries.

The apparatus and institutions that have been established to control immigration into the EU are rapidly expanding. Border controls are steadily developing into a much broader form of social
control, concerned not just with migrants, but citizens as well. Airports and external borders are quickly becoming police and military checkpoints at which everyone will be subject to extensive checks and vetting. This infrastructure is developing into a sprawling data-based net that is spreading from the borders to cover entire territories and populations.

What to expect from the next five years: e-borders, passenger profiling systems, an EU ‘entry-exit’ system, ‘drone’ planes for border surveillance, joint EU expulsion flights, dedicated EU expulsion planes, EU-funded detention centres and refugee camps in third countries.

The militarisation of security, the securitisation of everything

The EU is at the centre of a paradigm shift with regard to the way that Europe and the world beyond will be policed. This is the result of a number inter-related historical trends, including the gradual blurring of the boundaries between police and military action and those between internal and external security, the widespread deployment of surveillance technologies and the development of the security-industrial complex, the economic motor for these developments.

We are now witnessing the political ‘securitisation’ of a whole host of complex policy issues, from food and energy supply to complex social and environmental phenomena such as climate change and migration. The result is an increasingly security-militarist approach to protracted social and economic problems. At times of heightened global insecurity, the danger is that the rule of law becomes secondary to the objective of threat neutralisation. Like NATO, the EU is re-positioning itself as a global policing body, developing the capacity to intervene in failed states and conflict zones, to address the potential fallout from climate change, energy crises, food crises and 'uncontrolled', or autonomous, migration movements, and to combat human trafficking, terrorism and piracy on the high seas.

The EU is taking the same militarist approach to social conflict and crisis management within Europe. EU policy on the policing of summits and protests against international organisations, critical infrastructure protection, civil contingencies, crisis management and emergency response are all based on the same strategy: control the situation with force, intervene to neutralise threats and opposition. This will be the approach should the current economic crisis result in increased social tension and protest.

What to expect from the next five years: expansion of the para-military European Gendarmerie Force, deployment of EU Battle Groups, crisis management operations in Africa, permanent EU military patrols in the Mediterranean and Atlantic.

An unaccountable EU state apparatus

As these policies are developed and implemented, an increasingly sophisticated internal and external security apparatus is developing under the auspices of the EU. It is comprised of law enforcement and security agencies (the European Police Office EUROPOL, the agency for judicial co-operation EUROJUST and the Joint Situation Centre SITCEN), EU databases and information systems (police and customs intelligence, crime and immigration records, DNA and fingerprints), para-military organisations like FRONTEX and the European Gendarmerie Force, a growing military capability and a thinly accountable network of officials that are developing the common rules and policies of the EU at a daily level. This apparatus is being extended with every new proposal for ‘harmonisation’, ‘interoperability’ or ‘convergence’ in member state law and practice.

What to expect from the next five years: more power for EU agencies, interlinking of national police systems, an EU criminal record, a permanent EU Standing Committee on internal security (COSI) dealing with operational matters.

Call for change

Far from a necessary evil, the security-driven approach to social and economic conflict is a choice.

Terrorism and violent conflict are the result of specific social and economic injustices, an unequal distribution of global welfare and sustained poverty. Tackling these inequalities and imbalances at the local, regional and global level should be the priority in any political agenda. The choice to tackle conflict with armed force, data collection, preventative policing and surveillance, serves specific interests of the few, and certainly not the interests the global or national peoples.

We demand a change in the current political agenda towards protecting social, economic and human rights at the national and global level. The Stockholm agenda, and many more preceding Justice and Home Affairs policies on migration, terrorism, policing and security are in clear violation of democratic standards and human rights. We therefore demand a retraction of anti-terrorism legislation and restrictive migration laws, and the implementation of a truly democratic political and economic system.

We call on everyone to engage in the discussions on the Stockholm programme, to inform yourselves and others and make your views known, and to defend freedom and democracy against the surveillance society that the EU is becoming.

* See http://www.ecln.org/about.html to read the ECLN founding statement and for a list of founding and supporting groups and individuals.
** Available for download at http://www.statewatch.org/analyses/the-shape-of-things-to-come.pdf.

For more background documentation, see http://www.statewatch.org/future-group.htm
For further information, contact:
ECLN - European Civil Liberties Network
Tel: +44 (0)20 8802 1882
Email: info@ecln.org 4
http://www.ecln.org/