Ukrainians boast that the Carpathian mountain region is the real geographic centre of Europe and it has witnessed some of the continent's most important and traumatic events. During two world wars millions of people were killed and wounded here as foot soldiers, tanks and warplanes of the day's greatest armies, the Germans and Russians and their allies, wrestled for supremacy, and in the event turned it repeatedly into Europe's killing fields.

In the last century alone towns and villages swapped their names or their allegiances at least 13 times, mirroring the ever changing political and military realities of a particular time.

When victorious Soviet troops marched in in the wake of the Second Great War, in the words of the late British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, an Iron Curtain descended through the heart of Central Europe, splitting the communist East from the democratic West European states for more than half a century.

But another great political and social experiment is again afoot among the mountains, meadows and monasteries of the Carpathians in the western corner of Ukraine, and the impenetrable Iron Curtain has been replaced by what some pundits now call a more porous 'Lace Curtain.'

When 10 new countries joined the European Union on May 1, the bloc's outer frontier was effectively moved hundreds of miles to the east. Old communist allies such as Poland and Hungary, now 'inside' Europe and Ukraine, Moldova and Belarus on the 'outside' eye each other warily but non-belligerently across this electrified 'Lace Curtain.'

And what happens here in the next few years and how relations between the 'ins' and the 'outs' evolve will undoubtedly have a major influence on how successful Europe's 'big bang' expansion will be.

The EU in the last few years provided its new partners with more than one billion dollars to both physically strengthen their borders with better hardware such as trucks, computers, weapons and night vision goggles, and their immigration and asylum systems with improved data bases, better personnel training, reception and detention facilities to process many of the hundreds of thousands of people – a mixed flood of economic migrants, refugees and asylum seekers – annually trying to enter Europe.

In comparison, their eastern neighbours, who are among the continent's most impoverished countries, have received 'just peanuts' according to one western asylum official, to try to bolster their own border controls.

That may reflect cold political reality. Political families, after all, look after their own first. But UNHCR, which is heavily involved in asylum and refugee issues here, and other organizations believe bolder moves are necessary including closer cooperation between border states and further resources for both sides of the frontier.

The premise is simple: if countries such as Ukraine and neighbours Moldova and Belarus can strengthen their borders and immigration systems and elevate them to the European level, everyone wins. The vast flow of 'illegals' will be reduced and processed even before they reach Europe's new frontiers. Genuine refugees and asylum seekers would be treated more fairly and effectively by high-grade systems. Security on both sides of the border would be enhanced.

But if the imbalance in resources continues, it may well trigger the opposite effect: increased numbers of people reaching Europe illegally, embittered neighbours unable or unwilling to control the flow, refugees and asylum seekers submerged by and abused in the subsequent chaos.

CHANGED CIRCUMSTANCES

When Ukraine was part of the Soviet empire, heavily fortified frontiers and intimidating and brutal security and immigration organizations were erected to meet challenges diametrically opposed to those the country faces today – keeping its own restless population quiescent and preparing for the possibility of violent conflict with the West.

But in just a few short years Ukraine, Moldova and Belarus – the so-called Western Newly Independent States (WNIS) – have made what one report recently called "remarkable progress" in meeting the new immigration and asylum challenges now facing their countries.

All have acceded to the 1951 Geneva Refugee Convention. Kiev adopted a new refugee law three years ago. The U.N. refugee agency and the Swedish Migration Board in 2001 launched the so-called Söderköping Process aimed at promoting first dialogue and then practical measures between countries on both sides of the new frontiers. An EU-funded secretariat was established last year to add administrative muscle to the process.

UNHCR promotes a range of other activities, legally assisting asylum seekers, often through local partner agencies; helping recognized refugees to integrate successfully in a foreign and often mysterious local society; providing funds to help construct desperately needed reception centres; promoting on-the-job training and underwriting such basic but often unaffordable local necessities as interpreters' fees, gasoline for local asylum officials and even the costs of photocopying applications and official documents.

"There has been major progress in Ukraine," says the agency's representative, Guy Ouellet. "But there is still a long, long way to go. There is a lot of work to be done here."

In the capital, Kiev, and along the country's borders with neighbours such as Russia, Moldova, Poland, Hungary and Romania, migration and asylum are hot-button issues. Many politicians complain that Europe treats them as poor country cousins. Currently, Ukraine serves mainly as a simple transit route for tides of people from as far away as China, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Iraq, Palestine and Syria, trying to reach Europe. But there is a widespread fear that it could soon become a permanent dumping ground for those refused access to the West.

Some officials warn darkly that in future Ukraine could simply allow the great majority of transiting migrants across its own borders into Europe without any checks at all. As one Interior Ministry official recently told a visitor: "This is Europe's problem, not ours."

The criticisms have resonance in a state where the average wage is $150 per month (in comparison, people trying to reach Europe from China pay as much as $10,000 to traffickers to help them) and more than five million Ukrainians have themselves moved overseas to find better jobs.

One recent newspaper headline colourfully predicted "Ukraine may become a sludge tank (dumping ground) of illegal migrants for the whole of Europe." A xenophobic website called Fortress Kiev, invoking ironic allusions to Fortress Europe, routinely spouts racist rhetoric that foreigners are destroying the country.

Other major legal, bureaucratic, administrative and budgetary problems bedevil the system.

Reception and detention centres are either non existent or are in appalling condition. There is a plethora of government departments involved in immigration and asylum issues, resulting in overlap, waste and inefficiency. There are virtually no funds to move people out of the country if they are deemed to be illegal and as many as 45 local laws must be harmonized with the 1951 Convention and other international instruments if those asylum seekers allowed to stay are to enjoy their full rights. It could take years to clear the backlog of still pending asylum applications.

After the country's new refugee law was promulgated at the start of the millennium, not a single person was allowed to even apply for asylum for an entire year. Most would-be applicants continue to be refused access to the procedure by immigration officials enforcing a hard-line regulation which stipulates that everyone must apply within a maximum five day period of their entering Ukraine.

In an unusual move, UNHCR, which has worked closely with the government to strengthen its asylum procedures, nevertheless also took it to court dozens of times and successfully challenged many decisions. Recent statistics suggest that asylum officials have now begun to relax the rule's implementation. "It has taken two years to win this modest concession," Ouellet said. "But it is progress."

A VIEW FROM OUTSIDE

A visitor recently toured Ukraine's western borders to assess the view from 'outside' the European Union looking in:

Ukraine means borderland and in the current circumstances the name is appropriate. The frontier post between Ukraine and Hungary at the town of Chop is full of trucks, cars and buses going in both directions. With some of the modest amount of money allocated by the EU to Ukraine to upgrade its border facilities, buildings here have been modernized and expanded and a new computer system installed. Commander Zhdanenko Alexander Anatolievich, who oversees 200 kilometers of border with 2,000 guards, takes out a stopwatch and times the clearance of each vehicle.

"It used to take at least three minutes to clear each car," he says proudly as a pretty female guard and her colleague examine passports and check them on a computer. "Now it can take as little as 30 seconds." Hungary introduced new European visa restrictions months ago, and in view of that perhaps surprisingly the number of 'legal' movements in both directions doubled last year and looks set to double again in 2004 according to commander Zhdanenko.

Cross-border trade along these routes has been a way of life for centuries and many small-time Ukrainian traders have been hard hit by the new restrictions which make it more expensive and time consuming for them to enter Hungary. The government in Kiev said the new barriers could cost the country millions of dollars in lost trade and export.

But at Chop more and more Hungarians are coming to Ukraine to shop for food, clothing and other items which are now cheaper here than in Europe. "No, there's really little change" even with the new immigration regime several civilian drivers at the border agree.

That may be true in one sense, but commander Zhdanenko said the number of border guards under his command had almost doubled in the last few months, the aim being both to bolster Ukraine's own security and an agreement with the EU. Unsurprisingly, the number of illegals apprehended since the beginning of the year had also increased, by 50 percent.

The frontier on each side of the crossing point consists of a rusting 8-foot tall chain link barrier installed by the Soviets decades ago and a more recent electrified fence which administers a mild shock to anyone trying to penetrate it. A 10-foot wide barrier of ploughed earth highlights telltale footprints of anyone approaching the wire.

During this visit a group of women from the embattled Russian republic of Chechnya are apprehended in broad daylight as they try to walk to Europe. Last year, Ukrainian guards detained 2,150 migrants who tried to illegally cross its western borders into Europe, but the number of people who successfully make it is unknown (an estimated 500,000 people enter the European Union illegally each year from all directions). There are few ready facilities to house the Chechen women, a group of Pakistanis caught the same day in the border town of Uzhgorod or people surrendering to authorities and asking for asylum.

A local organization, NEEKA, assisted by UNHCR, rented a four-storey building nicknamed The Dormitory from the railway authority and it houses 42 illegal immigrants and 20 asylum seekers. Until 1997, women and children were simply allowed to wander the nearby streets, but conditions inside The Dormitory are also minimal. Twenty-three Chechen women live in one room under light guard. They are not allowed outside to exercise, nor are their children. Some have been separated from their husbands for months and there is only occasional contact via a recently installed telephone.

WHY STOP NOW?

Having escaped the destruction of their homeland, and in their own naïve and innocent world, the Chechen women do not understand why the border guards keep them under lock and key rather than helping them on their way to Europe.

After only a few minutes in the presence of a visitor they are all weeping and worrying: "We want to go to Europe," one says. "Why are they stopping us here and not helping us?" Another woman points to a young orphaned girl who smiles vacantly into space from her bed. "What is going to happen to her?" she demands. "Who is going to care for her?"

The local border commander insists in a separate interview that the women will all be deported back to Chechnya as soon as possible – but only once he can find money to buy them tickets. What he does not mention is that this action is in breach of both national and international law.

While the European Union agreed to help finance the construction of several new detention and reception facilities for migrants and asylum seekers, it flatly refused to underwrite repatriations. The Ukrainians say that most of the time they simply have no money to buy return tickets. Unwanted and unable to move, detainees end up languishing in horrid conditions for months.

A few miles away, deep in the forest, a former military barracks at Pavshino houses nearly 300 illegal migrants and asylum seekers, all of them men.

The complex had been empty for eight years and until recently there was no heating in the two-storey barracks in a region where winter temperatures drop to minus 30 degrees. Inmates shower once a week. There is no money for food and the guards are often forced to share their own rations with the detainees. NEEKA now provides a daily food package of bread, soup and occasionally apples and other fresh foodstuffs, but even the modest funding for this project currently provided by the Swiss will end shortly.

During the visit, 63 Indians were crammed into two small dark rooms, two persons forced to share each military-style steel bed. Last year the situation was worse and three persons had to take turns sleeping in each bunk.

Virtually every inmate – with the exception of a group of stoic Chinese who slept their way through the day refusing to communicate with anyone – crowded the stairwells and corridors shouting for attention and help as guards looked nervously on. "Please, we must get out of here," they said. "You must help us. Let us give you our names."

The isolation, lack of news and difficult conditions led to riots and mass escapes both here and at the nearby Dormitory in 2002 and 2003.

Such incidents play well on some television channels, feeding a latent xenophobia not dissimilar to situations in some West European countries. There is the perception that foreigners are troublemakers who receive better medical facilities and food than poor locals.

With an eye towards his local constituents Lazar Vasil Ivanovych, the head of the sub-region's administration said, "Europe is interested in keeping these people out. We are doing Europe's dirty work for it. Why should we carry the burden? Europe must understand this and help us."

In the city of Uzhgorod (City on the River) only a couple of kilometers from both the Slovak and Hungarian borders, Igor Mikhayeyshyn, a senior Ministry of Interior official adds his own perspective. "You can build as many walls as you like," he said referring to the recently introduced border controls and tighter security along the nearby frontiers. "But this will not stop people trying to reach Europe. Walls are no match for poverty and desperation."

He then added, "But it is nice to have a rich neighbour. We need the money. You need our help. We can work together."

At one point along the border, a massive 70-foot memorial to the soldiers who fought in World War II glowers menacingly over vehicles moving slowly in and out of Ukraine. The electrified frontier fence cuts through a field of vines to an old-style watch tower.

They are stark reminders of a dark era which lasted for a half a century, but they already seem to be anachronisms. This region again finds itself at the centre of European affairs, but with a new set of problems to overcome.


Illegal immigrants and asylum seekers in detention along Ukraine's western borders. © UNHCR/L.Taylor

Source: Refugees Magazine Issue 135: "New Europe and Asylum – What Next?" (June 2004). Download the complete issue in pdf format: low-resolution (520Kb) here or high-resolution (1.5Mb) here