Eduardo de Castro: "Morocco is trying to hide what happened"

He confesses that the humanitarian tragedy on Friday in the Chinese neighborhood of Morocco next to the Melilla fence is the "hardest and most difficult" episode he has faced since he assumed the presidency of the city in 2019.

Thomas Osborne
Thomas Osborne
29 June 2022 Wednesday 21:57
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Eduardo de Castro: "Morocco is trying to hide what happened"

He confesses that the humanitarian tragedy on Friday in the Chinese neighborhood of Morocco next to the Melilla fence is the "hardest and most difficult" episode he has faced since he assumed the presidency of the city in 2019. Without party acronyms after his move to the mixed group when he was expelled from Ciudadanos, Eduardo de Castro (Melilla, 1957) speaks without the need to make a good impression on anyone and warning that what happened can be repeated if there is no great international consensus to remedy it.

Did the Moroccan police collaborate with the Civil Guard?

Yes.

Any reproach?

I am not one to reproach, but I am to warn that an avalanche like that cannot be stopped. They are young, strong and determined people. We lack personal and material means, but in any case, any action on one side or the other of the border must be proportional.

And wasn't it this time on the Moroccan side?

We have all seen the images. They are bloody and dramatic, and show gendarmes treating human beings as if they were things. Such an action does not fit in the human head. I hope it gets investigated as it deserves. And that those responsible or those who allowed this to happen be condemned, but I am afraid it will be very complicated, and in Melilla we know this from experience.

I was asking about proportionality.

People don't kill themselves. One can fall and someone can fall on top of it and be crushed to death. But we have seen images in which there are not only people who fall, there are many more things.

The Prosecutor's Office is already investigating.

I trust the Spanish Public Prosecutor's Office and the good will of the European Union and I know that they will try, but it will not be easy because the Moroccan authorities will not provide any facilities. The rule of law does not exist there as such, as we know it. They are going to hide what happened. Look at the news that transcends these days: graves, morgue, no autopsies. They are trying to hide everything, and without evidence there can be no accusation.

The events took place in Morocco.

Indeed, and not in Melilla. It is enough to criminalize the Melilla fence. We have not caused this tragedy and the Civil Guard has nothing to do with it, that has happened on the other side of the fence. It will be very difficult for the Public Prosecutor's Office to investigate events that have not taken place in Spanish territory.

Solutions?

I don't know, really. There are several paths, among them that of seriously influencing investment in the countries of origin. There has to be an international agreement to control that flow of people. Before arriving in Morocco they have crossed many countries. We are the southern border of Europe and, therefore, yes or yes, Europe has to be here.

How?

The European border and coast guard agency, Frontex, has to be in Melilla, as the European Union has to be through the different institutions. The only two points we have on the African continent where there is a territory that is European as well as Spanish are us and Ceuta. The co-participation of Spain and Morocco as now is not enough, but of more countries, this border has to be more secure.

They feel alone.

Here there is a personal cost that does not take into account the civil guards and national police officers who work on the border and who confront these people. It's always the same ones. If Morocco were to see more uniforms on that border, in addition to those that are already there, it would be an important dissuasive measure. The same way they think twice, or they are more careful, because it would be another imprint. It would no longer be just Spain, or what they call that nonsense of the occupied territory, but they would be looking at Europe. It is necessary to have Frontex here.

Who prevents it?

I don't know, but Europe didn't start looking at us until May of last year, when ten thousand people entered Ceuta.

Trust the NATO meeting.

Hope is never lost, although I confess that it was difficult with the new strategic concept for an explicit mention of Ceuta and Melilla to emerge from Madrid, although the new resolution already expressly includes the principle of territoriality. But I don't really believe that we are facing the threat of this type of armed conflict. Countries like Morocco move much better in the scenarios of the so-called hybrid war, in the gray areas.