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Refugee children are frightened by riot police at the Greece-Macedonian border in 2015, before Macedonia shut its border to asylum seekers earlier this year.
Refugee children are frightened by riot police at the Greece-Macedonian border in 2015, before Macedonia shut its border to asylum seekers earlier this year.
As Europe comes to terms with a Brexit vote fueled in large part by anti-immigrant hate-mongering, a new report exposes how war profiteers are influencing EU policy to make money from unending Middle East conflicts as well as the wave of refugees created by that same instability and violence.
The report (pdf), Border Wars: The Arms Dealers Profiting from Europe's Refugee Tragedy, released jointly by the European Stop Wapenhandel and Transnational Institute (TNI) on Monday, outlines arms traders' pursuit of profit in the 21st century's endless conflicts.
"There is one group of interests that have only benefited from the refugee crisis, and in particular from the European Union's investment in 'securing' its borders,'" the report finds. "They are the military and security companies that provide the equipment to border guards, the surveillance technology to monitor frontiers, and the IT infrastructure to track population movements."
The report shows that "far from being passive beneficiaries of EU largesse, these corporations are actively encouraging a growing securitization of Europe's borders, and willing to provide ever more draconian technologies to do this."
Comment: Turkey had just concluded two major diplomatic moves, apologizing to Russia for the downing of one of her jets, and cozying back up to Israel for some much coveted gas revenue. Was someone not happy about that?
Turkey 48 hours: Diplomatic victories, deadly terror attack...are they connected?