Jean-Jacques Cornish

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Jean-Jacques Cornish

Crunch time for migrants

 

The wind picks up on the sea these late summer evenings, whipping up the waves. If one hopes  to navigate the Mediterranean with any safety in a small boat, it had best be before winter turns the water colder and rougher.

So this is a crucial time for those fleeing conflict and persecution back home – or simply wishing to feed a family – by crossing the Mediterranean and finding shelter in Europe.

Indeed it is crunch time for refugees everywhere as the spotlight is turned on them by the United Nations General Assembly starting in New York.

The bigoted Matteo Salvini , who aligned himself with United States President Donald Trump in making cruelty a policy for deterring migrants, has disappeared for now as Italy’s Interior Minister. 

The full effect of this has yet to be revealed.

But for now captains of rescue ships do not risk imprisonment by taking aboard those cynically thrown to their fate by people smugglers. 

Some relief then for those taking this route to Europe. Their numbers have dramatically diminished:About a tenth of the number crossing  three year ago. But the Mediterranean  claims proportionately more of their lives.

Thanks to the efforts of the United Nations High Commission on Refugees, fewer of them will be taken to Libya where they face detention in appalling conditions or worse.

The country rendered ungovernable after the fall of Muammar Gadaffi is no longer an easy option for European countries trying to reduce the migrant wave.

This does not mean European countries will take appreciably more people from Africa and the Middle East.

No more than the United States will welcome those from Central and South American countries seeking safer, better lives.

Indeed, South Africa will not be able to take in all those Africans coming  across the Limpopo and the Kruger National Park.

One must hope an international understanding can be reached that there is a universal responsibility to provide a refuge.

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Jean-Jacques Cornish is a journalist and broadcaster who has been involved in the media all his adult life.

Starting as a reporter on his hometown newspaper, he moved briefly to then Rhodesia before returning to South Africa to become a parliamentary correspondent with the South African Press Association. He was sent to London as Sapa’s London editor and also served as special correspondent to the United Nations. He joined the then Argus group in London as political correspondent.

Returning to South Africa after 12 years abroad, he was assistant editor on the Pretoria News for a decade before becoming editor of the Star and SA Times for five years.

Since 1999 he’s been an independent journalist writing and broadcasting – mainly about Africa – for Talk Radio 702 and 567 Cape
Talk, Radio France International, PressTV, Radio Live New Zealand, Business Day, Mail & Guardian, the BBC, Agence France Press,
Business in Africa, Leadership, India Today, the South African Institute for International Affairs and the Institute for Security Studies.

He has hosted current affairs talk shows on Talk Radio 702 and 567 Cape Talk. He appears as an African affairs pundit on SABC Africa and CNBC Africa.
He lectured in contemporary studies to journalism students at the Tshwane University of Technology and the University of Pretoria.

He speaks on African affairs to corporate and other audiences.
He has been officially invited as a journalist to more than 30 countries. He was the winner of the 2007 SADC award for radio journalism.

He’s been a member of the EISA team observing elections in Somaliland, Democratic Republic of Congo, Madagascar, Zimbabwe, Egypt and Tunsiai.

In October 2009 he headed a group of 39 African journalists to the 60th anniversary celebrations of the Peoples’ Republic of China.

In January 2010 he joined a rescue and paramedical team to earthquake struck Haiti.

He is immediate past president of the Alliance Francaise of Pretoria.

Jean-Jacques is a director of Giant Media. The company was given access to Nelson Mandela in his retirement years until 2009.
He is co-producer of the hour-long documentary Mandela at 90 that was broadcast on BBC in January 2009.

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