European Campaign For The Shutting Down Of All Detention Centres For Migrants In Europe

by iosaf Fri Sep 29, 2006 20:49

A while back (over a year) I left this article http://indymedia.ie/article/69199 there was a then up to date map of Europe had her internment and holding camps. http://indymedia.ie/article/69199#comment104056 But even that far back it was becoming clear to migrant activists that the major EU "reception" states favoured the funding of camps in states outside the union. Thus Spain in the last year came to agreements with Mauritania and Senegal & of course Morocco. Italy came to accords with both Tunisia and Libia (Ghadaffi asked for a motorway to be built with Italian and EU money in return for building a holding camp for migrants). To the east the major holding point for migrants is Hungary. But co-operation with nonEU eastern states has seen accords negotiated to build camps in Belarus, Ukraine & Turkey. Does it need to be spellt out that if we worry about human rights abuses & conditions for migrants whose only "crime" has been to seek work or worse escape poverty in the EU, that when they are shipped out of our systems & constitutional safeguards to other countries we regularly condemn for human rights abuses something is wickedly wrong???

In the last 14 months the group "doctors without frontiers" reported abandoned African migrants without food or water in the Sahara desert on more than 5 occassions. Morocco didn't want them, or Algeria didn't want them. They never even came close to the canary islands or Siciliy. Yet perhaps due to racism the average European thinks migrancy is about "black people" it is not. There are established trans-african routes for Asian migrants from Pakistan, India and Sri Lanka - yet others are trafficed in boats all the way round the Cape of Southern africa. Kazhaks, Uzbeks, the eastern provinces of PR China constantly see sent our way migrants who are trafficked. . Most of the organised prostitution in Europe sees women and some are mere girls trafficked from Russia, Bylerus and Ukraine.

There is no other way of understanding this than using the language of "slavery". & I for one encourage all readers with time on their hands to join in the global campaign to emancipate our fellow humans.

= No borders!

the internment camps, holding camps & migrant processing centres of Europe in 2005. None have closed. more have opened.... & not always in Europe.

by Gregor Samsa - No Lager Bremen Sat Sep 30, 2006 12:51

Antiracist Perspectives in regard to G-8 Summit 2007

For years there has been a deep divide in the (antiracist) Left when the issue of flight and migration comes up. While one side is talking about „Fortress Europe“ and mainly concentrates on attacking the ever more sophisticated regime of borders, camps and deportations, the other side favors the concept of „autonomy of migration“ as the archimedial reference point. According to this concept one should not fortget that despite all efforts to close the borders each year hundreds of thousand people enter the European Union on an irregular basis who organize their survival under self-determined, however rather precarious conditions. Migration therefore should be deciphered as “social protagonism”, i.e. resilience; it could even be termed the “most successful social movement”.

more at:
http://nolager.de/blog/node/452

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editor note: The above could have been hidden due to the fact that it is a cut-and-paste and that it had no attributing link. I have edited it down and added a link because I think it is a valuable piece and adds to the conversation that has already started. - redjade

by peripheral disorder Sat Sep 30, 2006 14:21

this post is an excellent article, and at a time when many on the left in Ireland feel isolated politically when it comes to tackling the issue of migration/ racism it can perhaps open up a space for debate on these issues. The issue of autonomy of migration moves away from the victimisation/ anti deportation argument whilst also distancing itself from the labour party stance that migration is good and only good for the labour market. It closes the dichotomy between these two arguments while retaining the best of both. I particularly like the way it attempts to link the global phenomenon of migration with the precaritisation of labour, the fact that it begins from the premise and recognition that migration is central to any discussion on the ' movement' , therefore it politicises the issue of racism. immigration and the fact it distances itslef from the overly emotive victimisation argument. perhaps it could be made into a feature in order open up the space for a discussion of these issues.