Shut down fortress Europe
An allience of antiracist / antifascist and left wing groups are organising a weekend full of actions at the border to Denmark with a camp in Flensburg. The camp is the final highlight in a row of different events, films and actions that are going to take place for several weeks in Schleswig-Holstein, Hamburg and Denmark.
At the very same time there will be other camps in Europe and at the mexican-american border. We want to organize different actions in Flensburg as well as close to the border. On saturday there will be a joint action with danish comrades.
Allthough the idea was to abandon the inner-european borders ( the german/danish border is suppose to fall in the year 2000) one can observe a tendency of a broad supervision especially nearby borders as a supplement control of the borders. On the 3rd of May it came clear on the service area "Hüttener Berge" (last service area before the border to Denmark) when the Ministry, the border Police (Bundesgrenzschutz = BGS), customs and the police had a "Status quo" control. On a earlier pressconference, they declared that this was done mainly for the prevention of crime. But during the control their main issue came clear; the search for so called "illegals". The results of this control were 154 registered "Verstösse gegen das Ausländerrecht" (violation of the law concerning foreigners) in the first 4 month of this year and 1000 people taken in to custidy by the danish police after having "illegally" crossed the border.
Even if the inner-european borders shouldn’t be felt, at least not by Europeans, they will never fall away completely and loose their meaning. Another example is Italy where Kurds were given asylum while Austria tightened their border controls drastically. The fact that the border police in Flensburg and Sylt got more personal and that the danish side installed videocameras prooves that it is not intended to allow everybody to cross this border. Many people don’t register the danish border as such no more but here too, migrants are being detended or taxidrivers are accussed of being people trafficers
Allready in the late 70’s there is a developement in western Europe that is characterized by racism and chauvinism. With an enormous vehemence even in left wing circles, there is a talk of a "clash of the cultures" and that living together is impossible. The aim of this discussion is to create an atmosphere in which refugees automatically appear as a concept of an enemy. This developement has in the last 10 years gained on speed. In the beginning of this decade there was an open hostile racist spirit in Germany finding a peak in the pogroms of Rostock. The consequence was the abolishment of the right of asylum. Of course nobody is against migrants - as long as they don’t come here.
With the agreement of Schengen, the Trevi group (which stands for terrorism, radicalism, extremism, violence international - later called K4) the agreement of Maastricht (only to mention the main agreements) and the hereupon introduction of the visa-duty, the agreement of the 3rd country-agreement it is getting more and more difficult for refugees to reach an european country of their choice. During the war in Yugoslawia in 1992, 2,2 million people became refugees. 1,8 million of them were somewhere in the area of former Yugoslawia, 416000 were spread in different european countries. Germany boasted about having hosted a great deal of them but didn’t loose a word about the fact that due to their visa policy many refugees couldn’t leave Yugoslawia. The 3rd country Agreement is mainly good for Germany, because refugees only have a chance to claim asylum in the country in which they entered first. If their claim is denied by this particular country, it is also valid in all other EU states. The motto of this could be "One chance only". Then again refugees still have the possibillity to try again in Norway if for example their claim was denied in Germany, because Norway is not in the european union (EU). The countries of Scandinavia have long before the EU agreed on a - and passport union, in which the visa-duty for the citizens of bordering countries have been dropped which ment that the borders were less watched and secured. This means that the german-danish border is the main obstacle on the way to Norway.
The danish-german border - a border inside Europe
The capitalist countries have a common interest to - against people, who flee from persecution, war, and other outcomes of imperialist politics. Mainly "economic giants" within the EU, such as France, England and Germany are representants of this politics.
With the decline of the eastern block and the dispersal of the "Council of mutual economical help"(RGW) West Germany started the project Germany by annexing the GDR. After announcing to be the hegemonial power of europe, the call for fortress europe got louder. At the same time Germany attempted to foster an anti-refugee athmosphere within this region. It was Kanther as former minister of interior, who put pressure on countries as example on Italy to control its borders more severely.
The government of the FRG planed to use the army against refugees (as demanded by the CDU/CSU-party whip Wolfgang Schäuble) which marks a certain step, a change in the political clima, which dimension deserves a look back in time. In summer 1991 the operation of italian marines against albanian refugees (boatpeople) in Bari provoced a storm of outrage in Europe. Not even 3 years later military solutions within refugeepolicy is seen as normal. Even the green/socialdemocratic inner and foreign policy continues the path of the former government. They too try to strengthen Germany’s basis of power, by tying eastern european countries and some countries of the balcan economically closer to them. This can be seen with the integration of Poland, Hungary and the Tchech republic into NATO. Germany would like to see that as a first step for an integration into the EU and they have allready made some proposals in this direction. Germany needs eastern european countries in order not to have any borders of themselves to other non-european countries. Like this it is easier for Germany to play off low income countries of the south of europe against the ones in the east. So on the one hand there is a certain interest for integration, but it is not out of interest for the people, who live in the east and the balcan. Due to this conservative and socialdemocratic politics’ aim of Germany and other western european countries is to practise a "culture of deterrence". Everything which is foreign is denounced: Flight helpers as people trafficer, people with a different colour of skin as criminals and groups of people of other nationalities as mafia. The goal is to stigmatise migrants as criminals, murderers and rapists. Migrants from Africa, Asia, Latinamerica and some european countries are not supposed to come here. Even the migrants who are a result of the war (which was declared a humanitarian one) against former Yugoslawia shan’t come here. And the few who did come are supposed to leave as soon as possible.
We say NO!
Open up the borders for everybody!!
allience of antiracist groups of Schleswig Holstein and Hamburg
