Germany: "Borders are there to be crossed"
01 September 1999
The kein mensch ist illegal (no one is illegal) campaign, which has been protesting at Europe's border regime and the criminalisation of refugees and migrants for the past two years, together with The Caravan for the Rights of Refugees and Migrants, which toured over 40 cities in Germany last year, have successfully organised their second international "border camp". Over 1,000 anti-racists, anti-fascists, artists, refugees, computer specialists, refugee organisations and interested locals visited the camp, located in eastern Germany's so-called three country triangle, where Poland, the Czech Republic and Germany meet.
Once endowed with a thriving industrial sector, with large-scale trade and movement between borders the area has, since the "reunification" and Germany's clamp down at its eastern borders, turned into no-man's-land. The population has halved and racist and xenophobic attitudes are prevalent. The camp was deliberately set up in this region, where the BGS (Federal Border Guards) regularly pick up refugees and migrants who have crossed the border without papers. The Guards distribute leaflets encouraging the population to denounce anyone who looks like they have not got a regular status. When they pick up migrants, they often disregard their claims for asylum, and send them back to the Czech Republic or Poland. There is an asylum seekers home at the edge of the city of Zittau, inhabited by Yugoslavians, Algerians, Turks and west Africans, who say that if they enter the city centre, they either get stopped, searched and abused by the police, or beaten up by fascists.
This environment meant that local support for the camp's objectives was thin on the ground. There were daily actions to confuse the border police by arranging swimming competitions in the river dividing Germany and the Czech Republic, spontaneous all night raves along the border line, and, if possible, help for refugees and migrants attempting to cross the border. In one case, a young Kurd who had fled from Turkey and had roamed the area without food and drink for several days, heard of the camp and found food, a translator, and immigration specialists who accompanied him to lodge an asylum claim with the authorities.
Within the camp, there were daily discussion groups and workshops on borders, developments in European immigration policies, racism and resistance movements such as the Sans Papiers. Polish activists reported on the effect that the shifting borders to the east have on the "buffer states" as well as on the migrants who pass through it. Theatre performances, ironic political sketches and films on the struggles of refugee movements in France and Germany brought a welcome break to the task of building an infrastructure of communication and resistance within a single week.
The refugee group the Voive, e.V., Africa Forum initiated a campaign for the closure of the asylum seekers home in Zittau. Several camp members visited the home and reported back: two washing machines and four cookers for over 150 people, several families amongst them. Water was dripping from the walls and sanitary facilities were dirty and few. The lack of a common room or space for sports activities, of a playground for the children or even a single television, added to the isolation and deprivation of the asylum seekers, who were, moreover, prone to racist abuse from the "caretaker" of the home.
A demonstration was organised, which went past the Landratsamt, the municipal authority directly responsible for the conditions in the home, which is situated almost directly opposite the asylum seekers home: one, a spacious new building, the other, a barracks formerly used to house foreign migrant workers, surrounded by barbed wire. The Refugee Council responsible for Saxony, was not pleased with the critique and thought that compared to other homes, the one in Zittau was tolerable. Two months after the camp however, the home was closed down. The closure is viewed<