(Translated from Barrikade to highlight activism for refugees' rights and conditions facing migrants in Europe https://barrikade.info/Aktionsruckblick-Aktionen-gegen-Grenzen-fur-pol-Gefangene-und-Gedenken-an-Suruc-1286)
On Wednesday night, we placed signs in various public baths and along the Aare, which forbid mooring with boats as well as the rescue of drowning people. In this way we want to draw attention to the inhumane and murderous policies on the European external borders
Nationalist politics once again shows its murderous face! Europe's right-wing governments are tightening their foreclosure policy and causing thousands of people to die at European external borders. The depressing, temporary climax was reached when private rescue ships with fugitives were forbidden to break into a harbor or even set sail. The result was hundreds of dead refugees in June this year.
Central to this policy are the new governments of Italy, Austria and Germany. Italy's Interior Minister Matteo Salvini, of the fascist party Lega Nord, had the harbors for rescue ships closed. The right-wing government of Austria centred around Sebastian Kurz and HC Strache also want to close the borders and the German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer is about to overtake the AfD on the right with its racist rhetoric. For example, he was pleased about the deportation of 69 Afghan asylum seekers on his 69th birthday. One of them committed suicide after his deportation.
However, the general direction is not new at all. For more than two years, a refugee deal has been upheld between the EU and Turkey. Refugees end up in internment camps and are deported back to Turkey, suffering inhuman conditions. The wall on the Turkish-Syrian border, on which countless refugees were shot, was built with European funds. The EU directly supports the dictatorship in Turkey!
The same should follow with North African states such as Libya and Algeria. In Libya, refugees live in terrible conditions in camps, being tortured, enslaved and raped.
The Coast Guard, with which Europe cooperates more intensively, has been obstructing private rescue missions for a long time. It has already been repeatedly publicised that the Coast Guard shot at refugee boats.
It was recently announced that Algeria is sending refugees into the desert without food and water. Whoever turns around is shot, whoever runs through the desert to Niger, threatens to die of thirst.
The European states are directly responsible for the deaths of thousands of innocent people! We are appalled by that, but not surprised. It is in the nature of the capitalist states to put the well-being of the economy above the welfare of the people - with all its consequences. Migration will only be welcomed if it serves the economy. Humanitarian charities are made on a small scale.
Nobody flees voluntarily! The causes of flight must be understood and ended.
We should all realize that the West is largely responsible for those fleeing movements that it is trying to prevent. The economic exploitation of poorer countries, combined with massive environmental destruction, cause poverty and misery. Geostrategic interests lead to war and death.
The ostensibly neutral Switzerland also makes money on arms
exports and is home to corporations that benefit from the suffering of
millions of people worldwide.
As long as the capitalist economic conditions exist, people will be forced to flee. While states fight people, we have to fight conditions. Only a militant and solidary movement from below can put a stop to meaningless dying.Against state, nation and capital!