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CROSS
THE BORDER
October 8-15
Coordination: Florian Schneider
No One Is Illegal (Munich), Hilda
Kozari and Seppo Koskela
(Helsinki).
Borders are there to be crossed. Their significance becomes obvious
only when they are violated--and it says quite a lot about a society's
political and social climate when one sees what kind of border-crossing
a government tries to prevent.
A few days before the EU summit in Tampere, which is completely
dedicated to the Europe-wide harmoniziation of border and migration
affairs, the workshop will bring together individuals, groups and
initiatives, dealing with the subject of border crossings from different
perspectives: migrant groups and refugees in Finnland, sans papiers
from all over Europe, escaping artists, anti-racist and anti-border
activists.
New media, and over all the internet, have opened new ways of acting
and interacting in the free field between the significance of the
new border regime and the signification of proceeded bordercrossings.
During the workshop the results of various offline activities along
the borderline will be presented online. This workshop will particularly
focus on the results of the border camp, which took for the second
time in August, at German-Polish-Czech border.
Though the network of CAISA International Cultural Centre Helsinki,
( www.kulttuuri.hel.fi/caisa
) ethnic groups and individuals can participate in the TEMP project.
TEMP is also taking part in Caisa's Multicultural Fair, 12-15 october.
www.come.to/tampere
www.contrast.org/borders
Living near
the Border
Involvement
of the Borderpopulation into theGerman Border-Regime at the German-Polish
Border
The German Border-Regime
rests on three pillars. One of them is a matter
of foreign policy, namly the functionalization of Germans Eastern
neighbours as door-keepers of the EU. The second pillar is the armament
of the German Border Police, the Bundesgrenzschutz (BGS), which
is a
Federal Police, and its equipment with more and far-reaching powers.
And
finally we have the growing involvement of the borderpopulation
into
border- control. There is also a fourth party playing a role in
this
concept, but it is handling only with those lucky peole that managed
to
cross the border secretly. The foreigners administration and the
German
legislation upon asylumseekers and foreigners is part of a system
which
is more and more becoming a means of keeping out any refugees and
migrants or to freeze out those, who are already there. For to give
an
idea what German border-policy means there will be a short description
of the first two points before coming to the main topic, the involvement
of the population into the chase of illegals and borderviolators,
or
whatever you may call them.
1. Utilizing
the neighbour-states as buffer states Since the
modification of the German Constitution in 1993 there is nearly
no
chance left for refugees to apply for asylum in Germany. The so
called
Save-Third-Country-Regulation makes it possible for the German
administration to reject nearly every application for asylum immediatly,
because the asylumseeker came transit across one of the neighbourstates.
All the trouble of handling with migration and refugee movements
Germany
and the EU delegate to their Eastern neighbours which are given
clear
rules of well-behaving in order to get admission to the EU one day.
The
model pupil in this relation of ordering and obeying is Poland.
According to the German-Polish Agreement of May 1993 Poland got
120
Million Deutschmarks for building up her own borderfacilities such
as
boats, helicopters and technical equipment, but also for raising
a
BGS-like border-police and establishing an own asylum-procedure.
Since
then, there spread a dense net of detention prisons for foreigners.
For
example 1,5 Million DM flew into the restoration of the detention
in
Leznowola, a guarded camp. Poland now has 25 detentions for deportees.
But not only the system of pulling out rejected asylumseekers or
by the
BGS returned secret immigrants was copied from the German system.
Also a
firm system of readmission-agreements was established with the
neighbouring countries in the East, so that there occured something
that
could be called Domino- deportation. People that were rejected or
pulled
back by the German BGS are transported - with or without a often
very
long stay in a detention camp - to one of the Eastern neighbours
as
there are Belorus or Ukraine. in 1996 about 1500 persons, nearly
a
third of the altogether near 5000 borderviolators pulled back by
the
BGS, were immediately pulled out by Poland to a neighbourstate or
deported into their home-country. Most of this domino-deportations
are
operated in a 48-hour-term. On the 27th of June 1997 the trip from
the
German border to the Ukrainian border ended up in a heavy accident
in
which two of the deportees died. The driver of the vehicle fell
asleep
after 14 hours non- stop-driving. The new Polish asylum-and foreigners
laws of 1997 make it even more difficult to apply for asylum at
all to
prevent a deportation. Poland is learning her lesson. The same system
works between Hungary and Austria, the keen new member of the sacred
EU.
Another thing with the same purpose are the readmission- agreements
Germany signs with a growing number of states to make deportation
easier
and quicker. The first readmission-agreements were established with
Poland in 1993, the Czech Republic in 1994, Romania in 1992 and
Bulgaria
in 1995. Secret immigrants from Romania and Bulgaria who are arrested
at
the border are immediately transported to the airport Berlin-Schnefeld
and then turned back to the named countries of origin. Germany and
the
EU can put immense pressure on countries like Poland that want to
join
the EU: only if they fulfill the security-demands of Western Europe
they
will be admitted to that sublime assembly. This is why they obey
some
even humiliating conditions of this stick-and-carrot-policy, too.
If
everything is working out well, there will be spoken in favour of
the
EU-aspirants.
2. The armament
of the German border-police BGS The number of officers
and administration personnel was increased to a high extent. There
have
been 2400 BGS-officers in 1992. Today we have about 5800
Border-policemen and for the near future there is projected a number
of
7500 BGS-men. This numbers are related to the German eastern borders
only, which are supposed to be the border with the highest density
of
guard in Europe or even the world. There, at the Polish and Czech
borders there (without the Bavarian-Czech border), there are in
average
2,4 officers per kilometer doing their service. At the US-Mexican
border
there are only 0.18 officers per kilometer. With the staff occupied
in
the bureaus of the BGS there are about 10 000 officers and employees
in
duty for the federal border-police at the eastern borders. Additionally
there is since 1993 a border-police-support-unit of about 1200 officers
with employee-status. But there are even more officers doing service
at
this border, namly the customs officers and the ordinary
state-police-forces. This figures may give you an impression which
manpower Germany is ready to occupy to get the EU-border watertight
.
The governmental budget for the BGS increased from 1.3 billion DM
in
1989 to over 3 billion DM in 1997. All in all the BGS has about
30 000
officers (1992: 24 500) in charge for the what is called
border-protection and inner security . We have to be aware regarding
the
border that it is no longer the borderline we were accustomed to,
but as
a zone extending to 30 kilometers further inland. In this security
belt
the BGS (and also customs) has the same powers as the state-police
and
even more. It is allowed to control papers of any person without
suspicion or event at any time, he can observate houses and listen
in on
telephonlines and raid any place declared a dangerous place. The
newest
changes of the BGS-law provide the same powers for it along bigger
transitroads and in railwaystations (the BGS is the railway-police,
too)
and their surroundings. The technical armament of the BGS with the
latest technology adds to the high standard of border-control that
is
established at the German Eastern borders. I just name some of these
hardcore apparatus: There are for example carbon dioxide detectors
that
can measure if there are persons breathing inside any container;
there
are the newest infrared cameras and those to see at night with the
remaining light in darkness; and there are certainly patrol- boats
on
Odra and Neisse, there are helicopters and more than 600 tracker
dogs.
(By the way: in Austria there is the army engaged in guarding the
border, young and unexperienced men doing there military service
have to
live in tents and to handle arresting illegal immigrants; moreover
Austria is working with ground radar at the borders). And there
is a
high-tech computersystem, the SIS or Schengen Information System.
Alone
all over Germany there are 9000 (in part mobile) terminals of this
system. Germany fed this gigantic system with the data of about
320 000
unwelcome people of the altogether 415 000. Germany bundles up all
these
computer-control-systems to a border-terminal-system, which is in
use
with nearly 700 terminals at the Eastern borders. Next step in this
progress will be the finger-print-directory EURODAC, but all these
technical tools can't keep up with the help of the borderpopulation
observing the borders.
3. The involvement
of the population into border-security Most of the
statistics and figures comes directly from the German border-
police.They are extracted from the annual report of this institution.
Other material is nearly not available. The speaker of the the
BGS-center in Frankfurt/Oder in the state of Brandenburg pointed
out
publicly, that 50 percent of all the arrests of secret immigrants
are
due to hints out of the border-population. The BGS-speaker of Rothenburg
at the Neie in the state of Saxony even spoke of 70 to 80 percent
arrests due to German informers living in the border region denouncing
the trespassers. The FFM- team was stunned by these figures and
tried to
get some more information on the role the ordinary people there
play in
border-control and which emphasis the federal border- police puts
on
these volunteers, which kind of propaganda gets people to hold it
right
and necessary to denounce migrants and refugees. In the media the
picture of a flood of criminals waiting in the East to slosh into
the EU
to rob, steel and even murder, to destroy the social system, to
take
away the jobs of the righteous inhabitants and to bring in unmeasurable
amounts of what is called organized criminality penetrates the peoples'
minds unfiltered, because there is nearly no critical, differentiating
approach to what flight and migration are in fact. There is some
special
kind of border-criminality, no doubt, the circumstances are too
inviting. But the effect of the pauseless indoctrination of people
(not
only in the border region) is that for every single stolen car or
bicycle, for every burglary and every violent attack on someone
the
foreigners, "die Auslnder", are blamed. Marking immigrants
and refugees
who have no other legal possibility to enter the country with the
word
illegal immigrants or illegals , what people keep in mind is that
every
secret border-crosser is a criminal. After having this thing clear
nobody feels the need to ask for some more details about the persons,
their motivation to flee or migrate, their lifes and fates. What
is
more, is identifying every secret immigrant with what was worked
out to
be a capital offence, namly trafficking. This official propaganda
could
be proofed with uncounted press-articles or ministerial announcements.
The Minister of the Interior, Manfred Kanther (and nowadays his
successor Otto Schily), was a hero of this kind of setting people
in
fear. To make clear the effects of this propaganda one ought to
take a
closer look on the myth of racketeers and traffickers: The picture
that
media and official announcements draw of trafficking aliens is the
picture of especially unscrupulous and brutal criminals that exploit
the
poorest of the poor, that are bringing in drugs, weapons and criminal
energy into the country and thar are likely to be a branch of the
Russian or whatever mafia. Useful for this imaging the traffick
in
aliens are the incidents and accidents in which refugees and migrants
die. No doubt, there are criminals involved in this business, there
are
women forced into prostitution or other people brought into a slave-like
state of indentur. But - this is the result of FFM-research and
asking
refugees and migrants about there trafficking experience - the majority
of all acts of trafficking aliens is responsibly planned and has
the
form of a real and regular business. As long as for this propaganda
it
is useful to blame the traffickers, the refugees are welcome victims
that were persuaded with false promises, deprived of all their families'
scanty money and then forced into an extremely dangerous, illegal
and
exhausting trip to Western Europe to find themselves exposed to
a racist
society that does not welcome them - a misery. Fact is, however,
that
the trafficking agents work like other businessmen, they have to
take
care for their reputation, which could be spoilt by too much deported
former clients of them. The prize that people have to pay e.g. to
be
brought to Germany from Sri Lanke ranges between 12 000 to 15 000
DM.
The people who decided to leave their home country try to collect
this
money in their wider family which often put together all available
savings to buy a chance and a life-perspective of at least one
family-member. Then they get in contact with the well- known agent
and
the thing is negotiated. Then the trip goes - by the way: most of
the
journey is legally done - via Moscow, Kiew or Vilnius to Poland
and to
the Polish-German border. Often only crossing this border is against
the
law. (To give some comparison, there are sentences of the German
Supreme
Court, the Bundesgerichtshof, of the 1970ies, in which the court
holds
it to be rightous to help people crossing the German-German border
and
to take fees up to 40 000 DM for this service. These traffickers
were
called escape agents then and it was a heroic deed to help one of
the
former GDR-inhabitants - by the way the classical refugee for economical
reasons - to cross the border illegally. In the German
income-declaration-forms of these years there was even a special
column
for the fees for escape agent, that could be deducted from tax.)
The BGS
is doing his own advertising and propaganda in the border-region.
They
offer the socalled citizens-telephon for security. People can call
the
BGS all over Germany on a charge free service-number all around
the
clock. In every newspaper near the border, on every single police-car
and telephon-box you can find this number encouraging people to
report
every suspicious move in their surroundings. And this despite the
fact
that there is no significant growth of any kind of criminality near
the
border. In contrary: in most of the towns and cities the FFM was
doing
research the rate of criminality is sinking, often in 10-percent-steps
a
year.[To give some examples of many: In 1997 the criminality rate
in the
police-district of Frankfurt/Oder dropped according to the official
report about 11 percent, in the city itself it went down 16.3 percent;
in Grlitz in East-Saxony there is a decrease of 27 percent]. The
BGS
not only emphasizes the importance of his presence because of the
extremly high rate of criminality for which enormous decrease he
at the
same time claims to be responsible. If the decreasing rates are
presented to public the BGS prefereably talks about the subjective
security sense of the people that requires the increase of
police-density and control.
Fact is that
for nearly every criminal deed the foreigners are blamed.
People even talk of the fear of moving around at night because of
violent foreigners everywhere: this fear is especially absurd because
the only persons that are in danger of being attacked in this region
are
the foreigners, the non-German looking people themselves.
The result of
this politics of fear is that the BGS can really reckon
with the voluntary and busy help of the people living near the border,
without handing out rewards. In times of unemployment-rates around
20
percent, the BGS is also an interesting and popular employer. There
were
mentioned the numbers above but there is another important fact
that
adds to the popularity of the BGS: the BGS today is an important
part of
every days life. Many of the officers of the BGS are living near
the
place of their work or are even coming out of the borderpopulation
itself, often after a long term of unemployment. But there are several
other phenomena that contribute to the thesis of a involvement of
citizens into border-control by social technology. Everywhere near
the
border there are popping up civic action groups that compose their
own
private border guards. With self-created uniforms, torches, binoculars,
clubs and often even with gas- pistols adult persons are patroling
and
standing post near the border during nighttime. The FFM got aware
of
this developement after there was scandalized a racist harrasment
of a
young boy on his way home at ten at night in Forst at the river
Neie.
He was stopped by these self- appointed borderguards with others
and
controlled, because he was a person of color. The BGS was called,
the
young people had to wait for half an hour for their arrival and
were
released afterwards. After the mother of one of the kids complaint
about
this incident it got evident that BGS and police are working together
with these civic action groups closely and confidentially.
The BGS denied
this cooperation when the whole thing became a real
scandal. To calm the thing down, these civic border-guards are now
involved into a programme of the home-secretary of Brandenburg,
which is
called security-guard and consists of private people guarding their
neighbourhoods. They have no weapons and are to call the police
if there
is a suspicion or incident. Such security-guards exist in about
50
villages in Brandenburg by now. But also on an official level there
are
established what can be called denouncing-coalitions between
state-offices such as the labour-office and the social welfare,
who work
together closely in an informal manner to find illegal workers or
persons without a legal status. But also non-governmental institutions
as guilds and Chambers of Commerce. The BGS in Pirna for example
met
with representives of the taxi-guild of Saxony, the Chamber of Industry
and Commerce in Dresden, politicians from border-communes and the
county, the public prosecuters office and the collegues from the
state-police. They came to an agreement how to work together to
stop
illegal immigration. The results of this meeting were made public.
The
background of this meeting in 1997 was an unheard-of wave of trials
against taxidrivers in the county of Zittau-Lbau at the border-triangle
of Poland, the Czech Republic and Germany in Eastern Saxony.
What happend
here is the reverse of the medal of involvement of the
border- population in border-control. Upon people who don't want
to be
deputy sheriffs of the border-police there are played heavy sanction
by
means of jurisdiction. There must be some silent agreements also
between
the three powers in order to improve border-security. The courts
there
in Zittau and Grlitz are playing an important role in creating an
athmosphere of thread near the border. Since 1996 there have been
several sentences against taxidrivers that where accused to have
brought
illegal immigrants into the country not under one year without
suspension! The circumstances of the trials are scandalous, not
only
because noone of the drivers brought anybody across the border,
but
because prosecuters are only working with vague indications which
are
always interpreted worst for the accused taxidrivers. By now there
are
investigations against 22 of altogether 73 taxidrivers in that county.
The first defendant, sentenced to 1 1/2 years in prison without
suspension and whose appeals all failed is sitting in jail since
half a
year now.
The construction
of the prosecuters are the following: It is not
necessary to really cross the border with illegal immigrants, but
also
to pick them up near the border and to bring them out of the
30-kilometer-zone of responsibility of the BGS for example to the
next
bigger city such as Bautzen, Dresden or even Berlin. It should be
the
taxidrivers duty not only to recognize who is an alien without status,
but then to deny service and/or denouncing the clients to the BGS.
The
above mentioned meeting between BGS and among others the taxidrivers
guild included the edition of a flyer for the driving collegues
with
some hints what they should do. Having picked up some suspicious
strangers they should either controll the papers themselves - which
is
against the law, which seems to be suspended for border-security
- or
call the BGS by means of using a code-word. Many taxidrivers from
all
over Germany protested against what this means for the future. They
are
not willing or allowed to controll their guests, they are obliged
by the
law to transport every person regardless who it is. Now they should
for
the interests of the border police suspect every persons that does
not
look like a German fellow-countryman of being an illegal alien.
There
have been protests in Grlitz during the first trial. The author
witnessed one trial in early 98, where the question how a taxidriver
was
supposed to regonize the illegal bordercrosser, the prosecutor shouted:
These persons were closed in a typical Eastern European manner.
This shows,
how a stranger is constructed by (social) discriminatory or
even racist rules that refer only to the phenotypical appearance.
These
trials were absolutely ridiculous in what could be called juridicial
fairness or regarding a high principle like in dubio pro reo . Also
the
appeals are. What they are trying to do is to set a warning example
against all persons that deny to play the game of border-control.
These
taxidrivers now are put to jail, their driving licences, concessions
and
the allowance to transport persons are retracted, in short: the
defendants, most of them very well-behaving heads of families without
any police record are ruined forever. And for what? For having
transported illegal aliens: this act - done accidently or with purpose
-
is made a capital offence, which is in regard of the actual damage
they've done unbearable. These scandalous verdicts proof that this
is no
independent jurisdiction but a willing helper in favour of the needs
of
inner security and border control.
The resulting
athmosphere near the border makes it possiple that things
like the following can happen without anybody sounding public alarm
on
this atrocity.A group of twelve people from Kosova crossed the border
secretly at the night of the 15th of May 1998 near Schwedt. Some
resident informed the BGS. The Federal border guard stopped the
trespassers at 11.30 p.m. All of them were arrested, only one young
Kosovo-Albanian could flee the arrestation. And what happened now
is
unbelievable: For more than four hours a hunting company consisting
of
the BGS, the state police, the customs and the local fire-brigades
equiped with cars, dogs, helicopters and lighting was chasing that
poor
refugee. After hours the hunted man tried to break free by swimming
across a near-by canal, just next to the bridge were BGS-officers
were
posted, and in his exhaustion he drowned and died. One should keep
in
mind what his crime was: this refugee was only crossing the border
illegally. And what is schocking also, is that this incredible tragedy
was mentioned in no newspaper (but a local one). And this is
every-days-life at Germany's borders and shows an alarming state
of
lacking human orientation we have reached by now. The FFM has documented
the sad list of victims due to the German border-regime and foreigners'
policy: 88 refugees died at all borders, alone 67 at the Eastern
borders; 54 detainees committed suicide because of their upcoming
deportation, at least 95 were seriously injured by trying to do
so; 4
refugees died during deportation, 33 deportees were injured; 4 people
were killed in their homecountries after deportation, at least 86
were
arrested, maltreated or even tortured by military- or police-officers
in
their country of origin, 11 of the deported disappeared traceless.
LINKS
Pro Asyl - Human
Rights Organisation for Refugees
http://www.proasyl.de
Sans Papier
- Africains sans papiers/Without Papers
http://www.bok.net/pajol/
Open Europe
http://www.bok.net/pajol/manifeurop27-03-99.en.html
Autonoom Centrum
is een politieke organisatie die zich inzet voor illegalen en vluchtelingen.
Zij houdt zich bezig met anti-racisme, migratie, detentie van vluchtelingen
en illegalen, registratie / identificatie en basis democratie http://www.xs4all.nl/~ac/
Grenzaktion - Bordercamp at the german-danish border
http://www.nadir.org/nadir/initiativ/grenzaktion/
http://www.is-bremen.de/~arab/
Antirassismusbuero Bremen - antiracist infoshop
National Coalition of Anti-Deportation Campaigns (NCADC)
101 Villa Road
Birmingham B19 1NH
Phone: 0121-554-6947 Fax: 0870-055-4570
E-mail ncadc@ncadc.demon.co.uk
Web www.ncadc.demon.co.uk/
Teleportica - Break the logic of war! Desert! Open the borders!
http://www.teleportacia.org
home page of the Tampere counter-summit
f i g h t f o r t r e s s e u r o p e
For international solidarity - against Euro-fortress!
http://come.to/tampere
Campaign to Defend
Refugees and Immigrants at http://www.tao.ca/~ocap/immigration
Open europe discussion list eurofort@tao.ca
Asylkoordination Schweiz
Archiv und Dokumentation
Postfach 5215
CH-3001 Bern
Tel: ++41/31/312'40'38
Fax: ++41/31/312'40'45
http://www.raben-net.ch/aks
Cross the border/No one is illegal
http://www.contrast.org/borders
Melting Pot
http://www.meltingpot.org/
Nicaragua Solidarity
Network of Greater New York provides Immigration News Briefs
http://home.earthlink.net/~dbwilson/wnuhome.html
Immigrant Solidarity is anti-racist/ pro-immigrant organisation
set up in Cork in January, 1998. We can be contacted at PO Box 178,
Cork. Further details on what we stand for are at http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/is.html
De Fabel van de Illegaal
http://www.dsl.nl/~lokabaal/index.html
UNITED UNITED for Intercultural Action - European network against
nationalism, racism, fascism and in support of migrants and refugees
http://www.xs4all.nl/~united
National Network on Immigrant and Refugee Rights
http://www.nnirr.org
Sherwood - No borders
www.sherwood.it/noborders
Rainbow Antiracist Organisation Tromsø
http://www.student.uit.no/regnbuen/index.html
International Caravan for the Rights of Refugees and Migrants
http://www.humanrights.de/caravan/indexen.html
FORSCHUNGSGESELLSCHAFT FLUCHT UND MIGRATION - Documentation and
research on borders, migration and refugees
http://www.berlinet.de/mh/ffm/
Unlimited - Hints for refugees and migrants
http://www.nadir.org/nadir/initiativ/migration/
CORPORATE WATCH:
http://www.corpwatch.org/feature/index.html
LA LINEA: GENDER, LABOR AND ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE ON THE US-MEXICO
BORDER
Refugee Law Centre (US)
http://www.refugeelawcenter.org
The Interhemispheric Resource Center
U.S.-Mexico Borderlands Program
http://www.irc-online.org/bdrprj.html
SOS Racismo (Portugal)
http://www.sosracismo.pt/
Crosspoint - Antiracism web resources
http://www.magenta.nl/crosspoint/
ex-Yu and antinationalist journalists (?)
http://www.aimpress.org
medico international - support of internationalist social /
medical projects (deutsch)
http://www.medico-international.de/
UN Commission on Refugees
http://www.unhchr.ch/
Poptel Statewatch - EU Human Rights Monitor
http://www.statewatch.org/swsearch.html
Amnesty Int.
http://www.amnesty.org/ailib/countries/index.html
Black women against violence
http://www.bwrap.dircon.co.uk/
Human Rights Server
http://www.humanrights.de/index.html
Oneworld Refugee Guide
http://www.oneworld.org/guides/immigration/front.shtml
RomNews
http://www.romnews.com
Australian National Committee on Refugee Women
(ANCORW Co-operative) Aust Govt Dept
http://www.dpmc.gov.au/osw/awwt/ancorw.htm
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