AGAINST THE STATE, CAPITAL, RACISM, WAR AND NATIONALISM
The Greek State, as the border guard of Fortress Europe, has over time followed and expressed in the most emphatic way the anti-immigration policy represented by the European Union. Thus, while at the global level, the political and economic bosses are attempting an unconditional attack against the peoples of the capitalist periphery through wars, military operations, the overthrow of regimes and the imposition of new ones, with the aim of controlling entire regions, the sources of wealth and the exploitation of entire populations, condemning millions of people to misery, poverty, disease and uprooting, at home the far-right neoliberal government of the South-West, from the Evros fence and the concentration camps, to the shipwrecks in the Aegean and illegal repatriations, is expanding its murderous strategy on land and water borders, with the aim of controlling and preventing the flow of refugees and migrants. So as the number of pushbacks from Greece almost doubled in 2021, the number of arrivals on the islands is at its lowest level in recent years, with people being pushed towards other, more deadly routes via the Central and Western Mediterranean and the Atlantic.
Over the past year, the rise in forced returns using violence signals a continuation of the inhuman, degrading and humiliating treatment of refugees and migrants, with theft of personal belongings, stripping, beatings and even abductions in illegal detention centres until their illegal return. The Greek regime, with the assistance of the murderous Frontex mechanism, attempts to obstruct and sink boats and ships carrying refugees and is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of migrants and missing persons in Aegean waters, including children and infants, most recently in the shipwrecks in Paros, Antikythera and Folegandros( Greek islands)
More specifically, last December a boat carrying more than 30 refugees and migrants sank south of Folegandros and the bodies of 3 people were recovered. On 4 January 4 more bodies were recovered and 17 people are still missing. On 23 December a boat sank after a collision in Antikythera and 90 survivors were trapped on the island overnight. Later, 11 bodies were recovered. The very next day, a sailboat capsized northwest of Paros, resulting in the tragic deaths of 16 people. On 24 January, some 40 people, including 17 children, were rescued just off Cesme,(Town in Turkey) the most likely scenario being that they were forcibly repatriated by the Greek coastguard after an approach to Oinousses. (Greek island)
At the same time, inside the country, on the pretext of the pandemic, there is an attempt to isolate refugees and migrants from the social fabric and confine them in structures and concentration camps where thousands of people are trying to survive in squalid living conditions, without food, care and shelter. The covid-19 pandemic has come to seal and exacerbate the grim conditions that the rulers have reserved for refugees and migrants, excluding them from basic necessities and leaving them exposed to the pandemic. Unable to comply with any protection measures under these conditions, the uncontrolled spreading of the virus is intensifying and thousands are condemned to illness and death, deprived of access to health care.
Within this framework that the rulers have created for refugees and migrants, leading them to uprooting, isolation and confinement, destitution and death, are added fascist and racist attacks against them, such as the beating of three Pakistani migrants in Kaminia area of Piraias in Athens last October by a group of paramilitaries and the racist attack and invasion of migrant farm workers’ homes in Lassithi (Down of Grete island ) in August 2021.
The consolidation of the physical and moral extermination of refugees and migrants seeking better living conditions is an outcome of European totalitarian policies and reflects the murderous strategy of States towards the weak and the oppressed. For our part, as anarchists, as part of the exploited and oppressed, we resist the racist and criminal policy of the State towards refugees and migrants, to demand for all of us, locals and migrants, free access to social goods (health, education, food, housing) and to intensify the struggle for a world without States, borders and exploitation.
DECENT LIVING CONDITIONS AND FREE MOVEMENT FOR REFUGEES AND MIGRANTS
NO CONCENTRATION CAMPS ANYWHERE, ANYTIME
ORGANIZE AND FIGHT FOR SOCIAL REVOLUTION, FOR A SOCIETY OF EQUALITY, SOLIDARITY, FREEDOM
Assembly of Anarchists for Social and Class Emancipation
