<m2m-eng> (no subject)
Martin Zerner
zerner at paris7.jussieu.fr
Fri Dec 25 14:02:08 CET 2009
BURN THE BORDERS
January 25th, 26th and 27th: trial of the revolt
that set the detention centre of Vincennes on fire
The revolt, which led to the fire that destroyed
the largest prison for foreigners in France, is a
concrete and historical response to the existence
of detention centres and to the whole of the
policy of control of the migratory flows.
On January 25th, 26th and 27th, ten persons will
be tried for this revolt by the Tribunal de
Grande Instance of Paris (a court which tries
misdemeanours).
Our solidarity has to be at the height of the
stake: the acquittal of the accused and beyond
that, freedom of movement and installation.
The largest detention centre in France burnt on June 22nd 2008.
>From June 2008 to June 2009, some ten former
detainees have been arrested and imprisoned -
most of them for nearly one year - in preventive
jail. They are charged with "damage", "voluntary
destruction of the buildings of the Vincennes
administrative detention centre", and/or
"aggression in band against a police officer,
without causing an incapacity of work for more
than eight days".
Movements of protest of the locked up
sans-papiers have taken place ceaselessly during
the six months before the fire. Hunger strikes,
beginnings of fires, refusing to be counted, and
individual or collective oppositions followed
each other during this period. Outside,
demonstrations and actions exposed the very
existence of these centres and support the
revolts.
On June 21st 2008, Salem Souli died in his room
after he had asked in vain for medical care. The
next day the detainees organized a march in his
memory, which was violently repressed. A
collective revolt followed and the detention
centre was reduced to ashes.
A TRIAL FOR THE EXAMPLE
To prevent this type of revolt from spreading,
the State must strike hard, it has to find
culprits. Ten persons were arrested to serve as
examples. We do not care whether they are
"culprit" or "innocent". By the punishment of
these persons, the State wishes to make disappear
revolts, denials of submission, and acts of
resistance from the part of those who are, or
will be in the future, between the walls of these
centres.
The Vincennes revolt is not isolated. Wherever
are detention centres, revolts will spring up,
fires will start, flights, hunger strikes,
mutinies, and destructions will take place. It
has been so in France (centres were burnt in
Nantes, Bordeaux, and Toulouse), and in many
European countries (Italy, Belgium, the
Netherlands, Great Britain) or in countries to
which border control is outsourced such as Turkey
and Libya.
The fire at the Vincennes detention centre is not
only a symbol: as an immediate consequence of the
disappearance of its capacity for 280 people,
rounding up and deportations greatly decreased in
the Paris region during the following period.
Concretely, arrests were avoided by the
thousands. This act of the detainees has put out
of order for a while the deportation machine.
JAILS FOR FOREIGNERS: THEY LOCK UP, DEPORT, DISSUADE IMIGRATION
The detention centres are a step between the
arrest and the deportation. They are used to lock
up the passengers for the time necessary to
gather what is needed for a deportation, namely a
passport or a pass issued by a consulate, and a
plane or ship reservation.
The more a State wants to deport, the more it
builds detention centres. Their numbers
increases ceaselessly everywhere. In Europe, the
trend is to make locking up longer, which not
only allows deporting more people, but also
dissuades immigration.
These locking up places are actually punishment
places. As such, they are more and more built on
a model of prison: monitoring by video, small
units, isolation cells For example, the largest
detention centre in France now being built in
France at Le Mesnil-Amelot (with capacity for 240
persons) that will open in a few weeks is
designed according to this model. In the
Netherlands, where suicides and "unexplained"
deaths are frequent in the centres, detention
lasts 18 months and may start again immediately
after freeing, in very small individual cells,
sometimes in prison-boats, with scarce access to
air.
THE UNDOCUMENTATED FOREIGNERS: BOTH A HIGHLY ADAPTABLE MANPOWER
Detention centres are a part of the "migratory
flows management" policy, which in turn is
elaborated according the criteria of the "chosen
immigration" which means according to the needs
of manpower in the European countries. That
bosses of the rich countries use migrant workers
to increase their profits is nothing new. Be it
within a legal framework, such as interim jobs or
the former "OMI contract" (which allowed to fit
the right of presence in the country to the
seasonal working time), or in illegal work, the
foreigners most often find jobs in the toughest
sectors (the building industry, restaurants,
cleaning, seasonal works) These sectors ask for
a flexible manpower, one which adapts to the
immediate needs of production.
On top of the absence of rights due to their
status, for instance in case of an accident, the
permanent threat of arrest and deportation
obviously enables the bosses to underpay them,
indeed not to pay them at all (it is not
infrequent). This equalizing at the lowest level
of salaries and working conditions enables the
bourgeoisie to enhance the exploitation of all.
The repeated strikes of sans-papiers show how
much the French bosses and the State need this
manpower, but they also show that the
sans-papiers can check them and get
regularizations when they organize collectively.
AND AN IDEAL SCAPEGOAT
The migratory policy, of which the detention
centres are a gear, is also used to stigmatize
the undocumented foreigners. The State makes of
them the scapegoat for the hardships of the
population of France. The spectacular use of
deportations by the State takes its part in
showing how great a "danger" the irregular
immigration would be for France and Europe, and
at the same time the efficiency of a State, which
protects its citizens from this danger.
The State uses artefacts such as the above
mentioned "threat of underground immigration",
"rascals in the suburbs", "veiled women", or such
as the campaign for the national identity to wake
up the worst chauvinist and racist feelings, and
to try and create a consent for the power and the
world it produces.
BORDERS EVERYWHERE
The detention centres are indispensable for the
implementation of a European policy to control
the migratory flows, which, while it claims to
abolish the borders within the Schengen space,
reinforces them outside, notably with Frontex.
And so the control is outsourced at the outer
doors of Europe, in agreement with countries such
as Libya, Mauritania, Turkey or Ukraine, to which
funds are given to lock up foreigners who are
deemed unwanted, even before they make it to
Europe.
At the same time, within the Schengen territory,
borders are scattered, become movable, and thus
are everywhere: every identity check can lead to
a deportation. For the border is not only a line
limiting he territory, it is above all a point of
checking, of pressure and, of sorting out. So the
street, the communication lines, the
administrative buildings, the banks, the interim
work offices already function as borders.
The detention centres are pieces of the deadly
borders of the Schengen Europe, as are all camps
for migrants, They are places where one waits,
locked up, sometimes without limit and without
trial, where one dies for lack of care, where one
kills oneself rather than be deported. Borders
must be abolished!
For all these reasons, and because there is no
"good" management of the migratory flows, because
everybody must be able to decide where he wants
to live, we are in solidarity with the accused of
the revolt and the arson of the Vincennes
detention centre!
ACQUIT ALL THE ACCUSED
FREEDOM OF MOVEMENT AND INSTALLATION
CLOSE THE DETENTION CENTRES
NO PAPERS AT ALL
ACTION WEEK JANUARY 16TH TO 24TH 2010
Collectif de solidarité avec les inculpés de Vicennes
liberté-sans-retenue at riseup.net
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