Subject: AUT: Fw:      [CROSS-L] border camp 99
Date: Thu, 17 Jun 1999 00:01:32 +1000



-----Original Message-----
From: [ueber die grenze] <grenze-AT-IBU.DE>
To: CROSS-L-AT-relay.crg.net <CROSS-L-AT-relay.crg.net>
Date: Wednesday, 16 June 1999 8:23
Subject: [CROSS-L] border camp 99


>BORDER CAMP 99 Call for a action camp
>At the German-Polish-Czech border triangle
>>From 7 -15 August 1999
>http://www.contrast.org/borders/camp
><grenze-AT-ibu.de>
>
>If you want to join the camp, to contribute to the preparations or to
>participate remotely, please send a message to <grenze-AT-ibu.de> or
>subscribe to the [cross-l] mailinglist, which will work as the main
>communication channel from and towards the camp. Send a SUBSCRIBE
>CROSS-L command to <listserv-AT-relay.crg.net>
>
>
>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.
>
>Everybody knows that it is increasingly easy for money, goods, and
>capital to cross the borders of nation-states and territories; that the
>spreading of information can no longer be restricted; that social,
>political, or economic conflicts cannot be reduced to national affairs
>anymore.
>
>It's always been true that people can't easily be prevented from
>crossing borders. For some, it may be the most natural thing in the
>world to move, to come and go from one area to another. Others have more
>concrete reasons--fleeing from persecution, exploitation, and war. And
>there are some who simply want a change. All of these reasons, however
>vague, however practical, are legitimate.
>
>But for most people today, it is more difficult than ever to cross
>borders. The territorial borders of some nation-states are being
>replaced by a new kind of border, one that is no longer just a
>demarcation line between prosperity and poverty. These new borders, with
>their new logic, are creating new conditions in which the few have the
>privilege of movement while the many are forced to remain; and these
>changing circumstances are creating and entranching new relationships of
>dependence and exploitation.
>
>The border regime is no longer made up of traditional fortifications.
>Borders mark entire regions where new surveillance and monitoring
>technologies are tested and refined. Borders are folding and shifting:
>they are redefining areas and "third" or transit countries; the reach
>out along interregional highways and other transport link and into
>cities; and they set up shop in workplaces--office, factories,
>administrations. Entire countries are now border areas; everywhere
>people can be controlled, even in the absence of transgressions and
>infractions--face checks are becoming routine.
>
>In order to establish these new borders, politicians encourage and
>create a climate of uncertainty, mistrust, and betrayal. In this way
>they hope to curry favor for their population policies and their
>criteria for exclusion and inclusion. Today, borders no longer mean just
>equipping paramilitary patrols with increasingly sophisticated
>technology and severely punishing border offences; it also means
>carrying out campaigns of denunciation and demonization, deliberately
>fueling feelings of resentment and suspicion without regard for specific
>events. "Propaganda" is too polite a word: "brainwashing" is more
>accurate.
>
>Those who help refugees, who used to be heroic figures, have been given
>a new image by border regimes: now they are Public Enemy No 1,
>exploiters, enslavers, the "coyote," the "trafficker on migrants."
>
>The 1999 border camp is the next effort in opposing these campaigns of
>denunciation and and supporting *all* people who want to or must resist
>this machinery. Our methods and our goals are education, pure and
>simple--but we'll make use of tactical experiments, cunning amusements,
>and well-aimed irritations. Our aim is to launch effective
>countermeasures that more than merely unmask the barbarity of these
>border regime but *stop it* whenever and wherever possible.
>
>The fight against borders is a fight against infra-red cameras, plastic
>handcuffs, and decentralized and diffuse controls along and around the
>border. It's also a fight against narrow-mindedness, resentment, and
>racism. We know this fight isn't hopeless: too many people, the vast
>majority, have a fundamental interest in choosing where they--we--want
>to live. And no one can say what it would be like if the borders were
>open: where people would live and how, if they could live as they
>pleased, the social and political situations that would unfold.
>
>
>
>HACKING THE BORDERLINE
>
>In summer 98 a few hundred activists laid siege to the German-Polish
>border at Goerlitz for 10 days. The 48-hour rave, the spectacular
>opening of three new border crossings, a convoy of taxi drivers, a
>demonstration in Freiberg as a response to the death of seven refugees
>from Kosovo, a "jail quake" at the local prison, and, finally, the
>complete occupation of the border river Neisse with boats, swimmers, and
>onlookers were the highlights of the action week. On top of that there
>were concerts and parades with sound systems, streetball, and
>nightwalks, film nights, discussion events, and fun guerilla actions
>like the "no one is illegal" team's triumphant finishing at the second
>stage of the Saxony Tour for amateur cyclist.
>
>But the '98 camp was only the beginning. From 7-15 August 1999, the
>tents will be put up near Zittau at the German-Polish-Czech border. We
>plan, above all, for this camp to show more diversity: together with the
>antiracist and antifascist groups political and media activists, radio
>and video pirates, musicians, artists, and people from all parts of
>Europe are taking part in the camp's organization. Antiracist groups are
>calling upon people to take part in border actions at other outer
>borders of the Schengen countries at the same time.
>
>Borders are charged with layers of significance--so practical
>interventions in a border area are very symbolic. There is a vast range
>of possibilities for intervention--from "communication guerilla" actions
>to traditional information policies and effective disruptions. According
>to authoritarian propaganda, border protection is possible largely
>through the willingness--an officially enouraged willingness--of the
>population to denounce "suspicious persons." To sabotage a border regime
>means, above all, to disturb this willingness.
>
>
>SABOTAGE THE BORDER REGIME
>
>The upcoming parliamentary elections in Saxony present another
>possibility to confront racist and belligerent parties with opposing
>viewpoint--a viewpoint that supports people and freedom.
>
>The most important principle of the camp's working structure will be
>mutual respect and the nonhierarchical confluence of different political
>activities and perspectives. We want to discuss disagreements--for
>example, those concerning the relationship between "old" and "new" media
>activities, political perspectives or analytical categories. And we want
>to do so in productive ways before and during the camp, to lay the basis
>for respect and cooperation after the camp. These differences won't be
>excluded or pushed aside by the program. Therefore, we plan to have
>actions and concerts as well as workshops and meetings for activists to
>discuss those political issues that escape focus in everyday life (most
>of us simply don't have enough time). We will discuss new focus points
>of antiracist policy and plan new activities for the autumn and winter.
>Together with participants from Eastern Europe, we will discuss the
>shifting of the EU's shield to the borders of neighboring countries in
>the East; and we'll develop ways to approach the growing trend toward
>illegalizing refugees and migrants which the EU is encouraging in these
>areas.
>
>
>POSTSCRIPTUM: KOSOVO
>AND THE EXPLOITATION OF REFUGEES FOR THE NATO WAR
>
>30-07-98: The German border police (BGS) chases a minibus near Freiberg
>- the result is a grave accident. Seven refugees from Kosovo die, 15
>others are injured, some of them severely. Some are later deported from
>the hospital to the Czech Republic. "BGS - man-hunters, another 7 dead,
>it's enough": this was the slogan of a spontaneous demonstration
>organized by people from the border camp which created quite a local
>stir. At that time, deportations to Pristina and Belgrade were the order
>of the day. According to the German federal government and the courts,
>persecutions in Kosovo were "not of a frequency relevant for granting
>asylum." Today, though, Milosevic's policy of expulsion--which is hardly
>new--is exploited as a reason for aerial war and NATO's new power
>strategy. The refugees' misery is hypocritically lamented while Fortress
>Europe closes its doors tighter, offering temporary protection to only
>tens of thousands--out of several hundred thousand--refugees. The
>president of the federal authority responsible for the refugees' asylum
>procedures decided to temporarily stop rulings on the matter, and many
>courts are postponing their decisions. Once again, the refugees are not
>granted residence in Germany which they would be entitled to: neither
>granted nor denied a permanent status, they linger in an official
>oblivion. There is no end to the hypocrisy.
>



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