Call out for No Border Camp in Ukraine 2007
The camp will take place from the 11th to the 20th of August 2007 inthe main region of transit and labor migration in Ukraine:Transcarpathia.The eastward expansion of the European Union has resulted in movingthe walls of "Fortress Europe" to the Western border of Ukraine. TheUkrainian region of Transcarpatia, of which the biggest cities areUzhgorod and Mukachevo, has become a new borderline, with increasingmilitarization and major concentration of detention camps for refugeesfrom the countries of Global South and former USSR, who try to escapewar, totalitarianism or misery to the European Union countries. It ishard to find any "open" information about the conditions in themajority of these camps.The condition of the refugees in Ukraine is very unstable: freedom ofmovement is restricted; it is hard to get a job or medical care, andno social security is provided. When one gets refugee status, the onlysupport they get from the state is a single payment of a petty 3euros.In recent years Ukraine has even extradited asylum seekers to placeslike Uzbekistan, where they were imprisoned for years in the notoriousauthoritarian regime's gulags.The increase of border controls makes a big impact on lives of localpeople in the depressed region of Transcarpathia. The region issituated on the intersection of borders of five countries: Ukraine,Slovakia, Poland, Hungary, and Romania. Four of them are now in theEuropean Union, but Ukraine will not be its member in the near future.So "Fortress Europe" strengthens its Eastern frontiers on theborderline of Western Ukraine. Still, up to half of the workingpopulation of Transcarpathia works abroad. Ukraine cancelled the visaregime for EU nationals, but the EU has not made the access ofUkrainians to the European labor market (or even European countries'territory) any easier, although it would be hard to imagine forexample agriculture in the EU today without Ukrainian guest workers.At the same time, Transcarpathia has been for a long time a veryspecial region with its unique blend of local cultures and traditions,and now it turned out to be one of the main routes for internationalmigration. Therefore, local border guards, security services andmedia, using xenophobic language, help to spread prejudices towardsmigrants among local population, which resulted in rising tensions inthe region.We demand the right of free movement for everyone, asylum for all thepersecuted people and the right of people to migrate from depressedareas to work in other countries, if it can make their lives better.We demand abolishing all visa regimes. We want to tear down "FortressEurope" contemporary border regime, which has lead to thestate-sanctioned murder of thousands of people in its borders duringrecent years. The "Global Apartheid" policy should be stopped!We continue the tradition of No Border camps on Eastern borders of theFortress Europe, which were organized 1998-2000 on the border ofGermany and Poland, in 2000-2003 on the Eastern border of Poland, in2001 in Slovenia, in 2003 in Romania, in 2003 and 2005 on the borderbetween Greece and Bulgaria and in Finland in 2004. The camps havealso been organized on the Southern borders of Europe (on Sicily 2000and on Tarifa of Spain 2001), inside Europe at airports and mainsites of European surveillance and decision-making system (such as inStrasbourg 2002), on the border between Mexico and USA and inAustralia. This year our international movement makes a major stepforward, as the camp in Ukraine will be first ever organized on theterritory of the former Soviet Union.Some of the aims of this camp are:1) To create a ground for communication between activists from Easternand Western Europe and from everywhere else: meeting, establishingcontacts, sharing skills, knowledge and experience, etc. (workshops,discussions, practical trainings, concerts and much more). 2) To attract the attention of the people in Ukraine (but also inRussia and in the world) to the racist policy on migration; to addressthe questions of contemporary forms of racism and xenophobia. 3) To create contact with local people in the region ofTranscarpathia: anti-racist education, open public events, filmscreenings, exhibitions, concerts and discussions, with an aim toimprove local people's attitude towards migrants, refugees and asylumseekers.4) To exchange information between us: how the authorities indifferent countries criminalize migration, what are the situationswith deportation prisons, and to share the experiences of resistancein different countries. One of the practical results of the camp isgoing to be the publication of a brochure with the information fromdifferent countries on all these issues to reinforce our struggle(call-out with approximate questions is coming!).5) To get more people from different anti-authoritarian collectivesand movements in Ukraine, Russia and other 'post-soviet' countriesinvolved with the migration-related issues; mobilize people forstruggle against racism, criminalization of migration and deportationcamps system.We will discuss the possible ways and perhaps we will do some actions(but not in the very region of camp; it has been advised by everybodywho's in touch with the region that any confrontational actions doneby activists from "outside" on such a sensitive issue could make thesituation worse, not better). So first of all it will not be an actioncamp but a camp for communication, networking, planning and populareducation.Another event that is going to take place in the camp is anInternational Food Not Bombs gathering. There is an explosion of FoodNot Bombs activities in Eastern Europe. In Russia alone there areabout 50 groups that are regularly doing actions.We already started to form a program of workshops, discussions,practical trainings etc. But we prefer the program of the camp to beformed by the people who will come there. So if you've got somethingto share or contribute – please let us know now! It can be any topicyou are interested in, not only the main topic of the camp.Please take into account that Ukraine has cancelled the visa regimefor the citizens of the European Union, the USA and some othercountries, so if you have a passport of some Western country youprobably do not need any visa to join us.Feel free to spread this call-out through your contacts.More information and contact: noborder2007@riseup.net
