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Bamako-Dakar Caravan

Transnational protest for freedom of movement and just development

The blurry CCTV images went around the world: between 29th September and 5th October 2005 at least 16 refugees and migrants died in Morocco in the attempt to climb over the 6-metre high-tech fence into the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla with self-made wooden ladders. Several of those killed showed bullet wounds, others fell to their deaths or suffocated because of tear gas used by the Moroccan and Spanish police. Their alleged crime was simple: it was solely the fact that they actively made use of the right of freedom of movement, a right which has long become the most normal thing for any EU-passport holder. 

However, the EU took their own consequences from the humanitarian and political disaster of Ceuta and Melilla. Instead of ending the war against unwanted refugees and migrants, the EU outsourced their border-control and deportation-regimes (see p. 3) even more. The involvement of North African countries in the monitoring and control of the main flight migration routes needs to be mentioned specifically.  In exchange  they are merely getting concessions on trade agreements, debt relief initiatives or residence permit quotas. As a consequence more and more refugees and migrants began the long and dangerous boat passage from the West African coast to the Canary Islands. According to conservative estimates this has claimed the lives of more than 10,000 people in the years 2006 to 2008. Currently the EU border-control agency Frontex forces refugee boats even if in West African waters to turn back, and have stepped up checks on the African mainland. The EU is for example involved in the monitoring of all seventeen border crossings from Mali to Mauritania and Algeria.  The reason is that Mali is one of the most important transit countries for refugees and migrants from sub-Saharan Africa.

The events in Ceuta and Melilla were certainly shocking, however in retrospect it turns out that they were a catalyst for many West African activists. The Bamako call for “the respect and dignity of migrants” in January 2006 at the Polycentric World Social Forum was groundbreaking.  From this a variety of transnational cooperations have emerged, not only within Africa but also between African and European-based initiatives. The latest development was the foundation of our network: Afrique-Europe Interact. Currently groups from Germany, Mali, the Netherlands and Austria are involved (see p. 4). What unites us is the common belief that the current situation can only change if basic social movements from Africa and Europe work together as committed and equal partners (see adjacent request for donations).

Afrique-Europe-Interact together with other networks is calling for a 10-day protest Caravan for freedom of movement and equal development – we are expecting 300 activists, including 60 from Europe. The Caravan will start in the Malian capital Bamako and will end in Dakar in Senegal via numerous stops along the way. The 11th World Social Forum will be held in Dakar from 6th February where we will take part with a series of workshops.

The Caravan has two political objectives. On the one hand we want to expose the EU's migration policy in all its facets. Several actions are planned - including actions against Frontex and refoulements, a breach of international law which is taking place near Nioro at a border crossing between Mauritania and Mali. The variety of experiences and perspectives that come into play as part of our Caravan is what makes us so convincing as a group. In addition to former deportees from Mali, refugee activists from Germany and ex-Sans Papiers from France are part of the group (see p. 4). The second objective of the Caravan is to attract attention to the way migration works at the moment and the demand for equal development. Privatization, corruption, and the sellout of African soil to globally operating investment funds, banks and corporations are some examples. The right to freedom of movement and settlement is only one side of the coin. Equally important is the right to stay in the home country and be given the opportunity to live in dignity in safe and self-determined conditions (see p. 2).

Nobody can deny that Africa is not a poor continent as such but it is made poor through migration and neo-colonial domination and exploitation. What it needs is the emergence of a culture of transnational resistance and grassroots movements based in Africa and Europe. With our Caravan we want to make a small contribution in this direction and therefore need political and financial support.

500 x 50 Euro

The Caravan needs your support to be successful. Activists in Europe often don’t have regular and well-paid jobs, even more so if they only hold short-term residence permits. The activists in Mali are also notoriously short of cash. Little surprising, given that Mali is the fifth poorest country in the world. Considering this problematic background, we were often asked in the last week, why the Caravan needed to be such big, especially with regard to the high number of European participants. We do think the question is reasonable. That’s why we want to further comment on that subject. The Caravan is neither an educational trip, nor a gathering. Instead the Caravan wants to support all efforts to link basic initiatives and struggles that have in common the idea of basic societal changes within Africa and within the African-European relationship. Apart from publicity efforts, we want to provide an opportunity to discuss different experiences: that includes political reunions together with the local population at our stopovers. Another world is possible, but only if people come together in high numbers. Only on that base mutually developed visions and a collective ability to act and to intervene can be reached. It is obvious that projects like the Bamako-Dakar-Caravan will be exceptional in the near future. It’s goal is to start a process. Past experiences (like for instance in Nicaragua) show us, that transnational projects of solidarity are only working if many people participate. 300 caravan-activists, most of them from Mali, do not seem to be too many, even more so with regard to the challenges we are facing. At the moment we are short of 25.000 Euro to successfully run the caravan. That’s why we suggest 500 donations of 50 Euros respectively. Bigger or smaller donations are – of course – equally welcome. Donations for the Caravan are tax deductible. You’ll find further information on that subject on page 4 and on our website.

Yellow box: 

Once it was called internationalism, today we are talking about transnational organization. At the end of the day it’s all about global solidarity. The mutual Caravan to the WSF is only the first step.

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Against the expensive life

Foods, fuel and electricity supply as an area of political conflict

Since the beginning of 2008, the problem of price increases and food crises was repeatedly brought to public awareness by protests, strikes and revolts in the Global South. Governments of the industrialised nations, as well as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank declared theirselves worried about growing “security risks” caused by food riots – in West Africa, among other regions in the world. This shows the fear of the power elites as well as their ignorance of urgent demands, highlighted by these struggles.

Around the turn of the years 2007 and 2008, within only a few months, many countries faced a tremendous increase in prices for basic foods, fuel and other essential goods. In Burkina Faso, like in other places in West Africa, the price of rice went up by 51% (pastries: 74%, milk: 118%, nutritional oil: 142%). A price increase like that has a drastic impact in places where more than half of the population lives on less than one dollar per day. Many West Africans had to reduce the number of their daily meals and change their diet to live by the most modest ingredients. One of the reasons for the dramatic development is the increased land use for the production of so called bio fuels. Also, foods have increasingly become ventures at the financial markets as a consequence of those markets' critical development. Food prices in West Africa depend on the world market prices – this relates to the fact that many basic foods like rice and corn are not produced locally but imported from overseas. Historically, this is a legacy of the colonial economy: seperate colonies' economies were restricted to the export of certain goods only. Furthermore, the subventional and trade policy of the EU countries has worsened the situation of African producers, who are now pushed aside by their competitors.

Since the price explosion, “la vie chere – the expensive life“ became the expression for the discontent and anger of many West Africans about the increasing precariousness of their own existence. Up to the present day, thousands of people took to the streets in Senegal,  Côte d'Ivoire, Mali, Togo, Cameroon, Burkina Faso and elsewhere.

Senegal: The consumers' associations are first to react to the increased cost of living, at the beginning of 2008. The price for milk has doubled, the price for a sack of rice is one and a half times as high as before. After the arrest of the associations' two leading officials, it comes to strong fights against security forces. Protest against the “expensive life” is the dominating issue in the unions' May Day marches. The government finds itself forced to continue subsidising essential goods and to sanction speculative trading more strictly. In 2010, thousands of people in many cities take to the streets, protesting against arbitrary deactivation of electricity supply by the electric power company Sénélec; a twenty-nine-year-old demonstrator is clubbed to death by security forces. The protest is directed at social conditions that are marked by rising food prices, a poor medical supply and restricted access to water and electricity.

Burkina Faso: In the end of February of 2008, shops, petrol stations, cars and government buildings are set on fire during militant protests against the extreme price increases. In 2009, in the 8th and 9th of April, a general strike takes place, proclaimed by an alliance of unions and social movements. In spite of hundreds of arrests, Blaise Compaoré's regime has to make concessions: lowerings and fixings of prices are proclaimed, tariffs on imported foods are lowered and a part of the strategic reserves is brought into circulation. Privatisation of the water supply company ONEA and of the electricity supply company SONABEL is stopped.

Togo: In the 2nd of July, 2010, on the occasion of the increase of fuel prices, a general strike takes place – put into practice by masses of people in spite of a drawback of the leading union officials. An alliance of unions and the consumers' association of togo (ATC) had proclaimed the strike. It was preceded by militant protests of taxi drivers and other transport workers. The rise of charges for transport caused an increase of the prices for essential goods; as there is no public passenger transport system, increases in petrol prices affect the people directly. The demands of the protestors were: “No to expensive life in Togo – No to precariousness – No to poverty – No to social inequality!”

Cameroon: In February of 2008, a strike of taxi drivers and motorcycle taxi drivers developed into a nationwide rebellion against the expensive life and against the autocratic regime of president Paul Biya. The uprising is stamped down by the military with brutal force – about 200 people are killed, more than 1500 arrested. 

Though the motives of the various involved parties are complex, the social movements have one common purpose: fighting a worsening of living conditions that are already precarious right now. These fights do not correspond to a cliché that is widely spread in the Global North, viewing food riots as an unconscious and amorphous uproar of people driven by mere desperation. In fact it is politicised people positioning themselves; they do not want to sacrifice their basic needs to corrupt and autocratic power elites who try to get rich at the expense of the people – and neither do they want to accept to be oppressed by a logic of global markets, oriented in profit and prone to crisis.

Local radios contra world market

Notes on the social situation in Mali

Mali is surely one of the most outstanding and controversial societies in West Africa. On the one hand Mali has a lively political culture with a lot of basic organizations, local and an independent media: e.g. it has about 150 local radio stations, more than in any other African country. On the other hand Mali is indexed as the 178th country on the Human Development Index of the United Nations, and therewith on the 5th last place. 

33 percent of the children under the age of five are , just about 50 percent of the population has access to the average  is 53 years and 75 percent of the population older than 15 years can not write or read. These numbers outline the complexity of the Malian society. Due to internal and external reasons most people in Mali are confronted with and have to face difficult situations. 

Mali in its present shape was founded in 1991: After 23 years of dictatorship of president Major Traoré was overthrown by the people, mostly sustained by students and pupils. Already since 1989 the people demonstrated against the impossibility of political participation, corruption and the  of the IWF and World Bank. After the overthrow the situation in Mali changed. Major progresses have been made in the  and judicial treatment of  Since then political rights are a sensitive issue. Mali has free elections, no political prisoners, media and except of few acceptations. 

“Good morning, you corrupt politicians! Good morning, you thieves of the public coffers! Good morning, you work-shy!” These are the words how the popular radio announcer Amidu Diarra greets the political elite every morning. These words hit the nail on the head: the democracy in Mali literally stands  that most Malian can’t get involved in Even more serious is the daily corruption, a typical problem of African countries. Roughly a third of the development funds get stuffed in own pockets, public enterprises get privatized for peanuts, and gold mine enterprises get huge tax reductions.

It is not surprising, that in 2003 the parliament wasn’t asked as the Dakar-Niger-Express was sold  to the French-Canadian consortium Canac-Getma
Breaking the agreement, the passenger transport was cut down in favor of goods traffic, 632 unionized rmany towns and  from the world around. From early on railroaders from Mali and Senegal, farmers, traders and others organized themselves within the alliance Cocidirail. They fight for the return of the privatization and the development of the rail network. With a lot of protest actions they achieved that the privatization is one of the top issues in Mali, but still they haven’t got through the taking back of the privatization. 

Not less problematic is the development in the cotton sector: In Mali alone 3.4 million people’s income is dependent of the cotton export. At the same time the profit situation is highly precarious.
Due to the backing of their own 25.000 cotton holdings with 4.8 billions US-Dollars yearly, the world price is hold down artificially by 26 percent.  One consequence is that the Malian export company CMDT can’t sell cotton profitable and a lot of farmers have to switch to corn or millet cultivation, which in turn has led to negative consequence for the processing industry (e.g. vegetable oil from cotton seeds). How preposterous the global power imbalance is, can be exemplified with a simple calculation: Every single cotton farmer in the USA is subsidized by 100.000 Dollar, an amount for which a Malian cotton farmer would have to work 1000 years.   

A recent conflict, situated in the agriculture sector as well, is the sellout of African soil to global operating investors. Two examples are the cultivation of cereal for exportation cereal or the agro fuels which are counterproductive in terms of climate policy as well.   ,      . 

On the background of these developments and other problematic issues, the enormous significance of migration in Mali is understandable. Almost a quarter of the population (4 million people) is migrated, mostly to other West African countries or some to Europe (cf. interview page 3). For the Bamako-Dakar-Caravan the therewith expressed empowerment is as important as the other sketched combats and disputes.

Yellow box: 

In January 2006 a committee of 45 peasants was debating about the introduction of genetically modified seeds in Mali. 20 local radio stations covered the event, talking place in the town of Sikasso. The peasants decided unanimously to ban genetically modified seeds: an important signal in the struggle against Monsanto, Syngenta & Co.

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The right to stay, the right to go

An interview with Alassane Dicko (AME)

What's the role of migration in Mali today?

There are few familys these days that don't have at least one member living abroad. For young people living in precarious employment situations and looking for the chance for better life, migration is the preferred alternative. As enterprises are privatised and expropriations of land take place, millions of people are anxious about their future, so more than ever they begin to think about a better life in another place.

The AME not only fights for freedom of movement, it also encourages people to stay in Mali and fight for an overall change of society there. Is that a realistic option?

The youth of today should be oriented in the actions made to change this country of ours, instead of only aiming for other places to go. The goals we set for ourselves, are based on the appreciation of the individual, the local aspects, and regional production. Next to the freedom of movement, we also give weight to the right of the people to realize their full potential in the country they live in. After all, that is the place where globalisation and injustice must be fought. Not a survival in poverty should be the alternative to emigration, but a fight with the means and capacities of  everyone's own, to push things ahead. But the basic principle is: it should be everybody’s own choice where to go. 

But again: is it a realistic option for people to go without the money that is earned abroad?

Many are left with no other option, for sure. At the same time, however, the families have begun to understand that young migrants are not as valuable anymore, as the first generation had been. Unlike ten years ago, less money is sent home today. As we see it, the families do not take it for granted anymore that migrants send money back home, as they realise that attitudes have changed, and that difficulties getting papers and getting work have increased, in particular during the world economic crisis.

How do you understand migration in general – is it a fight for participation in global wealth?

As you know, migration is deeply rooted in Malian society. When you depart, it means you are going to discover new and different things that will enrich life. To depart, to us always means to prepare returning home. Now, if you don't bring gold with you, it will be insights that come with you. But it is true, migration also appears to be an answer to the desperation of a people looking towards a better future. That's in particular why we demand social justice and fair development. We can say “no” and make our governments give in, so our slice of the wealth cake will stay at home, instead of our brothers and sisters throwing themselves into an uncertain future, to get that slice. Our struggle is aiming for control over our own cake, and over the taste of it.

Has the attitude towards deportees changed by virtue of your sensitising campaign – are they stigmatised as failures less often?

In a social setting where travelling is highly valued, the thought of a family member who is forced to return home is, in cultural terms, not understood. Especially when migrants invest a large sum of money in properties in their countries of origin. They are looked upon as heroes, so others are encouraged to emigrate, too. Our sensitising campaigns bring together deported migrants with the families of other migrants, thus supporting an exchange of experiences. That way, much understanding for the backgrounds and the effects of deportation emerged.

What does the demand for fair development mean to you?

Speaking of “fair development”, we criticise the existing programmes as inadequat. In particular, we oppose development aid being bound to requirements. When large sums are paid for the enhancement of mobile units to fight illegal migration, when immigration laws are tightened and, at the same time, there are scarcely any opportunities to find personal fulfilment at home, we must pose the question: what are  relations to the EU and other destination countries? Our government is involved in the realisation of programmes that aim at maintaining the interests of the investors, at the expense of the local population in Mali and their needs. We reject that.

What do you expect of the cooperation with European activists?

The solidarity between us shows the governments that we are able to apply pressure by mobilising internationally, and that in Mali we are not isolated from the rest of the world. In addition, our strategy aims at awakening the attention of the people here and in Europe, by informing them and developing critical alternatives.

Alassane Dicko is an activist of the “Association of deportees of Mali” (AME) and takes part in preparing the Bamako-Dakar-Carawane. He was deported himself three times, once from Côte d'Ivoire and two times from Europe. 

“Europe is closing our borders!”

Frontex´ long arm is reaching all the way to West Africa

17 new border stations in Mali are being financed using funding from the Aeneas program. They are supposed to make it possible to maintain more effective control over transit migration. A closed camp has been built on the other side of the border, close to the Mauritanian port city of Nouadhibou, using funding and technical aid from Spain. Many of the refugees and immigrants who are deported from the Canaries, or who were already intercepted along the West African coast, end up in this camp. The hunt for the boat people also starts off in Dakar as part of a Frontex operation using Spanish ships – and about 1300 km away from the southern tip of Europe!

“Europe is closing our borders!”, reads headline in the Senegalese newspaper “Le Soleil”. This refers to an immigration regime which is not just forcing the West African governments in such a neocolonialist way; since at least 2001, the EU has requested that their member states negotiate no economic or development support contracts with countries in the southern hemisphere, unless, in return, agreements concerning migration politics are also made.  The agreement to accept the return of their citizens is a first priority and demands that the targeted countries not only be ready to agree to the deportation of their own citizens, but that they also agree to take in third-country nationals. It is for this reason that there are people from a lot of different African countries who are locked up in the Nouadhibou detention camp, in order to deport them further on in the direction of Mali.

The European border protection agency began with individual projects 5 years ago. Today, Frontex is engaged in permanent militarized deployment against refugees and immigrants. Thousands die at sea because they are being forced onto even riskier routes. The capture and “turning around” of boat refugees is Frontex´ daily business: on West Africa´s coast (Operation Hera), in the Aegean (Operation Poseidon) or in the Mediterranean (Operation Nautilus). The Spanish, Greek and Italian border patrols are sharing their work well. Refoulement, or the illegal returning of refuges to their original country, is occurring with a high degree of national competence. And Frontex is supporting, evaluating and moderating the process. The most scandalous example is that of Italy´s practice of turning people back to Libya. In March 2009, Berlusconi and Gaddafi signed a friendship treaty. Consequently, the boat people who had been intercepted by the responsible “Guarda di Finanza” were  initially taken back to Tripoli. In the meantime, they have been given over to Libyan units at sea. Access to the asylum process is systematically denied, amnesty international has recently, once again, reported cases of arbitrary treatment, up to the torturing of Eritrean and Somalian refugees in Libyan detention camps. The Geneva Refugee Convention, which Libya did not sign, has been practically overridden by Italy as well. Frontex is tolerating these illegal deportations, so yes, the EU agency is responsible for the coordination and financial organization of the life-endangering practice of hunting immigrants. The efficiency of this deterrent regime maintains the highest priority; the rights of individuals or the rights of immigrants no longer play any role.

“Frontex has the job of coordinating the development of the European Border Surveillance System (EUROSUR) with the member states and to guarantee the exchange of surveillance data with the eastern and southern borders until the year 2013”. This is how the Stockholm Programme formulates it; the current 5-year-plan for the justice and home affairs department of the European Council. Frontex is supposed to make use of all available funding in the “fight against illegal immigration”, from drones (unmanned airplanes) to biometric surveillance technologies to the issuing of false identification documents. And Frontex appears to be the independently spurred power behind further externalization; the forward displacement of the border regime into the transit and original countries of the refugees and immigrants. Some cooperation contracts with Ukraine, Turkey or also once more Libya aim to train these neighboring countries into increasingly perfect guard dogs for the EU.

Since October 2010, Frontex has been on the Greek-Turkish border, using rapid deployment forces for the first time, known as “RABIT deployment” (Rapid Border Intervention Teams). At the same time, Greece is the testing field for the increased engagement of the European border control with the “Joint Return Operations”. Frontex coordinated 32 collective deportations across Europe in 2009; this represents an upward trend. The “Charter of Shame”, for which Frontex would like to procure their own airplane in the future, flew mainly to Africa, above all to Nigeria. Whether it is against people without papers within the EU or against boat refugees on the external borders: Frontex is the embodiment of a brutal and fatal regime of immigration control. Frontex symbolizes one of the central adversaries in the battle for global freedom of movement. And to put it strongly, Frontex´ orientation here is a battle plan against African migration.

In 2008, a transnational campaign was begun under the name “Frontexplode” in order to denounce the ploys of the “agency” and, where possible, to disturb it in a direct way. There will be a continuation of this campaign in February in Dakar: Senegalese activists are planning to hold a race using 100 pirogue boats in order to protest the Frontex deployment on the West African coast. The Afrique-Europe-Interact bus caravan will support this action with all their resources.

www.frontexplode.eu
www.frontex.antira.info
www.w2eu.net

Yellow box: 

From the very beginning migrants from Mali played a crucial role within the French “sans-papier”-movement. In the 1960s Malians held regular jobs within the French automobile industry. The following generations of migrants were then forced to live and work illegally in France.

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However, it is clear that the borders within Africa are only existing due to the violence of the West. Today this logic yields even worse consequences:  A war is held against refugees and migrants by using the Border Agency, FRONTEX, which also operates in Morocco and Senegal. FRONTEX is responsible for the victims of migration by forcing the migrants to more dangerous routes to cross the open sea.

The step of leaving home was always regarded as a great power in our countries. Those men and women don’t leave their country, their family and their friends voluntarily - to go away, it is never easy. If you're local, you will understand why many farmers have thrown in the towel and emigrated abroad, like many others in the cities. The multinational corporations buy the cultivable land and make the prices for the products on the markets of Dakar and Bamako. 

I'm going to the caravan to discuss with my brothers and sisters in Mali and Senegal the inglorious role played by European countries in the exploitation of Africa. They describe themselves as supporters and friends of Africa, while at the same time they always act with the complicity of the elites of our countries and put the children of Africa to jail, deport them or even kill them. Of what Europe has fear?

Spitou Mendy, farm workers union SOC / Andalusia (former trade unionist in Senegal)

I would like to be with the caravan, because I want to protest against the border regime here in Europe and talk about the struggles against camps, local police and deportation. But that does not mean that we are trying to scare people - no, we try to say you have the right to come here, you have the right of freedom of movement, but you also have the right to fight and organize yourselves. 

Riad Ben Ammar, NoLager Mecklenburg Vorpommern

4. 

What I like about the Caravan, is that we don’t want to stop anyone from coming to Europe and at the same time we don’t intend to invite them all. We just want to have an exchange with the hope that we will find other solutions. We want to create a communication network between migrants and their people back home.  And we have to thank people who have been deported in the most terrible way who fought for their human rights back in their country. We are the invited ones.

From an African perspective not suffering any physical harm seems enough, but they have no way of knowing about the kind of mechanisms that are at work here and what this does to the psyche. We must tell people in Africa that someone who is deported empty-handed, is not a failure. And what happened to Oury Jalloh is a fact - we are not making up images to shock  people. 

In order to be credible it is important that we agree on who is speaking on which subject, Africans or Europeans, and which demands are made on whom. To me the Caravan is a hopeful move, a kind of rolling stone which will eventually reach the whole of Africa. To me the most authentic reaction people can give is a spontaneous one. Maybe a kind of revolt, with which the masses really bring their corrupt representatives to order. 

Yellow box: 

During the 1960s and 1970s many left-wing activists in the West were projecting their hopes onto the anticolonial movements in the South. Those days are long gone. In short interviews four migrant-activists are talking about their struggles in Europe and how their experiences can be referred to the struggles in Africa.