The Caravan for Freedom of Movement and Fair Development, organised and run by the „Afrique-Europe-Interact-Network“ from Bamako going to the World Social Forum in Dakar has officially started. On January the 25th after the group of „Sans papiers“ from France and the last group of german activists arrived and the first big assembly of the 230 activists from Mali, Kongo, France, Spain, the Netherlands, Germany, Austria, took place. The central meeting point in Djélibougou Marché, Bamako, called the „Village Interact“ was opened on the 24th of January by Ousmane Diarra (President of the Association Maliennes Expulsées – AME), Allesanne Dicko (AME) and Amadou Diallo (Mouvement des Sans Voix – MSV). Other groups and organisations joining or supporting the Caravane are for example the ARACEM (association des réfoulés de l'afrique centrale au Mali), the AMRLEC (Association des Maliens Rapatriés de Lybie, de l'Espagne et de la Cote d'Ivoire), Si Nafa, the workers on strike from Huicoma, activists from the groups transact, nolager and many others, which you can find on the website of the network: www.afrique-europe-interact.net.
The activities in the „Village Interact“ and inside the city of Bamako have begun, workshops are running, in the evenings they are public screenings of different films. In the next two days there will be certain activities in Bamako neighborhoods and in the „Village Interact“ itself. On the 27th of January the first part of the tour will be a trip to Nioro, concerning the war against migration run by Frontex. On the 29th the caravane is going back to Bamako to meet with other caravans for going together to Dakar.
Other topics of the caravan are privatisation, landgrabbing, unjust politics of trade and oeconomy. The caravan also critices the politics of several african gouvernments and elites, which profite of the of the poverty of the population of their countries and collaborate with the European politics of migration.

Together we reclaim the freedom of movement and fair development, against the different faces of neocolonisation!

To have a look on the first impressions see here: afrique-europe-interact.net

The other clip was filmed, while one group on their way to Bamako took part in protesting against a deportation of a man from Mali on Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris. Several people were arrested, but the deportation was stopped.