On Wednesday 16^th September 2009 Eric Besson (the French immigration minister) announced on French National television that the “jungle”[1] would be closed by the end of the following week. He had previously announced to the press in April 2009 that all “jungles” and refugee encampments would be gone by the end of the year. Besson and the French authorities had also previously given a date at the end of June for the operation to commence, but alas it never came into fruition. Besson had also announced only weeks before the 16^th , that early in October the police would launch a test run for the real operation later in the year. Therefore the announcement on the 16^th was not immediately taken as gospel, however, early on Thursday 17^th there was a large police operation to clear the Ethiopian squat [2], and as the days went by and the town of Calais filled with journalists from around Europe, we began to increasingly realise that this was probably going to be it. As a result Calais Migrant Solidarity [3] put out an urgent callout for activists to come to Calais. Journalists were intent that Tuesday 22^nd of September would be the day, and they were right. We were as unsure as everyone else about what the operation would entail but we felt that this crime could not go ahead without dissent.

Arial shot of the Pashtun "jungle"

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I arrived at the Pashtun “jungle” late afternoon on the 21^st of September in anticipation of a full police lock down of the immediate surrounding area well in advance of the planned demolition the following day.

When I arrived the situation was as it had been for the last 36 hours. Media crews from all around Europe were walking around the “jungle” filming and photographing the Pashtun refugees and their less than aesthetically grand community.

This “jungle” was situated in the suburbs of Calais, about 1km from the centre, out towards the port, and right next to the infamous Rue des Gareenes where dozens of trucks are parked up at any given time, nearly

A house in the "jungle"

always with their doors wide open intentionally displaying  empty trailers with no place to hide. This is a renowned place for refugees to try and board lorries bound for the UK.

That sandy scrub land dotted with trees was home to multiple hundreds of Pashtun refugees who had built a small community out of scavenged material. Homes, a shop, a mosque and a rope swing were built from thrown away or donated wood, metal barriers, cardboard, plastic tarpaulin, carpets and rugs. Depending on the number of Pashtun refugees in Calais at any one time, some 10 or more people will share one of these homes. A single water point was situated at the entrance but this was as far as the amenities went as the local municipal council refused to pick up their garbage resulting in the place being royally littered, with one skip piled high, and of course sanitation was a la naturelle.

It is tempting for people from our aesthetically centered society to dismiss the “jungle” with adjectives such as “squalor” and nouns such as “huts” and “shacks”. It certainly was a horrible and degrading environment, but the choice of language chosen created an image in the media that was played on by Eric Besson, allowing him to charge that the “jungle” did no favors to the migrants and that eradicating it would be of no loss to them. Indeed the operation has been framed by Besson in the media as a humanitarian act.

It is far more appropriate to refer to the “jungle” as a community with homes, for, no matter how much the refugees considered it to be a degrading place to exist, that is how ultimately  how most considered it. Perhaps this just demonstrates how little these people had to hold onto, but the “jungle” was a place where people could go to at the end of the day; a semi- secure place to sleep, a base from which to make friends and share stories about their horrendous journey [4]; a place to cook, share and pray 5 times a day.

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Pashtun friends on the eve of the eviction

The last night of the “jungle” was my first night in the “jungle”. I was shown by a friend to his home where I could leave my bag. His home was like the rest from the outside, but inside there were photographs taken of him, his friends and other Pashtun residents by either other passer bys or journalists. After being prompted to remove my shoes, I was welcomed in to the usual question of “where are you from?”….. “ahh UK, UK good, I go UK, I go London!”

Inshallah.

As the sun began to drop I took a walk around. There was a strange atmosphere of unease, correspondents from the BBC filmed pre-recorded stories describing the operation that was due to commence the following morning. Many of the refugees kept asking about what was going to happen to the jungle and to them because, of course, the refugees had never been informed in person by the authorities on what was going to be happening. They instead rely on journalists and activists for their information, but I too knew nothing about what would happen to the people once their homes were destroyed. Many Pashtuns had fled Calais in the previous 5 days for Paris, Dunkirk or Belgium, to escape the inevitable sweeping arrests, but with the intention on returning once the storm had calmed. A couple of hundred however remained, clueless, scared but ultimately almost resigned to whatever was going to be install for them.

My night in the jungle was one of the most memorable of my life. When I returned to the house some of the guys were making bread and dinner on an open fire. It wasn’t long before dinner, but before hand I spoke to a Pasthun poet from the Swat Valley and we exchange a few words about the beautify and culture of his incredible land – “Gilgit”, “Peshawar”, “Kyber”, “Kalasha” and of course “polo”.

The food, placed in the centre of the floor for everyone to eat from, was incredibly good. Over dinner a man with fluent English translated our conversations about life in Pakistan or Afghanistan, Pashtun culture, the Taliban, the American and British assault, and the apathetic and material culture and politics of Europe. Under a couple of small candles, I was treated to some songs by the Pashtun Poet, and they were (not so) treated some English songs back. I think the poignancy of the sound, the flicker of the candle light and the silence outside infected everyone. There a long silence, everyone just stared at the candle…. what could have going through their mind?

I took a photo and made copies of my contact details for all of them to pass around. Inshallah, if you get to London, call me. I was riddled with sadness at the prospect of the following day.

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I had just a couple of hours rest before getting up very early. There was however no sign of the police yet, but a small group was gathered round a camp fire. At about an hour before sunrise the broadcast media vans returned and slowly the camp fire became populated with Pashtuns and journalists snapping away.

Migrants gather behind banners as police arrive behind them

I had heard from a friend that a huge number of French CRS police were massed in near by Coquelle the previous evening. At about 7:10am I had a text message to say that this large convoy had left for Calais. Just before 8am the police arrived pulling up with their masses of vans and coaches to take the migrants away in. As this happened, the refugees weirdly were all bunched together behind the banners for which we had them the material to write their own messages. The media were snapping away furiously, and as the police arrived, one by one, almost like crashing dominoes some migrants began to wail with tears and pain, infecting others who followed suit.

The pain of the journey, the eviction, and the future

After all the physical and emotional pain that they had been through [4], Lord can only imagine what they felt at this time. Was this the end? Was their trip to hell not only wasted emotionally but also financially, as so many have given up and sold their lives back home to come here, spending in excess of 10,000 pounds.

As clueless as they were about the consequences of this operation, I had a gut feeling that this was it for them, and that I would never see any of them again. This, combined with the sheer vocal despair coming from refugees in their early teens pushed me into emotional breakdown. I wept as I hugged some of teary eyed friends for possibly the last time. Indeed, tears are easy to come by now writing this weeks after the events – such is the pain that I saw and was apart of on that morning.

500 police officers arrive evict the "jungle"

As a reported 500 policemen marched into the “jungle” in an orderly fashion, the migrants stood all together, still and paralyzed. The media rushed around, a few Calais Migrant Solidarity activists unfurled some banners and began chanting towards the coming brigade of inhumanity. A human chain was formed by CMS and other local humanitarian groups such as SALAM as the police slowly and calmly approached. Convinced that the operation was simply a cruel media PR stunt, the police were clearly trying to embody what Besson had decried would be a “dignified” operation.

Activists attempting to stop the eviction

However their polite façade would soon fall as a scuffles broke out. The police first tried to grab refugees from the pack but with little success as activists would block their path and grab them back. This tactic was semi-successful for a short period before the police concentrated their efforts on removing any unwanted barrier. Adrenaline, anger and tears coursed through my veins in a desperate, but quite frankly pitifully small display of resistance proportionate to the crime being committed. It was not long before I, like the rest, was being kicked and dragged along the floor head first before being held to the ground well away from the group of refugees. By now refugees were being taken by police officers one by one, some resisting, but most just walked, heads slumped, some in tears, towards another unknown chapter in a godforsaken story.

human pain, pure and simple

Bulldozers make light work of the homes

A 6year ghettoised community reduced a single pile

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Postscript

My blog post entitled “After the destruction” (to follow) describes the immediate days following this large eviction. In short, about ¼ to 1/3 of the Pashtun refugees taken were released from their detention centres in the following days.

When I arrived in Calais for the first time in early August 2009 and first started hearing the stories of the migrants I didn’t think things could get much worse for them [5], but it has. Destroying the “jungle” has gotten rid of one of the few things the migrants had. The EU has stripped these people of all of their rights, their voice and now their home. They now walk the streets. Where is the logic in this operation you may cry? It is a subtle one, and one that has not been reported, but is one that is to be found around the world, most popularly in Palestine… it’s called ethnic cleansing, but a subtle one. The police and the authorities across the EU make the refugees” lives hell, squeezing them tightly [6], so they simply give up, take the pitiful 2000 euro reward offered by the International Organisation for Migration and return back to Afghanistan and tell others that the “free west” doesn’t exist, so don’t bother trying.
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VERY GOOD FILM HERE: Jason Parkison has made this film shot during the destruction:
http://current.com/items/91014318_the-dignified-destruction-of-calais-refugee-jungle.htm

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2009/sep/22/france-refugee-camp-jungle
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2009/sep/22/french-bulldoze-jungle-camp-calais

Notes

[1] In mainstream public media discourse the “jungle” refers to the Pashtun “jungle” in the suburbs of Calais. In Calais there are in fact several “jungles” and several squats in which migrants reside. “Jungles” refers to areas of scrub land that migrants have built homes from discarded or donated wood, plastic, carbboard, carpets etc. They are a thoroughily degrading place to live. In mainstream discourse however there only ever appears to be one “jungle” and that is the pashtun jungle which is the biggest, totalling between 300-500 pashtuns at a given time, and has the biggest reputation for links to mafia rings.

[2] Before the eviction process started on the 22nd of september there was a number of squats and “jungles” dotted in and around calais, each of which tended to correspond to an ethnic group, language or region. There was a Pashtun “jungle”, an Hazara “jungle”, a Vietnamese “jungle”, an Iranian “jungle”, reportedly a Kurdish “jungle”, a Sudanese “jungle”, an Arabic speaking squat, an Eritrean squat and an Ethiopian squat.

[3] Calais Migrant Solidarity is a network of activists primarily from France, Belgium and England who have had a continual presence in Calais since June 2009. They work concentrates on filling the gaps left by what the humanitarian agencies working Calais can’t do. CMS therefore concentrate their efforts on migrant security from the police, trying to document and communicate all acts of aggression and oppression against migrants from the police, resist evictions, visit those in detention, provide some aid, and since the evictions CMS has been working on trying to create a solution to their homelessness.

[4] Please see my blog post entitled “A tale of migration to the free world” for an account of the journey from Pashtun territories in NW Pakistan and Afghanistan to Western Europe.

[5] My blog post “A tale of migration to the free world” is a constructed generic tale of the journey based on conversations with refugees in calais.

[6] See the blog posts “A tale of migration to the free world” and “life after eviction” for details about repression of migrants.

**THIS BLOG PIECE IS BEING CONTINUALLY UPDATED FOLLOWING ONGOING DISCUSSIONS WITH MIGRANTS**

***NONE OF THE PHOTOGRAPHS ARE MY OWN***

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“The Free World” – a favourite phrase of the Western elite, nearly always said in juxtaposed reference to places like Afghanistan. This well worn narrative goes that people apparently subservient to the “barbaric” and “backward” Islamic cultures of Asia need “modernizing” “liberating” and the people given the “freedom” they so crave, with simply only one model of the world apt enough for the job. The West of course has regarded itself the end point of the human developmental trajectory for centuries, particularly since the age of discovery in the 15/16^th century, when explorers first discovered the mass variety of human cultures in the far flung corners of the globe, that to their eyes were clearly inferior, which provided impetus for social Darwinism in the late 19^th Century, un-coincidentally, as Europe was amidst its grand colonizing project.

How ironic then that it is Afghans, who have been at the forefront of “post-colonial” foreign imperialism in the forms of Russian and Western grand modernization plans since the 1970s, that are probably spearheading the experience of thoroughly undignified inhumane rough living within the EU at the beginning of the 21^st Century. Since the 1990s, significant numbers of Afghans have been traversing the EU in search of a safe haven from a seemingly perpetual state of war. The EU is currently the focus of several different migratory routes from Africa, but the flow from the Asian East is now currently almost monopolized by Hazara, Tajik, and particularly Pashtun refugees from Afghanistan and the NW frontier provinces in Pakistan.

The journey they face is little short of a hideous crime and should bluntly rip through our moral conscience. This blog piece tries to describe a generic journey from Afghanistan and NW Pakistan to Britain through the EU – a place that is constructed by NATO as a model for civilized society. The evidence for this blog is based on my time spent working and talking with migrants in Calais, and should therefore before regarded as just a snap shot of some of the stories that are forged along this truly treacherous path.

During the age of discovery Western explorers left their lands on extraordinary journeys and travelled far and wide before reporting back on their discoveries, often, but not always, describing with a cultural sense of dismay and disgust. The following blog piece may just offer a small idea of the contents of an Afghan travelogue to the land of his’ or her’s “liberators” in 2009.

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I will start however with just a quick history of Afghanistan to highlight the horrors that these refugees have been through before they have even left their homes, and to provide some context and reasoning for the numbers arriving in the EU.

Afghanistan

Afghanistan has of course only been a geographically definable place since 1919 when it achieved independence from a period of British intervention, and today it is fair to say that largely there is still no such thing as an Afghan, as like with a lot of colonial nation state building, lines are drawn around culturally and linguistically diverse groups that have been created historically through harsh deserts and rugged mountain landscapes that disable easy, regular communication that would otherwise erode such wide cultural distinctions. As such, Afghanistan contains Tajiks, Uzbeks, Aikmans, Turkmen, Hazara, and Pashtuns, but these groups spread across all the neighboring regions of the central “stans”, including Pashtuns who spread into NW Pakistan territory, following their division under the Durrand line drawn by British rule in India in 1893.

Following a series of early coups, the period between 1933 to 1973 was relatively stable and Afghanistan became one of the premier highlights along the beaten overland ‘hippy trail’ between Istanbul and Kathmandu for 20^th century western backpackers. In 1973 however, Afghanistan became a republic following a bloodless coup, but the president, Mohammed Damond Khan came immediately under attack from the communist leaning People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan who gained power in 1978, to the displeasure of the conservative Islamic rural regions. The coup occurred during a period when the wider region was rapidly becoming the focal point of US foreign policy – with the Iranian revolution and the Egyptian/Israeli peace agreement – and as such Afghanistan became seen as a key battle in the cold war. Concerned at the swing to the left in Afghanistan, Jimmy Carter – the then US president – started covertly funding those rural conservative clans which were already organizing limited armed resistance against the new communist regime. While these clans were disparate, during the cold war they faced what they believed as a common enemy, and collectively became known as the Mujahdeen.

Soviet troops in Afghanistan

As expected,in response, 100,000 soviet troops entered Afghanistan in December 1987 after a request to occupy, pacify and solidify communist rule in Afghanistan. However, determined guerilla warfare launched primarily by the Mujaheedeen – under financial backing from Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, China, Egypt, the UK and of course the US – led to a full withdrawal of the then crumbling Soviet empire between 1987 and 1989. In the decade long bitter conflict an estimated 1 million Afghans were killed, 5 million fled to neighbouring Pakistan and Iran, and another 2 million became internally displaced peoples.

Afghan Refugees in the 90s

The human catastrophe in Afghanistan was of course far from over. As soon as the soviet forces withdrew, the Mujahedeen pushed forward to overthrow the regime, achieving that goal in April 1992. At the end of this second civil war, Afghanistan lay in ruins, with the economy completely dependent on Soviet aid, which was rapidly beginning to dry up.

The third civil war from 1992-1996 was first a violent strugg

Kabul in ruins

le between the disparate Mujahedden war lording factions which no longer were united against a common enemy, so turned on each other in a struggle for power. In 1994, fed up with corrupt power hungry squabbling war lords, a new movement came into fruition in the South of Afghanistan thanks to financial help from elements operating in Pakistan. This new movement called “The Taliban” (the students); forged on a brand of radical Sunnni Islam; it took control of Kabul in September 1996 and instigating their strict code of controversial sharia law over Afghanistan.

The Taliban

Following the Taliban rise to power, the fourth civil war was engaged almost immediately following the birth of the Northern Alliance who were to attempt to rid Afghanistan of the radical Islamic rule of the Taliban, and to bring power to the ethnic groups in the North. They were however largely unsuccessful (until the US arrived), only igniting the Taliban to brutally ravage their territories, pushing many into neighboring countries.

Americans & Co arrive

Five years later, on September 11^th 2001, two airplanes crashed into the twin towers, and the Bush & Blair’s War of Terror was born. The first target was Afghanistan with objectives to destroy the al-Qaeda network, find Bin-laden and to overthrow the Taliban regime that was apparently harbouring al-Qaeda terrorist training camps. This initial operation had a classically ironic name – “Operation Enduring Freedom” and took little over a month for the Northern Alliance, NATO and the US to capture Kabul on 13^th November 2001.

Just one of the many dead

Since then Afghanistan has been subjected to western attempts at national state building; bringing “democracy”, “prosperity” and “human rights” to the Afghan people. The bloodshed continues with thousands of civilians and foreign troops being killed every year as the coalition forces struggle to contain the spread of the Taliban insurgency which has now spread into Pakistan, bringing horrific violence to Waziristan and the Swat valley, as the Pakistan government and the US lay siege to mountain villages, while the Taliban murder those who do not join in their fight.

As a result hapless civilians, primarily Pashtuns are in a no-win situation, and are forced to seek sanctuary in another land – the land which they have heard is the land of peace, prosperity, human rights and freedom.

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The route to safety is a long trecherous and indefinate path

The decision to leave these Pashtun areas is not taken lightly. If leaving your family and community behind to perhaps never see them ever again is not hard enough, then also consider the dear financial costs. I have been told varying figures from a numerous refugees in Calais and England, but depending on the length and route of the journey, on average refugees are paying around £10,000 to complete the journey to England. To raise this amount of money family homes and land are sold in anticipation that one day remittances can be sent back, or loans are taken en route from people smuggling agents in their home land by their families and forwarded on. Debt is then accumulated as the journey goes on, and what must be stressed and kept in mind is that the journey is originally unimaginable in terms of length and difficulty, and as such the level of debt is not foreseen. Being massively in debt then puts further necessity on refugees establishing themselves in the EU with a job, as failure to pay will not be forgotten and unfortunately the age old adage “we know where you live” applies.

This money is raised because people do not have passports to travel “legally” to EU countries such as Britain to claim asylum. The absurdity is that the British government says that “genuine” asylum seekers can claim asylum in Britain, but to do so they have to be in Britain, which is not only illegal, unless you have a passport and legitimate visa, which they are not allowed to have, but the British government actively tries to stop them getting in, making their journey even more risky and costly. So Pashtun refugees are forced to make the following horrendous journey because of their “illegal” status, and it is people smugglers who are the recipients of the cash and the primary means of facilitating their dreams of a safe place to live.

Inside and underneath the truck is the way in

People smugglers will either fix up or find trucks to take refugees through countries or across borders, or smugglers will provide boats, or other forms of help such as closing lorry doors. The most common way to get from Afghanistan all the way across to Western Europe (over 3,500km as the crow flies) is by hiding underneath lorries, clinging on the underside and balancing on the wheel fixings. On this Asian route, boats are also frequently used on the Turkish – Greek crossing despite the fact that nearly all migrants can’t swim and the boats are always incredibly cheap,

Stuffed boats from Northern African shores

flimsy and rammed full, and of course they always travel at night by being simply pointed in the general direction and left to their own divisive (African boats leaving North African shores frequently have fatal consequences for all those on board). Walking is also unfortunately not an uncommon method of transport – many refugees have told me they walked from Italy into France, over the Alps, leaving in groups, brushing the boundaries of hypothermia; some even being left behind en route.

Graphic showing the number of migrant deaths http://www.unitedagainstracism.org/images/mapFortressEuropeEng.png

It should be clearly stated that the age range making the following journey is enormous. Toddlers have been found making this trip with their mother and father, and it is certainly not uncommon to see young boys around 12 years old making this journey alone or with fellow brothers. The most common age found among Pashtun and Afghan refugees is however probably about 16 to 20.

Young children stuffed into migrant buses following release from Greek detention

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As far as I know, the first couple of countries – Iran and Turkey – are not particularly tricky to get smuggled through – a discreet transfer of monetary value seems to do the trick.  However, over the past few years increasingly violent attacks on Afghan refugees in rural Turkey have been occurring, as word is spreading that those walking through could have pockets full of cash to pay smugglers.

After Turkey, the next stop is the European Union – otherwise known as “Fortress Europe”, and the first port of call is Greece. Some get smuggled in on or underneath trucks; others will take flimsy boats that only sail at night from Turkey, which are crammed full of women, men and children to the Island of Lesvos.

13 year long migrant camp in Patra

If you’re lucky your will get smuggled right through Greece, if your unlucky…well, then you won’t. Welcome to Greece. You will either reside in a pretty squalor secret migrant camps in port cities like Patra, where you face a fascist police force. One refugee, in a recent Guardian film showed a mug shot of himself with a black eye and broken nose after the Greek police paid him a visit [1]. Alternatively, or most likely, in addition, you will end up

Pagani detention centre on Lesvos

in a Greek migrant concentration camp such as Pagani centre on the Island of Lesvos. No borders activists in Greece have revealed numbers of up to 150, including women and children, stuffed into a single prison room, with people hanging out of the bars for fresh air, with little access to clean water and sanitary facilities [2]. Conditions are so bad that children will go on hunger strike, riot and burn mattresses. However, at the end of October 2009 the Greek authorities announced the indefinite closure of Pangani, and while refugees will be simply taken to other detention centre, this is a

One of the many migrant revolts at Pagani

small victory for human rights activists and migrant revolt. In July of this year the Greek authorities set a president in the EU by removing the 13 year long migrant camp in the port city of Patra, causing hundreds of migrants to riot in the streets, which was then copied by the French in Calais in September 2009 [3].

Greece is such a hell hole that some refugees have told me in Calais that they would rather get deported back to their respective war zone, than Greece. The reason refugees keep being deported back to Greece is two-fold: (1) The Dublin Convention states that refugees must claim asylum in the first EU country they arrived in; (2) The same convention created the Eurodac identity system, whereby refugees have their finger prints stored on a centralized database, which, when being picked up by the police in the EU, it registers that person as present in a particular country. For refugees from Afgh

Migrants riot in patra after their camp was flattened

anistan and NW Pakistan, Greece is nearly always the first EU country they arrive in, but Greece has a very simple policy of a next to 0% asylum rate and brutal repression, forcing refugees further West. However, many refugees have finger prints in Greece and under Eurodac, other EU countries can then deport them back to Greece.

So, Greece is not the introduction to the EU that these refugees probably imagined, but, once released from prison they are given a 30 day people and told to leave. Rejected from Greece, refugees then head West towards Italy and sleep rough in the port city of Patra trying to get through the border. For those that get through, life in Italy is not made much easier, although it appears that for those who manage to get in, Italy seems to have a policy of beating you out of the country as soon as possible. Fascism, racism and violence is rife throughout the bonds of Italian society – a group of African migrants were massacred in Southern Italy earlier this year and I have met one Iranian migrant in Calais who has a deep scare across the side of his face where is was a slashed with a knife.

Then they arrive in France. There is a quick stop in a park in Paris, known as ‘little kabul’, before onto Calais. From 1999 until 2002, when the first mass waves of over land refugees were arriving in Calais from Afghanistan, the Red Cross ran a humanitarian centre in Sangatte which provided basic shelter and hot food. In 2002, under pressure from the British government that believed that Sangatte was creating a magnetic pull for ‘illegal immigration’ into Britain, Nicholas Sarkozy, the then interior minister, ordered the closure of Sangatte and its subsequent demolition, citing reasons of “national embarrassment” of the sites existence. Of course, refugees kept coming, as having a camp bed and some hot food in a Calais warehouse is surprisingly not very high up the list of reasons why refugees and migrants from Africa, Middle East and Central Asia risk their lives to come.

UK Border agency

Calais is a small town in North Eastern France and is the principle border crossing between Britain and mainland Europe. Britain did not sign the Shengen agreement however, so people cannot pass freely, but instead come up against what is probably the most heavily policed border in the EU. Since the crushing of Sangatte a series of financial deals have been struck between the French and the British to strengthen the border, and as a result the number of asylum seekers managing to get into Britain has plummeted.

This, combined with the closure of humanitarian provisions, has created a humanitarian crisis in Calais. Before September 22^nd there were at least 8 squalor refugee camps – known as “jungles” – and squats in and around Calais, each one of which were home to a specific ethinic, nationality or language group. The numbers in Calais naturally fluctuate but over the past few years there have consistently been around 300-500 refugees in Calais at given time, from Eretrea, Ethiopia, Sudan, Somalia, Egypt, Lybia, Palestine, Iraq, Turkey, Iran, but around 80% tend to be from Afghanistan or North West Pakistan.

Pashtun "jungle" in Calais

A house in the "jungle"

“Jungles” consist of scrub land with small modest homes built from discarded or donated wood, plastic, carpet, cardboard and metal. Although most of homes tended to be waterproof, the sanitary conditions were appalling and the municipal council in Calais refused to collect any of their household waste, leaving it to pile up for the rats to consume. The largest “jungle” was the Pashtun “jungle” which was home to about 80% of the refugees in Calais at any given time; it was riddled with scabies, and only had one single ground well water pipe for the several hundred inhabitants.

Evening dinner queue provided by Salam association in Calais

Hospitalised by the police

However, although the living conditions in Calais were seriously degrading, and the lunch and dinner handout provided by a couple of local French charities tends to be quite meager, the refugees’s biggest concern in Calais is their treatment at the hands of the police. There are quite a lot of police in Calais and in the evening and very early morning the CRS elite forces drive around in vans harassing the migrants in their camps and squats, in the local park, under bridges and on the streets. The level of repression is shocking and has reached inhumane proportions. Refugees complain that their mobile phones get taken or smashed, that tear gas has been put in their drinking water, that they get woken up very early in the morning by the police spraying tear gas into their homes before photographing them and hitting anyone who does not comply. The CRS will come and knock down some of their homes and then walk off, or they may arrive and steel their blankets, sleeping bags, clothes and food [4].

The police constantly arrest refugees for not having the correct documentation and raid squats and camps nightly, but the arrests are deployed principally as a tactic to grind refugees down. On one occasion, for 5 nights in a row the CRS arrested all the Iranian migrants from under the bridges in Calais, only to take them to a police station 3 kilometers out of town, before telling them to walk back. In short, all the refugees in Calais fear and despise the police throughout the EU. It is a simple policy of making their lives miserable so they eventually give up, return home and report back on their miserable time in the EU.

PLEASE SEE THESE EXCELLENT FILMS ABOUT CALAIS

http://current.com/items/88967594_after-sangatte-europes-untold-refugee-crisis.htm

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2009/aug/03/calais-jungle

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2009/jul/30/eritrean-asylum-seeker-naga

Pashtun homes flattened

This was the situation in Calais before 22nd September. Things have now however changed for the worse, as from late september, through into the first couple of weeks in October, the French authorities proceeded to destroy all but one of the refugee camps and squats in Calais. This was simply a PR stunt as the refugees do not disappear, but are simply homeless [5]. In Calais, the police are currently intent on not letting refugees build new jungles; and as such they constantly put knifes through or burn the plastic sheets or tents that are given to refugees, and have fences off some of the bridges which they used for just limited shelter.

Afghans found inside tanker full of flour

All the refugees in Calais are desperately trying to make it across the Anglo-Franco border. The most popular method of trying to get through the border is still in or underneath trucks, but waiting for them is a border regime of trained sniffer dogs, co2 probes, heat scanners, and a small army of people whose job it is, is to smash people’s dream of a better life and return them to a crushing life of misery. Other methods include boats, but migrants can rarely swim, or trains, which involve a 20minute 250km/ph journey beyond most people’s imagination, such is the level of danger. It is common to see people walking around Calais with broken ankles, wrists and arms having fallen from trucks, and reports of people suffocating inside trucks or getting mashed under trains are sadly to be found.

In short, the Anglo-Franco border, despite the claims to the contrary from the right-wing press, is one of the tightest in the world. Many refugees in Calais have been there for more than 8 months, trying a couple of times a week in some cases. Every time they are caught, processed and dumped back on the streets. It has become a degrading and demoralising ritual.

Cigarete lighter used to try and remove finger prints

The big fear is still however being put in a detention centre and removed, usually not Afghanistan, but to one of the countries in which a particular refugee will have finger prints. Removal to Greece is frequent due to the number of refugees who have been there and been finger printed. On arrival in Greece the refugees simply start the same process again and start heading West. Refugees are so desperate not to get taken back, that some will use cigarette litters to try and burn off or disfigure their finger prints.

In Calais i have met people who are on their 5th trip to Calais, and i know a man from Eritrea who has been playing the Dublin Convention football game – which involves just being kicked around Europe, refused at each turn – for 7 years. This one particular individual was a complete mess; drinking heavily and every other word was “fuck”… “fuck France… fuck England… fuck Greece…fuck the police…. fuck everyone”

Does this sound like the “free world” to you?

NOTES

[1] The link to the online guardian film is: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2009/aug/03/calais-jungle

[2] No Borders in Lesvos can be found at: http://lesvos09.antira.info/

[3] A personal account of the evictions and destruction in Calais can befound in my post: “Tear and fears: The Eviction of the Pashtun jungle”

[4] For documentation of police abuse of migrants in Calais, please see calaismigrantsolidarity.wordpress.com

[5] Please see both of the blog piece on the desturction and the aftermath

Climate camp 09 London

Camp for Climate Action (here on CCA) is a 365 day of the year movement that for one week of the year squats disused land and produces a camp that takes a simultaneous approach of taking radical direct action on climate criminals, and positively displays sustainable, communal, non-hierarchical, empowered participatory living – thereby showing to ourselves and others that a radical, boss-less alternative to the capitalist form of social organisation is possible.

CCA directly emerged out of the mobilisations against the G8 in Gleneagles in 2005, so is one of many anarchist inspired social movements that have emerged in North America and Europe of late, following the collapse of communism as the dominant opposition to the ‘free market’ nightmare in the early nineties.

It was felt in 2005 that a new frame was needed on the issue of climate change – one that targeted the main economic and political drivers of climate change, and one that was prepared to take direct action to thwart the endless rise of greenhouse gas emissions that are killing hundreds of thousands of the world’s poor each year.

It is to this aim, that following very successful camps at Drax Coal-fired power station

Workshop at heathrow camp 07

in Yorkshire in 2006, at Heathrow airport in 2007, and at Kingsnorth Power Station in Kent last summer, that CCA has the city of London as its primary target for 2009 – this financial meltdown is the golden opportunity to highlight an economy that is failing people and planet. On April 1^st, to coincide with the G20, CCA held a 24hour “flash camp” outside the European Carbon Exchange to draw attention to the idea that more western capitalism and imperialism – in the form of Carbon Trading – as the solution to a problem that it has caused is utterly ridiculous.

Pulling down fences at Ratcliffe Power station, Oct 09

On August the 26^th, thousands will once again “swoop” down onto a yet undisclosed location in London to set up camp in full view of the habitat of the unholy grail of transnational corporations, that are desperately trying to keep fossil fuels and ‘free market’ capitalism on the table; of our elite representatives who choose their glitzy watering holes and schmoozing avenues above the people they supposedly represent; and of the casino banks that finance the whole thing.

CJA action 16/12/09 at UNFCC COP15

Let’s be clear, CCA demands social justice with a de-carbonized economy. The ‘free market’ model has long been shown to be an instrument of human misery, of which climate change is simply the tip of a rather large melting ice berg. The UN summit this December in Copenhagen looks like it will re-legitimise this failed insanity under the banner of Carbon Trading, that will encourage the march of privatization of humanities most precious resources, maintain the rigid class structure, instigate carbon colonialism by disposing indigenous peoples of their lands and forcing the worlds poor to sell their rights to pollute, all the while creating a welcome invitation to the cheating Enrons of the future, where corporations and elite politicians will do all they can to fiddle the figures, keep those fossil fuels burning and profits growing, even while the droughts spread and the death toll rises.

We must stop this madness, and to do so we need an urgent radical broad based movement of civil society. If the future is to be bright, it must be red, black and green.

Mabale tea co-operative, Uganda

What is Fair Trade?

Tea direct packaging

FT is essentially a label, which is not awarded to the company that sells the product, but to the actual producing co-operative that must meet the criteria set by the FT Labeling Organisation (see below). The FT label appears on products when the trading company buys produce from a co-operative in the global south that has been FT Certified. Once certified by the FLO, the FT Foundation, as an overseeing body, will administer the trade between the co-operative and the company based on its strict trade terms, which stipulate a guaranteed minimum price of sale that is deemed fair (see below), as well as the potential for an extra FT Premium (see below)

How does a company get Fair Trade Certification?

FT Certification is awarded by the independent FT Labeling Organistion (FLO) based in Germany.  First the company must apply in writing for the certification; if this is granted a FLO-CERT inspector will visit the company to see if the company meets the strict international FT standards.

Here are a few of the many strict standards that a producing company must meet: First, it must be a co-operative, thereby demonstrating full inclusion and participation, workers rights, collective bargaining, and full financial transparency, particularly with regard to the FT Premium Fund (see below). There must be quality training for all employees with strict health and safety measures from attire to the handling of chemicals and machinery. Child and forced labor are prohibited, as is discrimination. Adequate sick leave must be provided and the terms of contract must be fair.  Although organic production is not a standard (but preferred) there are many environmental protection standards that stipulate that the co-ops must diligently record the usage of agrochemicals carefully, waste must be disposed of responsibly, wood must be taken from sustainable forestry, and all Genetically Modified Organisms are prohibited. The standards go on.

The Economics of Fair Trade at Mombassa

Mabale factory, like most other tea companies have brokers in Mombassa, Kenya, which sell their tea on their behalf onto the global market.  The price for the tea fluctuates hugely as the US Dollar weakens and strengthens against the Ugandan Shilling. Almost 100% of Mabale’s tea is exported abroad but only 5% of their tea is bought at a FT price by TeaDirect in London, despite the entire co-operative being FT certified.

At the Mombassa tea auction, Mabale, at the time of writing, will receive around $1.30 per kg for its standard non FT tea. Its 5% FT tea will however carry a guaranteed minimum (agreement set by the FT Foundation) of $1.65. At the moment Mabale is however receiving around $1.85 per kilo for its FT tea from TeaDirect in London.

The farmer will of course then get paid more per kg of his tea if it’s sold at $1.65 than at $1.30. However, as is the case currently in Mombassa for Mabale, if the price for FT tea goes above the guaranteed minimum of $1.65 per kg then this surplus is called a FT Premium and will go into a collective fun held by the co-operative called the FT Premium Fund. So for every kg of tea sold at $1.85 in Mombassa, $0.20 will go Mabale’s FT Premium Fund. Over a period of time this sum of money will accumulate and enable the FT Premium Fund Committee at the factory to invest it into community projects.  These projects don’t just benefit individual tea farmers, their colleagues or their families, they benefit whole communities. In Mabale community roads and houses for all the workers have been built, and health care, immunization, HIV counseling, education, water sanitation have all been provided for the community.

Kenneth told me that the demand for his FT Tea has been static for about 4years now, with only 5% of his product selling to TeaDirect.  His big aim is an ambitious 50%, “it would make a huge difference to our community” he says.  But there is only one way this is going to happen – demand must rise!

Why we should choose Fair Trade over Free Trade

One complaint of FT held by some consumers in the West is that the premium in price paid by

Tea pickers in uganda

the consumer is not matched by a proportionate increase in financial income by the producer.  Retailers in Europe are clearly making extra money from people’s willingness to pay a premium, but that can be solved.  If there were a greater number of FT products on our shelves, the added value would decrease as market competition sets in.  But if there is little demand, there will be little supply and competition.

However, I believe that the argument of disproportionate premium and income increase is gravely missing the point.

• First and foremost the increase in income to a tea farmer, no matter how small it may appear to us could be extremely important. An extra $0.10 per kilo could put his child through school, provide secure housing ease any financial burdens.
• Secondly, an important part of FT is the aspect of stability, with produce receiving a guaranteed minimum at auction.  A farmer selling onto the global ‘free’ market will not know how much money he will bring home next month due to the instability in the market prices.  Knowing how much is coming through the door next week and next month, no matter how small is surely important.
• Thirdly, FT is not just about financial gains.  As I have shown above, employers have very strict standards that they must meet; standards that enable employees to have the appropriate training and attire, fair terms of contract and so on.  I was surprised with how well the factory appeared to operate; all employees, from the toilet cleaner to the wood chopper to the tea sorters had appropriate good quality gear for the job.  They wore sturdy boots, face masks and hair nets, there were personal cleaning stations all around the factory, and signs were put up on every machine about the correct safety procedure.  Not all non FT companies are horrors but there are real of cases of human rights and environmental abuses by corporations in the global south.  Surely it is a priceless human right to be treated fairly in your place of work.
• Lastly, as I have explained the FT Premium Fund brings basic welfare to entire communities, and unlike conventional international development, this is done without any outside paternalist intervention and therefore with full local discrepancy.

Why Fair Trade needs to be improved

Fair Trade is by no-means a perfect way of doing business in the global south:

• There are concerns that Fair Trade is not benefitting the poorest of the poor, as only relatively well-funded co-operatives can afford the measures that are required to meet the FLO-CERT standards of production. This could be solved by providing interest free loans to those that cannot afford the standards.
• Environmentally, Fair Trade still encourages economies of scale which push for monoculture agriculture, and FT advocates the use of ultimately unsustainable global trade as the primary way to bring better living standards to farmers in the south. This is could be tackling by creating domestic demand for FT goods, which at present is next to nothing.
• Fair Trade is still, for the moment at least, inherently linked up to Western dominance, as the real money is still being made in the North. Companies take the tea and create huge added value for themselves in the refining, manufacturing and packaging stages, and the supermarkets of course make an extra killing on the premium. FT is still based on the colonial model of taking only the resources from the south and making the profits in the North.

This said, although FT is far from perfect, there is no-doubt that buying FT is doing more good than buying your average free-market produce. FT is not the best deal, but it is a better deal for produces in the global south.

THE FOLLOWING SHORT FILM SHOWS LIFE ON A FT TEA CO-OP IN INDIA

WATCH, “BLACK GOLD” – AWARD WINNING DOCUMENTARY!

This brilliant film shows the impact of the global free market regime on coffee producers

http://www.fairtrade.org.uk/

The fair trade logo