In the last week(s) there has been an establishment of the ‘official corridor’ through the so called Balkan route. This intergovernmental agreement’s aim is to control the flow of people who are fleeing for a better life in Europe. Even though it may sound as an improvement, for the better fluctuation of people, it is one of the steps of the development of the common European Union’s immigration system. The institutionalization of the corridor, which was before established by the constructive forces of incomming people and self-organized activists through the mutual struggle, means new forms of exclusive inclusion to the territory of the EU.

The aim of the so called official corridor is, as mentioned in the previous article, to let a certain number of people to the next country, where usually full EU member states (as Austria and Slovenia) hold a privileged position. This of course doesn’t always work as the number of people and their struggle to reach the desired destination is not manageble by such system. The reason for its establishment is always the discourse of security and liberal humanitarism of the EU and seperate member states. Political functionaries as well as repressive organs are saying, that if we don’t manage the flows well, it could come to the chaos and collapse of the EU. The only chaos in this case is the creative chaos of the incoming people who produce fear for the privileged economical and political castes that are responsible for the suffering of the wide majority of the worlds population.

Austria has put barbed wire around Šentilj/Spielfeld border (source: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/04/austrian-police-barbed-wire-border-chancellor) for what it states ”in the name of the security of its population and incoming people (migrants, refugees etc. if you wish)”. Yesterday came also an unofficial report by the Slovenian national television that Slovenia already bought 125 km of fence (which costed 1,5 million Eurs altogether) (source: http://www.rtvslo.si/begunska-kriza/prvi-kilometri-ograje-naj-bi-ze-bili-v-drzavi/377908), but its government hasitates to give more information. Its army is already at the borders with full armed gear, helping logistically with the police, but until now changes for the Slovenias Defense law – that would enable the army to use the authorities of the police – are still not enacted (for more read: https://www.oplatz.net/2015/10/28/reestablishing-state-of-exception-in-the-eu-and-a-call-for-international-meeting-manifestation-and-solidarity-action-in-slovenia/).

Such countries fear that if the next country of destination would close it’s borders, it would develop ‘pockets’ in their countries. This means that incoming people would be stranded in their countries. This of course doesn’t stop in Slovenia or Austria, but goes all way back to Croatia, Serbia, Macedonia etc. A. Merkel and other EU’s technocrats on the privileged positions are hoping for a deal with Turkey to surpress and ‘filter’ the flow of people – as mentioned, to let selectively through a certain amount of people, whether to humanitarian background or economical interest, where we presume that the letter play the most important role. Merkel is also warning for the ‘potential wars‘ that could erupt at the Balkans if the upcoming countries close their borders, but one cannot fail to see the hypocrisy here. If we translate her words and recent EU policies in concrete material grounds this actually means that: ”we want a stable workforce, since the demographic downfall in the recent years in the Western European countries is producing financial deficits, and we don’t want wars in our proximity, whether on the EU’s territory or within potential member states in the Balkans. This is the hypocrisy of the humanitarian and ‘open handed’ approach by such politicians.

In the end of the post it is important to move to the happening at some borders.

At Preševo and Opatovac, according to activist from the Open Borders Caravan few days ago (2.11.2015):

‘#BERKASOVO / #BAPSKA / #OPATOVAC / #TOVARNIK – Exhausted volunteers are seeking help as temperatures are dropping below zero, and thousands of new refugees are arriving every day. They also need food, clothes, blankets, basically everything. If you have a way of bringing help across the border, please go to #Berkasovo, where lots of people are arriving on foot, without good clothes fot this cold weather. If not, bring it to #Bapska or #Opatovac.’

This is old information, so everyone planing to go there please contact self-organized groups who are on the field, to find out what is needed. The idea of this outdated quote is to inform people, that help is still needed.

What is needed here is a few words about the relation between self-organized volunteers/activists and ‘official’ volunteers (working under the umbrella of the NGO – such as Red Cross etc.). There were tensions at the Slovenian borders, since both groups started to blame eachother about what should be done and what the other is doing wrong. With the establishment of the ‘official’ corridor, self-organized volunteers/activists, who see the whole ‘refugee crisis’ as a issue of European discriminative politics – whether border, migration, neocolonial, capitalist to name the few, are prevented (or it least it is really difficult) to destribute different kinds of aid. We should not forget that in the past weeks it was them on the ‘Balkan route’ struggling along and supporting the incoming people to demand better treatment of the latter, not the official NGO’s who were waiting for the permission of their supperiors to allow them to do something, while people were freezing outside.

This is most visible at the ‘no-mans land‘ at Spielfeld/Šentilj Slovenian-Austrian border, where the legal framework is the most uncertain. Because of this people are trapped between borders, where they are denied of any aid, whether clothing, blankets, food or tea. Mostly only the self-organized volunteers/activist are handing such aid through the fence to people, where different stories are comming from them about the NGO’s. The latter are preventing them to do this, even though, what is proved by the activists at the borders, the NGO’s have alot of humanitarian aid at their warehouses which is not being destributed. NGO representatives are saying that it has to be equally distributed, otherwise it is a danger people will fight each other for food and blankets. The aim here is not to discredit the NGO’s, as they helped and are helping with the humanitarian aid, but to produce a call for them, that there are alot of holes everywhere that they don’t see or deliberately ignore. The other important thing is not to view the incoming people as somekind of barbarians that would fight for bits of food if it is unequally distributed. Precisely such discourse shows the latent xenophobia within the liberal humanitarian discourse.

The incoming people are far from that, as they have, along with the volunteers and activist, showed huge mutual solidarites and power to change and destroy the borders. Yes, there are individual or groups conflicts, but there will be more if people will be put in the concentration camp- or. lager-like conditions. We must not help the states and its repressive organs to manage the so called official corridors which are dehumanizing people to non-beings, but demand open borders for everyone so we can start to build a common Europe and world for everyone.

Useful thing for the incomming people:

http://www.refugeecompass.com/making-the-journey.html

Carterro (http://www.carterro.com/) is an app to assist with making the long journey.  It uses map based data and experiences of other refugees travels along the route.  Please note that detail in Carterro is for the Middle East only.

Updates on the Balkan route: https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=zJggLarUzmHE.kdSUXTxZDCm4

On October 15 2015 Hungary finally decided to close its border passage Botovo with Croatia, where the “more formal  coridor” for the flow of people, temporary established by inter-governmental agreements, took place, changing the direction of the so called balkan route. Instead of going through Croatia to Hungary the route is redirected to Slovenia, where people are registered, before taken to Austrian border (slov. Šentilj/ ger. Spielfeld).

Info: use map for traveling through Slovenia.

Activist which are at the Slovenian borders and registration camps are reporting, that the authorities are taking fingerprints from the incoming people at the Gruškovje registration camp, but not at Petišovci. This information is not entirely clear, but it is worth to take into account that your fingerprints can be sent to EURODAC. Because of this, predominantly non-Syrians, can be effected by the Dublin convention – this means: if you claim asylum in other EU country, they can return you to Slovenia.

Who can be affected:

• your fingerprints were taken in another country (and stored on a common European database called EURODAC)
• you admit that you have been to, or travelled through, another country, even if you didn’t give your fingerprints
• it can be shown by some other source of evidence that you have been to, or travelled through another country
• it can be shown that you were previously issued a visa for an EU country
• you tell the authorities that you wish to join your spouse, who is an asylum seeker or a refugee in another country

In case this happens to you and if you are non-Syrian citizen, you will need legal aid.

Situation in Slovenia (18.10.2015), reports from activists:

Our group on the field successfully set up an Info point in Petišovci. It is located next to the big registration tent. The situation regarding the access to the registration centres is varying. While there were no bigger problems in Petišovci, nobody external was allowed to enter the registration centre in Središče ob Dravi.

The other type of centres are accommodation centres. One is located in Šentilj (Spielfeld), the other in Gornja Radgona. These ones are being used at the moment, there are roughly about 20 more all over Slovenia which can be used if needed. These are being managed by the Civil Protection (Civilna zaščita), while the registration centres are being managed by the police. In addition to the registration centres in Petišovci and Središče ob Dravi there are more registration centres in Obrežje, Gruškovje and Dolga vas.

It seems the access to both types of centres might become an issue. Volunteers would be able to enter the accommodation centres via the Slovene Philanthropy and NGO Adre. This does not apply for the registration centres, where the access is even more restricted.

Based on the conversations with the refugees they mostly need information and the possibility to communicate. They fear what fingerprinting them means, whether it serves as a ground for deportation, they don’t know where they are and would like to inform their families regarding their situation. There’s no wifi network, chargers, multiple socket outlets, etc. in none of the centres. The medical staff in Petišovci complains that they aren’t allowed to hand out warm milk to the kids. One Austrian group offered to cook tea, with hesitation the head of the Red Cross agreed. This group already leaves today.

In short, the government agencies are declining external independent help. As a result of their limited capacities regarding the reception of refugees the flow has been slowed down, so they get stuck on the Balkan route, subjected to the cold and abuse and being blocked to to leave hazardous zones.

Some information from Gruškovje:

// 23.28 //
The police demands we have to wake up all people so they can count them. They want them all awake and standing together. Some are walking around with flashlights and are waking up the people. I had to leave because I can’t stand it any more. The ambulance came, they stepped on the bus because a woman needed urgent help. On the way to the bus the medical staff spotted a sleeping person who looked dead. He threw a blanket back over him and said ‘somebody forgot the trash’. Just now volunteers from Switzerland and Murska Sobota (Slovenia) arrived, UNHCR miraculously disappeared.

The bus is crowded, they allow only Syrians to pass. A third bus arrived, the police is shouting like crazy. Police: “YOU’RE ALL BROTHERS, MOTHERFUCKERS!”

// 22:30 //
UNHCR forbid distribution of food and water, which is not theirs. They decided this after volunteers started to bring food/water. Before that they didn’t make a problem. However, it seems that this has forced them to finally distribute water in the camp, which they had not done the entire day.

This is the common attitude of the EU, state authorities and also official NGO’s (predominantly UNHCR and Red Cross) towards people fleeing persecution and searching better life in the EU.

Slovenian interior ministry announced that it will let daily only 2500 people through its territory to Austria – this also means that when enough people leave Slovenia new people will be transported from Croatian borders to Slovenian registration camps (they are transported by buses from the borders). They also said that Austria is accepting only 1500 people per day (source: Slovenian national media (http://www.rtvslo.si/slovenija/slovenija-za-danes-koncala-sprejem-prebeznikov-v-cakovec-vlak-s-1-200-ljudmi/376584), but these news were just recently falsified by the Austrian Amnesty International which said that the upper gap for letting people through Austria is not 1500, as claimed Slovenian interior minister. This part, however, remains unclear, as some Austrian media (e.g. http://derstandard.at/2000024097298/Fluechtlinge-Unterschiedliche-Angaben-von-Slowenien-und-Oesterreich) are confirming Slovenian interior ministry’s words that Austria allows only 1500 people through Slovenian border per day.

Because of this activists from the borders are reporting:

‘Bottlenecks and additional shocks are already happening in Croatia:Macedonia and Serbia are advised to prepare accordingly as Slovenia is letting refugees pass but ONLY 2500per day. On the other hand, the number of refugees crossing Greece and Macedonia remains around 5000 to 7000…Where will they go? Except for increased humanitarian relief, we MUST be prepared for joint pressure and even physical presence at the Croatian border if needed‘

This means that if Slovenia is registering such a small amount of people per day, the numbers of people can increase on the other Balkan borders or camps e.g. at Greek, Macedonian, Serbian and Croatian.

Also some solidarity is needed on Lesbos, Greece, with the Autonomous Initiative for Solidarity with Refugees/Migrants (old information):

The authorities of Lesbos threaten people in solidarity!

On Sunday 11 October 2015, the municipal authorities of Lesbos, more specifically deputy mayor Giorgos Katzanos, in charge of sanitation and garbage disposal on the island, and Giorgos Saroglos, spokesman for the village of Skala Sykaminia, threatened us concerning the structures erected on the beach and ordered us to remove them. They actually gave us a deadline of one week; otherwise they threaten to evict us by force.
Today local residents confirmed that this evacuation is to go ahead. While it is also known that the Golden Dawn member of parliament Lagos is visiting the island this weekend, we were given to understand that this is likely to take place in Skala Sykaminia under escort of the fascists.
The project was formed and consolidated two weeks ago by a number of people in solidarity and groups of several different nationalities, many of whom will be here on Sunday. We call on all those who support solidarity with the refugees on the island to come to the structures of the Autonomous Solidarity Initiative this evening, Saturday, to oppose the authorities’ plans and to confront whatever may arise.
We are here because we uphold the political position of displaying solidarity with the refugees/migrants. Any threat to us is a threat to refugees/migrants.

Email: solidarity.refugees.athens@gmail.com

(There is no most recent information about the happening there)

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Important tip for activists/volunteers going to the borders to help: you will usually need to register with the local NGO or humanitarian organization, which is already there or your access will be likely denied by the authorities.

More information on the Serbian/Croatian/Slovenian/Hungarian borders – follow: http://pastebin.com/wtnWbKkf

https://www.facebook.com/Protirasisti%C4%8Dna-fronta-brez-meja-962830080456004/  (Information in the English language is always bellow)

Some other information about the balkan route (prices etc.): https://docs.google.com/document/d/1fZlNfQkC3EFLrjAuszFm-fjuDDVNvtfcyqb0bfDtpa4/edit?pli=1