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Summary :

Subjective report and critique of the Lesvos No Border camp.

Context : a beautiful island, only a few potential targets and a detention camp incredibly accessible.

Lesvos is one of the largest of the Greek islands situated incredibly close to the Eastern coast of Turkey. This is an almost unavoidable first part of the journey for thousands of migrants who try every month to get to Greece. The capital city is Mytilini, the Pagani detention camp is in a northern suburb, 5 minutes by car from the town center. The NoBorder camp was situated on a camping ground by the sea, about 25 minutes by bus from Mytilini. There was also a large infopoint set up in downtown Mytilini where many migrants were staying, this was set up next to the prefecture.

The Pagani detention camp was the worst we have ever seen. There were between 800 and 1000 prisoners in the center, men, women and children packed in together, living in awful conditions. There were 150 people crammed into each cell, which were approximately 10x25 meters in size, with toilets in a corner. They were served just one meal a day and are not allowed time outside of the cell to walk or stretch. Paradoxically, this is also the most “open”, the easiest to physically “access” we have ever seen : only one line of barbed wire, grill on the windows which were directly accessible from outside, no surveillance cameras. Nothing like the over-secured jails we know. The only problem is Pagani is accessed by a very narrow path, easily blocked by the cops.

Beside Pagani, our possible targets were the prefecture, the buildings of the sea authorities, the Frontex and army boats hunting the migrants on the sea, and the police station. Our research on the companies managing Pagani (food, security) were unproductive, because of our ignorance of the Greek language and of the lack of Greek activists around.

A lot of migrants are stopped at sea and directly sent back to Turkey. For the ones that reach Lesvos, the only way to leave (and continue their journey into Europe) is via ferry, which is easy to control. Some migrants manage to take the ferry without papers, but most of them do so with a legal document requiring them to leave Greek teritory within 30 days, “allowing” them to be in greece for only a month. Just before the NoBorder camp, a video shot inside the cells at Pagani had been broadcasted by the mainstream media, raising a scandal about the detention conditions in the camp. As a result, a new open camp has been set up out of the city managed by local associations.

Actions

A lot of NoBorder participants wanted to achieve offensive actions against Pagani and the athorities managing the migration influx. However no "strong" action has been achieved. Before trying to understand why, let's focus on the events of the week.

Thuesday 25th : Arrival, workshops and a bunch of discussions about the possible actions on Lesvos.

Wednesday 26th : Gathering in front of Pagani to check the situation there, 200 people come. Talks and songs with the migrants, the gate is open several times but nobody gets it. The cops close it again each time. The bars on the window of a cell are discreetly unscrewed. Some migrants from this cell do not want to get out without the legal document obliging them to get out of Greek territory, others prefer to wait for the night to try to escape. Then we hold a demonstration and come back into the city.

Thursday 27th : Different groups co-ordinate to try to occupy the prefecture. We are over 100 people, we get there at 8 a.m. About 50 riot cops are waiting for us. Most of the people scatter. Around noon, we are 20 people trying to push aside 6 riot cops to get into the prefecture. Within a minute, the other riot cops stationed behind the building, on the street, come to reinforce them and forced us away, hitting us with batons.

Actions to raise awareness of the situation of migrants take place in several villages on the island.

Friday 28th : Main demo, about 500 participants. The cops are blocking the access to Pagani. We wait about two hours to get a delegation into the detention camp. The demonstration goes into the city center. There is a lot of graffiti, political phrases are sprayed on walls. In the center, the organisers stop the demonstration at the main square and prevent a determined group from getting to the port.

Saturday 29th : Some migrants manage to get out of their cells and occupy the yard of the detention center. They demand liberation and secondarily, better conditions in Pagani. We are about 50 people who come to support them on the other side of the fence. After a couple of hours, a few migrants are released from Pagani, the others return to their cells after being promised to be released on Monday.

While a vehicle was exiting, we get in and occupy the detention center for half an hour. We get out to allow more migrants to be released. Riot cops arrive and push us violently out to the main road. During the day, four buses of migrants are released and leave Pagani, but a few hundred are remain locked in.

An action took place in the port with 50 people in tiny rubber dinghy's block the port for about an hour.

Sunday 30th : Mytilini's weekly military parade takes place. Following the parading soldiers, a fascist group protected by riot cops attacks migrants and activists at the infopoint. About a hundred people spend the night awake guarding the infopoint to protect it. The night is quiet and uneventful.

Monday 31th : Around ten people occupy the roof of Pagani and get arrested.

Thuesday 1st : We take the ferry to Athens. On board there are over 200 migrants who got released the previous days and four riot cop buses, unashamedly fascist. No incidents occur during the trip.

Lies, manipulation and party politics management of the situation.

As we have said, we wanted greatly to try to open the detention center and wreak havoc on the authorities managing the repression agaisnt the
migrants. If we didn't really attempt direct action, it is because we got manipulated and used by the organisers and managers of the NoBorder camp. We do not personnally know these people, which mainly take part in the german organisations 'Kein Mensch Ist Illegal', 'Pro Asylum', 'Karawane', and greek 'Diktio'; but we wish to let the people know about their behaviours.

Even before the beginning of the camp, the possibilities were limited by the organisers's decision to not contact the greek anarchist milieus. While passing by Athens, the squatters we met told us they had not any contact with the NoBorder organisers, any call, any information or anything. Therefore, most of them decided to not take part in the camp. Beside the general feeling of being in a german camp within greece, this lack of greek anarchists or activists limited our power and the possibility of getting important information. In fact, being unable to read Greek we were dependent on the very few Greek people around and on the organisers here for a few weeks to learn about Pagani and the others authorities. The last used this power to prevent any action, which would not fit with their political views. The continuous calls for inaction were built on two main arguments.

First, the weakest, consisted on pretending that radical actions would offend the authorities and the local population at a time when the situation was changing for the better: thanks to the indignation of the media about Pagani and the new "open" camp (people can enter and exit freely).

Secondly, the migrants do not want to get out of Pagani because they need the legal document obliging them to get out of Greece in order to legally get on the ferry to Athens. From this point of view, the only thing to do during the NoBorder camp was to help the migrants to get this paper by hurrying the authorities (but not too much).

This kind of "action" means giving up all politic and confrontation in favor of a "responsible" participation in the management of a situation created by capitalism. Moreover, buying into this aim to help migrants to get the legal obligation document is a total illusion in terms of efficiency. Yes. It's important to help the migrants as best we can, but we have to keep in mind that the situation for the migrants is not better in Athens or Patras than on Lesvos. The admninistrative sheet of paper is not in any case a "solution". After all, the proposition of the NoBorder camp's managers relied on two lies : on one hand, talking about a common attitude from the prisoners in Pagani (some of them did not want to get free without the document, but others were prepared to do anything to get out of there) ; on the other hand, pretending that it was impossible for the migrants to get on the ferry without the document (six migrants without any document were on the same ferry as us).

The problem of how to efficiently help the migrants has been the main issue during the NoBorder discussions. Nevertheless we will report two details justifying our lack of trust, and therefore our future attitude towards the NoBorder camp organizers.

The first occured during the assembly before the demonstration. The managers refused any offensive action around the camp due to the risk of tear gas being deployed, which might be an unbearable trauma for those locked in Pagani. A strong argument against radical actions which however could be countered by considering the greater trauma of possible deportation of the prisoners back to the countries they escaped from. Then we asked how many migrants were deported from Pagani. The answer from an organiser was : "None, there are agreements with Turkey but they have never been put into practice". A sad lie which we realised on the ferry on the way back while having a talk with some migrants, who had friends deported from Pagani.

The second is about the demonstration. One of us, working for indymedia, contacted the two people in charge of spreading information to the info point and to the anarchist squat where there was a media space set up. He was surprised to learn that those two persons, even though they did not take part in the media group assembly, decided unilaterally to not transmit any information about possible riots or injuries during the demonstration “to avoid causing panic”. Reporting these two little lies might seem mean or accusatory, and we do not like to do so. We do it because they reveal the practices used by the Lesvos camp managers and their intolerance towards anything not fitting exactly with their political visions. In terms of internal democracy, absence of hierarchy and radical struggle against the borders, on Lesvos we found before us, or more precisely above us, people who wished to take part in the management of migratory flows with the authorities, who considered their political actions according to what the mainstream media might say, who did not hesitate to lie and manipulate others in order to prevent the expression of different points of views and to channel the collective energy for their own political interests. All common practices in professional politician circles but that we would not expect within a NoBorder camp.

Conclusion :

This article omits the (few) positive aspects of this NoBorder camp. We repent having left the dreadful Pagani camp intact. On Lesvos, some real friendships got created, knowledge was shared and strong common wills appeared. Some relationships continued after Lesvos, brought us energy and will continue to inspire us in the future. Above all, this week has been highly emotional due to the numerous contact with the migrants. We do not consider these contacts as purely political, taking part in the set up of the conflict with a world which disgusts and oppresses us, we cannot deny the joy in spending time talking on the ferry with those who were three days before locked in revolting cages.

Both points cannot hide the way we have been used during the NoBorder camp. Here is the aim of this article : letting all the people nterested in the radical struggle against borders and migrants camps know what happened on Lesvos and what might happen in the future if a coming camp is organized by the same people. This is also a way to clearly tell the Lesvos managers that if we get “together” again, you'll not get even a fraction of trust from us. Now that we know you and we are aware of your behaviors, we will do as much as possible to make the coming NoBorder camps not social-humanitarian camps, but laces to struggle radically and effectively against the camps and the borders we hate.

No Nations No Borders Fight Law and Order

Signed :
Lesvos NoBorder participants