NINGUN SER HUMANO ES ILEGAL
NO HUMAN BEING IS ILLEGAL
IWA -Conference on Immigration in Milan the 22/23/24 of June 2001
The 21st IWA-Congress
in Granada, December 2000 - decided the following:
The international question and all its consequences represent one of the
most important problems about which
the IWA has to intervene with strength both in the union aspect of claims
and rights of those who find a job, and in the social aspect of those
who emigrate and do not find a job. To establish co-ordination among the
IWA-Sections (both in the immigration and emigration countries) against
the position of exclusion and exploitation. For a policy of encounter
among cultures of the different countries, against all form of racism
and shut border line, to unify the struggles of all subordinate classes.
This proposal was forwarded by the USI-AIT. They became the host Section
for the conference that got a mandate to debate in depth the problems
of immigration and to find responses of struggle.
The USI decided that the conference should be in Milan, and in the spring
2001 Sections and Friends of the IWA worked on documents for the conference.
The conference treated documents from the USI - Italy, CNT - Spain, Direct
- Switzerland, Solidarity Federation - Great Britain and the "US
-Section" of the IWA. The NSF-Norway gave a report on the conference.
The CNT- France wanted to give a lecture about the immigrants movements
in France and the participation and action of the CNTF in the movement
of the paper-less etc, but was hindered to attend at last minute.
Greetings to the conference came from the"The Portuguese Section
of the IWA", the PA-AKOP - Slovakia and the Awareness League - Nigeria.
The Awareness League sent in May a fax to the IWA-Secretariat where they
stated that they wanted to come with three delegates to the conference
to express the problems of immigration from an African perspective. Both
the IWA-Secretariat and the USI sent documents to the Italian Embassy
in Lagos to obtain visas, but the racist visa practices seem to have won
since no Nigerian comrades appeared.
Other greetings were received from organisations not affiliated to the
IWA: The NSEF- Bangladesh, WSA-office New-York, the Juventud Libertarias
- Bolivia and various Italian organisations invited by the USI.
Of the documents that were read, studied and debated the USI had three:
”The economic situation in the world” (Toni Iero), “Anarchosyndicalism
and immigration” (Gianfranco Careri) and “La legislazione sulgli
stranieri in Italia….” (Sergio Oneste)
The first of them is examining the main economic areas of the world. It
is in the centre of the empire- in the USA where the real news are recorded.
Besides confirming the lack of representativity of the U.S. elections,
the electoral farce crowded president Bush as representative of the American
industry of oil, weapons and cigarettes. The document analyses the development
in the USA in order to predict the further development of the world. It
was written before the elections in Italy, waiting for Berlusconi to come.
The second document of the USI analyses the reasons of immigration as
poverty, hunger, wars and political persecution coming to the conclusion
that the IWA must work to open the frontiers and this must be accompanied
by our daily fight to allow the immigrants the full opportunity of benefiting
from the same rights of the other citizens (work, health, housing, education
etc). The IWA must also be against union, social and cultural discrimination
in accordance to our culture that is libertarian, multiethnic, federalist,
and self managed.
The third document was presented by the lawyer Sergio Oneste- analysing
the legislation in the field of immigration in Italy and the criminal
organisations that want to benefit from smuggling of immigrants. Italy
is a transit country for this traffic - 1/3 of the immigrants in Italy
are ìillegalî- and it was said in the debate that the only
way to fight this exploitation and mafia business are open borders.
The CNT - Spain presented a dossier about immigration containing articles
of: Immigration and the Labour Reform, analysis of the Spanish law on
foreigners, female immigration and reports about the immigrants and ìpaper
lessî fights in Spain. The CNTE delegates gave reports about the
numerous fights in Spain by immigrants as in Barcelona, Valencia, Almeria,
Alcala de Henares and Madrid. These fights have very much been in the
attention of Spanish media this spring. The reasons of this is the new
Spanish law called "Ley Organica 8/2000" which was put into
practice the 23rd of January 2001. The law implements a very restrictive
policy and refuses the immigrants rights of gathering and demonstrations,
association, unionising and strike. It also retricts the regroupement
of families, the possibilities of visas etc. Instead it increases the
rights of the authorities of expulsions of the immigrants and it puts
sanctions against the immigrants and the ones that want to assist the
immigrants.
The Direct - Switzerland described the new direction of the employers
in Switzerland. Before they used labour from the Southern of Europe to
have the low-income jobs and giving the better ones to the Swiss workers.
The period 1945- 1975 was based upon "le paix du travail"- that
the workers and the employers have the same interests. Today, the employers
get workers from eastern European countries, Turkey, Kosovo etc. but now
they put the ìSwissî workers in competition with the immigrants.
This police of the employers and the state that also is very restrictive
to the so called paper-less ìillegalî immigrants and asylum
seekers, makes it easy for parties to raise xenophobic topics. But, workers
must not accept the division between
Swiss and foreigners, between legal and illegal immigrants and the Direct
says to reject this policy means to fight against the capitalist system.
The delegate of the Solidarity Federation ñ Great Britain emphasised
the strong link between British immigration policy and racism. The policy
first towards the Irish and then the workers from the British Empire followed
clear racist practices dividing the workers. In the sixties to the seventies
the fascists tried to exploit the situation, but were met by antifascist
that fought back. In 1990 coloured and Asian people were 5% of the population
and Great Britain is developing into a multicultural society. Today, in
Britain it is mostly focus upon asylum-seekers that are kept in detention
camps and then thrown out of the country. The SF is very concerned about
the use and exploitation of casual labour, making it extremely important
to unite all workers of the working class against this form of flexibility.
The NSF -Norway delegate informed about the very restrictive Norwegian
policy on immigration- due to a law from the seventies. This law is racist
because it allows for example workers to the oil industry from the US.
and the Western Europe etc. Much focus in Norway as in Britain is put
on the asylum seekers. In 1999 -10.000 were applying for asylum, only
181 got it accepted. There are many detention camps of the state and people
are hiding asylum seekers. In Norway the racism seems to increase the
fewer immigrants the communities have. In Oslo with the largerst population
of immigrants 40 000 people attended this winter in a
demonstration against a nazi-murder of a coloured boy. The Norwegian authorities
do all they can not to recognize the skills of foreigners even though
Norway is member of the European Schengen.
On Sunday the 24th the conference started to study parts of the document
of the"US-Section of the IWA". They were not present at the
conference, but they had made a compilation of statements they call "Freedom
voices". These statements were describing immigrants experiences,
grassroot initiativs, the work in temp-agencies, the strike of the Asian
workers in the Titan Tire workers in Iowa etc. The US-Section had also
received a greeting to the conference from the Juventud Libertarias in
Bolivia and the creator of the drawing ìNingun ser Humano es Ilegal-No
Human Being is Illegalî Mark Vallen had given the right for the
IWA to use the poster and image. Juventud Libertarias said the following:
Revolutionary greetings from Bolivia! We are are the JUVENTUDES LIBERTARIAS
of Bolivia. "Workers and Immigration" is a topic that is very
important for us, because thousands of Bolivian workers migrate each year
to Argentina, Brazil, Chile and the USA. There they live as SLAVES! They
work don`t see the daylight. They eat only rice. It is very horid. Please
keep us informed about the Conference. In struggle, JUVENTUD
LIBERTARIS.
This last day of the conference, Sunday the 24th, was set to discuss the
different practical experiences. The CNTE gave more information about
the fights by the immigrants in Spain as e.g. in Barcelona where a hunger
strike of 400 immigrants forced a delegation of the government to promise
improvements. It is very importent for the CNT to support the self-organisation
of the immigrants and they mentioned some examples of this from Madrid.
The document "Female immigration" was also presented and it
shows how the Immigration Committee at the Local Federation of the CNT
in Madrid workes towards Centro African female prostitutes.
Then the "USI-Sanita"- the Health Workers Union of the USI in
Milano- gave information about the "Flores Magon" project. It
is a solidarity project initiated by alternative unions of Milan in order
to send money, drugs and medical machines and above all nurses and doctors
to the indeos people of Chiapas (Mexico). The "USI-Sanita" works
for a health plan that included building, restruction and organisation
of a central clinic. All is co-ordinated by a committee in Chiapas in
order to use the resources and international solidarity the best way.
In the debate the participants agreed that it became too short time at
the conference for
discussions about the further work of the IWA, but all agreed that the
conference was very useful as a start to share views and experiences.
Then the IWA either can arrange a second immigration conference, or/and
the Sections can implement the immigration issues in the Plenaries and
Congresses of the IWA.
The General Secretary of the IWA said in a closing comment that immigration
always will be a central issue for an international and anarchosyndicalist
organisation as the IWA. If we take a view on history we see that e.g.
the founding Congress of the IWA in 1922 was raided by German police in
order destroy the Congress and to catch comrades without legal papers.
Sacco and Venzetti were immigrants from Italy. "Joe Hill" came
from Sweden etc. Many Spanish comrades were forced to exile in many coutries
etc. The question of immigration is linked to the IWA and must be developed
in the discussions in the Sections, Plenaries and
Congresses.
At last the General Secretary thanked the USI-Milan for the organising
and hosting and the translators for doing an excellent job.
Oslo the 28th of
June 2001
Anarchosyndicalist greetings
from the IWA-Secretariat, Oslo