Events about the delegation trip to Greece

Dresden Internationalist Center’s Events

IMG_2396.cleaned-e1452476503787-1000x288There is again lots of talk about Greece: As an EU external border Greece confronts fleeing people in a direct way with the “fortress Europe”. The country is a neoliberal experimental laboratory for European and German saving doctrine that deprives many people’s social and financial security. When we want to develop shared strategies against bulkheading and authoritarian austerity policy, we have to try to understand the surroundings of political work in Greece.

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Delegation trip to Greece [criticism and self-criticism of the Orfanotrofio]

On the 5th of January we took part in a discussion meeting at the Orfanotrofio. There, different projects and initiatives for and with refugees introduced themselves. Persons from Lesbos, Athens and of course from Thessaloniki were part of podium, who gave a short input about the local situation and the current status of the structures of solidarity. We skip the information about the Notara in Athens and about Lesbos at this point, because we are going to report on this soon. Instead we want to focus on solidary and self-criticism of the Orfanotrofio (see also article 3). Not just during the podium discussion, but also in individual talks, additionally to general solidarity, the Orfanotrofio was criticized repeatedly. We didn’t hear an absolute rejection of the attempt to get organized with refugees and to support them.

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Delegation trip to Greece [part 4]

Short report about the situation in Macedonia
 
On the 30th of december we met a person from the group “Open Border” to talk about their work and the situation of the people who are fleeing in Macedonia. The “Open Border” group is part of loose network of individuals and structures, who provide refugees in Macedonia with clothes, food and medical health care. Unfortunately we didn’t got enough time to talk about everything in detail, therefore we will publish another report with more detailed information and interviews during the next week. We want to emphasise that the report is based on the statements from one person. This person is involved in an network that is active on the Balcan route for a long time and also published the call for help from Macedonia, so we assume that we can trust these information. Therefor we want to give a first short report.

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Delegation trip Greece [Eidomeni part II]

During the night of 30th to 31st of december we spontaneously drove to Eidomeni because we read on Twitter that circa 1.800 people were waiting at a petrol station near the border crossing. It wasn’t clear under which circumstances they had to wait there, if it was possible to stay in the busses or if they had to stand outside and unprotected on the street. The photos can give some impressions from last night. Because some of the bus drivers turned off the motors, these busses weren’t heated. At the petol station there was a bunch of logs so the refugees made campfires and had to wait next to those or at the petrol station. Médicins Sans Frontiéres ( ‘doctors without borders’), UNHCR, Praksis and ‘volunteers’ were there. However refugees complained again about the lack of support and help and that every single thing, however unimportant it is, costs money.

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Delegation trip to Greece [Part 2]

Report about Eidomeni (24th of December 2015)

On 24th of December we arrived at Thessaloniki. We stayed at the Nikis Squat of the antiauthoritarian platform Alpha Kappa (Αντιεξουσιαστική κίνηση, Antieksousiastiki Kinisi, Antiauthoritarian Movement) and instantly met three people of the Dresden Balkan Konvoi. They told us, that they had been given a storage place for the aid supplies in the occupied factory Vio.Me. After a short break we went to the GreekMacedonian border at Eidomeni, to get an impression aboutthe situation.  Some of our group were on site in the summer already.

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