Nikos Anastasiadis of DEA, the Workers’ International Left in Greece, spoke to Solidarity.
Greece has accepted tens of thousands of refugees. Refugees came to Greece. Then they travel to Europe. But now the borders have closed and so most of the refugees are going to remain in Greece. There are now 6500 people waiting at the borders, which have been closed for a little more than a week. They were closed because central European countries do not want to accept more refugees.
This drive is led by Austria. They would like Greece to accept all the refugees. Most of the refugees come from Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, and there are refugees from Africa. We must say that the level of solidarity from Greek people is very high. People try to help any way they can. Now that there are camps the refugees settle as long as is necessary. People go to these camps and offer milk for infants, food and other necessary goods. This has been going on for more than a year. It started with people who arrived in the islands, where people tried to help them in any way they could, to save them from the sea, feed them and give them medicines.
This in spite of the fact that the state did nothing to help them and the whole effort was left to NGOs and citizens. At first the Syriza government tried to say ″there is no problem″. They did not mobilise the state. So the whole attempt to rescue people and help them was left to private initiative and NGOs. But now the borders are closed, the government has created camps. The government called Frontex, and later NATO: there is a NATO armada in the Aegean Sea.
This is not being done to help the refugees. They are trying to talk about how to stop refugees from coming to Greece. The character of these camps is yet to be decided. It will be determined by the solidarity movement and what the Greek left will do to stop them being detention centres again.
The Greek left tries to help any way it can. There are many movements around Greece, and the left is a part of them. It tries to help refugees by collecting goods and organising marches and demonstrations against ″Fortress Europe″.
For example, on 19 March there will be rallies all around Greece for the refugees, to say that the refugees must live in Greece with decency. And also they will call for European countries to open their borders, because refugees cannot be stopped from their attempt to have a better life. So, we will march on 19 March. Specifically what DEA is doing: in Athens, we support the Immigrant Sunday School, which has made many attempts to help the refugees, including by loading trucks with goods and sending them to the islands. Also we support the Deport Racism movement. The Deport Racism movement will join the demonstrations on 19 March. We are a component of Popular Unity, and we try to persuade comrades in Popular Unity to resolve the problem of immigration. It is not only to do with the members of DEA, but with all of Popular Unity. We want them to do the best they can.
