Report from the noborder camp in Gorizia

From 19 to 23 of July 2006 took place the first no border camp on the border between Italy en Slovenia. It has been organized by the Social Center "Clandestino" in Gorizia-Nova Goriza, by the Area of Social Disobedience and by the Slovenian network "Dost Je". The event saw the participation, every day, of at least 150 people from various cities and social centers in Italy, in Slovenia, Austria, France, England.

The main focus of the camp was the dispositive of administrative detention that is working across that border with the detention centers of Gradisca in Italy and of Veliki Otok, near Postumia, in Slovenia. The strategy to close down this centers includes direct action and pression on the private companies that run the facilities as the "Minerva" cooperative in Gorizia and also blockades in front of the centers.

Along four days in the camp the actions where prepared with collective discussions about asylum rights, local and migrant workers organization with the presence of the new base trade union IWW that holds together Italian and migrant workers.

The 20 of July, hundred people performed an "escrache" style presence in front of the house of Adriano Ruchini, the boss of the Minerva Cooperative that runs the CPT and that is the biggest employer of the region with very bad and criticized working conditions. They asked the immediate exit of Ruchini's business from the detention facilities.

The 21 of July, 150 people with a surprise action took the two entrances of the detention center in Gradisca d'Isonzo, blocked the state road 305 and made up a barricade in front of the police. The blockade lasted from 10 am to 2 pm under a 40 C. degrees temperature and prevented the entering of both police and worker, delaying both shifts. At 1 pm the police tried to free the road charging the people and removing the blockade, the people defended themselves, with the result of two injured in the protesters and five between the police. One of the organizers of the camp was badly beaten, took into the center and soon released for the pressure of the blockade outside. That was the first violent police action against protesters of the new Prodi government.

At 2 pm the no border camp decided to move out and suddenly two fires started on both sides of the detention center, no one was blessed.

In the same day, started its activities a Commission form the ministry of Interior, where several associations and NGO (like ARCI) are involved in order to study the situation of the Italian CPT and make suggestion to the government about the bypassing of detention politics. The no border camp wanted to send a clear message of refusal to what they called the "Farce-Commission", stating that the administrative detention centers are already well known to the civil society and that the only possibility to by-pass them is the immediate closure.

The 22 of July a delegation of 100 people, form Italy, Slovenia, Austria, went out of the detention center on Veliki Otok, Postojna, and started to send messages to the detainees inside and pulling on the fences.

When some fences and the main entrance fence went down, anti-riot police attacked the comrades and eventually after badly beating several of them, stopped 7 people, 5 Italians and two Austrians, that where brought in the police station of Postojna and charged with criminal offences and then released.

The no border camp in Gorizia also went trough a reflection about the forms of struggle and about the connections between the detention regime and the forms of global war that are producing more and more migrant and displaced people.

On the same issue, great importance was given to the necessity to move beyond the simple anti-racist position and to assume the migrant detention regime as an attack to the whole working class conditions.

The camp decided to participate into the third European :: day of action on 7th of October 2006 and to strengthen the cooperation toward eastern and southern Europe for common actions and campaigns.

This article - from Dost Je!, Network for permanent visits (Slovenia), Ya Basta!, and IWW (Italia) - was published first at :: at.indymedia.org.