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friday, july 20th: after a break in the slovenian mountains we're on our way to genua. about 30km from the city we get a phonecall that a protestor has been shot in the head. we are totally shocked and stop at a restaurant to discuss the situation. there we watch RAI3, where they already show the pictures of the riots and the dead body. the tv-station shows non-stop riots-spectacle.
we get some info from friends in the city and in the evening we enter genoa. we are staying at the ciclamini camp, there we meet the NOborder NOnation caravan / publixtheatre. the mood is totally different than we thought, people are not giving up, although one guy has been shot. members of the publixtheatre tell us about the day, they strongly criticize actions of the so-called "black block". it seems that it was a strategy of the police to give way to riots to legitimate violent police actions. we hear that police is raiding other camps. we are concerned, but the snoring soundscape amidst 1500 greeks who are also in our camp provides sleep for us, too.
on saturday, we go to the indymedia center, to do interviews and research. there we also meet people of the publix theatre caravan. after a while we depart for the demonstration. the situation is dense, gas all over the city and helicopters permanently surveilling everything.
in the night we return to the camp, more and more scared by several reports of police brutality. we witness violent charges of peaceful protestors. back at the camp, we hear that the indymedia center has been raided, just 20 minutes after we had left. we go to sleep, and keep recording equipment available. the next day, we hear about the events at the diaz-school opposite the media center. sleeping people from the genoa social forum have been beaten up by carabinieri, although there was no resistance, people were lieing down to show their peacefulness and then beaten, till blood was all over the place. back at the indymedia center we hear reports by several people who spent the night working at the indymedia center. they are scared. two of us decide to take a walk through the diaz-school. personal stuff is spread allover, there's blood everywhere. some journalists are taking pictures, one can feel that the people here had feared for their lives.
we decide to leave genoa immediately. so does the publixtheatre caravan. we meet at the camp and all of us leave. about half an hour outside genoa we take a rest to have some coffee. the big bus of the publix theatre and all the cars cause suspicion and suddenly a bunch of carabinieri close down the parking lot. they are shouting some italian stuff aggressively and then place themselves provocatively at the exit. we decide to have coffee anyway, thinking that nothing worse than searching our cars could happen. after a while we start to make an interview with an activist of the publixtheatre caravan, he explains the connections between the EUropean border situation and what happened in genoa. the police seems to get bored by such normality and leave. after a while we all decide to drive on, the publix theatre heading to the border camp at frankfurt, us looking forward to our starting point at the slovenian-italian border. it seems that the publix theatre has been arrested just two hours after our tours splitted. it seems that we could have been arrested in the same way. criminilazation of artists.
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lazaret. beginning of eastern border of schengen.
the eastern territorial border of schengen starts in a small bay near the slovenian city of koper. just a few meters from a small border crossing called "lazaret" (sic!) we take a walk on the site between slovenia and italy. it's hard to believe that this small beach, a little bit dirty and waste, represents exactly the first meters of the concept of "fortress EUrope". walking around and crossing the borderline arbitrarely without being noticed by the authorities nearby, it's a strange thought that this very border kills people somewhere else. although it should be no problem to swim into schengen here, the officials told us that there is almost no "illegal" migration here, they remember only one case years ago, when one person tried to swim to italy. they also say, that much "illegal" migration takes place at the city of nova gorica. we head there.
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nova gorica / gorizia
here the schengen-border runs right through the city, dividing it into two parts. when we arrive, we take a short walk along the slovenian side. we cross a tunnel, and then climb up a hill. little gardens and family houses make up a lovely idylle. strangely enough, the very sites of the border often seem to be archetypical places of peace and relax. at the top of the hill all the trees have been cut down, the postcard picture has been turned into some wasteland. we think this has been done to make the place more open for surveillance.
when climbing down again, we talk to a guy in his garden. he has lived at the border for over thirty years and tells us that there is a lot of "illegal" migration here. people throw away their documents and try to cross the border, running just through his garden. he is not scared at all about the refugees or their helpers, and he is more amuzed than upset, when he tells us that the slovenian police is totaly ignorant of this issue.
in the evening of the 26th we go to the north, driving down to the valley of the river idrija that demarcates the border between slovenia and italy. we decide to camp directly at the river, just hundred meters from the small border station. the place is lovely, there is no sign of any border control, at least on the slovenian side.
the next day (july 27th) some of us are going to italy, trying to interview an official of the border police in triest about the border, genua and the arrestment of the publixtheatre. this fails, as nobody is willing to talk to us.
the other part of the group pays a visit to the mayor of nova gorica, who tells us about the city's history and the border situation. he says that many slovenians are helping refugees by telling them the way etc... just a few days ago italian right wing leader bossi visited gorizia and demanded the construction of a higher fence. mayor spacaban laughs about this, as he thinks that slovenia will be part of the EU within two years anyway.
over the day we got information that the members of publixtheatre are kept arrested, the situation seems to get worse. we go to ljubljana to check out information, the people of ljudmila.org help us with their place and infrastructure.
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