Since the elections, international press and politics point at Austria. We have seen the FPÖ grow stronger and stronger during a much longer period. The legislative proposals of this party are put into practice by the SPÖ/ÖVP government coalition. Step by step, Austrians are trained to accept racism and to stay indifferent to police abuses. The bourgeois media agitate. According to the public media, all Black Africans are drug dealers and therefore have no right to live. The fear of loosing one´s job, the fear of "to many foreigners" generalizes. Military forces are stationed at the borders. The government lowers inmigration quota. It keeps silent where FPÖ propaganda is concerned. It organizes hypocrite symposia against xenophobia, but at the same time the government puts one stone after the other to construct the fortress Europe.

Austria has an important share in exploitation and repression. European weapons are used to massacre people in Trikont and kindle civil wars. Western groups and industries benefit from the exploitation of the labour force and the resources of these countries. By that means, Western countries are creating the conditions that generate refugees. But the EU closes its´ borders. In order to mask this situation, the Western countries need the artificial concepts of the "Nigerian drug mafia" and "organized crime".
In the seventies, we saw the massive recruitment of migrants to supply a cheap work force, mainly from Turkey and Ex-Yugoslavia, to help to build the social welfare state Austria, a cost-benefit accounting that has worked out well for our economy till today. The instigated rise of racism has gone hand in hand with economical and social developments. Inmigrants are needed as scapegoats to divert from the real contradictions that arise from an economy of international capital. Today, only very few people are able to pass the Schengen border and enter Austria. Their success depends mainly on good luck. As "illegalized" persons they are denied all rights to work and have a home. How are they supposed to make a living?
The police receives constantly new equipment to be fit to operate at an European level, they are granted more and more powers. The costs of this policy and of police operations are enormous and the money lacks elsewhere. Fascim is made socially acceptable again by populist ballyhooing, the rightwing press is highly subsidized. The final stage of this development is a state of total surveillance, the interception of all forms of communication. While Europe is turning into a fortress against others, inside is becomes a palace of glass.

The general police practices, masked as actions to guarantee security and integration, are terror, control, criminalization and margination motivated by racism. People with dark skin are constantly exposed to harassment in the streets. These "controls" have the aim to show who is welcome and who is not. Controls, police violence, arrest and, as a consequence, criminalization, deportation and murder - that´s the usual course of a stay in the Schengen member Austria for people who do not own an Austrian passport. In January 1999, Ahmed F. was murdered on the street by policemen, and in May 1999, Marcus Omofuma suffocated during deportation. Many times, these cases of abuse only get known when a UNO officer or a known soccer player are concerned.

Open-eyed persons can observe examples of violent police practices every day. But when they want to report racist abuses, they are denounced for libel and generally convicted. That´s the way they try to silence critical attitudes. In the face of this racist police violence, the Black Community got organized. This movement brought anti-racist slogans to the streets. The protests got stronger after Marcus Omofuma was suffocated by three Austrian policemen during his deportation. It took three weeks until these three policemen were suspended and the trial ended without real conviction. Their attorney, Mr. Rifaat, defended the murderers sucessfully. Nonetheless, the pressure on Interior Minister Schlögl obviously grew - there were claims for his abdication.

In order to justify the murderous working methods of the police, a long planned listening attack was put into practice. The police proceeded mainly against politically active members of the Black Community that had participated in demonstrations. The police wants to make believe that the protests only served the purpose of drug dealing. They created the false concept of the "Nigerian drug mafia" which presumably organized the demonstrations. Activists are criminalized, the Community is intimidated and supporters are scared away. By that means, the State managed to distract attention form police racism and the death of Marcus and to justify police brutality. Though nothing indicated that Marcus had anything to do with drugs, the media spread this allegation. Somehow it was suggested that he deserved death. The public opinion accepted the first victim of racist governmental power.

After months of surveillance and interception (presented as the most successful blow against the international drug mafia) 2-3 kg of heroine and cocaine were found during the search of a total of 100 persons. A month later, at least a ton of drugs was found with an Austrian businessman, hidden amongst minerals, a fact practically unreported by Austrian media. During the "biggest drug raid of the Second Republic", the so called "Operation Spring", more than 100 Africans were arrested. Two thirds were released in the following days or weeks for lack of incriminatory evidence. The police continued this game of arrests and releases. Up to now, it is unclear how many people are actually under arrest.


Practices of police and justice

Practices of police and justice related with the arrests of, accusations and proceedings against Africans during Operation Spring
Based on flimsy accusations and the artificial concept of a drug mafia, the first trials against people arrested during the "Operation Spring" are now going on. It´s a vicious circle. The extremely hard sentences of seven to ten years of prison (maximum penalty for organized crime are 15 years) try to justify a posteriori the methods of the police and the accusations. In this context, it seems interesting that the main part of surveillance activities took place during political actions against racism, and that the participation is considered a proof of organized criminal activities.

Quotation from the records: "Furthermore, he (defendant number 2) put himself in the first row of the demonstration against racism and police violence, and there he has contact with (defendant number 1) who had organized the demonstration. For the group of delinquents, the demonstration served the exclusive purpose of achieving easier access to "official documents" as ILLEGAL persons and of facilitating their operations as drug dealers. This circumstance is clearly proved by a special measure (listening device)."

The word "clearly" refers to a quotation of defendant 1: "Leave business and join the demonstration!" which was interpreted in the records as follows:

Quotation from the records: "Defendant 1 is considered the head of the criminal organisation. He is supposed to be a co-organizer of the demonstration and gave the delinquents´ group leave from work to participate in the demonstration. Is considered a liaison person between criminal delinquent groups in Austria. Ranks highest in the hierarchy."

The deliberately wrong interpretation of the translation of the police was converted into the greatest success against organized crime in Europe.
Defendant 1 - called "boss" by the police and the media - has meanwhile been released for lack of strong suspicion. In spite of that, the idea of an international drug organisation is still kept up. The less evidences there are against a defendant, the more suspicious he or she appears to be. The following is considered evidence of a high rank in the hierarchy of the drug mafia in the eyes of the judge:

Quotation from records: "Defendant 2 ... is suspicious of being a leading personality in a criminal organisation pursuant to §278a StGB.This fact can be deduced from the mere fact that he frequents a restaurant (under surveillance) on a nearly daily basis, but, in spite of the surveillance kept on him, does not deal with drugs in the open drug scene."
The court does not have to prove the guilt of the defendant, on the contrary, the defendant has to prove his innocence. The sentences in these trials reflect this situation: M.A. was sentenced to 10 years of prison because he did not confess and because it could not be proved that he was a drug dealer. No evidence was presented that justifies the sentence. The only "crime" committed by these persons is to have the wrong skin colour.
But also in the other proceedings one scandal follows upon another. Witnesses for the prosecution do not appear in court, their declarations are read; chief witnesses are masked and happen to be hobby interpreters who translate the surveillance material to the judge from illegal tape recordings (interceptions not authorized by a judge).
Magazine "Format", 25.10.: "The Viennese attorney Richard Soyer: " The court has so far denied me information on the fact of the interpreter´s being sworn or not." His colleague Farid Rifaat therefore used a trick in the last trial. He put the masked interpreter to a German test and asked him the meaning of the word "sworn". The man did not know. Since then, it seems to be clear that the drug searchers of Viennese police have made an embarrasing mistake. After the release of the alleged boss of the drug mafia for lack of evidence it is to be feared that hundreds of hours of taped evidence have been translated by hobby interpreters, which means that they can not be used as evidence in court."
The translations during the proceedings have been very deficient, most defendants have not received the bill of indictment nor had the possibility to examine the records.
Most defendants are represented by the same four attorneys, one of them being Farid Rifaat, who defended the neonazi Franz Radl in the "letter bomb trial" and the policemen responsible for the death of Marcus. The defending counsels cooperate with the judges and try to persuade their clients to confess. Only confessions would help to keep up the allegation of a drug mafia.
In order to prevent the unveiling of this false allegation the defendants are tried in several separate proceedings, too obviously innocent persons are transferred from ordinary prison to special prison departments for later deportation or to prisons in other federal states. The existence of a huge Nigerian drug organisation that acts internationally is simply assumed as a fact although so far there is no evidence - except that the headlines of the Kronen Zeitung (the newspaper with the highest circulation in Austria, extremly racist) be admitted as evidence in court.
The witnesses for the prosecution are extremly implausible. It is strange that in several proceedings the witnesses did not appear in court and only extracts of the records of their declarations were read. Some of these witnesses are defendants themselves, incriminating statements were often given under drug withdrawal. None of these points has been questioned by the defending counsels up to now. Minimum prison standards were denied to the arrested. They have been in prison for months without hardly any contact with the outer world, they only have the clothes they wore the day of their arrest and no articles of personal hygiene, the food is unacceptable.
In order to make higher sentences in trials possible and make deportations easier, juvenile Africans are generally declared adults by means of the notorious wrist bone test that is internationally rejected because of its´ unreliability (i.e. by the UNHCR).
For months, every day Africans have been arrested, dragged out of flats, asylums and even trains. The most recent example is the police assault of two Viennese Young Workers´ Homes - only black youth were arrested.
The headmistress of one institution was forced to retire and an information has been laid against her because she had lodged the arrested, some of them without residence permit. This was a clear signal to all those who declare their solidarity with the victims of institutionalized racism - moral courage is punished and fought by the state.
The prisons are crammed with African people while they have practically disappeared from Viennese streets and political and social life. Wherever they show they are searched by the police, insulted by racist passers-by, often arrested and even the bourgeois public opinion can not silence completely the constant abuses - it is no exaggeration to speak of ethnic cleansing in Austria.