WORLD WORLDWIDE EUROPE ITALY GREECE TURKEY MIGRANT News Journal Update - (en) Italy, Galatea GA: On the expulsion of the self-managed refugee camp in Lavrio, Greece (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

 Translation from the original "Regarding the Eviction of the

Self-Organized Refugee Camp in Lavrio, Greece" ---- How Turkey's wars
against the Kurds and the European Union's wars against migrants
intersect. ---- On 5 July 2023, the Greek government cleared the Kurdish
refugee camp of Lavrio, Greece. The camp had existed for many decades
and was an important organizing center in southeastern Europe. The wars
of Turkey against the Kurds, of the Greek government against autonomous
spaces and of the European Union against migrants have intersected in
this operation. In the analysis that follows, Beja Protner shows the
connections between the various forms of systemic oppressions involved.
For more information on these issues, see Rise Up 4 Rojava and Emergency
Committee For Rojava.

On July 5, 2023, between 3 and 6 in the morning, the Greek state forces
violently raided and evicted the self-organized Kurdish refugee camp in
Lavrio, Greece. Located about 60 kilometers from Athens, the camp had
been hosting political refugees from Turkey and Kurdistan for decades.
Without warning, more than 250 police officers, riot police (MAT) and
heavily armed police special forces (EKAM) dispatched by the Ministry of
Asylum and Migration, evicted the camp residents - less than 60 people,
a third of which were small children. The refugees were forcibly
relocated to Oinofyta refugee camp, located inside an abandoned factory
- a deserted area far from any kind of urban settlement.

The eviction was described   as a "humanitarian intervention" by Greek
officials; for Kurds and leftist political refugees from Turkey and
Kurdistan,[instead, it felt]similar to the[Turkish]incursions - and
which had forced them to flee their homelands, seeking refuge in Greece.
Greek forces broke through the camp gate, breaking into refugee homes.
They[immediately]aimed their laser rifles[with scopes]at people,
including families and children, and dragged them out[of the houses and,
later, the camp].

" Not even in Turkey[state forces]use so much technology for house
raids", commented Welat, a young political refugee from Northern
Kurdistan (Turkey) who, after fleeing persecution in Turkey, had lived
in Lavrio camp for five years. As Leyla - who lives in the camp together
with her husband and her and her three young children - recounted, the
residents were only given half an hour to collect their essential goods
before the police force occupied the camp and forbade them the entrance.
Those who resisted the eviction were held back violently - by having
their hands cuffed behind their backs. Leyla tried to calm her daughter
by telling her that what was being pointed at them were toy guns. " But
the little girl knew what they were, since the days of Turkey ," Leyla
said. " My children have seen so many things that they don't deserve it. "

All 57 residents, including eight women and nineteen children, were
arrested and transferred to Oinofyta refugee camp, located in an
abandoned factory and far from any type of urban settlement.

" Where are we? What is this place?" Layla asked when we met through the
blue metal fence of the camp gate and after being denied entry by Greek
guards. An elderly Kurdish refugee had just returned empty-handed after
an hour's search, under the scorching midday sun, for a shop where he
could buy something to eat or drink.

It was 2.00pm and the refugees had still not received anything since
they had been forcibly moved at 6.00am. " The kids are hungry! " the
elderly refugee said in a few Greek words to the security personnel -
who was sitting inside a small booth at the gate.

In stark contrast to the autonomous, self-sufficient and centrally
located Lavrio camp, Oinofyta is a prison guarded by security officials
(appointed by the government) and who control entry and exit. Even when
people are allowed to leave the camp, the surrounding area is largely
deserted, isolated and, as a result,[residents]are dependent on scarce
state necessities.

" Why did they do this to us? asked Diana, a teenager from northeastern
Syria (Rojava), as she held my hand through the blue fence.

Oinofyta refugee camp, set up in an abandoned factory far from urban
settlements, had been closed due to unlivable conditions. It was
reopened to house refugees from the Lavrio camp. After eight hours, a
truck sent by the Greek state brought food for the refugees. Entry was
denied to all visitors, despite objections from refugees.

The life of the residents of the Lavrio camp was turned upside down in a
single day, depriving them of their freedom and autonomy. On the 4th of
July they lived in a self-organized, free and secure polity that had
existed for over 40 years. The next day, they were socially marginalized
refugees, imprisoned and dependent on the state - as the state destroyed
houses in the oldest refugee camp in Europe, thus closing a chapter in
the history of the "Kurdistan Freedom Movement" in Greece. The
destruction of the Lavrio camp is a historical moment in which European
policies against refugees and the Greek right-wing crackdown on
autonomous political spaces intersect with Greek and Turkish
international relations and with the war against the Kurdish population,
revealing the their interconnections.

An attack on refugees and free collective life

For the past four years, the right-wing " New Democracy " government
(??? ??u???????, ND) has placed two priorities at the top of its agenda:
the war against migrants and the destruction of autonomous political
spaces. Since New Democracy took power under Prime Minister Kyriakos
Mitsotakis in 2019, police have evicted and sealed off dozens of
inner-city squats. Many of these housed refugees and migrants who lacked
access to decent housing in Greece.

Since 2015, Greece has served Europe as a "container" for unwanted
migrants and refugees. According to the Dublin Regulation, asylum
seekers must submit an application for protection in the first EU
country they entered. But the closure of the EU's internal borders in
2016 has clogged asylum systems in countries on the EU's fringes - such
as Greece. The slowness, incomprehensibility and constant changes of the
Greek asylum system has made this process hell for countless people.

Most people have to wait several years for the asylum interview, during
which time there is limited or no access to housing, financial and
health care or education. During this period, the migrants' and
refugees' temporary papers expire continuously and they are forced to
live as sans papiers[undocumented people]due to delays by the Asylum
Service. This legal precariousness, induced by the administration, makes
these people vulnerable to the "cleansing" operations of the center of
Athens. The police kidnap people without valid residence papers and take
them to camps and prison-like detention centers - where the living
conditions are abominable.

The migration and asylum policies of the New Democracy government
constitute a war against migrants. As a " shield of Europe ",[the
current Greek government]does the dirty work of European racist
anti-immigration hysteria.[Thus,]the Greek-Turkish land and sea border
has become a place of illegal pushbacks - a systematic and unofficial
return strategy where migrants are pushed back to Turkey, without them
having any chance to claim asylum. This includes those fleeing political
persecution by the Turkish state.

The Greek police, Frontex, border guards, coast guards, collaborating
gangs and local vigilantes carry out these push-backs on a large scale
every day, violating a number of international laws and conventions. In
addition to violating the right to seek asylum,[the repressive
forces]inflict[on migrants]brutal police violence including forced
kidnapping, torture, sexual abuse and unofficial detention in
overcrowded cells with no access to food, water or sanitation.[The
repressive forces]of the Evros region (northeast of Greece), carry out
pushbacks near the border and kidnap people from the streets or fields
in the hinterland of Thessaloniki.transferred across the border to
Turkey . In some cases, migrants are stranded on small river islands
without food, water or medicine and exposed to the elements.

In the Aegean and Ionian Seas, the Hellenic Coastguard and Frontex have
been responsible for countless pushbacks and deaths. Vessels in distress
are routinely rejected and left to scuttle or towed to Turkey. In some
cases, the coastguard deliberately damaged the boats' engines before
setting them adrift in the open sea and near Turkish waters. In other
cases, people have been abandoned at sea in motorless rescue boats. The
Greek government seeks to legitimize these actions as forms of
"security", playing on Greek and, more generally, European racist
anti-migrant sentiments. As a result, the Evros River and the Aegean Sea
have become graveyards for those fleeing war, persecution, economic
devastation and climatic catastrophes.

Political refugees from Kurdistan and Turkey in Greece, together with
local and international activists, protest pushbacks and violence on the
Greek/EU border at the Ministry of Migration and Asylum in Athens.
Photo: Vedat Yeler, June 8, 2022.

In the context of the criminalization of migrants and migration in
general, Greek refugee camps have become maximum security prisons. The
living conditions of these places are notoriously terrible, but they are
also spatially and socially isolated, far from any urban centre. Most of
the camps close to urban centres, which gave residents access to work
(even precarious and exploitative ones), health care facilities and
education for children, were forcibly evicted . Isolated camps like
Oinofyta, where refugees are forcibly relocated, depend on inadequate
state supplies of basic necessities.

The policies of the concentration camps and borders of the Greek state
follow a genocidal logic of "cleansing" which, in many respects,
resembles phenomena such as the Holocaust, the Armenian genocide and
other similar events: the idea of getting rid of an unwanted population
with every means available; a gradual escalation of dehumanizing
discourses and practices becoming normalized; the evident "banality of
evil" 1 in the attitudes of the police and border agents, of the
bureaucrats and of the employees of the concentration camps; and
finally, the choice of the vast majority of citizens to accept these
practices so as not to see migrants around them or in their country.

In fact, many citizens of Greece and other European Union countries have
adopted the essentially genocidal idea that these people " should not be
here", " they must be prevented from staying in these places" or " make
them disappear by any means." At the same time, these citizens refuse to
recognize the regime of annihilation to which migrants are subjected.

Carrying forward the values and practices of " free life together "
(hevjiyana azad/özgür es yasam) - born from the Kurdistan Freedom
Movement -, the Kurdish refugee camp of Lavrio was one of the last
places to stand against this system of incarceration and annihilation.
In Lavrio, revolutionary refugees from Kurdistan and Turkey have lived
for decades in the center of the coastal city together with locals and
tourists. Unlike the state-run prison camps, the Lavrio camp was
entirely self-managedafter the state withdrew seven years ago and has
survived thanks to the support and donations of local and foreign
charities, NGOs, solidarity groups and philanthropists. International
and local activists, researchers, journalists and photographers
frequently visited the camp and were warmly welcomed as guests.

The Lavrio camp was a lived utopia, a world to put into practice. Life
in the camp was organized according to the principles of Democratic
Confederalism, a system of self-organisation based on communes,
committees and assemblies, described by the leader of the Kurdistan
Freedom Movement, Abdullah Öcalan, as a way to collectively create a
communal coexistence peaceful, safe and harmonious between humans and
the environment - an alternative to the logic of the nation-state. 2

Relations of gender equality, camaraderie, mutual aid, respect and care
for other people, animals and the environment characterized daily life
in the Lavrio camp. It was a place where individuals, youth, families
and children from Turkey and the four parts of Kurdistan (occupied by
Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria) found a safe haven and a home after
fleeing war, political persecution, from torture, imprisonment and the
threat of death. As many residents have noted,[the camp]was "like
Kurdistan," a piece of homeland abroad; a Kurdistan free from violence
and patriarchy, where Kurds and leftist political refugees could recover
from traumatic experiences of violence and freely express their
political culture, thereby rebuilding their community. Many residents,
after being granted asylum in Greece, had chosen to continue living in
the Lavrio camp - thus continuing to participate in this project of
"free life together" and, above all, feeling safe in the camp and in the
town of Lavrio.

The Lavrio camp was a safe space for families. In past years, residents
have built a playground for the children. In four decades, thousands of
children have lived and grown up in the camp. Photo: Beja Protner, March
2023.

Erasing a history of struggle and solidarity

The Lavrio camp was one of the oldest refugee camps in Europe. It was
established in 1947 with the official name of "Temporary Stay Center for
Foreign Asylum Seekers" and was used to house refugees of Greek origin
("expatriates") fleeing the Soviet Union. 3

According to a 1950 research report, the camp housed around 300 people,
including families and individuals of various nationalities from the
Soviet Union, Bulgaria, Albania and Romania - who were fleeing
persecution in their countries of origin. The needs of the refugees were
managed by the "International Organization for Refugees" (IRO), a United
Nations mission in Greece, in collaboration with the Greek authorities.
In the following years[the camp]had been inhabited by asylum seekers
from various countries - especially from the Balkans and the Middle East. 4

Political refugees from Turkey became the camp's most numerous residents
in the 1980s, precisely after the military coup of September 12, 1980,
when Turkey came under the rule of a Sunni nationalist military junta -
who tortured, imprisoned, killed and forced into exile tens of thousands
of Kurds and leftist politicians.

For four decades, the Lavrio refugee camp has been a self-organized
space of "free life together", struggle and solidarity. Photo: Beja
Protner, March 2023.

While the Greek state was, technically, in charge of the camp - managing
asylum procedures and providing food, medical care and basic necessities
- the revolutionary refugees organized themselves through communes and
assemblies. A political community of self-organized exiles had been
built - whose experience was based on what they had experienced inside
Turkish political prisons. The Lavrio camp was not only a space of
refuge but also one of the most important places of political
organization in exile in Europe.

It had also been an environment of international solidarity and
camaraderie. Since the 1980s, various Greek left organizations, trade
unions and solidarity groups had visited the camp, publicly claiming the
right to asylum, political work, employment, health care and better
living conditions for revolutionary refugees. Residents also forged
links with Greek left-wing parties and organizations and engaged with
the general population, producing and distributing leaflets and
magazines in Greek explaining the situation of political oppression in
Turkey and calling for broad Turkish solidarity - Greek.

In the 1990s, large numbers of Kurdish refugees, especially families,
had arrived in Lavrio camp due to political violence in Northern
Kurdistan (Turkey). In the 90s the Turkish state, given the growing
popularity and mobilization of the "Kurdistan Workers' Party" (PKK) in
Kurdistan, targeted the civilians who inhabited that territory: this
translated into repressive campaigns where the Anatolian army and
paramilitary organizations perpetrated mass murder, enforced
disappearances, torture and imprisonment. It was during this period that
the camp had a Kurdish majority and centered[its policy]on the
"Kurdistan Freedom Movement", led by the PKK. Thanks to the solidarity
between Kurdish and Turkish refugees and Greek leftist groups, the
exiles regularly organized cultural events all over Greece - widely
attended by the local population. They also participated in local
festivals, sharing music, food and information materials.

In the Lavrio camp, every aspect of daily life was organized according
to democratic confederalism and the principles of "free life together".
Residents kept the spaces clean and tidy and decorated them with
revolutionary symbols. Each room was a commune and money and basic
necessities were shared within; cleaning and cooking responsibilities
were distributed equally among the fellows. Photo: Beja Protner, January
2023.

A large number of Kurdish families displaced from Syria had found refuge
in the Lavrio camp, especially after the Syrian civil war (2011), the
Islamic State attack on Kurdish regions in Syria (2014) and the genocide
against the Yazidi Kurds in Sinjar, Iraq (2014), and the Turkish
invasion of northern Syria (since 2018). In 2016, due to political
pressure from Turkey, the Greek government wanted to close the camp, but
hundreds of residents resisted. Subsequently, the Greek state had
withdrawn all services, leaving the field to itself. From then on, the
camp had been completely autonomous. The residents had organized
themselves collectively and shared responsibilities for cleaning,
cooking, basic medical care, repairs and distributing donations - such
as food,

In recent years, especially following the Rojava revolution in northern
and eastern Syria after 2012, the Kurdish movement has enjoyed
increasing attention and support from the international community -
especially in Greece. Like the Maxmur refugee camp in Iraq, in the
Middle East 5, the Lavrio camp had become a center of democratic
confederalism in Europe: it implemented the model of self-organization
based on women's self-liberation, grassroots democracy and ecology
practiced in the Autonomous Administration of Syria northern and eastern
(Rojava). Sometimes the Lavrio camp had been seen as a miniature of
Rojava; it had acquired international prominence as a center of new
transnational connections and as a place of political training and
practice - all built from over 40 years of revolutionary struggle in
Kurdistan and exile political organization[in Greece].

For four decades, the Lavrio camp has been not only a space of refuge
but also a center of Kurdish and leftist political organization,
international connections, camaraderie and intercultural encounters.
Every year, the Lavrio camp hosted the Newroz (March 21) celebrations,
the New Year of different peoples of West Asia[; for the Kurds]it is a
holiday[that celebrates]resistance and renewal. At the event in
question, refugees, Greeks and international youth came together -
literally and through govend, traditional Kurdish circular dances - in a
circle of mutual recognition and solidarity.

A Newroz celebration on March 21, 2022. Every year, hundreds of Kurdish
and Turkish political refugees in Greece, local Greeks and international
visitors joined the Newroz celebration in Lavrio camp, dancing around
the bonfire. Photo: Beja Protner, March 2022.

Like the eviction of dozens of self-organized squats across Greece, the
New Democracy government's decision to destroy the Lavrio camp
constitutes an attempt at the elimination of transnational solidarity -
which the place represented and harbored. At the same time, it was an
attack on the revolutionary history of the camp itself. The camp
buildings were nearly a century old; every inch bore the traces of
revolutionary determination, community work and camaraderie among the
tens of thousands of people who had passed through and grown up in this
place and who had participated in its repair - making it a home for
themselves and their successors. With the destruction of the Lavrio
camp, a part of this collective history is deliberately erased.

Continues...

Note

1 In "Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil" (1963),
Hanna Arendt discussed the "banality of evil" in the Holocaust, starting
with the case of Nazi officer Adolph Eichmann, responsible for
transferring people to camps of concentration. With the concept of the
"banality of evil", Arendt argued that the bureaucrats participating in
atrocities are "normal people" and work within an orderly system,
unencumbered by the consequences of their actions and, therefore, not
inherently evil and/or sadists.

2 Öcalan, Abdullah (2020). The Sociology of Freedom: Manifesto of the
Democratic Civilization, Volume III. Oakland, CA: PM Press.

3Dirakis, Yannis (2019). "Claiming the right to the camp - An
ethnography of the squatted Lavrio Center of Temporary Stay for Foreign
Asylum Seekers" Unpublished master's thesis. Maastricht: Maastricht
University.

4 Ibid

5Vedere Dirik, Dilar (2022). "Mexmur: From displacement to self-
determination (Ch. 23)." In The Kurdish Women's Movement: History,
Theory, Practice. London: Pluto Press

https://gruppoanarchicogalatea.noblogs.org/post/2023/07/26/sullespulsione-del-campo-profughi-autogestito-di-lavrio-grecia/
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