The IWW-CYROC expresses its deepest abhorrence with the decision of Cyprus’ government to continuously strand dozens of migrants in the Buffer Zone.
For more than two months, a rising number of our fellow workers, people who have managed to escape war, totalitarianism and desolation, are trapped living in tents in a swamp; they are facing extreme high temperatures (40C/104F on an average day, reaching at times 45C/113F), serious illnesses caused in part by the horde of mosquitoes that has dissented on them, and a serious lack of anything other than the bare essentials. The group consists of men, women (some of who victims of human trafficking) and children, including unaccompanied minors.
The culprit behind this heinous crime against human decency and basic human rights, is the despicable government of the Republic of Cyprus, and its head, president Nikos Christodoulides. True to the course set by the political party he deserted from, and by the political parties that supported his candidacy, the president is trying to curb the rise of the far-right party ELAM, by proving to its voters that he can be as cruel and inhumane.
Just last summer Cyprus was shook by a number of violent pogroms against migrants, when a couple of hundred neo-nazis where allowed to run rampant for hours, without any intervention from the police, on numerous occasions. The pogroms only stopped after a wave of antifascist protest swept the country. Since then, to no one’s surprise, nobody faced any kind of serious prosecution for the plethora of criminal acts committed during the pogroms.
Instead, the government broke the record on number of deportations, forced in an instant hundreds of workers into undeclared work by deciding that asylum seekers do not have the right to work before 9 months have passed since the asylum application was submitted, and halted the examining of asylum applications by Syrians, trying to convince the EU to declare parts of Syria safe for deportation.
At the same time, the government has proceeded to allow employers to increase the number of third country nationals they employ (workers whose right to stay in Cyprus is wholly depended on their employment), going as far as singing a memorandum with totalitarian Egypt allowing for Egyptian citizens to move and work in Cyprus freely; basically, the only right you might have as a migrant worker in Cyprus is the right to work. Of course, this does not apply to rich migrants; the government is pushing a bill to allow any foreigner from a third country who has €250,000 to buy a house/apartment and an income of €40,000 per year, to be able to obtain an immigration permit.
The least we can do, the Industrial Workers of the World stand in full and sincere solidarity to our fellow workers stranded in the Buffer Zone, and to every migrant and native worker who has to live and work in this hellish landscape.
Remember, we can – and must – bring to birth a new world from the ashes of the old.
An Injury to One is an Injury to All!
