However, in the West too the postwar prosperity is being undermined, with mascrossed Morocco to reach Spain are deported back to the sive transfers of funds to the East and the former country. In the single month of August this year, the start of an attack on the social welfare net-
Spanish police arrested 400 immigrants of African origin.
work. In the West the far right's support
The number of Africans who have already crossed the comes mainly from those who feel an
Straits of Gibraltar is estimated at between 12 and 15,000.
imminent threat to their relative prosperity, while in the East it is from those who have already lost nearly everything.
Open displays of
Nazi symbolism
In recent weeks some 2,500 racist attacks and a dozen murders have been reported. In Dresden, several hundred
Nazis have marched beneath the banner of the Third Reich and carrying Nazi symbols without meeting any resistance. Such displays are illegal but the police have escorted these demonstrations without intervening.
It is at this very moment that the government has decided to push ahead with its plans to limit asylum rights. Ultimately, and despite gestures to international public opinion such as the November 8 demonstration, the German authorities are guilty of complicity with the the fascists. These latter can channel social frustration away from any challenge to the social order.
The left is in a lamentable state. According to opinion polls, a third of young people agree with the slogan "Germany for the Germans; foreigners out!" and a growing number of school students approve of racist violence.
after a month". Andalusia. CECILIA GARMENDIA
NCE sent back to Morocco the expelled Africans find themselves in a detention centre in the amphitheatre of Tangiers — which was also used as an internment camp at the time of the 1990 riots — before being sent to prison for three months. Some are then forcibly enrolled in the army and sent to the war zone in Western Sahara, hoping no doubt to be able to make their escape and resume their journey northwards.
A lucrative trade
Clandestine immigration is a lucrative business for a mafia at work on both sides of the Strait. The same networks that in Franco's day used to deal in contraband American cigarettes and transistors then moved onto drugs and
Many Moroccan fishermen have also found a new source of income in this traffic; they can hope to make the equivalent of 100,000FF (US$20,000) for a night's work, which should be compared to a likely income from a month's fishing by two people of less than 25,000FF. Even minus the inevitable contribution to Moroccan police benevolent funds it is highly worthwhile.
The journey across has features which recall the slave trade. Up to 40 people are crammed into boats about five metres long and 1.5 metres wide for which they pay between 50,000 (about US$500) and 125,000 pesetas.
The journey is dangerous first of all owing to the strong currents in the Strait. Furthermore, the boat owners require their passengers to disembark 100 to 200 metres out from shore to avoid police patrols. To avoid the civil guard, the boats never come ashore and the Africans have to swim several dozen metres at least. At least 200 have died in the Strait, including 43 this year.
However, the immigrants' troubles are not over once on Spanish soil. Here they 5 are in the hands of another network
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Gibraltar