Dehai

Fortress Europe; The Rise of Fascism and Racism in the Netherlands

A few days ago I returned from Veldhoven, The Netherlands, where last
April 13 in a breathtakingly fascist act of racism the Mayor of this
small Dutch town deported over 600 Eritrean youth attending a
conference, kicked out of their hotel and forced to leave the city in
the middle of the night.

I am not talking about Eritrean youth from Eritrea, these were mainly
citizens of EU countries of Eritrean ethnicity, 600 of them,
threatened with arrest and forced onto buses at 0 dark thirty and
expelled from the city limits.

Their “crime”? Being Eritrean, that is supporting their country
publicly in the midst of a racist and fascist fullisade of attacks by
right and left wing Europeans against any and all things Eritrean.

These over 600 kids were attending a conference that has been held in
a European country every year for the past 12 years, and was
previously held in the Netherlands in 2008. Not one time has there
every been a complaint against these youth and their conferences,
members and supporters of the Youth Popular Front for Democracy and
Justice (YPFDJ), what used to be the Eritrean Peoples Liberation Front
(EPLF) before Independence in 1991. I, and other prominent western
journalists (i.e. Eric Draitser and Glen Ford), have spoken at
seminars sponsored by the YPFDJ and can vouch for their consciousness
and discipline.

While I was in Veldhoven I made a futile attempt to talk to the Mayor
about why he had tried his damnest to stop the conference from the get
go, and went so far as to publicly invite hooligans, many of them
actually Ethiopian refugees pretending to be Eritreans, to come to his
town and attack the conference? So he would have some reason, anything
really, to get his locally buddy, the fascist judge, to put the kibosh
on the Eritrean youth conference?

The Mayor declared, and the judge upheld, a “State of Emergency” due
to a “Threat to Public Order” and the fascist “rule of law” saw over
600 young, black, mainly EU citizens, guilty of no offense other than
their ethnicity and political beliefs, evicted not just from their
hotel but from the entire city in the middle of the night. Can one
imagine the effect on 15 and 16 year Eritrean kids, to be kicked out
of their hotel and run out of town, riding a bus in the darkness not
knowing where to go, with maybe another fascist “welcoming committee”
in the next town?

The conference started on Thursday and over 100 “Eritrean protestors”
showed up, nary an Eritrean flag amongst them, and began their best to
raise hell outside the Hotel and Conference center. Three Eritrean
youth attending the conference got beat up pretty badly and several
cars entering the facility were attacked and damaged.

Interestingly enough this was being actively supported if not directed
by a well known Dutch “human rights activist” ( a good buddy of the
honchos at Amnesty and HRW as well as the Director General of
MSF/Doctors Without Borders) and University professor, who cell phone
footage shows her ranting and raving against Eritrea and provoking the
“protesters” to carry out their attacks.
Finally the towns police force stepped in and arrested most of the
demonstrators, with  not a one a of the Eritreans attending the
conference being arrested.

While in Veldhoven I spoke with a couple of policemen who had been a
part of arresting the counter revolutionaries at the demonstration and
they were not happy about the Mayor having them all released without
charge shortly after. Their point, being that they associate the
African refugee community with a spike in crime in their
neighborhoods, was if those seeking political asylum act like
hooligans attacking persons and property and were arrested for it they
should have been turned over to the Immigration authorities to be
deported for cause.

I spoke with an employee from the Hotel Conference Center who had been
working during the Eritrean Youth Conference and they confirmed that
there had not been any problems with the Eritrean youth attending and
they were surprised that they were kicked out of their hotel in the
dead of the night en masse, that they knew of no reason it should have
happened.

Doesn't the EU have a “Constitution” protecting all of its citizens
from such a blatant, unprovoked, racist act of fascism by public
authorities? Isn’t the so called “Human Rights” movement supposed to
be up in arms at such naked oppression of an ethnic minority? Isn’t
the European media supposed to broadcast this crime far and wide and
expose such illegal acts by the fascist mayor of Veldhoven, The
Netherlands?

Not a word of protest, not a word, from anyone in Europe other than
the Eritreans and their supporters, few that they are in these
increasingly fascist of times.

It is turning into Fortress Europe, facism pure and simple with its
early exemplifications being its rabid treatment of a particular
ethnic group, the Dutch version of “Nigger Trouble”, the well
organized and active Eritrean Youth Popular Front for Democracy and
Justice and their racist midnight deportation by the fascist Dutch
authorities in Veldhoven, The Netherlands.

Thomas C. Mountain is an independent journalist in Eritrea, living and
reporting from here since 2006. See thomascmountain on Facebook or
best contact him at thomascmountain at g mail dot com