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El Ejido - A Human Rights Emergency

It is a lovely drive down to the coast from Granada; oranges and lemons, olives, almond trees in blossom. Then, in the last few miles, as soon as you pass through the mountains, you begin to see the huge plastic greenhouses called invernaderos. Once past Motril heading east the invernaderos multiply. There are fields of plastic, terraced in patches overlooking the Mediterranean. Even the resort town of Calahonda, where the granadinos go to spend the hottest summer months, is surrounded by plastic sheeting.

Half an hour of twists and turns and just before Adra the road straightens to become a motorway crossing the Almerian plain. The patches of invernadero roofs have merged into a sea of shimmering grey plastic, stretching from the foothills of the mountain range as far as the eye can see. A bit further on, and we have reached El Ejido.

Turning off the motorway, I come to a stop on the Calle Puerto Rico, near to the Bar California. The town has an Hispanic-American feel to it. Across the road, a group of Moroccans are loading up a van with bread supplies. I stretch my legs and go look for a phone. When I come back to two minutes later there is a police wagon with uniforms and guns piling out, the Moroccans are gone.

I move on to the centre of town and find a phone box. I\'m to go to the CC.OO trade union centre at 1pm. In the meantime I wander around. On the main street there are some Magrhebis chatting at a corner next to the petrol station. A bit further up is the police station with five vans and armed police stood outside. Nearby, a work team of Africans is repairing a wall. It is February, the temperature is 23 degrees.

Into the newsagents for today\'s issue of Ideal, the regional paper. It carries the front page headline \'Moroccan workers offer a truce and return to the invernaderos\' over a large photo of three workers clearing out foliage. I spot a pile of leaflets tucked in with the other papers on the counter and take one as I\'m leaving, It is in the form of an open letter, respectfully headed \'To Sir Juan Enciso, Mayor of El Ejido\' and reads

\'You are not worried to defy the world of politicians, you have shown that you are not afraid to reject your party comrades, you have not abandoned us and have defended us forcefully, including against the central government.

Forgive me for not having trusted in you. I have never voted because I never trusted anybody, but now you can count on my vote. In summary, I only want to tell you to continue defending your people as you have been doing and your people will always be with you. If you need us just call and we\'ll be there. You can count on my support and on that of all ejidenses.

Please, if you think the same then make ten copies and distribute amongst your friends and neighbours, now we are not on our own. PM.\'  What has Enciso done to deserve such loyalty? It\'s simple, he is against the Moroccans. He and other local mayors have refused to implement the agreement that brought the strike to an end, they are refusing to allow the Red Cross to set up emergency shelters for those rendered homeless during the weekend of pogroms on 5/6 February. To underline his position Encido is insisting that all illegal immigrants are removed from the area, while he refuses to discuss the violent events. He is the public face of the xenophobic upsurge, offering succour to those involved in the attacks. Racism is freely available on El Ejido high street.

At the CC.OO offices there is an Information Centre for Migrant Workers, a place of refuge and support. While the daily meeting of the elected workers leaders is in progress, I discuss with three of the Moroccans, together with a helper of the Islamic Assembly from Madrid and a volunteer lawyer from SOS Racismo.

Mahmoud was sacked yesterday, the first day back after the weeklong strike. At the end of the working day his boss told him that he just wasn\'t needed any more. There is plenty of work, it was a victimisation. Mahmoud shows us his contract of employment. It has a start date but no end date, the boss was therefore legally able to give him the sack. Mahmoud has been paying social security for the last eight years, but the only official redress is to get some extra days pay, a few days for each month worked, the lawyer advises. Mahmoud worked from 8am to 1pm, and then from 3pm to 6pm for 4,000 pesetas (£17) which is the normal daily rate. But the conditions are sub-human, the others interject. As you enter the invernadero there are notices, No Smoking, No Eating. You have to work the first five hours without a break. Temperatures inside are normally about 45 degrees. Often you have to work an extra hour after 6pm, and that is without pay. \'If you are angry with the boss, he just says "Don\'t come back tomorrow". So you have to stay quiet\'. Some bosses pay at the end of the week, some at the end of the month.

Then there are the day workers. There is a place in El Ejido where just after 7am every morning hundreds of immigrants gather. The bosses come to pick out who they want to work for them on that day. \'You don\'t ask for work, the bosses just come and grab you if they want you\'.

The working conditions are terrible, the living conditions are worse. The reason that Enciso gave for refusing permission to erect Red Cross tents is that he does not want a ghetto. Meanwhile many north Africans have nowhere to live. Thousands fled to the mountains to escape further attacks, and some are staying in caves. One man was only found after 48 hours searching, and another is still missing. This enforced homelessness is what angers the immigrants the most \'He [Enciso] doesn\'t care if we die or not\'.

Force is the operative word. For years the Mahgrebian population has suffered systematic racist attacks in their homes. The sons of the local terratenientes (landowners) have made caza de hombre (man hunting) their favourite weekend sport. The violence usually starts on Saturday evening and goes on into the night, continuing all day Sunday. There is an organised group of attackers in nearby Nijar. On 15 November 1998 they burnt down a dwelling in Matagorda killing a Moroccan in his home. The men arrive in groups of fifteen or more with their faces masked. The friend from Madrid describes it as like \'Clockwork Orange\'. To me it sounds like the horrible actions of the KKK in the Us Deep South. Either way, who knows what it must be like to face this every weekend? The immigrants\' world is one where they are continuously under attack. It is therefore not surprising that sooner or later they would rebel against these inhuman conditions. Tension in the Magrebi community started mounting at the beginning of the year, fuelled by concerns over the new immigration law. Then a Moroccan worker fought with his boss and killed him and another man as well. The racist attacks escalated with more people involved. Then, on 5 February a Spanish woman was knifed to death in the market. The alleged perpetrator is a Moroccan with a history of mental illness who had previously asked to be taken into care.

That night and the following day there was an orgy of attacks on the Moroccans. Crowds of local inhabitants, the proud ejidienses of the open letter, as well as imported fascists seizing their opportunity, descended upon the Moroccans\' hovels armed with staves, iron bars, and incendiary materials. Many chabolas were set alight with occupants inside, who would run out to be beaten. The racist mobs overturned cars with their Moroccan drivers still inside. They stoned and chased people.

So far 500 Moroccan immigrants have filed statements. The lawyer from SOS Racismo comes from outside the area. The Moroccan workers do not trust the local lawyers whom they believe were also involved in the attacks. There are rumours of schoolteachers being recognised amongst the attackers.

The burnings continued on the Monday, 7 February. For their own security, as much to apply some pressure back, the Moroccans declared an indefinite strike. The bosses responded by bringing in scab labour - more immigrants from eastern Europe, but this counter measure was insufficient to break the stoppage, which was only ended on 12 February after much reassurance.

The police (at least in uniform) were nowhere around while the attacks were going on. It was only after the attacks took place that the police showed themselves, and only after the Moroccans began to organise against the wave of violence that the police exerted their presence. They shot tear gas and rubber balls directly at a crowd of Moroccans gathered in protest. Whenever the Moroccans tried to regroup the police drove them off into the mountains. They stop and search Moroccans on the street. Of the 42 arrests, 26 have been of people of Mahgrebian origin.

Ironically, that same week Spain\'s crown prince Felipe joined Charles, the Prince of Wales in a visit to the homeless and poor districts of Manchester. He met Tony Blair and generally charmed the British press. Meanwhile popular and state racism were busy burning hundreds of Moroccans out of their homes, without any official protection. It took the main Spanish political parties several days to respond.

The closest that Spanish royalty has got to El Ejido was the day before, Monday 14 February when Ana Botella, the wife of Partido Popular President Aznar, came to Almería and visited a Christian charity for the homeless, a subject in which she declared herself \'greatly interested\'. Her itinerary brought Spain\'s \'second lady\' to Roquetas del Mar, just 20 kilometres away, but she did not come to visit the homeless in El Ejido.

El Ejido has thrown the spotlight onto official hypocrisy concerning racism as much as homelessness. Although it is the governing party, the Partido Popular does not have an absolute majority in Parliament and was unable to stop the new law on the Rights and Freedoms of Foreigners in Spain being passed. The \'Foreigners Law\' was intended to improve the lot of migrant workers, providing means through which any migrants in Spain before 1 June 1999 could regularise their position. It concedes some restricted social and democratic rights. However, the law will not solve any of the fundamental problems of inequality. A quota of permitted foreign workers will be set by the government annually, in consultation with social groups including the employers and the trade unions, thus providing for the future illegalisation of many immigrants. In the meantime the Spanish Interior Ministry has implemented a crack down on illegal immigration, especially those risking the hazardous crossing from Africa.

The Partido Popular opposes the Foreigners Law, not for its policing aspects which it supports, but because of the concessions to immigrants with papers. The party has made repeal of the law an election pledge. It is preparing to play the Thatcherite racist card. And so while the crudities of small town leaders like El Señor Don Juan Enciso may be seen as vulgar, it is unlikely that Aznar and the central party leadership will repudiate the racist content. Whether dressed in bankers suits or rough jeans, the racism is couched in the politics of crackdown.

Meanwhile, back at the CC.OO office, Enciso is on the radio insisting that he made no agreement with the immigrants, and does not feel bound by it. Such obduracy angers the Moroccan workers\' leaders. They announce the results of their meeting. The local bosses still seem to think that killing a Moor is just like killing a dog. The workers leaders have done everything they can to calm the situation, but there has been no reciprocal action from the other side. Unless there is significant progress on the agreement, specifically that all the workers made homeless from the racist attacks are provided with decent and safe accommodation, then there will be a return to strike action as from 25 February.

The trade union official promises to pass this on. His belief is that Enciso is the obstacle to resolving the conflict, and will call on the Partido Popular to call him to order. The workers leaders get up and leave as one body. We decide to visit the charbolas.  Ahmed is 52 years old, he has been a migrant worker for 37 years. He first left home at 15 because there was little work and no money in Villa San Roja in Morocco. He worked in the fruit market in Frankfurt for two years, in a florists in Holland for eighteen months, in a bar in Belgium for 2 years and he has worked several times in Spain. He found a job as a mechanical specialist and was working on the Madrid metro in the early 1970s. He joined the demonstrations of celebration when Franco died. \'Nowadays I spend a few months working, then I go back. I\'ll go back home when I retire\'.

As far as his stay in El Ejido is concerned, Ahmed lived in the same chabola for three years. He shared it with four other north Africans. The hut was made out of cement breezeblocks. We found its ruins in a corner, tucked onto a wall between a big fruit warehouse and the first invernadero heading off the main street. The edge of town is just 500 meters away. All there is now is fire-scarred twisted bits and pieces. Ahmed arrived back at 5.30pm that Sunday, 6 February to see his home ablaze. He lost all his belongings and the money that he had been saving. Four police cars showed up and then went away.

As we visit, now there are two police vans parked in with the articulated lorries loading from the fruit warehouse. The police are watching every move. Nearby two young Moroccans show us their chabola. There are fire marks on the door, the remains of burnt plastic on the roof. Inside is dark and acrid with smoke remains. They are rebuilding, there is a replacement sheet of plastic for one wall.

We drive on, around a nearby housing estate and turn off the paved road, past four more police vans, onto a rough track. There were fifty-four immigrants living in these two abandoned cottages when they were attacked. The attackers threw butane gas canisters, an ignited motorbike and a car battery at this dwelling to explode in the fire. The man holding up these objects - tangible evidence of an attempted mass murder that has not been investigated by the police - is a Geology graduate from Morocco. Yet he is the one who is illegal and subject to the force of the state because he is working \'without papers\'. There is no electricity or running water. The workers had set up a shower contraption by the side of their dwelling - this too had been attacked.

There is a larger group of dwellings a little further on. We are in the open now, with baked ground, scrub and rubbish strewn about. The motorway is nearby. We stop and talk, arguments break out amongst the Moroccans. Some of them are very angry and want to restart the strike immediately. \'It is all right for the politicians to talk, they have a home to go to at the end of the day. We have no homes, we have nothing\'.

From what I have seen there are systematic human rights abuses taking place around this small town, and the perpetrators have so far been encouraged and protected. The Moroccan workers have shown enormous patience and courage in their resistance to racism. They are still confronted by their employers, armed mobs led by fascists, by the local political elite and by the police. They need allies to come to their aid - there is still an emergency in El Ejido.

Andy Higginbottom16 February 2000