Over three and a half years after the brutal racist riots of 5-7 February 2000 against immigrant workers in El Ejido , there is still no improvement of the situation. On the contrary, according to the Sindicato de Obreros del Campo , there has been a clear deterioration.
Almost nothing has been done to fulfil the eleven points laid down in the agreement signed on 12 February 2000 between the immigrant workers, the employers’ associations and the unions - no programme of construction of proper housing, failure to respect collective agreements, no in-depth investigation into the riots... Working and living conditions remain appalling.
What change there has been is in the composition of the workforce. Over the past three years the number of migrants arriving from central and eastern Europe has greatly increased. According to a SOC representative in the province of Almeria, whole bus-loads arrive regularly from the Baltic and other eastern European countries.
It is very difficult to give an estimate of the number of migrants in the region because a large proportion does not have any documents. The SOC reckons that 90% of the workers in the area round NÃjar come from Eastern Europe, whereas at Roquetas del Mar and El Ejido the workforce is divided equally between those from Eastern Europe and from Africa (Maghreb and sub-Saharan Africa). It would seem clear that the employers wish to replace the African workers because they have demonstrated their capacity to organise during the strike in February 2000 and the campaign for the regularisation of undocumented workers in 2001.
The competition created in this way between different immigrant communities has enabled the employers to reduce salaries even further. Two years ago, an undocumented Moroccan earned about €20 a day. Today Lithuanian workers are ready to accept as little as €15 a day. This has forced Moroccans to accept sometimes even less in order to obtain work.
The social situation is very tense, because there is still a large population of African workers in the region who try, often in vain, to find work even for a few hours. They are frustrated to see other migrants willing to work for less money. Pateras continue to arrive on the beaches of Andalusia and many of those newly arriving seek to find a first job in the greenhouses of Almeria in the hope that will enable them to travel to other parts of Spain or Europe later.
According to Gabriel M’Binki, a representative of the SOC in Almeria, there is today an appalling level of poverty. It is common for six or seven migrants to live together in the same cortijo , of whom only one has any work. There is a strong sense of solidarity among them. Often they are forced to gather surplus vegetables in the greenhouses.
Greenhouses have recently been installed in new zones in the province of Almeria, above all due to the fact that the water tables at El Ejido and Roquetas del Mar are almost exhausted. In these zones the vast majority of the workers come from eastern Europe.
Since August 2003 a new and particularly serious problem has been added to this scenario. About fifteen migrants have been the victims of brutal attacks by men driving around at night armed with baseball bats and iron bars. In certain cases the aggressors slow down and hit out at a worker returning home after work. They then jump out of the car and cover him with blows while he is on the ground. All of the victims are from the Maghreb or sub-Saharan Africa and all work in El Ejido. They all had to be taken to hospital.
Among them, Hassan Ajaji is in danger of losing the sight of one eye after receiving a blow from a baseball bat in his face, Driss Zaik has a broken jaw bone, while El Mahdi Belkacem’s arm was broken.
These aggressions have been publicly denounced by the SOC and the Association of Progressive Women in El Ejido. The Secretary General of the SOC, Diego Cañamero, rejects the version of the police that they were carried out by young hooligans. The way they operated and the fact that in certain cases they wore hoods shows that they had planned the attacks in advance and were well organised .
In his first reaction the Sub-Delegate of the central government in Almeria, Francisco LaÃnez, denied that there is a new wave of racism in El Ejido and announced that deportation orders would be taken out against the victims because all of them (except one) are in the country illegally. Many organisations reacted to these declarations with outrage and LaÃnez was obliged to rectify them, saying that the attacked migrants could stay in Spain for the period of the judicial enquiry.
Following a meeting in Seville with the SOC and three victims, the Andalusian “Defender of the People†, José Chamizo, announced the opening of an enquiry into the accusations made by the SOC against the police (aggressions in a police station against two immigrants who were then deported illegally, refusal to register complaints lodged by immigrants in El Ejido). Chamizo stressed the fact that undocumented immigrants have the right to lodge legal complaints. He also insisted on the urgent need to give better protection to immigrants in the province of Almeria.
In addition, Chamizo encouraged the migrants who had been attacked to request their regularisation in Spain with the motive that they were collaborating with the justice authorities.
The spokeswoman of the Socialist Party in El Ejido, Gracián Aguilera, regrets the fact that immigrants often do not denounce aggressions, because they are undocumented and fear that they will be deported. She stressed that this is not just a local problem in El Ejido, but is the consequence of a mistaken immigration policy on the national level. She criticised the attitude of the Sub-Delegate, but also expressed her fear that this affair would further tarnish the reputation of the town of El Ejido.
The Andalusian « Councillor of the Interior » , Alfonso Perales, launched an appeal to his fellow citizens, calling on them to « stop criminalising immigrants collectively as a community because this only encourages xenophobic attitudes ». On the contrary it is important to recognise the valuable contribution made by these people to the development of Andalusia.
Three young Spanish men have been arrested by the police, accused of having carried out at least some of the attacks. Since these arrests three further attacks against immigrants have taken place (on 14 November).
In this atmosphere of violence and exploitation there is a risk that the tensions will continue to grow, leading to events as serious as the riots of February 2000. It is therefore important that trade unions, human rights organisations and journalists from different countries go to this region to investigate the situation and to show that it is being followed throughout Europe.
