Alarming increase in racist attacks
01 November 1991
Recent months have witnessed an dramatic escalation in racist attacks across Europe. In Germany, as the first anniversary of unification approached, the Bonn government claimed to be powerless to halt a flood of coordinated neo-nazi attacks on refugees and immigrants that have left hundreds injured and several dead. In one week in September alone eight refugee hostels were firebombed, sixty asylum seekers injured and two Africans died.
The attacks have been countrywide, but concentrated in the east. One of the most serious incidents was at Hoyerswerda, near Dresden, where hundreds of neo-nazis launched firebomb attacks on two refugee hostels and rampaged through the town for several days. A Berlin umbrella organisation, Coordination of Refugee Groups, ran a convoy of cars between Berlin and Hoyerswerda to get besieged refugees out of the town. Eventually the siege was lifted when over 300 asylum seekers were bussed to army barracks.
Much of the blame for the attacks has been attributed to the German Alternative Movement. In the midst of the terror they organised a neo-nazi concert, to celebrate reunification, with by the British band Screwdriver. Before the event several people accompanying the group were arrested and charged with grievous bodily harm after stabbing, and seriously wounding, a German youth following an attack on a youth club in Cottbus. Cottbus is an industrial town south-east of Berlin which is becoming known as a centre for violent skinhead activity. The incident lends credence to the claim that Germany is becoming a focus for fascists from throughout Europe.
In Berlin a demonstration in support of the refugees attracted 20,000 people but was broken up by police charges after two hours of peaceful protest. Many people were injured and the organisers had to disperse the demonstration after the police used tear-gas. Over 60 people were arrested.
Across the border, in Switzerland, there have also been firebomb attacks on refugee centres, the most recent at Schaffhausen.
In Italy, during August, two Senegalese men holidaying in Rimini on the Adriatic coast, were murdered in a brutal gun attack by a fascist death squad. A third man was seriously injured in the attack. The squad has been dubbed the "Uno Gang" because of its use of a stolen white Fiat Uno car during a series of attacks, which so far have left 15 dead and 21 wounded. The majority of those attacked have been either refugees or gypsies.
Prosecutor Roberto Sapio, who is investigating the case, and Libio Gualtieri, chairman of the anti-terrorist commission have linked the killings with a series of right-wing terrorist supermarket killings in Belgium in 1983-84 which left 28 dead. A Belgian parliamentary investigation into the "Brabant massacres" in 1990 painted an alarming picture of right-wing terror and accused police officers of complicity and being sympathetic to the killers.
In Barcelona, Spain, 400 fascists went on the rampage attacking blacks, Arabs and other passers-by during October. They also wrecked a pacifist bookshop and beat-up the staff.
The far right have also made electoral gains in Austria, Sweden and Denmark. In France former President Valery Giscard d'Estaing's Union for French Democracy (UDF) have attempted to exploit the immigration issue by suggesting an alliance with the ultra-right Front National in the build-up to 1993 general elections.
CARF Nov/Dec 1991; Guardian, 7.9.91, 27.9.91, 2.10.91, 8.10.91; Independent, 27.9.91; Irish Times, 14.10.91; Socialist, 9.10.91