December 24, 2015 The European Union again closes borders to refugees from Syria and the entire Maghreb and Middle East In Syria, the forces of the regime of Bashar Al-Assad, supported by Russia and Iran, continue slaughtering the masses. Every day they bombard with their planes, their barrels of explosive demolishing homes, killing men, women and children... It comes carrying out a veritable genocide as a response to a great revolution for bread and freedom that stood up in 2011 in Syria -as part of a same string of revolutions throughout the Maghreb and Middle East. 400,000 dead and more than 10 million refugees who have had to leave their homes to seek refuge in a tent in the desert, under some rubble on the Syrian borders, or as pariahs in other countries... Many of these refugees are attempting to reach Europe in order to escape from the massacre and have a job to feed their family. So as of Syria crossing into Turkey, there they have to perform a costly and very dangerous crossing by boat in the Mediterranean to Greece, to then try to reach Germany. In this boat trip many refugees lose their lives, as it has happened with 3-year-old Aylan Kurdi and his relatives. This same route, with all its dangers, is used by workers of Morocco, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Iran, etc... They seek to come to Germany to work and thus be able to feed their families. The sacking of the imperialist powers is so great, it has sunk the refugees’ countries of origin in such a deep poverty, that now these workers cannot even work and eat in their own land.  In search of a solution to their desperate situation, thousands and thousands of workers go out on the Turkish boats and reach the shores of the Greek Islands in their first stop. There, in some cases, they are greeted with a huge gesture of class solidarity by Greek workers and young who come from other countries in Europe and the world. They also receive them in different parts of Greece, through which they have to transit on their way to Germany. They are looking for places to house them, provide them food, medical care... But it is also true that many of these workers and refugees escaping counter-revolutionary wars as in Syria are arrested on their way by Frontex (the EU anti-immigrant border police). The Greek Government of Syriza had said in their speeches that if it got the Government it would open the borders to all immigrants and refugees. It promised them solutions, lodging, jobs... They turned out to be pure deceit and empty words. So it was also the promise of Syriza to open the land border that exists between Turkey and Greece for the refugees so they did not have to go through such a dangerous trip at sea. It said it was going to knock down the barbed wire that separates the two countries and prevents the entry. And none of this has been done. This wire is still there. Visas are denied. And therefore the boats continue to go from Turkey to Greece, with many people still dying in the attempt to reach the continent. In the same way, the border of Greece has been closed with Macedonia, the next country on the road to Germany. For this reason thousands of Syrian refugees and immigrants from various countries have gathered together in Greece. Many have camped at the Greece-Macedonia border (in a city called Idomeini, on the Greek side) and began a hunger strike demanding its opening. The Governments of these two countries left them to suffer hunger and the cold of a harsh winter, until on Wednesday Dec 9 they were evicted by Greek police of Syriza, with brutal repression including against refugee women and children. Thus it was that the path of immigrants to Germany has been cut and they have been stranded in Greece. They are already thousands of refugees beginning to populate the Greek cities like Athens. Once again the solidarity was felt of the Greek workers and ordinary people through actions in support of refugees. Syriza Government had to give a (TaeKwonDo) Stadium opened to accommodate them. But there it gave them no bed, even no mattress... and the food and medical care was provided by people from Greece and other parts of the world that were there to help.  Nevertheless, conditions in the TaeKwonDo stadium were so bad that many refugees began to want returning to out-doors... but not in Athens: to the border with Macedonia, to camp there until the border was opened. Refugees were still coming and piling in Athens and at the border with Macedonia. The Government of Syriza acted again. It evicted them again out of this border area on Wednesday December 16, and days later it began to evacuate the stadium of TaeKwonDo with the excuse it was needed for competitions.  The government threatened to deport all refugees... So cynically the EU acts. After destroying oppressed peoples’ countries with counter-revolutionary wars and economic looting, after robbing them all, the EU does not let them a place even for them to work. But Syriza could not begin mass deportations. So it is doing that slowly. Firstly, it has separated the Syrian, Iraqi and Afghan refugees from the rest. Because so much solidarity is that even many of them still can cross the border with Macedonia. The Government of Syriza cannot touch them yet. But with respect to refugees of other nationalities, Syriza accuses them of being "illegal immigrants" and has put them in detention - the same ones that in his speeches and statements Tsipras had promised to close-, which are prisons where many refugees are crowded in small cells with no sanitary conditions and suffering a large cold winter. They are locked in their cells, and they cannot leave, except when they are taken for one or two hours a day to the playground to walk out there. And they are separated between men and women, by which many refugee families have been separated. Under these conditions, Syriza says: "the border into Germany is closed. What do you want to do? Either you ask for refugee status in this country that has a 25% vacancy and will not have work or we deport you to your countries of origin. Oh, and if you ask for refugee status, it is not guaranteed that we give it; and if the decision is not to give it, you will be automatically deported. If you want to go voluntarily, the EU pays your back passages. Those who choose to stay but their request is not accepted -or if they want to come back because they couldn't find work-, will have to pay their own passages." This is how they began deportations, because Syriza has forced them to say that they want to return. Alternatively, it has already begun to reject the papers presented by the refugees asking for asylum, saying that "they have no reason". This is the mass expulsion from immigrants and refugees by the EU made gradually, in charge of the "leftist" Government of Syriza. So it is that the EU gave € 4 billion, not to receive the refugees but to solve all this expulsion operation. But on the other hand, the fight for refugees and immigrants continues in Greece. A protest action was performed on Tuesday Dec 15 on the environs of the TaeKwonDo Stadium against deportations. Friday Dec 18 there was a national March in Greece in support of refugees and immigrants and for the opening of borders. Tuesday Dec 22 people moved against one of the detention centers demanding its closure, the freedom of all the refugees and the delivery of legal papers for them in addition to full rights. Another rally for the same purposes is called for on Sunday Dec 27 before another refugee camp. Also new take overs of abandoned buildings (for lodging the refugees, NT) are discussed... Though the Unions are absent. Union leaders of the bureaucracy, of PASOK and the Greek CP, leave immigrants outside of them, though they are workers, the heart of the European working class. That trade unions group refugee workers first! Full rights and legal papers for refugees and immigrants! Open the borders! Work for all with a wage equal to the value of a family shopping basket! To solve the martyrdom of refugees, it is imperative to stop the massacre of the Syrian masses by Bashar Al-Assad the Dog. Let's move forward in solidarity with the Syrian refugees and win the streets for the victory of the resistance against genocidal Al-Assad!  Leandro Hofstadter, correspondent of the Rudolph Klement Socialist Publishing House