Saturday 19 January - TCAR Northern March Against Racism

Approximately 150 people took part in a militant anti-racist demonstration organised by Tyneside Community Action for Refugees (TCAR) from the West End of Newcastle to the City Centre on 19 January, demanding Freedom to Work, Freedom to Stay, and an end to the criminalisation of immigrants, the end of the NASS system and decent housing for all. TCAR campaigns in support of asylum seekers' rights and against policies which divide the working class by inciting British people to blame immigrants for cuts in services and lack of access to housing instead of blaming the Labour government which is making the cuts and which attacks all the poor in this country, immigrant and native. Marchers included asylum seekers from Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Cote d'Ivoire, Malawi, Kurdistan and elsewhere. Several people who, with the help of TCAR, have successfully fought the government's attempts to deport them came to show their support for those still confronting the racist British government's asylum and immigration policies, including Joy Bowman, whose campaign against her deportation to Jamaica received national publicity, and Kurdish asylum seeker Guler Akdogan, who learned in December that her long fight against the deportation of her family to Turkey had been successful. The demo stopped outside the Government Offices North East where speakers from TCAR and the UDPS opposition party from DRC spoke about the mistreatment of asylum seekers and immigrants in Britain. People whose only 'crime' is to flee oppression or poverty are criminalised, detained and deported. Those who are waiting the outcome of decisions on their cases are banned from working, which means they are further criminalised if they then do work illegally, while ironically becoming the butt of media abuse for not working and 'scrounging off the state'. Speakers at the end rally at Grey's Monument included TCAR, Newcastle Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism!/Revolutionary Communist Group, North West Asylum Seekers' Defence Group, South Yorkshire Migration and Asylum Action Group, Support the Harmondsworth 4 Campaign, Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Tyneside Stop the War, the University and College Lecturers' Union, Tyneside Socialist Forum and International Federation of Iraqi Refugees. MC Drop Dead Fred performed some political raps for fellow protesters. Many more people spoke and there was always a long queue of people waiting to use the open mic. The demo was also attended by contingents from Durham, Carlisle, Doncaster, Sheffield, Manchester, Middlesborough, Glasgow and Leeds and by members and supporters of No Borders, Antifa, Amnesty International and the Socialist Workers Party. At a time when political campaigners across the country are facing police harassment and restrictions on their right to protest, it was great to see the Monument covered in banners and surrounded by protesters. The police originally tried to impose restrictions on the date and route of the march but they backed down. In the end the police imposed conditions that were identical to the agreed route. This meant the march had to stick to agreed times for setting off and dispersing, so although it was a victory for TCAR, the right to protest was still restricted. In addition, two arrests were made on the demonstration. The two activists arrested had previously been dragged out of the march on the route. The police liasion intervened and other demonstrators refused to 'just move on' as ordered by the police. Later the two activists were approached again and asked for their details. The officer referred to chants they had been singing. They refused their details. Witnesses heard the arresting officer say that she didn't intend to report the activists, she just wanted their names 'for intelligence purposes'. When they continued to refuse to give their details the activists were arrested. The police liaison organised a phone-in of the police station. The activists were released later in the day. Get involved in TCAR! For anyone that wants to get involved in TCAR, the email is tynesidecarn@yahoo.co.uk. The next General Meeting is on Saturday 26th January at St Thomas' Church, Newcastle. The meeting starts at 1pm. TCAR particularly needs people to get involved in its press group and newsletter group. to find this report on indymedia, click here

Victory for Eucharia and Timeyi –

On 5 November 2007, after over two years’ campaigning, Eucharia Jakpa received a letter confirming she and her 7-year-old son Timeyi had won the right to stay in Britain. Eucharia and Timeyi had faced deportation to Nigeria, where they were at risk of being tortured or killed, having fled in May 2004, after her husband and then six-year-old daughter disappeared due to the ongoing conflict in the oil-producing Niger Delta region. The Home Office initially rejected their application, later advising them to 'try other parts of Nigeria'. They were unable to appeal after their inept immigration service-appointed solicitor failed to represent them. Their MP Gerard Kaufmann refused to help them In May 2005, Eucharia and Manchester Revolutionary Communist Group/Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! set up the Defend Eucharia and Timeyi Campaign (DETC). The campaign involved many people who organised fundraising socials, attended demonstrations, and went door-to-door in Gorton and Belle Vue, collecting signatures on petitions and letters of protest to the Home Office and her MP. They also supported and acted in solidarity with the Samina Altaf and Family, the Justina and Yonre Must Stay and the Defend Abdullah Gawaan and Family Campaigns, and others. DETC ran stalls in the city centre, at Longsight and Gorton markets, Gorton Park and Timeyi's school in Abbey Hey, Gorton, and succeeded in sending over 900 individual letters of protest to the Home Office. On 25 September 2006, 2250 DETC signatures were presented to Home Office minister Liam Byrne MP by campaign stalwart Phil Tarbuck at the Friends Meeting House, Manchester. Under all this pressure, driven by Eucharia's determination to fight for her and her son's life and their right to stay in Britain, the Home Office have given in and granted them indefinite leave to remain (ILR). Without this campaign, Eucharia and Timeyi would have been deported long ago, facing the same fate as the 18,280 people deported last year (15,685 in 2005). Throughout, Eucharia and Manchester FRFI insisted that the campaign should be political, emphasising the link between racism in Britain and British imperialist exploitation abroad such as in Nigeria. Some so-called anti-deportation organisations boycotted the campaign because of FRFI's involvement and refused to publicise or support it, but all these efforts did not succeed in isolating the campaign, which due to its consistent activity raised its profile, thereby bringing attention to the treatment of asylum seekers in Britain, and to what British companies like Royal Dutch Shell oil company were doing in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria. This campaign led to the birth of North West Asylum Seekers Defence Group (NWASDG) in May 2006. Manchester FRFI would like to say big congratulations to Eucharia and Timeyi Jakpa for their wonderful and inspiring achievement. May their victory give inspiration to other asylum seekers campaigning against this racist Labour government, and strengthen the hand of those campaigning in support of refugees on a principled non-charity, anti-racist standpoint, in defence of all immigrants, against immigration controls and the oppression of refugees in Britain. Manchester Revolutionary Communist Group

Free the Harmondsworth 4 - no show trial - November 13

On 13 November activists from London No Borders, Crossroads Women’s Centre, the Institute for Race Relations, National Coalition of Anti-Deportation Campaigns, Barbed-Wire Britain and Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! met to launch a campaign to defend and support the Harmondsworth 4, who face trial early next year following the uprising at Harmondsworth Immigration Removal Centre on 28 November 2006. Harmondsworth is run by private company Kalyx, a subsidiary of Sodexho. The protest came the day after the publication of a damning inspection report by Chief Inspector of Prisons Anne Owers into conditions and treatment of detainees at Harmondsworth, and was directly triggered by the attempts of members of staff to prevent a group of detainees from watching a news broadcast about the report. Prison riot squads (Tornado teams) were drafted in to batter the protesters into submission. About 50 detainees were left in a courtyard all night and others were locked in their rooms even though parts of the detention centre were on fire. The revolt was widely reported after a news helicopter photographed the words 'SOS: Freedom’ and 'HELP' spelled out on the courtyard floor with bedsheets. Fearful that this would lead to support for the prisoners and make it more difficult to denounce them as violent animals, the government rapidly declared the airspace above the centre a 'no fly zone', citing vague 'security reasons'. The campaign meeting heard from activists who had supported detainees who were tried following previous detention centre uprisings at Campsfield House and Yarls Wood and agreed to contact the detainees who are to be put on trial and offer our support to them. For more information email harmondsworth4@riseup.net http://mylondondiary.co.uk/2007/02/feb10-01.htm photo of FRFI supporters at No Borders demo outside Harmondsworth on 10 February 2007. Credit Peter Marshall http://mylondondiary.co.uk petermarshall@cix.co.uk

No deportations to the DRC! - September 22

On 22 September London FRFI joined the demonstration organised by No Borders to protest against the building of a second immigration prison at Gatwick airport. About 400 people marched from Crawley Town Centre to Tinsley House Immigration Removal Centre. The demonstration was part of a week of action and protest camp called by No Borders and supported by a wide range of organisations and individuals. Tinsley House was the first purpose-built immigration detention centre in Britain. It was opened in 1996 and has a capacity of 135 people, including families and children, with 11,000 detainees going through it each year. Next to Tinsley House a new removal centre called Brook House is being constructed, to hold 426 male and female detainees pending deportation. There are ten Immigration Removal Centres in Britain. Seven are run by private companies contracted by the Home Office's Border and Immigration Agency and three by the Prison Service. As of July 2007, these prisons have a total capacity of 2,506. However, the Labour government, which inherited 700 places when it took office in 1997, is aiming for a total of 4,000 places. In addition, there are many so-called Short-term Holding Facilities at ports and airports as well as at a number of Immigration Reporting Centres. FRFI opposes all British immigration controls, recognising that under capitalism, these can never be anything other than racist. No detention! No deportation! Close all immigration prisons!

No deportations to the DRC! - August 28

On Tuesday 28 August, an RCG comrade joined a mass demonstration against removals to the Democratic Republic of Congo outside the Home Office immigration reporting centre in Glasgow. Up to 150 asylum-seekers and refugees protested, chanted, sang and spoke against deportations and dawn-raids, denouncing the Kabila dictatorship and Britain’s tacit co-operation with his regime. The protestors joined a large group of their comrades who had mounted an all-night demonstration outside Brand Street from Monday evening onwards. Banners were attached to the Home Office fence reading ‘Kabila = Hitler’ and denouncing the Home Office’s conspiracy of silence over the Congo and the racist use of asylum and immigration laws against the Congolese. Placards calling for an end to all deportations and dawn-raids and for equal rights for asylum-seekers were held by all. Pastor Daly, whose deportation in 2005 was prevented after a large campaign in Glasgow, attended the protest with a generator and a set of speakers. This added to lively and militant atmosphere of the event, with songs and speeches booming out from the Congolese, letting the petty bureaucrats and racist security guards of the Home Office know that the community would not leave without a fight. After a ‘complaint’ was made by a drunken racist who taunted the protestors the police tried to prevent the use of the soundsystem. However, the leaders of the demonstration refused to be intimidated and carried on regardless: “How can the police or residents complain about the noise we are making and not about the Home Office who is sending people back to their deaths?” FRFI spoke to one asylum-seeker who had been living in Britain for ten years, fleeing the DRC after his parents were murdered in the imperialist-fomented war. He explained that people were forced to leave the DRC because of the violence. France, Belgium, Britain and the US “do not want peace – they want war to divide the people so they are able to rob the Congo of its resources. They want war – look at what they have done to Iraq and the Iraqi people.” This protest followed on from ones called by the Cameroonian community following the kidnapping and detention of one of their members in Glasgow on Thursday. RCG comrades joined around 30 militant demonstrators in the city centre and subsequently Brand Street. The lively protests called for the return of Anatole to Glasgow, but also for equal rights and an end to all racist deportations. Many of the Cameroonians had opposed imperialist interference in their own country and explained to FRFI the massive exploitation of Cameroon by French and US capital which robs the country of its wealth and leaves millions in poverty. It is clear that many are willing to challenge imperialist oppression wherever it may be

Britain OUT of the DR - Congo! - August 22

On 22 August London FRFI was invited to speak at a meeting organised by the Congo Support Project to organise resistance to deportations to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and in particular to oppose a planned mass deportation by charter flight on 30 August. The meeting was chaired by the Congo Support Project, with other speakers from the Refugee Council and Congolese organisations CCUK and Congolese Rights. We reproduce below our contribution to the meeting. The next day, 23 August, the High Court ruled that no deportation of asylum seekers to DRC could take place prior to the completion of the Country Guidance Tribunal at which the safety of deportations to DRC is being challenged. The Tribunal opened in July and has been adjourned to 17 September. The racist Labour government has now announced that the charter flight will still go ahead, but will be filled with DR Congolese people who have not claimed asylum. Apparently the Border And Immigration Agency (BIA) has sufficient people in detention centres and prisons to proceed as planned but with the exclusion of refused asylum seekers from the DR Congo. BIA also intends to include Congolese people from the Republic of Congo (Congo Brazzaville), as the court case freeze does not apply to them. Resistance must continue! Fight all deportations! Greetings to the meeting from Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! FRFI is the newspaper of Revolutionary Communist Group. We are active in London, Manchester, Newcastle and Glasgow, where we campaign on a number of issues, one of which is in defence of asylum seekers and against Britain’s racist immigration policy. We call the paper FRFI because we consider that it is impossible to separate Britain’s role as an imperialist power from racism and oppression within Britain. The treatment of asylum seekers from DRC is a good example of this link. We believe that Britain is an imperialist country, which lives off plundering, oppressing and impoverishing other nations. It gets away with this by bribing the working class here with a small portion of the wealth it has stolen to prevent unity, and using racist propaganda depicting people in nations it oppresses as inferior to those in western countries and immigrants as undeserving. Although Britain has never directly colonised DRC, British companies are deeply involved in the exploitation of the country’s mineral wealth. DRC has the world’s largest deposits of copper, cobalt, coltan and cadmium, as well as chrome, timber, tin, rubber, oil, uranium, germanium, diamonds and gold. The war that has taken the lives of over 5 million people in DRC has been depicted in the international media as an ‘ethnic war’ or a ‘civil war’. In reality it is a war for the control of these resources. Since his election last year, Kabila has signed lucrative contracts with multinational companies, many of which have British links. The more implicated in the country Britain is, the more important it becomes for the government to keep up the illusion that DRC is ‘safe’ and that the people seeking asylum here from DRC have ‘unmeritorious’ or even ‘fraudulent’ asylum claims. The very presence of asylum seekers from countries such as Iraq or DRC is unsettling to the British Labour government. It provides an unpalatable and visible reminder of Britain’s oppressor role abroad and that it is imperialism that causes people from war-torn impoverished nations to seek sanctuary in richer countries. Asylum seekers have no choice but to organise to defend themselves against ever more vicious state attacks. The more vicious the attacks the more they have no choice but to organise and fight back. This is clear from the continual hunger-strikes and protests within the detention centres – the latest being at Campsfield. It is also apparent from the response to demonstrations and events. On 12 February 38 asylum seekers were deported on a special flight to Irbil in northern Iraq. As you know, two weeks later on 26 February, 40 adults and children were flown from Stanstead Airport to Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It was at this time that my organisation first began to work with the Congo Support Project and we organised a demonstration at the Home Office. Now preparations are underway for more charter flight deportations. We need to involve as many people as we can in opposing them and build a strong militant defence of asylum seekers right to stay here, which exposes Britain’s imperialist role in DRC and other countries and confronts the Labour government’s racist immigration and asylum policy. Such a movement does involve court challenges and lobbying of MPs but it also involves taking the message out to ordinary people in Britain, gaining their support, explaining the propaganda that has been used to vilify asylum seekers and the silence around Britain’s role in DRC and other places. We would like to work with you to begin to build this movement.

Manchester RCG Reports! - August 11

Anti-deportation march, 11th August 2007 On 11th August more than 100 people marched in Manchester against deportations, The protest was called by North West Asylum Seekers Defence Group (NWASDG), along with Sukula Family Must Stay Campaign, No One is Illegal, Samina Altaf Will Stay Campaign, International Organisation of Iranian Refugees, Ethiopia Support Project, Mahoro Must Stay and Bolton National Union of Teachers; it was supported by Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! and Tyneside Community Action for Refugees (TCAR). On the day there were representatives from the supporting groups, with asylum seekers from as far afield as Iran and Nigeria, as well as local people from Manchester and the North West. Beginning at Platt Fields in Rusholme, the crowd marched through the streets to the city centre, resisting the authorities’ attempts to confine the march to the pavement. There was a lot of loud and lively chanting, particularly calling for unity in the face of state racism: ‘Together we are stronger!’; and against the anti-asylum policies of the British government: ‘Labour Party = racist party!’ The noisy and militant TCAR contingent from the North East, which included many refugees from Africa and elsewhere who are resisting attacks on their rights through their organisation, added something extra to the protest. They led a sit-down protest and ‘street theatre’ in front of the BBC, attacking the media bias against asylum seekers, seen recently with the publicity given to the police’s ‘hunt’ for the fugitives from Campsfield detention centre. Following the march the crowd gathered in Albert Square for open-mic speeches, with asylum seekers and supporters reiterating the demands of the demo: against deportations and immigration controls, against destitution, and for the right to work. TCAR representatives spoke about the repressive measures of the state being reserved for whoever represents the biggest potential resistance; they also pointed to the role of British multinational companies in plundering the resources and labour power of the 3rd world for the sake of higher profits. A comrade from the International Organisation of Iranian Refugees (who was also a communist), spoke about attacks on immigrants being a tool of capitalist domination and division, and urged that the fight for asylum rights should be linked to struggle against capitalism and imperialism, and for socialism. Kyle, a Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! activist spoke of the 'disgusting system of imperialism, which is modern day colonialism,' and of the urgent need for communities to work together and build the movement for asylum rights on the streets. For more information, go to our RCG manchester web page and check the NWASDG (North West Asylum Seekers Defence Group) site.

May 19 day of action - Organising against Labour’s racist immigration laws

On 19 May a successful day of action took place in cities throughout England and Scotland in protest against the British government’s continuing attacks on asylum seekers.  The action was called and co-ordinated by Tyneside Community Action for Refugees, who organised a 200-strong demonstration in Newcastle city centre on the theme of ‘You will not snatch us silently!’ The demonstration was anything but silent. Participants brought pots, drums and whistles and there was constant chanting of ‘One, two, three, four: Deportation no more!’, ‘Together! Together! Together we are stronger!’ and ‘Deportation is a crime: Lock up Labour!’ The march culminated in an open mic rally. Speakers included members the RCG, the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, the Zimbabwean opposition group MDC, as well as many more members and supporters of TCAR. At least three of the speakers were under the age of 14 and young people were the main participants in the street theatre, which told a story about a dawn raid, the detention and deportation of a Congolese woman and her baby. Young members of TCAR, some of who have witnessed dawn raids themselves, acted out an immigration snatch squad, kicking down a door and dragging out mother and child. Costumes and a large cardboard cage added to the visual impact of the theatre while a narrator explained what was happening so that passers-by could learn more about the reality for asylum seekers. Demonstrators hissed and booed the immigration officials. Comrades in TCAR report that the last year has shown a distinct shift in attitudes about asylum seekers with a lot more open support being shown in communities and on the streets. The organisers of the 19 May events were inspired by the support the demonstration received from working class residents of Newcastle, who spoke spontaneously and passionately on the open mic about the racism of the current system and  the need for solidarity with asylum seekers. In Manchester FRFI and the North West Asylum Seekers Defence Group (NWASDG) responded to TCAR’s call for action by organising a march in from Strangeways prison where asylum seekers are detained, to the city hall. The march was attended by asylum seekers and refugees from the Congo Support Project (CSP), International organisation of Iranian Refugees, and Ethiopian, Eritrean and Kurdish communities, as well as by the Sukula Must Stay Campaign, Drumroots, and local working class people and students. Over 80 people rallied at Strangeways in the rain for 20 minutes with good speeches about the need to work together against the oppression of asylum seekers and calling for those held at the prison to be released. This was followed by a lively militant march to Albert Square, where militant CSP speakers highlighted the treatment of asylum seekers in Britain by the racist Labour government and denounced Britain for supporting Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) president Kabila just as it supported the late despot Mobutu.  A speaker from Ethiopia denounced Britain’s deliberate policy of using destitution as a means of trying to force asylum seekers to leave this country. A 10-year-old Kurdish girl spoke about how people in her country were being attacked and her family were not allowed to live in peace - ‘that’s why we had to run away'. An FRFI speaker spoke about how Cuba was now free from the very oppression and exploitation that asylum seekers were fleeing, having rid itself of imperialism in 1959: 'it is clear that people don't want to live under imperialist oppression, that why asylum seekers are fleeing in the first place'.   In Glasgow, 60 people marched from the immigration courts to the city centre, with banners demanding equal rights for all. Members of Unity handed out leaflets to the public informing them of the reality of asylum seekers’ lives as the march chanted against dawn raids and detention. At the rally in St Enoch square asylum seekers spoke out against criminalisation and vowed to resist deportations back to Turkey, Rwanda, DRC, Algeria and other countries deemed ‘safe’ by Home Office bureaucrats. A comrade from the RCG spoke, stating the real criminals are those British politicians who support the brutal occupation of Iraq, the genocidal war in the DRC and the fascist state in Turkey. He urged Scottish people to unite with asylum seekers in the struggle against poverty and racism. The demonstration finished with chants of ‘the Home Office is the real criminal!’ In London Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! called a demonstration outside Communications House Immigration Reporting Centre on Friday 18 May, supported by London No Borders, Crossing Borders, Crossroads Women's Centre, All African Women's group and the Medecins du Monde London Project.  It was a noisy, lively and visual event with banners, speakers and chanting. One woman speaker, herself targeted by the racist immigration system, graphically described the degrading and humiliating practices used against women and children during their detention and deportation. On 19 May a group of activists mobilised by north London FRFI held a street stall at Wood Green. In Nottingham No Borders also responded to TCAR’s call out and held a street stall on the Saturday afternoon, while in Leeds No Borders held an Asylum Solidarity Day in a social centre, which was attended by about 60 people. No detention! No deportation! Fight Labour’s racist immigration laws! An injury to one is an injury to all!

D.R.Congo is not safe! - Apr 12

In a national day of action called by the Congo Support Project, FRFI and North West Asylum Seekers Defence Group (NWASDG) joined a march in Manchester to demand an end to deportations to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and to denounce the biased British media. About 200, mostly Congolese people attended the demonstration, which began at All Saints, marched down Oxford Road to the BBC, then onwards to the "peace gardens" in St Peters Square, and ending at the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal on Mosley Street. This was the fourth in a series of Congolese demonstrations in Manchester and, like previous ones, was noisy, militant and fantastic to be a part of. Demonstrators were spontaneous in venting their anger at the racist institutions of the British state. Outside the BBC they chanted "BBC = Corrupt! British media = Corrupt!" and staged sit-down protests at the major junctions on Oxford Road, stopping cars and trams as if to demand: 'Listen to us!' At the BBC and later in the Peace Gardens the crowd assembled for speeches. A NWASDG speaker pointed to British imperialist involvement in Congo and the need to unite asylum seeking communities in Britain with each other, and with the local population. Outside the Tribunal, where asylum seekers appear daily in no-jury courts for frightening hearings on their asylum status, the demonstrators continued to sing and chant, and to draw attention to their struggle.

Stop Deporting to the DRC! - Mar 28

Short report from todays Congo demo LONDON About 40 people assembled outside the Home Office in a very lively protest. MANCHESTER 100 people marched to the city centre, where they staged a sit-down, and then moved on to the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal. Lively and loud. GLASGOW Over 100 people, a soundsystem and 30 Glasgow school kids

Britain's racist immigration policy - Feb 27

Over 40 people from DR Congo nationals, including 19 children, were forcibly removed at 9.39pm on Monday, 26 February, 2007 by charter flight. Operated by XL Airways, from Stanstead Airport. Earlier in the evening protesters had tried to stop the 'removals by locking themselves to the gates of Tinsley House detention centre, Crawley, where the deportees were incarcerated. Earlier in the day, some 60 people also gathered at the Home Office in London in a protest called by the Congo Support Project, Fight Racism, Fight Imperialism! and the LSE FRFI society. This protest was widely publicised and endorsed by NCADC, Unity Centre Glasgow, Glasgow Campaign to Welcome Refugees and London NoBorders, among others. As the demo was in the SOCPA no-megaphone zone, the protest compensated with lots of drumming and chanting. (See link to More 4 News report http://www.channel4.com/player/v2/player.jsp?showId=5055) This deportation followed a week after the use of a similar charter flight to deport asylum seekers en masse to northern Iraq. Both have met with widescale opposition. The Bishops of Winchester, Chichester, Durham and Ripon had spoken out against the mass expulsion to DRC and demonstrations against the deportations took place in Middlesborough, Leeds and Glasgow, and at XL Airways head office. Faxes to the Home Office and XL Airways were sent from towns, cities, and villages all over the country. XL Airways complained they could not cope with the number of faxes and calls they received, but failed to address any of the issues raised, referring everyone who called/faxed/emailed them to contact the Home Office. Britain is a wealthy country. It is spending £26 million a week on the war in Iraq. British companies dominate and impoverish numerous underdeveloped countries making super profits from plundering African oil, Asian textiles and the brutal exploitation of the masses of workers all over the world. People have always travelled to escape poverty and flee persecution. At times capitalism welcomes this, because it needs new labourers, often in low-paid, unskilled jobs, like the Caribbean and South Asian immigrants of the 195os and 1960s or the 300,000+ migrants from Eastern Europe who have entered Britain in the recent period. But while welcoming in cheap labour, the British state is simultaneously tightening controls on immigration from other countries and is deporting asylum seekers from countries suffering from imperialist attack like refugees from Iraq and Afghanistan where the British army is at war or DRCongo where British multi-nationals are violently robbing the country of its gold, coltan, oil and other natural resources.