Nighty action against Damen
Wanneer: 24/05/2024 - 17:28
Last night we paintbommed the Damen Repair Shipyard in Amsterdam. Damen is one of the biggest arms companies of the Netherlands that is responsible for death and destruction. The company produces military and border patrol vessels that are exported to produce violence all over the world. In this way, it is a key player in the ever more present militarisation of society and the building up of walls of Fortress Europe.
Infamous clients of Damen include the Libyan and Turkish coast guard, known for their violence against people on the move. In 2013, Damen exported border patrol boats to the Libyan Coast Guard, who attack refugee boats, drag them back to Libyan shores and imprison migrants in detention centres where they are tortured, murdered and enslaved. It was later revealed that the Damen vessels, which had machine guns installed on them, were used to attack refugee boats and that in one incident at least twenty people died. Likewise, the Turkish Coast Guard is known to attack boats with refugees or drag them back to Turkish shores. And as many European countries bought vessels of Damen for their border guards, their ships are often used in Frontex missions to patrol the external borders of Europe.
Damen is not only profiting off the war on migration. The Dutch state almost solely uses Damen vessels to build up its war-machine. Only recently, Damen signed a contract worth five billion euros for four new fregates for the Dutch navy. But also further away repressive regimes such as the United Arab Emirates and Indonesia use Damen vessels for their navy. In the case of the UAE, it was uncovered how it is very likely that these Damen vessels were used in the sea blockade against Yemen, a murdurous operation that endangered the lives of millions of people.
The politicians and capitalists would like to make us believe that there is a migration crisis. Building prisons inside reception centres for so called “problem causing” migrants, wanting to abolish permanent residency permits and ramping up deportations. Installing camera’s at every corner of our streets, digitalizing public infracture so as to make everything trackable and forbidding us to cover our faces because of their fear of what they don’t know. It’s two sides of the same coin that make the borders close ever more around us. Crisis has become the ultimate ratio of the powers that be to enforce ever more violent measures that criminalize the migrant, limit freedom of movement and impose disciplinary mechanisms upon us. However, there is not a crisis that we need to get out of, there is a war that we have win.
What starts at the borders of Fortress Europe ends here. If we want to fight for a world without states and borders, we should turn our anger into action and attack every structure that upholds the border-industrial-complex. No borders, no nations!