Sukula Family: Here to Stay, Here to Fight!

May 2005
Sukula Family: Here to Stay, Here to Fight!
"My name is Daniel and I am 15 years old. I am writing this because me and my family face deportation to the Congo. I don't want to go back to the Congo because there is a war there and, if I go back, my life will be finished."
Daniel Sukula, a high school student from Bolton, near Manchester, is one of 2,000 school students in Britain, threatened with deportation. Every week his elder sister, Flores, studying health care at Bolton's Sixth Form College, has to register at the secure Dallas Court complex in Manchester. She misses a day at her college, knowing that she could be detained at any moment and that immigration officials could raid the family home, detain and deport her family of seven, including a four-month-old baby. The family are targeted as part of a pilot scheme, introduced in the wake of David Blunkett's 2004 asylum legislation to fast track the deportation of families with children.
In early May the family were threatened with eviction from their house and the withdrawal of benefits unless they 'voluntarily' agreed to repatriation. A strange definition of voluntary - agree to our demands or we'll take your house and modest income off you! Intimidation and coercion might be considered more accurate.
But the family are fighting back. "We are not going back!" says Ms Lusukumu, the family head. "My two youngest children were born here and we have every right to remain." The campaign is, of course highlighting the particular dangers of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where since the overthrow of the Mobutu regime in 1997 more than 3 million have died in a civil war for control over the country's vast mineral wealth. Open warfare continues in many parts of the country. But the family do not see their case in isolation. They are also committed to uniting with other anti-deportation campaigns in the region and nationally.
Trade unionists across Bolton have met and agreed to support the campaign. In particular, Bolton NUT is supporting the campaign and is urging the NUT nationally to support the recently launch Schools Against Deportation initiative to campaign against the deportation of all school students threatened with removal from Britain.
The campaign's supporters have drawn inspiration from the partial successes of campaigners in Canterbury to defend unaccompanied Afghan students at the local college and in Portsmouth, where the family of 15-year-old Lorin Suleiman, a Syrian Kurd, won a two-year reprieve from the Home Office. This came after a lively and sustained fight by her classmates and teachers at Mayfield School.
Of course, the details of individual cases like these are often shocking and can lead individuals to reconsider their own prejudices. The labour movement, however, needs to support not only families like the Sukulas but also to challenge the lies of the media and politicians from all the main parties. There is also the long-standing need to confront the state racism, reflected in the never-ending rounds of legislation targeting asylum seekers, refugees and immigrants generally.
Nearly 100 years ago the British Parliament adopted the first ever set of peacetime immigration controls. The Aliens Act 1905 stemmed from anti-Jewish agitation in East London and cities like Manchester. Every single piece of legislation since then has been racist in intent and implementation. Immigration controls have always served to divide the working class.
The labour movement cannot continue to accept a situation where thousands of our fellow workers are forced to work illegally and face the grossest forms of exploitation. We must act now to resist a system that drives refugee and immigrant families into cramped and unsanitary housing, forces them to report to locked registration centres where you can be forcibly detained, sent to a special prison and deported. Against the vicious divide and rule appeals of Charles Clark and Michael Howard, we need to heed the words of Daniel Sukula, "Together we are stronger. Sukula family: here to stay, here to fight!”
Flores Sukula has started a petition at Bolton Sixth Form College and the family's first campaign meeting will take place on Tuesday 24 May in Bolton Socialist Club. "We've got lots of people coming already but we need all the support we can get!" says Flores.
Please send resolutions, messages of support, etc to info@sukula.org or write to: Sukula Family Campaign, c/o Bolton Socialist Club, Wood St, Bolton.
For more information visit www.sukula.org and www.irr.org.uk/sad/
Sukula Family Campaign Meetings every other Wednesday, Bolton Socialist Club, Wood St, Bolton.

Phone Jason Travis on 07976476181 to get involved and for more information

Wed 13, September 2006 @ 15:24