Thursday 16 June city hall announced to evict the squat pakhuis Afrika the next day. Inhabitants got one day to move their things. Cityhall claimed this building with all the public activities was not save in case of fire. Fact is the concert hall had 12 fire exits and the building an old storage house was build with the most fire resistant material, hard concrete.

The eviction had a certain arrogance about it. After squat riots from 1979 upto 1984 the city made evictions more a mysterie moment, several houses at once at early morning, to prevent unwanted gathering from outsiders. This time however the city announced the eviction to take place at 18:00 Friday evening. With housing shortage yet at another impossible boiling point this announcement could well be taken as an open invition for a riot.

However while the inhabitants learned of this eviction at one day notice. The actual eviction with several police forces was too well orchestrated for a one day plan. The whole eviction had a certain air of arrogance of power. What ever sympathisant of Afrika came up with, police force was one step ahead. Protest groups were stopped elsewere in town. Boats were blocked by water police and the hugh building itself was literly surrounded by riot police.

The only strong resistance was the building itself and barricades inside. It took the police a four hours struggle to conquer the building floor by floor to arrest 9 inhabitants.

Mathilde μP