And in another 10 years: We will not forget you, Alberto Adriano!

And in another 10 years: We will not forget!

Murder in Dessau: Under the Copper Beech | Frankfurter Rundschau - Politics 

By Marie-Sophie Adeoso / FR-online.de

Dessau-Rosslau. Actually, this place is too peaceful  to die. Gravel crunching softly under the feet, chirping birds,  Children splash in the fountain. The trees in the park of Dessau are in full foliage, lush green. Alberto Adriano died under a tree that did bear deep red leaves. It is a copper beech. Today, it casts shadows  on a square memorial stone: "Alberto Adriano, victims of right violence."

"The murder was a shock to Dessau," said Razak Minhel, head of the Multicultural Center. "It came right into the city's heart." Minhel has collected many newspaper articles, which appeared after neo-nazis had killed the 39-year-old father of three sons in the night of 11th June 2000 because he was black. "The perpetrators have destroyed a whole Family," he says.

Revolt of the decent

Behind the tops of the trees a large paneled-build-house extends into the blue sky. Grey (Aggregate) concrete, beer glass shards on the sidewalk. Here lived Adriano, who came to Dessau in 1988 as a DDR-contract-worker from Mozambique and worked here as a butcher. It was just two clock in the morning of this 11th June, he was on his way back home from a visit with friends. Three young men insulted and attacked him and when he was already lying on the floor, they were attacking him further. They dragged his body through the park and stripped him off - they hung his clothes in the trees. On 14th June Adriano died because of his severe injuries. The perpetrators were convicted to a (long?!) time in juvenile prison.

Adriano was not the first victim of right-wing violence. And not the last. The crime statistics count since (Germanys) reunification 46 deaths up to 2009, the Amadeu-Antonio-(another murdered Black man!)Foundation is sure there are 149 deaths - Adriano was Number 112. The difference here was that this brutal act was so shocking that for the first time the terror was now noticed nationwide . The German Federal Government under Chancellor Gerhard Schröder (SPD) called out a "revolt of the decent" and startet reasonable new programs against right-wing-activis. And the Afro-German singer Ade Bantu initiated the black musicians collective Brothers Keepers with stars like Xavier Naidoo. "I rapp 'for my brother, because I could also be the victims," they sang. "I thought it would never stopp that we were "free" to be hunted," recalls Ade Bantu.

Nowadays, on the tenth anniversary of the death, the decent people will rise again. Cem Özdemir, the Green Party-chairman and the president of the German Central Council of Jews, Stephan Kramer, will give speeches. For saturday there is a demonstration planned and a concert, where Ade Bantu will sing.

However, people on the road only shrug their shoulders when they hear the name of Adriano . On a lantern there hangs a tattered poster, white spots have eaten into Adriano's face. The case of the applicant for assylum Oury Jalloh, who was burned in a police cell in (in the same city) Dessau in 2005, has displaced Adriano in the minds of the local people, "says Marco Steckel from the victims' counseling. "If we name and adress these cases, we get no applause, "he says. What the hell was Adriano hanging out here in the park at night, people are saying. A drug dealer he has been, others defame him. "There must be a stronger solidarity with the victims, "says Steckel. The Civil society involvement has adjusted in the past ten Years, became more professional, but Dessau-Roßlau still is a center of right-wing force and violence.

"The opinions about all that are quite different," says a 49-year-old Dessau-woman who drinks a coffee at the bakery. Many people were indeed outraged because of the murder of Adriano, "but others say, if he would have stayed in his country, it would not have happened ". All these foreigners and strangers do get "all that money shoved up their asses by the government" and than they build big homes on their large property there. She says she has heard so - by the people. "But for the German people, nothing is done."

"We live very dangerously"

Who is black in Dessau, feels left alone. "Our life here is very dangerous, " said one Guinean man in the telephone-Café, where the few Africans are gathering, not to be exposed to the constant gazes from the road. They do not want to tell their names, the confidence is gone. First Adriano, than Oury Jalloh - who only can is mooving away from Dessau.

The Tele-Café was once owned by Mouctar Bah, who was honored with the Carl-von-Ossietzky Medal for his involvement in the case Jalloh and he also was in contact with the family of Adriano. Last December, the police  had all  Blacks that live here controlled for drugs, they are put under general suspicion period, "says Bah. This is without doubt against the law but very common. The structural racism is the main problem. "The people here know,  if I do something to a Black person, nothing will happen to me. "

BBC News | FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT | Race hate in Germany 
By Rob Broomby/BBC News/03.09.2000

Christian Richter: One of three

men found guilty of the murder

I met her in the middle of the city park in Dessau. Gaunt and looking stressed, she was scurrying home from a shopping trip to the flat she shares with her three children.
In normal circumstances it would have been a pleasant stroll for Angelika Adriano, between the flower beds and below the overhanging trees. But the summer shade was menacing. Below the same leaves just weeks before, her husband - a Mozambican - had been brutally murdered by three drunken neo-Nazis.
They told the police they did it because they hated foreigners.
They kicked and punched him to the ground and continued to stamp on his head with heavy boots long after he lost consciousness. He died of severe head injuries three days later.
You could hardly recognise his face, said his wife. They stamped on his head so hard they knocked out an eye.
The hardest thing now, she said, was that the children had to grow up without a father.
Symbolic act
On the night of his murder, Alberto Adriano - who had lived and worked in Germany for more than 20 years - had been celebrating a forthcoming trip to Mozambique. He would have basked in the admiration of his village: the local boy made good returning home, no doubt bearing lavish gifts and undreamed of wealth.
Instead, his family received a simple wooden coffin from Germany containing the disfigured remains of their son, aged 39.
That the Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, chose to pay his respects at the simple shrine which now marks the murder scene, was symbolic in itself.
He approached slowly and, with a sober expression, bent low to the photograph of the round-faced African-born family man and placed the wreath. e rearranged the red, black and gold ribbons before standing in respectful silence.
We have seen German leaders do this before; but usually marking the victims of the more distant past, at concentration camps, or massacre sites.
Yet, in an age when symbolic acts say it all, the message was clear: Germany will not repeat the past.
The previous chancellor, Helmut Kohl, provoked fury in Germany's Turkish community in 1992 when he refused to attend the funeral of five of Turks burned to death in firebomb attack by racists in Sollingen. Times have changed.
Politicians have repeatedly stressed that the problem lies at the very centre of society.
One example bore out that perception. Below the same trees where Alberto Adriano had lain dying, I met a young German woman, relaxing with local African youths.
It looked like a multi-cultural paradise - young people sharing a drink amongst the greenery - until she opened her mouth.
"The murder was terrible," she said, "But I'm also unhappy.
"It's not so bad here, but when I see all the Turkish people in Berlin, well, they take our women and make marriages just to live here. Turks, Albanians, Kosovans..."
But what was the difference, I asked, between them and her African friends.
"It's just a different life," she said. "The Africans will work for 8DM an hour - no German would do that.
"But the Turks, they take our jobs."
In Dessau, only just over one in 100 people are classed as foreigners, but preconceptions are hard to shift.
"I'm only speaking to you because you are not a German journalist," said one of the Africans. "I don't trust any of them, and I don't trust the police.
"If we are attacked, we wouldn't call them because we are more likely to end up in trouble."
German tour
Unemployment is stubbornly high in eastern Germany - still around twice the western rate. But unemployment and neglect only goes part way to explaining racism.
Chancellor Schroeder has combed the eastern states like no leader since the fall of the Berlin Wall - a gruelling schedule of photo opportunities and visits.
At every stop, he has made the fight against racism and intolerance his theme. But there is one startling flaw in the itinerary. With all the photo-calls and earnest exchanges, he has heard and seen nothing of Germany's ethnic minorities.
Questioned about the omission, a senior government party aide told me the Chancellor was visiting several schools and would certainly meet some foreigners there. It was hardly convincing.

Alberto Adriano – Wikipedia

Amadeu Antonio Stiftung ~ Informationen zur Arbeit gegen Rechtsextremismus, Rassismus und Antisemitismus; Engagement gegen Nazis; Mut gegen rechte Gewalt; Projekte gegen Antisemitismus; Arbeit von Bürgerstiftungen; Kinderrechte; Menschenrechte

Amadeu Antonio Stiftung – Wikipedia

Liste der Todesopfer rechtsextremer und rassistischer Gewalt im wiedervereinigten Deutschland – Wikipedia

Aus gegebenem Anlass habe ich mir erlaubt, den sehr treffenden FR-Artikel von Marie-Sophie Adeoso für unsere nur englisch-sprechenden Freunde (mit Hilfe von Google) zu übersetzen.
Hier ist das Original, das sich auch auf Deutsch sehr eindringlich liest:

Mord in Dessau: Unter der Blutbuche | Frankfurter Rundschau - Politik
Von Marie-Sophie Adeoso

Dessau-Rosslau. Eigentlich ist dieser Ort zu friedlich zum Sterben. Kies knirscht leise unter den Schritten, Vögel zwitschern, im Brunnen planschen Kinder. Die Bäume im Stadtpark von Dessau stehen in vollem Laub, saftig grün. Alberto Adriano starb unter einem Baum, der tiefrote Blätter trägt. Es ist eine Blutbuche. Heute wirft sie Schatten auf einen kantigen Gedenkstein: "Alberto Adriano, Opfer rechter Gewalt."

"Der Mord war ein Schock für Dessau", sagt Razak Minhel, Leiter des Multikulturellen Zentrums. "Er traf mitten ins Stadtherz." Minhel hat die vielen Zeitungsartikel gesammelt, die erschienen, nachdem Neonazis in der Nacht zum 11. Juni 2000 den 39-jährigen Vater dreier Söhne erschlagen hatten, weil er schwarz war. "Die Täter haben eine ganze Familie vernichtet", sagt er.

Aufstand der Anständigen

Hinter den Wipfeln ragt ein Plattenbau in den blauen Himmel. Grauer Waschbeton, Bierglasscherben auf dem Gehweg. Hier lebte Adriano, der 1988 als DDR-Vertragsarbeiter aus Mosambik nach Dessau kam und als Schlachter arbeitete. Es war kurz vor zwei Uhr am Morgen des 11. Juni, als er von einem Besuch bei Freunden nach Hause lief. Drei junge Männer überfielen und beschimpften ihn, als er schon am Boden lag, traten sie weiter. Sie schleiften seinen Körper durch den Park und zogen ihn aus - seine Kleider hängten sie in die Bäume. Am 14. Juni erlag Adriano seinen Verletzungen. Die Täter wurden zu langen Haft- und Jugendstrafen verurteilt.

Adriano war nicht das erste Opfer rechter Gewalt. Und nicht das letzte. Die Kriminalstatistik zählt bis 2009 seit der Wiedervereinigung 46 Todesopfer, die Amadeu Antonio Stiftung 149. Adriano war Nummer 112. Doch die Tat rief erstmals bundesweites Entsetzen hervor. Die Bundesregierung unter Kanzler Gerhard Schröder (SPD) forderte einen "Aufstand der Anständigen" und begründete neue Programme gegen Rechtsextremismus. Und der afrodeutsche Sänger Ade Bantu initiierte das schwarze Musikerkollektiv Brothers Keepers mit Stars wie Xavier Naidoo. "Ich rapp´ für meinen Bruder, denn ich könnte auch das Opfer sein", sangen sie. "Ich dachte, es hört niemals auf, dass wir Freiwild sind", erinnert sich Ade Bantu.

Heute, am zehnten Todestag, werden die Anständigen wieder aufstehen. Der Grünen-Vorsitzende Cem Özdemir wird sprechen und der Präsident des Zentralrats der Juden, Stephan Kramer. Für Samstag ist eine Demonstration angemeldet und ein Konzert, bei dem auch Ade Bantu singt.

Doch die Menschen auf der Straße zucken beim Namen Adriano nur mit den Schultern. An einer Laterne hängt ein zerfetztes Plakat, weiße Flecken haben sich in Adrianos Gesicht gefressen. Der Fall des Asylbewerbers Oury Jalloh, der 2005 in einer Dessauer Polizeizelle verbrannte, habe den Fall Adriano im Bewusstsein der Menschen verdrängt, sagt Marco Steckel von der Opferberatungsstelle. "Wenn wir diese Fälle thematisieren, bekommen wir keinen Beifall", sagt er. Der Adriano, was habe der sich denn nachts im Park rumgetrieben, sagen die Leute. Drogendealer sei er gewesen, verleumden ihn andere. "Es muss stärkere Solidarisierung mit den Opfern geben", fordert Steckel. Das zivilgesellschaftliche Engagement habe sich in den vergangenen zehn Jahren professionalisiert, aber Dessau-Roßlau sei weiter ein Zentrum rechter Gewalt.

"Die Meinungen sind da ja unterschiedlich", sagt eine 49-jährige Dessauerin, die beim Bäcker einen Kaffee trinkt. Viele seien empört gewesen über den Mord an Adriano, "aber andere haben gesagt, wäre er in seinem Land geblieben, dann wäre das nicht passiert". Die ganzen Ausländer, die bekämen ja "vom Staat das Geld in den Arsch gesteckt" und kauften sich in der Heimat große Anwesen. Sie sagt, sie höre das so von den Leuten. "Aber für das deutsche Volk wird nichts getan."

"Wir leben sehr gefährlich"

Wer schwarz ist in Dessau, der fühlt sich alleine gelassen. "Wir leben sehr gefährlich hier", sagt ein Guineer im Telecafé, in dem sich die wenigen Afrikaner treffen, um nicht den ständigen Blicken auf der Straße ausgesetzt zu sein. Ihre Namen möchten sie nicht nennen, das Vertrauen ist weg. Erst Adriano, dann Oury Jalloh - wer kann, zieht weg aus Dessau.
Das Telecafé gehörte einst Mouctar Bah, der für sein Engagement im Fall Jalloh mit der Carl-von-Ossietzky-Medaille geehrt wurde und auch mit Familie Adriano in Kontakt steht. Im Dezember habe die Polizei hier alle Schwarzen wegen Drogen kontrolliert, sie unter Generalverdacht gestellt, sagt Bah. Das sei rechtswidrig, aber kein Einzelfall. Struktureller Rassismus sei das Hauptproblem. "Die Menschen hier wissen, wenn ich Schwarzen etwas tue, passiert mir nichts."

FOTOS: DANKE/THANK YOU!
2000/ Bundeskanzler Gerhard Schröder legt Blumen nieder auf den Gedenkstein von Alberto Adriano: BBC News
Alberto Adriano: BBC News 2000/Thank you!
Täterfoto: BBC News 2000
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