Crisis in Ceuta: The Need to Organize a Revolutionary Party on Both Sides of the Border

At the time of writing, the humanitarian and social crisis unfolding in Ceuta has claimed 140 lives. One hundred and forty families have lost a loved one because of the whims of a tyrannical king and his genocidal allies. As always, it is the most oppressed working class who pay the price for the interests of the capitalist elite.

In writing this article, we aim to honor the lives of our working class brothers and sisters, as well as their aspirations for freedom and a dignified life. At the same time, we also aim to break down the many factors that have led to this crisis, identify those responsible, and fight to hold them accountable.

Point 1: The responsibility of the Spanish state and its oligarchs

We must consider the phenomenon of migration within the context of human history, and particularly within the context of the capitalist system. It is a system of colonization and plunder that makes survival impossible for millions of people in their homelands, especially in Africa. In light of this, defending the right to migrate becomes a moral obligation and an act of remembrance for the entire working class, particularly in Spain. We must also bear in mind that the preservation of the rights and freedoms won in Europe is partly built upon the colonization and exploitation of peoples under imperialism.

As for the Ceuta crisis, it is impossible to analyze who is responsible without considering the context of the Spanish state’s colonial occupation of North Africa. The right and far right use this demagogic tactic in the service of capital to portray their ‘white, Christian Spain’ as the victim of a supposed Moroccan invasion. In reality, the Spanish state maintains colonial enclaves along the entire Moroccan coast, including the Chafarinas Islands, the Rock of Al Hoceima, the Rock of Vélez de la Gomera and the Islet of Perejil, as well as Ceuta, Melilla, and the Canary Islands. However, it is also one of the main imperialist powers plundering resources throughout the Maghreb in the post-colonial era. It does this through companies such as Repsol, Endesa, Acciona, Indra, Siemens Gamesa, Inditex, Banco Santander, Boluda, Meliá, Barceló, etc. In this sense, the Spanish state bears primary responsibility for the extreme inequality that exists on both sides of the Ceuta fence — practically the highest inequality index of any border in Europe.

Point 2: The responsibility of the Moroccan state and its dictator

The inequality between Ceuta and Morocco has another dimension. If Spanish, French, American and Israeli companies are able to exploit the people and their resources so profitably, it is thanks to their accomplices on the ground. The monarchy of Mohammed VI and his government oppress the working class and the people under their rule severely, seizing their lands and wealth for their own benefit. In response to this situation, young people rose up in the GenZ 212 movement last September, as part of a broader global movement that also swept through Indonesia, Nepal and Mexico.

These protests began following the deaths of eight women at a hospital in Agadir, spreading to some fifteen cities in the demand for decent healthcare and education, jobs for young people, and freedom. We should also not forget the aftermath of the criminal mishandling of the 2023 earthquake, which killed 3,000 people and affected 300,000 people in the north of the country. However, the regime’s response to the youth protests was relentless. As on all previous occasions — Gdeim Izik in 2010, Sidi Ifni, the Hirak of the Rif in 2016, the water riots in Zagora, and the Jerada movement in 2017 — the Moroccan dictatorship chose to suppress the struggling people through bloodshed and imprisonment.

The reasons behind the exodus of young people, who pin their hopes on a freer Europe with more rights, are a youth unemployment rate of 30%, slave-like working conditions, the inability of the vast majority of families to keep their children in education, a complete lack of public healthcare, the fierce national oppression of the Amazigh and Sahrawi peoples, the misery inflicted on vast rural areas and the violent repression waged for decades against any form of protest.

Point 3: the necropolitics of the EU and the hypocrisy of the PSOE-SUMAR government

To understand the broader context of this crisis, we must analyze the rules established by the Spanish state and the EU in their criminal management of migration. These include the tightening and externalization of migration policy through the new Migration and Asylum Pact, which was approved on 14 May 2026 and came into full effect on 12 June this year. The far right across Europe took the lead in pushing this through, but it is worth noting that the Spanish government played an important role in the second half of 2023 by presiding over the Council of the European Union, acting as a mediator and ultimately voting in favor of the entire package on 14 May.

The new immigration regulations include the construction of large-scale migrant detention centers outside the European Union, in countries such as Morocco, Mauritania, Tunisia, Egypt, Turkey and some Balkan states. This hides human rights violations from view, enabling the EU to continue marketing itself as a champion of democracy, peace and freedom. Meanwhile, migrants can be detained in these centers for up to two and a half years if their asylum claims are denied or if they are detained in European territory while in an irregular status. This is done without any oversight by the European Union, which subjects people to the arbitrary power of these countries. Similarly, it empowers agencies such as FRONTEX, which patrol the EU’s borders in collaboration with the security forces of member states. This effectively turns them into a European ICE.

The events unfolding in Ceuta are a consequence of the Spanish state’s and the EU’s intervention in North Africa over the past decades. This stems from their racist and xenophobic immigration policy, for which the Sánchez government bears significant responsibility, both for approving the new Migration and Asylum Pact and for the 2022 Melilla massacre, in which 23 people were killed and 70 went missing under the Minister of the Interior Fernando Marlaska’s command. Even though a mass regularization program has been approved, the government simultaneously votes for and enforces anti-immigrant measures that serve the interests of employers, turning the Sahara and the Mediterranean into gigantic mass graves where the victims are members of the African working class.

Imperialism’s migration policy is one of the most scandalous manifestations of barbarism in our times. According to the UN, today the number of forcibly displaced people remains at around 120 million, with conflicts in which extractive capital interests continue to be the main driving force. Furthermore, the imperialist powers themselves are behind the continuous logistical and military supply in countries such as the DRC (Congo), Sudan and the Sahel. However, Europe is gripped by moral panic surrounding migration crises, treating them as factors independent of war and the exploitation of capitalist powers. Ironically, despite the lengthy lamentations of European bourgeois commentators, 67% of these 120 million displaced people manage to find refuge in neighboring countries.

The government’s glaring hypocrisy, coupled with the European policy of border externalization, which is necessary in order to hide the true face of capitalism, empower the Moroccan regime to blackmail Sánchez and use the country’s working class and migrant population as cannon fodder to advance its interests.

Point 4: An interimperialist dispute has left the PSOE-Sumar government caught between a rock and a hard place

A crisis very similar to the one we are seeing today occurred in 2021 when Brahim Ghali, the leader of the Polisario Front, was treated in a hospital in Logroño. Mohammed VI won the standoff thanks to Pedro Sánchez’s historic betrayal of the Sahrawi people, which amounted to de facto recognition of the occupation of Western Sahara. This time, the trigger has been the restoration of relations between the Spanish and Algerian states, particularly with regard to the gas trade, as well as the passage of the Sahrawi Nationality Law. This regional conflict, which involves the legitimate struggle of the Sahrawi people, also has global repercussions. Morocco has aligned itself with the terrorist state of Donald Trump, a pedophile, and the genocidal Zionist entity. On the other hand, Algeria is aligning itself with Russian imperialism and the Iranian regime. Against this backdrop, the Sánchez government is trying to strike an impossible balance: appeasing its voters with lies and false rhetoric about the Palestinian cause, while also appearing to oppose Iran’s rearmament and war. At the same time, it is keeping corporate profits intact and submitting to EU and U.S. imperialism.

However, the dual mandate of hypocrisy and empty words pursued by the PSOE-Sumar government is coming to an end. Its grand gestures are becoming increasingly ineffective, emboldening the far right, which is exploiting the gap between the government’s rhetoric and the reality faced by the working class throughout the country.

Thus, we can see that Trump’s allies — Mohamed VI on one side and Abascal on the other — are paving the way for the upcoming general elections.

The working class is self-organizing on both sides of the border. This is the only way to combat the various factors of this crisis.

Watching Vito Quiles, Alvise and the rest of the fascists being chased off the streets of Ceuta suggests that the far right’s rhetoric has not gained a foothold among the general population of Ceuta. However, as they have done in Catalonia and the Basque Country, their aim is not to win over the majority in these territories, but rather to set them ablaze and push them to the limit in order to win votes in the rest of the country.

We have no doubt that this crisis, and how the bourgeoisie is handling it, is strengthening the far right in Europe and around the world. In the U.S., Donald Trump; in Italy, Meloni; and in Portugal, Ventura, are relentless towards migrants, comparing them to zombies and speaking of invasions and war. Yet, in a crude and scandalous manner, they support the very same King of Morocco, who, according to their own narrative, is the leader of the ‘invasion’ and the main instigator of the entire crisis. This demonstrates the widespread confusion that the bourgeoisie imposes on our class. Meanwhile, Pedro Sánchez colludes with the Makhzen to blame the mafias for what has happened. We must confront and expose them. We must denounce the capitalist policies of bourgeois ‘democrats’ of all kinds who capitulate to the far right, thereby laying the groundwork for growing authoritarianism in public consciousness, in the law, and in our daily lives.

In light of the rise of far-right parties around the world, and the irrelevance of the ‘progressive’ government within Spain’s two-party system, it is clear that oppression of the working class, especially migrant workers, will only intensify. We cannot sit idly by and wait for one government after another — regardless of their political labels — to continue using us as cannon fodder for their plunder and wars. Now more than ever, it is urgent that we self-organize as a class on both sides of the border, with migrant workers and the most marginalized groups at the forefront, to defend our interests against capitalist barbarism. This must start with the repeal of exploitative labor reforms and repressive laws that silence the people. This must include the repeal of the Migration and Asylum Pact and the Immigration Law, as well as the dismantling of the entire criminal apparatus of CIEs, fences, prisons and Civil Guard detachments in Morocco, Mauritania and Senegal. Minister Marlaska and his accomplices must be held accountable for crimes such as the 2022 Melilla massacre. Torture, immediate deportations and the premeditated murder of migrants at sea and in the desert must end. Combating anti-immigration policies and all forms of institutional racism advances the rights of the migrant population within the Spanish state and challenges the complicity of the EU and Sánchez with the dictator Mohamed VI. This brings the working class closer to securing its rights and freedoms on both sides of the Strait of Gibraltar.

At the same time, in the face of widespread capitalist barbarism, which destroys the lives of hundreds of millions of people to the point where they can no longer remain in their towns and cities, it is necessary to combat nationalist and imperialist chauvinism. The Popular Party, Vox and all those who pay lip service to defending Spain, but then sell it out and exploit its people — just as Milei is doing in Argentina — are hypocrites. Conversely, the working class and the youth must foster the broadest possible solidarity among peoples, based on the coexistence and harmony of people of different origins that we practice daily. However, we must understand that this can never be fully achieved under capitalism, where the struggle for survival, scarcity and exploitation reinforce distrust and reactionary sentiments towards migrants. Only a socialist society, where we — the working women and all the exploited — plan an economy that prioritizes the needs of humanity, will be able to crush the far right, eliminate hatred between peoples and address the shocking inequality in living conditions between the core capitalist world and the capitalistic peripheries.

This is why, at Corriente Roja, Em Luta and the IWL, we are fighting to build a revolutionary organization capable of confronting bourgeois regimes, whether they are atrocious dictatorships, like Morocco’s, or masquerade as democracies, like the ‘Kingdom of Spain’. We organize underground and within the Moroccan diaspora, standing up to racists in every neighborhood, mosque, workplace and school. We are fighting for a socialist project and for workers’ control of all produced wealth, putting its fruits at the service of the development of humanity as a whole. The road ahead is long, but we are not starting from scratch because many have gone before us, and many continue to fight. With every step, we will be better equipped to make our lives a testament to human dignity.

First published by Corriente Roja and Em Luta here.