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Showing posts with label Solidarity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Solidarity. Show all posts

Tuesday, 14 December 2010

9 December. Revolutionary StruggIe: International call for solidarity

actforfreedomnow!
9 December 2010
INTERNATIONAL CALL FOR SOLIDARITY
Comrades,
We are three political prisoners, members of the armed group Revolutionary Struggle [Epanastatikos Agonas], and we send you militant greetings from the Greek prisons.
We were arrested in April 2010 along with other three comrades who are being accused of involvement in the organization. Since then, we have been on pretrial detention [under the terrorism act], waiting to be referred to a trial in the first months of 2011.
In an open political letter to society, the three of us claimed political responsibility for our participation in the organization of Revolutionary Struggle. In this way, we defended our actions which were directed against the Capital and the State, and contributed through practice and speech towards the overthrowal of the State and capitalism, aiming at social revolution, at a non-statist, anti-authoritarian, communal and communist society, in which assemblies and councils of the people will undertake social, political and economic operation and management.
By claiming political responsibility, we also want to defend armed struggle, and to highlight its timelessness and importance within the broader struggle for overthrowal and social revolution. Most importantly, we want to highlight its relevance and necessity for our times. It is our belief that the appropriate objective conditions for the overthrowal of capitalism have developed in this era of global economic crisis more than in any other time since the Second World War.
Also, by undertaking political responsibility we wanted to restore the memory and honour of our comrade Lambros Foundas, who was a member of the Revolutionary Struggle and was killed in an armed clash with cops in March 2010 during an attempted expropriation of a car – a preparatory action of a wider action plan of our organization.
The political, economic and social environment in which the Revolutionary Struggle was formed and has developed its action is very different from that of the Western-European urban guerrilla groups, which were active from the 1970s and 1980s up until the early 1990s. Back then the bipolar, the competition between the US-USSR and their political-economic systems were dominant. It was the time when the model of Keynesianism was sinking into crisis and political devaluation, as Capital regained its strength against the proletariat, governments of Western countries one after the other abandoned state intervention in the economy – the so-called ‘economics of demand’ – and replaced them with ‘economics of supply’, while the States began the assault on labor and social gains, defending the interests of the economically powerful and imposing the neoliberal financial and political model of governance.
The economic and political environment in which Revolutionary Struggle was formed was set by the USA monocracy, economic globalization, neoliberalism and the fight against terrorism, which is the peak of political-military globalization. Because, for us, both the “fight against terrorism” and the totalitarianism of the markets are two sides of the same coin; they are the political and economic nature of globalization. Whenever and wherever globalization is not able to be imposed by the weapons of the capitalists and international financial institutions (IMF, WB, WTO, ECB, FED), by the financial tools of international stock markets, by poverty, hunger and marginalization, it is imposed by the sharpening of state violence and power, by repression, war and military incursions, by fire and iron.
The period from 2003, when the Revolutionary Struggle started its action, up to 2007, while the growing social crisis was creating strong social dissatisfaction, the neoliberal consensus was strong, due to the fact that capitalist development was continued ‘smoothly’ using bank loans, as a global scale bubble growing against the successive financial crises that were shaking the planet (Southeast Asia crisis, economic collapse in Argentina, Dot.com crisis in the US).
Since 2007, year of the first ‘bursting of the bubble’ of the residential mortgage loans in the US, which gave the onset of the global financial crisis, the failure of the neoliberal consensus started, leading to deeper and deeper political and social scorn for the regime.
During its first period Revolutionary Struggle set as cutting-edge issues the ‘fight against terrorism’ with the military operations of the US and their Western allies to the countries of the region, and with the intensity of state violence, repression and terrorism in the countries of the capitalist centre and the semi-periphery, in which substantially Greece belongs (rocket attack against the US Embassy, attack against the former minister of Public Order, against police targets and courts), the neoliberal invasion, the marketization of all the economic and social functions left, the attack of Capital against labor gains (bomb attacks against Ministries of Employment and Economy).
Then, since 2008, the global financial crisis was a true challenge for us in order to upgrade our action, making attacks against economic structures and institutions such as the stock market, Citibank and Eurobank. Our ambition was to hurt the vulnerable – due to the crisis – system as long as possible, to strongly sabotage the political choices of the Greek government and the ‘rescue-of-the-country’ plans imposed by the troika (IMF, EU, ECB).
This was the reason that PASOK government was so afraid of Revolutionary Struggle, since – according to the statements of a member of the government – the organization ‘could blow up the financial measures.’ That’s why our arrests, which took place a few days before the IMF, the EU and the ECB entirely take the reins of power in Greece, were characterized by the Greek government and other European and American political factors as a great success.
For us, the financial crisis we live today is the first truly global crisis in history and the only one since the Great Depression of the early 1930s that affects so intensely all the countries of the capitalist centre, while its character is systemic; it concerns the nature of capitalism itself and the nature of the market economy, and it is multi-dimensional, because other than financial it is political, social and environmental.
On the occasion of the current crisis, both economic and political elites around the world are conducting a frontal attack against societies; former achievements of the labor movement are permanently buried in the name of competitiveness, the welfare state is long past, while institutions of the system such as the nation state lose their importance, concepts such as sovereignty have no real meaning, and representative democracy in many countries such as Greece, which come under the supervision of the transnational elite and economic institutions (IMF, Central banks, etc.) is humiliated, since in fact a series of constitutional provisions are cancelled, and it becomes the vehicle for the establishment of a globalized totalitarianism, that of markets, multinationals, bankers and their political institutions.
Against this charge of the political and economical elites there is no room for the implementation of Keynesian experiments and reforms. This has been obvious by the governments’ respond to the crisis, by unleashing their wildest neoliberal attack against the middle and lower classes, against the willing of the majority of people. On the occasion of the financial crisis, they forward the greatest robbery and looting in human history and the greatest transaction of wealth from the basis to the top of the social hierarchy, driving more and more people to hunger, impoverishment and death.
For vast parts of the societies both of the periphery and the centre of the capitalist world, the neoliberal model of development has bankrupt alongside the general economic regime. Next in line to fall is the political system of representative democracy.
The lack of social consent doesn’t stop the European governments from a series of political coup d’état with the excuse of over-passing the crisis while supported only by minorities. In this way, they provoke the rage and exasperation of the social majorities, which quite often are expressed in violent ways on the streets of European cities (of France, England, Greece, Ireland, Italy…).
All the above record a series of political and social conditions that, for us, are the most appropriate in order to put into practice the international proletarian counterattack, to accomplish the overthrowal of capitalism and the State, to undertake the revolution. Because today the dilemma of the fighters but also the people repressed is one: social revolution or total submission and death.
Our obligation is to create the subjective circumstances, namely to contribute to the creation of a polymorphic revolutionary movement at national and international level that will form the conditions for the realization of the social revolution.
Within this political and social situation, the armed struggle can be of particular importance and may hold a central role, as it may reflect the overall political conflict with the regime, to herald the armed proletarian counterattack of peoples and to propagandize in the most dynamic way the overthrowal and social revolution.
We want our trial to be a political step to express in public these political positions; we want it to be registered in history as a moment of the struggle for freedom. To highlight the importance of the social revolution as the only answer to the crisis that condemns the largest parts of society to economic and social devastation.
[We want our trial] to become a public condemnation of the system and all its collaborationists no matter their political accession. To highlight that the armed struggle, despite the attacks by the system, is vivid and well-timed but also important in our days in order to promote the revolutionary process. We want to speak out the need for the formation of revolutionary movements everywhere, which will persuade the accomplishment of the social revolution.
In such a trial we believe that the best ‘witnesses of defense’ are the comrades who have chosen their dynamic clash with the system. These are the fighters who have been members of guerilla groups and have remained immovable and impenitent in their choices, by defending their struggles, their comrades who died in prison, those who were imprisoned for many years.
With their political statement in court, they will testify their own experiences, their own struggles as these were expressed through different social and economical conditions. They will speak about the timelessness and historical continuity of the social and class struggle that will be waged until the total destruction of the capitalist system. They will also speak about the struggle that is continued inside prison cells by the prisoners of this war. Because we do not choose the path of struggle to accept the conditions of imprisonment imposed by our enemy in order to morally defeat us and lead us to political or even physical extermination.
For us, that would be the best expression of solidarity; to make this trial a cry for freedom.
Pola Rupa, Nikos Maziotis, Kostas Gournas

Wednesday, 21 July 2010

Hamilton, Ontario: Demonstration in Solidarity with Hunger Strike

Infoshop News

July 19th, 2010 -- A noise demonstration took place outside of the Hamilton-Wentworth Detention Centre (Barton Jail) in downtown Hamilton, Ontario. Around 25 people marched around the prison, chanting slogans (the passion for freedom is stronger than all prisons; no prisons, no borders, fuck law and order; they might take our lives away but not our dignity, our hearts will pound against their walls until we all are free; smash the borders, fuck the state, all these walls are going to break; no justice, no peace, fuck the police; etc), shooting off fireworks, and making speeches.
This demonstration was held to continue creating a visible presence and tension against prisons and the world that needs them, as well as to take direct action in solidarity with the insurgent spirit: with everyone who chooses the dignity of struggle above the servility of obedience.
The 19th of July marked the beginning of a hunger strike in Saint Paul’s Hospital (the infirmary ward of Korydallos prison near Athens, Greece). Below is a translation of a communication about this hunger strike. Solidarity with prisoners in revolt, inside and outside the jails of this prison-world!
“On Monday, July 19th, prisoners will start refusing food with a demand to address and solve the problem of prolonged detention of people with chronic and incurable diseases, who (due to their state of health) should have their sentences reduced.
The human ''dump", as the prisoners of this institution call it themselves, is simply tragic, as we have also heard from comrade Simos Seisidis presently being held there. People with disabilities, strokes, and fatal diseases are thrown into this vile, dirty environment full of shortcomings.
The Secretary for prison policy visited some time ago, and stated that a legislative bill would resolve the matter in February or March. Naturally, he was telling lies.
The prisoners themselves, in their statement to the Minister and the media say:
‘Powerless to react differently, and anyway lacking our health, we are offering what is left of our lives to sacrifice them to your inhuman indifference, not because we hope you will change, but because we refuse to live like beasts, like waste from a system and society without humanity, ethics, or honour.
So, from Monday, July 19th, all those who are able to will abstain from food and all medication and treatment, as a last sign of dignity and self-respect...’
Our comrade Simos Seisidis will participate in this mobilization.”
Until we are all free!
Destroy all prisons!

Sunday, 11 July 2010

Arson against bank at Exarchia in solidarity with Giannis Dimitrakis

(Athens, 13/10/2008)

Today, October 13, the anarchist Giannis Dimitrakis faces jury at the martial court of Rouf, for his decision not to give away any of his time to the murderous machinery of the army.
That's why we decided to hit the subsidiary of Geniki Bank on Vatatzi street at Exarchia. He still remains imprisoned for the expropriation of Ethniki bank on Solonos street. An action of re-appropriation of all that the bosses rob us from daily, and of negation to the barbarism of work.

FREEDOM FOR GIANNIS DIMITRAKIS.
SOLIDARITY TO THE 3 FUGITIVES FOR THE EXROPRIATION OF ETHNIKI BANK.

"Group of Revolutionary Desertion"

Solidarity with Giannis Dimitrakis

It’s been more than four years since the morning of January 16th 2006, when the anarchist Giannis Dimitrakis was arrested, heavily wounded by police fire, after a robbery at a branch of the National Bank in the center of Athens.
From the very first moment a storm of constructed information broke out, systematically supplied by the police and readily carried out by the mass media. The police constructed "the gang of thieves in black," so that other comrades could be named as members, to which was attributed a string of robberies but also a close association to armed revolutionary groups, and then it was proclaimed that the whole of the anarchist-anti-authoritarian movement is closely connected to organized crime!!
Gianni’s arrest, the slander and the manhunt unleashed against his three supposed accomplices (who were later on declared "wanted" for astronomical rewards) – four comrades known for their many years of political activity – on the one hand aims for their legal annihilation and on the other, promotes a holistic plan of stripping of meaning and criminalization of anarchists, anti-authoritarians and class struggle.
Because of his political identity, the state moved with rage against him from the first moment. Parallel to the crescendo of misinformation and impression creating by the media, the district attorney tried to interrogate him in the emergency room while he was bedridden and under pharmaceutical influence. The charges against him were based on the "anti-terror" law and enhanced with six unsolved robberies, attempted manslaughter and money laundering. He was probably the first man in custody to be held at Malandrino maximum security prison, which is intended to hold convicts only, while attacks by prison guards, vindictive transfers and disciplinary sentences, the exhausting sentence of the first trial (an unheard of for a robbery sentence of 35 years) and the provocative deprivation of basic rights for the preparation of his defense at the court of appeals supplement the oppressive aggressiveness against him.
In these extreme conditions, the comrade defended from the beginning his choice to expropriate a bank, without statements of remorse and with clarity concerning his motives and intentions. He gave meaning to his act as a moment in his critique and action against the system of wage slavery and exploitation, against the antisocial role of the banks and as a part of the polymorphic social struggle.
Furthermore, in the wretched reality of the prisons, he stood dynamically and with dignity from the beginning. He participated in all of the prisoner’s struggles happening the past years in Greece. Advancing to hunger strikes and abstinence from the prison meals – despite the permanent health problems given him by the cop’s bullets – showing his solidarity for his fellow prisoners and fighting for the terms of his survival and existence in the
difficult position of imprisonment. Along with other imprisoned anti-authoritarians he was an interactive channel of communication with the grandiose prisoner’s movements in the fall of 2008.
All these reasons – and because Giannis Dimitrakis and the other three wanted anarchists are some of us, comrades and co fighters in the diversity of the struggles for freedom – fired off a mass of actions of solidarity and political defense for them in many cities in Greece.
From the posters, texts and brochures to the flyers, banners and slogans on walls and from the attack actions against banks, other economic targets or government vehicles to the massive presence of people at the public events in the amphitheaters, the march in the center of Athens and the demonstrations outside of the prisons of
Malandrino, Koridallos, Neapolis and Alikarnasso, the anarchists and anti-authoritarians made clear the way in which they respond to their comrades being held hostage by the state.
Four years after his arrest, four years after the start of this particularly repressive undertaking, one year and some months after the December revolt, the state’s constant and manic attempt to oppress, marginalize and criminalize the people of the struggle is becoming all the more clear. Our key weapon against this policy is active solidarity with all means possible.
The appeal of Giannis Dimitrakis is very important, as much for the legal outcome of his case, as for if we will allow the state’s manipulations and experiments against us to flourish.

Saturday, 10 July 2010

Solidarity around the world with the revolt in Greece and all the prisoners

May 1st, Naples : Four banks ATM’s are attacked with color and hammer, in solidarity with „Giannis Dimitrachis, Alfredo Bonnano, Christos Stratigoupoulos. The ghost of liberty always comes back with a knife in between his tooth"
April 28th, Prague : Molotovs thrown in the garden of the greek ambassy, where a fire started. Dimitrakis name and a circled ‚A‘ are painted in the entry. Press talks about a „similar arson" in the greek ambassy in Bresil.
April 27th, London: Occupation of the Hellenic Center. Two banners are hung on the roof, one on the balcony, with „Liberty for Dimitrakis and all the anarchists", „Honnor to Lambros Fountas- Liberty for the 6″, „Fire to the prisons! Liberty for Alfredo Bonanno and Christos Stratigopoulos!"
April 27th, Buenos Aires: Gathering in front of the greek ambassy. Five comrades are arrested (one is hardly bitten at the head by the cops), and their houses are searched. Press talks about a molotov thrown against the ambassy. On April 29th, they are imprisoned for „damage, assault and battery, attack, resistance to public authority" and…" abuse of ideological power".
April 26th, Rome: Three ATM of the San Paolo bank are sabotaged with color and acide, and graffities are left " Liberty for Dimitrakis". The claim ends with „Liberty for all the companions hostages of the greek State- Fire to the prisons"
April 25th, Barcelone: In Gracia district, an ATM of the Caixa Catalunya bank is put on fire. The claims adds: „Let the solidarity flammes spread! Until they are reduced to ashes! LIebrty for Giannis Dimitrakis!"
April 15th, Paris: Société Générale Bank attacked with color, a window and an ATM are broken. Some graffities appeared: „Bim! War to capital!". „War to property" is left on a further estate agency in construction, which one glass has been broken. In the claim: „With this action, we send our solidarity to the companions in Greece and elsewhere, who fight against domination, and all the forms it can have.Social war doesn‘t know no truce, nor borders."
March 30th, Brussels: Greek church gets red paintThe Greek orthodox Parish Sainte-Marina attacked; the Oecumenic Patriarchy of Constantinopel, patriarch of Belgium. Red paint re-covered, and a slogan was left: „The state and the church kill and imprison."
March 28th, Paris: Orthodoxe greek church doors are put in fire. The two ATMs and all windows of the BNP bank on Bretagne street are broken: this bank owns one of the biggest greek bank, Piraeus Bank. In the communiqué, one could read:„Solidarity with all the hostages of the State (from the bread thief to the bomber). Good luck to all who are on the run. Let’s make deeper the crisis, here like anywhere else!"
March 18th, Brussels: BNP bank completly smashed. On the claim: „In Greece like everywhere, that capital may die. Solidarity with the anarchists taken hostage by the Greek state."
March 15th, Brussels: Windows of Dexia bank broken. „Our thinking goes to the anarchist Lambros Fountas, murdered by Greek police. Solidarity with the permanent revolt shaking Greece."
March 15th, Brussels: Two cars of Greek diplomats burned and claimed.
Two attacks carried out in the St.Pauls area - a smashing night for the Revolutionary 1st May.
u.k. bristol
Newfoundland Road Policestation attacked with rocks, several vehicles damaged.Group 4 Security vehicles at Norfolk Avenue office attacked also with stones.Solidarity with the fighters of 'Revolutionary Struggle' in Greece.
Solidarity with Giannis Dimitrakis, Alfredo Maria Bonanno, Christos Stratigopoulos, and all other prisoners in struggle.