LETS MAKE THE BEGINNING IN GREECE FOR A WORLDWIDE SOCIAL REVOLUTION Text of the three imprisoned members of Revolutionary Struggle

LETS MAKE THE BEGINNING IN GREECE FOR A WORLDWIDE SOCIAL REVOLUTION

Text of the three imprisoned members of Revolutionary Struggle

“If someone today wants to open a profitable business, they should make guillotines”.

With the above phrase an American journalist describes the size of social rage in the USA. It is the first time historically, where the total of the developed capitalistic world boil in rage and desperation for the rulers, for those that are to blame for this crisis, which not only are not punished but continue enjoying their privileges and increase their profits. It stems from the rage for the poverty that expands, for the marginalization of wider and wider parts of society, for the injustice, since the rulers require that the people are sacrificed in order to face the crisis.

This rage is expressed in the last months with more and more intensity all over Europe. In one European city after another, millions of people go to the streets with the youth in the front line, in order to express their opposition to the hard neo-liberal attack that the rulers have unleashed against the social and labour vesteds. In France because of the social security changes, in England because of the educational measures, in Greece, Italy, Spain, Ireland, demonstrations are turning in revolts. One revolt causes another one and progressively, all over Europe the big social ignition is expected. The phrase “us or them” becomes more and more a common conscience and will become the slogan that will determine the result of the next bigger revolts.

FIGHT THE FASCISTS

Its the first time historically, that in all European countries - and mainly in those that are affected worse by the economic crisis- every day more and more the fascist face of the modern regime is revealed. Because today the fascists are not only the nationalists, those reminiscent of the Nazis, the military coup d'etat and dictatorships. Fascists are also those that govern us, those that possess the social wealth. Fascists are those same “democrats” that possess the power, the political and economic elite. Its those that participate in the executive bodies of political power and the economic organisms, as the IMF (international monetary fund). Its those that possess the power of money and we meet them in the central banks, as is the ECB (european central bank) and the FED (federal reserve system). Fascists are also those that participate in the major media and that consciously attempt the configuration of consent in the biggest historically social robbery and in the biggest operation to terrorize the people.

In Greece the socialist-fascists PASOK, the government controlled trade unions, such as GSEE (workers trade union), and the major media, that have undertaken with the most blatant way the political cover-up and legalization of political efforts “to rescue the greek economy”, collaborates for the completion of the big crime that is attempted against the social majority in this country. GSEE, under the fear of out of order social reactions, had declared in September that “the policies that are proposed by the memorandum have been applied and there no other obvious alternative solutions”, in an attempt to stop the antagonistic mood of the social base and plant defeatism, while the media in Greece have made an almost formidable wall of consent around the governmental policies, repeating the blackmailing dilemma “bankruptcy or austerity”, with which the government for roughly a year now has been terrorizing the Greek people.

Fascism in Greece, because the terrible place in which the country has fallen with the economic crisis, has acquired the rawest face, while the international economic and political oligarchy has stepped on the neck of greek society with the help of its hay people in the government. The repeated coup d'etats that were caused by the greek government under the orders of the troika (IMF, ECB, EU) do not have any support from the social base. The government, as any dictator, is indifferent to the absence of social consent in the criminal plans that it imposes in the name of “national salvation”. It is also indifferent however to the political consent and “by passes” henceforth the parliament completely, when it is to ratify the detestable memorandums, the agreements and contracts that are dictated by the troika and which it takes to the Parliament only for “discussion and briefing” and not for voting. Papakonstandinou (greek finance minister) has been promoted by the dictator Papandreou to a supreme authority, since he has been granted with absolute power and his signature is enough to ratify the commands of the economic elite, that are transported via the troika to greece for application. 

Parliament might have always been the field of ratification of the orders and commands of the economically and politically powerful, the neo-liberal globalization might have essentially abolished it as a field of decision-making regarding the mapping out of a national economic and political strategy -since the real power has passed into the big centres of decisions that are controlled directly by the international elite-, today however it has formally been abolished, since it exists only in order to legalize the governmental coup d'etat, in order to deter the political collapse of the regime. This is why the role of the parties that participate today in the parliament is that of aid and stabilisation of a weak, because of the crisis and the political devaluation, system and they basically support modern fascism.

As for who is really the big power in this land, it was reminded to us by Dominique Strauss-Kahn (Managing Director of the IMF) with his recent visit to Greece and his revealing presence in the greek parliament, where the all the ridiculous mps dictated, like in an interview, questions for the next policies that the IMF and the rest of the troika will impose. He on his side admitted that greece is a guinea-pig for the IMF, since these detestable policies are applied for the first time in a country that is not in the capitalistic region, while it brought back memories from the junta of the colonels, when it compared greece with a patient and himself as a doctor, reminding the fascist deliriums of dictator Papadopoulos (colonel dictator of the junta in greece 1967-74). Both the presence of Strauss-Kahn as well as that of European delegate Ollie Rehn in the Greek parliament was a reminder of who the big bosses are today.

It has therefore become a conscience for the majority of Greek society that “they are all the same” and this is shouted in the in the demonstrations, its shouted in front of the parliament, which has become the red rag (to a bull) this period for those that participate in the mobilizations. This was also imprinted in the last local elections, which were a hard slap for the political regime and the parties that support it, since the majority turned its back to all of them, with abstention reaching 54% and the invalid votes 10%. The political system is supported henceforth by a social minority, while the governmental policies are supported by a very small percentage of the greek population, which in the last local elections did not exceed 10% of the electoral body. If this isn't a junta, then what is? If these aren't dictators, then who are? Regarding the left wing drivers of the system, Synaspismos (left Coalition) and KKE (communist party of greece), is nothing more than political adventurers that, despite the blatant fascism of the rulers, continue legalizing them in order to not lose their possibility of tasting a little power.

YES TO THE BANKRUPTCY OF THE SYSTEM

Seven months after the subordination of greece to the power of troika, the social fascists of PASOK have accomplished to impose a long series of memorandums, bills and measures in the frames of “shock-treatment” that the international economic elite dictates. Wages and pensions are constantly decreasing, the 13th and 14th wage (christmas and easter holiday pay) in the public sector are cut, public expenses everywhere are minimized, the age limit for a pension is increased. In only three hours, dictator Papandreou with his ministers reversed labour conquests that took long-lasting and often bloody struggles to win, abolishing the collective contracts and establishing the regime of individualized labour contracts.

This way the bosses are exempted from any restriction in the reduction of wages and the redundancies and the labour conditions soon will begin to compete with those in Asia. Whatever public fortune has not been sold out, is being sold this period, any activity social or economic that has not been privatized, is privatized now.

This attack on greek society is in for the loan of 110 bn euros that the government has received from the troika in order to “save greece from bankruptcy”. However, these neo-liberal recipes not only have not prevented the bankruptcy but brings it closer and closer. Maybe by continuously decreasing the expenses the government seeks the reduction of the deficit, however the economic strangulation that lead to the closure of the enterprises, the redundancies, the wages of hunger and the recession render impossible the increase of income in the government owned funds, a fact that anyone can realize. The unemployment is expected to reach or even exceed 20% by the end of year, the redundancies and the lockups in the enterprises increase, the people in this country that fall under the limit of poverty and those that are marginalized become more and more. The homeless and the poor that resort to the state shelters for a dish of food are so many that the picture of occupied greece has come alive again.

The “curing of the patient” according to the major criminal Strauss-Kahn will come only through the economic and social extermination of big parts of the population in this country.

What those who have the power are doing one more time is the application of the same recipe that was also used during the big crisis 1930, which had been described by the American minister of finances with the following words: “We liquidate the excess labour, we liquidate the stocks, we liquidate the farmers, we liquidate the automobile market…, we remove the rot from the system”.

A policy of hard austerity for the “abstraction of the rot from the system” or for the “cure of patient” according to our modern Strauss-Kahn is the practical application of the same economic tendency. It is the one that is euphemistically is named “economics of offer” and according to which the austerity, the reduction of wages, the increase of unemployment lead to the reduction of prices and the increase of demand. Despite the fact that this particular recipe not only does not deter the recession but accelerates it (the same happened 1930, the same is happening today), the “specialists” of the economic matters, as the extreme neoliberal adviser of Papandreou Tommaso Padoa-Schioppa (banker and economist who was Italy's Minister of Economy and Finance), claim that “austerity does not lead to recession” and insist that these devastating policies “lead to growth and prosperity". as we have said before we dont think they are stupid, that they are simply following a bad policy.

The reduction of the deficit is basically achieved by the government only with continuous cuts in the public expenses, while on the other side the income because of the recession is impossible to increase, as big as the squeezing of the citizens from the taxes might be, as much as they might decrease the public wages, as much as they increase the redundancies and cut the fundings in public services, such as health and the education. 

After the revision of the deficit that reached 15,5%, the required money in order to reduce it to 7,8% this year is impossible to find, while the objective of its reduction to 3% in 3 years is unachievable. On the the other hand, the public debt will increase continuously and, since  calculated as a percentage of the GDP (gross domestic product) which is decreased because of the recession, sooner or later it will reach levels that will be impossible for Greece to manage. For 2012 the debt is calculated to reach 156% of the GDP (the IMF examines the possibility that by the end of 2013 the debt reaches 176% of the GDP), while in the next 5 years we will have to pay interest of over 240 bn - roughly as much as the current GDP -something absolutely unachievable. 

The above is evidence that concern a bankrupt country. The only thing that remains is for it to go broke formally and this will happen when the political heads of the greek government in the troika decide to. We remember Papandreou speaking of “the gun on the table”, the markets  that “would soften” with the subordination of Greece to the mechanism of support and with the loan of 110 bn Euros. When the Greek government signed the memorandum of long-lasting subjection to the markets, the spreads of the greek bonds were around 400 units of base. Today, seven months later and while greek society is sinking deeper and deeper towards hell in order that the government pays out the installments of the loan, the disputed nontheless real bankruptcy of greece has “completely infuriated the markets”, launches the spreads even above 1000 units of base and have classified the greek bonds to the “junk bonds” (a bond that is rated below investment grade at the time of purchase ), along with those of the sub-saharan countries of Africa. Despite all this the greek economic and political elite whistle to the sky, declaring that this take off of the spreads “does not have a practical result”, since we are borrowing with the “friendly” interest-rate of 5% from the EU. Also, the decision to prolong the time to settle the debt, which in reality is a confession of failure to pay off the loans, the fraudulent Papandreou presented it as a “reward of our efforts”, meaning the extreme neo-liberal attack that he has unleashed against greek society. 

As has been admitted recently by one of the “specialists” that we pay to direct the government to more neo-liberal directions, Schioppa, we have entered a long period of austerity, half of a generation will be sacrificed for the salvation of the system and we can henceforth speak clearly of a permanent memorandum -the fairy tales about measures only until 2013 are not believed by anyone-, for a permanent situation of economic, political and social war of the state and capital against the greek social majority.

We repeat that neither the IMF or the EU or the government are idiots that do not understand the dead-end. Greece is wiped out long before the elections, a fact that was known not only in the then government but also in PASOK, which was also the board of salvation of the system, since with the deceit undertook the power and with a careful approach opened the way for the subordination of Greece to the power of the troika.

With the issuing of loans the greek economy is just given an extension of life, so the viability of the greek banks is ensured and the european banks that have invested in the greek debt cover their bad debts. The objective that is to say of the international economic and political oligarchy is not the “salvation of greece from the bankruptcy”, as is claimed by the fraudsters in the government -something that would be useless anyway-, but the salvation of the banking system.

While therefore the underprivileged have gone under a detestable regime of unprecedented poverty and marginalization, the greek governments do not give sparingly when it comes to maintaining the fluidity of the banks. So, after the package of 28 bn that was granted by the government of “New Democracy” (previous right wing government), PASOK went on to a further banking aid with extra guarantees of 15 bn after the memorandum gets voted in. And while the major investors proceeded to a mass withdrawal of capital of 23 bn from the greek banks, placing the banking system in greater and greater danger, the social-fascists of PASOK deposited an amendment in august with which they increased the package of guarantees to the banks by 25 bn extra, by command of the troika that set it as a condition for the payment of the second dose of the loan. If we also add the 10 bn from the loan of the 110 bn that the troika gave, the total package of support of Greek banks reaches the amount of 78 bn.

A second and very important target, that the international economic and political elite sets by providing an extension of life to the greek economy, is the complete metamorphosis of life in this country. With the dilemma “austerity or bankruptcy and destruction” the fascists of the government unleash a constant and escalating state terrorism, reversing one after another the social, political and labour gains and they attempt to break every social resistance, to transform the proletariat into weak-minded and compliable slaves and greece into a utopia for bosses.

When finally the banks that have profiteered with the Greek debt, which up to a while ago did offer a big payout because of the high interest-rates, manage to get away from this, then the greek governments bankruptsy will be announced officially, something that wont take long to happen. Our exit from the EMU (economic and monetary fund of the european union) is considered a given, in order to ensure the viability of the euro. However, with the crisis of debt deepening and with one european country after another collapsing economically in the near future, it is difficult not only for the EMU to survive but for the EU as well. The most optimistic scenario for the future of the union is the creation of a superstate, where the powerful and more economically healthy countries will lead and the bankrupt countries of the european region will be transformed into protectorates, since they will cede entirely their economic and political authority to the political and economical directorial of europe. This treaty is being promoted in the EU with the creation of the mechanism of controlled bankruptcy.

Since along with the greek bonds, we the oppressed of this country are also thrown in the garbage and while the confession of the greek bankruptcy is expected, the attack of the economically and politically powerful not only will not stop but will intensify for many years. Greek society has passed under the possession of the international economic and political oligarchy, in order to keep alive this rotten system and this treaty will not be reversed by any government. As it will not stop the biggest transfer of social wealth from the base to the top of social hierarchy, that is being made by the governments in this historical period because of the worldwide economic crisis.

Therefore to the fake dilemma “bankruptcy or austerity” lets answer “yes to the bankruptcy of the system”.

THE ONLY WAY IS SOCIAL REVOLUTION

Since theres no neutral analyses about the economic crisis and since economy is not numbers, diagrams and statistics but is mainly relations of power it is obvious that every position taken on the crisis, its origin, the reason it happened and the ways out of it to be a product of the political and class position from which it is expressed. In other words, every analysis about the crisis includes also the answer to it and every proposal to surpass it includes the political expectations and aims of who expresses it. The positions taken by the neo-liberals and social-democrats are nothing more than two different views on the method that should be adopted in order to restart the blocked capitalistic machine. Even if the possibility existed of the reintroduction of the “economy of demand” we should deter it, since it will be one more short break or even more so a small deviant behavior in the normal functioning of capitalism, that finds its real substance with its complete release from all kinds of social control.

Regarding the position of the “communist” parties, such as the KKE (communist party of greece), that see as an answer to the crisis the central control in economy, it is known historically that this model leads to another totalitarian economic and political organization, where the party-state becomes the absolute dictator. This model of state owned capitalism has historically failed not only as an economic system but also because of the blatant social and political oppression on which it supported its perpetuation.

For us the economic crisis, as we have written in our previous texts, is a result of the class nature of the system itself that exists and is perpetuated through the inequality and the class segregations. The intensity of inequality and the increase of poverty on the planet is what capitalistic growth leaves behind. With the neo-liberal globalisation the segregations have deepened, exploitation become rawer than ever, poverty, hunger and death prevail. The social and class segregations are the substance of the system, it is also however the reason that makes this system permanently morbid and the crisis an almost permanent pathogeny with continuous booms and busts. The final exit from the crisis is not in any proposal as progressive as it might be, as much as they propagate the reallocation of wealth in favour of the non privileged and the delivery of social justice, since that proposal does not aim at exiting the system.

Because for us the only way to ensure not only a temporary perhaps exit from the current economic crisis but that we will never again live a crises is the abolishment of the capitalist system, the market economy, parliamentary democracy, the dissuasion of appearance of any young “progressive and more humane” system in the place of the existing and the guarantee that what will be born will never again encourage the emergence of social and class segregations, the growth of inequalities, but will be based on economic equality and political freedom for all.

This is why our own answer to the crisis is social revolution, which we also consider as the only realistic proposal for the exit from the systemic crisis. A social revolution where the people will expropriate the fortunes of the rich, the multinationals and major greek companies. Where they will expropriate the total of the church and state owned fortune. A social revolution that will abolish once and for all the state and every hierarchical and bureaucratic organization and will create social structures that will deter the reappearance of any form of organized economical and political power. That will socialize everything: The means of production, land, trade, health, education, transport.

A social revolution that will have as a core of social organization the community or commune. That will put every social and economic activity under the management of a network of popular Assemblies and Councils, where each one us in labour, the city, the village, the neighborhood through these collective bodies of management and decision-making will take our life in our own hands.

That will completely leave behind it the industrial society and the current way of life, which is characterized by the greed and the dominance of people over nature.

A social revolution that will abolish every national, racial and religious discrimination, that will bring together populations respecting their diversity, that will finally abolish social classes and segregations.

A SOCIAL REVOLUTION FOR FREEDOM

Pola Roupa, Nikos Maziotis, Kostas Gournas

boubourAs translate actforfreedomnow!

LETTER FROM COMRADE CHRISTOFOROS KORTESIS IMPRISONED FOR THE REVOLUTIONARY STRUGGLE CASE 18/11/10

Seven months after my arrest and the well advertised TV, and not only, delirium of the authorities and the antiterrorist police, I am still imprisoned for participation in

Revolutionary Struggle. I am convinced that my persecution has a clear character, with an obvious target the penalisation of the political movement to which I belong, my comrade and friendly relationships, and at the same time the exemplification and terrorisation of wider parts of society who are already fighting, or will choose to resist, the current economic and social conditions of oppression, imposed with an increasingly intensified pace.

To clarify my position, from the first moment of my arrest I said I am an anarchist. I deny to renounce my political identity and for years now conscious choice to openly participate with hundreds of comrades in all social struggles. I deny to renounce my comrade and friendly relationship -as many comrades- with Anarchist fighter Lambros Foundas. The ‘strong’, ‘incriminating’ evidence that the prosecution throws against me, is as follows a fingerprint of mine on a political pamphlet in the house of L.Foundas and an alleged visit to the house of a friend and comrade, co-accused, of mine. My application for release was denied because of the fingerprint mentioned above and one more ‘strong piece of evidence’: a fingerprint of a co-accused of mine on a ‘suspicious’ object in my house, a dvd of an american movie.

Since when is it illegal to possess and exchange leaflets with a political antiauthoritarian content? Since when are visits to friends’ houses persecuted? What morbid imagination baptises the house I’ve lived in permanently in nea filadelifia, a ‘safe house’? Let’s get serious. For those that forgot or for those that don’t know, forbidding people to go out after 10pm, gathering in groups of 3 or more, to freely distribute pamphlets with a political content, belongs to other regimes, which those as well (accidental? I don’t think so) call themselves democratic.

My refusal to give a DNA sample is due solely to my political beliefs and values and not dictated by any fear to prove my ‘guilt’, as its being implied. Of course I refuse to cooperate with the authorities and repressive mechanisms in their attempt of biological (and any other) data basing with obvious aims.

At this point I would like to clarify that I am not possessed with the logic of victimisation, since I have no illusions about democracy, neither about the ‘fairness’ of Justice. As an anarchist I do not condemn any form of struggle – postering, actions of counter-information, political texts, occupations, protests, dynamic actions, ex-appropriations, urban guerrilla warfare- which historically have been chosen and used by fighting people (anarchists, communists, wider resisting parts of society).

I am not willing to give away to the authorities any information of my personal life and no ‘print’ of my comrade relations and my political choices.

And the carousel of the targeting not only of specific people but ultimately of the concept of comradeship itself and the choice of solidarity is widened. Dozens of comrades from the antiauthoritarian movement are called as witnesses with always the same reasoning (fingerprints on books, CDs, doors and windows…now in the houses of friends and comrades imprisoned for participation in Revolutionary Struggle) culminating in the indictments of four more people from the friends or even the family of the arrested!

The attack of the Regime- with its current spokesmen the ‘antiauthoritarian’ PASOK (governing party) and the fellow governing parties- of course is not aimed exclusively to the anarchist movement, but the generalised explosions that are being prepared by wider social parts as healthy reactions to the economic misery (wage and pension cuts, of working relationships, thousands of layoffs etc.) and the complete degradation of human dignity. The images of the violent treatment of the strikers, unemployed, worker protestors, (gathering of workers at the acropolis and outside ministries) are neither fragmented actions, or ‘unfortunate’ incidents of police brutality.

The state arms not only its repressive (hundreds of new recruits to the security forces) but also its legal arsenal. How else can you interpret the new antiterrorist law that baptises ‘terrorism’ even syndicalist actions (with obvious target the basic unions and not of course the ‘militant’ GSEE), the participation in dynamic protests and brings back the anonymous prosecution witnesses- does this remind anyone of those collaborators with the hoods and their fingers stretched out? Who exactly does the infamous ‘dogma of security’ want to protect with the police filled cities and neighbourhoods, if not the system itself? And who purposely cultivates the fear (e.g. of a coming bankruptcy for which everyone supposedly has a responsibility!) in order to obtain a social consensus insidious plans?

Christoforos Kortesis

court prisons of Corinthos.

Announcement from the 3 imprisoned members of Revolutionary Struggle organisation about the attacks to embassies in Rome.

 About the letter - bombs which were sent to the embassies of Chile and Switzerland in Rome on 23/12/2010, that had as a result the injury of two officials and the responsibility was taken by the organisation "Federazione Anarchica Informale - FAI - Revolutionary Cell Lambros Fountas", we have to state the following:

 As Revolutionary Struggle we were always chosing to bring out actions which a political aim. We were always aiming on the status - quo, the structures and those who represent and protect it. We were organising them (our actions) in such a way, so that to avoid injuries of people who were not among our political targets and we would have never brought out actions which could result the injury for example of a random embassy official, as it happened in the cases above with the letter - bombs. 

The above framework has always been a principle of action for us all and of course a principle of our dead comrade - member of the organisation, Lambros Fountas. For this reason we ask for not happening actions of such type in the name of our comrade.

 Pola Roupa, Nikos Maziotis, Kostas Gournas

in greek: http://athens.indymedia.org/front.php3?lang=el&article_id=1242734

23 December 2010
Parcel bombs explode at the chilian and Swiss  Embassies in Rome. 1 mail-room employee in each embassy is injured.
“We Have Decided To Make Our Voice Heard With Words And With Facts, We Will Destroy The System Of Dominance, Long Live The FAI, Long Live Anarchy.”
Informal Anarchist Federation – FAI – Revolutionary Cell Lambros Foundas
-
27 December 2010
Parcel bomb sent to the Greek Embassy in Rome. It is intercepted and defused.

“We’re striking again, and we do so in response to the   appeal launvced  by our Greek comrades the actforfreedomnow.blogspot.com/2010/11/international-call-out-by-conspiracy.html
“For this reason we’re sending this new attack to a structure that represents the Greek state and its servants, in solidarity with our comrades arrested in Athens and the Conspiracy’s project which, like ours, is based on the action and method of revolutionary violence.”
-

Rome, Italy - Suspect package disabled at Greek embassy

reuters

27 Dec. 2010 - Police said the bomb at the Greek embassy resembled those which exploded in Rome last week, wounding an employee at the Chilean embassy and also a Swiss embassy staff member.
"The package was similar to the ones at the other embassies," Maurizio Mezzavilla, an official of the carabinieri, Italy's paramilitary police, told reporters outside the embassy, and said that anarchist involvement "could not be ruled out."
Police were called to the Venezuelan, Danish, Monaco, Kuwaiti and Albanian embassies and the Finnish embassy to the Vatican but found only harmless parcels.
But the discovery at the Greek mission highlighted a real threat.
"A suspect package arrived. We immediately informed the carabinieri who arrived immediately and neutralized the bomb," Michael Campanis, the Greek ambassador to Italy told reporters.
He said the package, addressed by hand, arrived in the embassy on December 24.
"We had not received any threats previously. The packet arrived on Friday afternoon when the embassy was already closed. The staff member found it this morning but security measures had already been stepped up," he said.
Last week, an Italian anarchist group called the Informal Anarchist Federation (FAI) claimed responsibility in a note for the parcel bombs at the Swiss and Chilean embassies.

Rome, Italy - The boy wounded at the Chilean embassy is Cesar

from informa-azione

we have received and are forwarding a few lines of an e-mail received in recent days:

"The Chilean boy wounded by the letter bomb is Cesar. A comrade and a friend involved with the experience of Ciclofficina Popolare (people's bike workshop) of the Ex Lavanderia (the former laundry).

We found out today.

Suddenly, for us, the natural compassion for an injured person is no longer tempered by anonymity.
Behind this story of national importance there is a person whose name, face and voice we know.

Now Cesar is in hospital, with two fingers less and we are angry.

[...]"

Associazione Ex Lavanderia
Lun, 27/12/2010 – 17:51 

LETTER FROM THE SPECIAL BASEMENT O THE 6TH WING OF KORIDALLOS PRISONS ( ATHENS GREECE)

Since the 29^th of November, we the three political prisoners of the underground special wing 6 of Koridallos, defendants for the case of Revolutionary Struggle, participated in the mobilizations of the prisoners of all prisons which either with prison food abstention, or with hunger strikes fight for the improvement of certain provisions of the C.C. (Correctional Code) regarding the leave days, the probations and disciplinary matters, decent treatment and improvement of the detainment conditions, the abolition of certain draconian penal provisions, special detainment conditions, reduction of the life sentence as well as the release of disabled prisoners and cancer patients.

In the frames of these demands it is also claimed that the special antiterrorist legislations that occasionally have been voted are abolished, with most recent those that passed in August that the “progressive” Kastanidis passed secretly and where its allowed for anonymous witnesses to testify in trials of cases of armed revolutionary organizations and “organized crime” as well as the penalization of violent action of demonstrators in mass mobilizations as “terrorist actions”.

Is not not accidental the situation in which they passed these two provisions since the present minister of “Justice” Kastanidis participates in a government of traitors of the Greek people that executes the commands of the lenders of the international economic elite.

It is natural that along with the application of the Memorandum, the repression of the state for the defense of the regime since they await social explosions that can put at risk its existence itself.

Also among the demands of the prisoners is the abolishment of the special regime of detainment of political prisoners whether its the special wing in the F.P.K. (female prisons of koridallos) where are detained the sentenced for the 17N (17November organization), or the basement of the 6^th wing.

The 6^th wing is an isolated small wing and the basement in which we are kept has 8 cells of 2 people.

The 6^th was a building - warehouse which was transformed into a detainment space in 2002 when the 17N arrests happened.

For many months, the arrested of the 17N experienced a regime of isolation where they were locked in the cells 23 hours a day, without free access to information and correspondence, while to the courtyard - grave 20 x 10 meters that sees only to the sky through a barbwire, they came out 1 hour 2 people at a time and with the escort of a prison guard.

Even though this special regime was abolished, the basement of the 6^th continues to function despite all the insufficiencies of the building infrastructure in air, lighting and the big tightness of space since outside the cells only a narrow corridor 10 x 2,5 m for the prisoners to walk.

As anyone can realize we have the same space that the domestic animals have in a cage or in a pen.

To the basement of the 6^th, the prison authorities sends either prisoners like us political, with the decision of the ministry, or prisoners that are branded dangerous (e.g. to escape) and are sent here for isolation, or prisoners which have problems with other prisoners from other wings.

Despite all this, recently, the prison authorities have crammed 20 detainees in the basement of the 6^th, putting a third person in the cells of two, which slept in the floor while the maximum capacity is 16 individuals in such a narrow space.

On Friday the 10^th of December in the afternoon, some of us protested this situation to the sergeant on shift who although justified us regarding that this situation offends human dignity, declared to us he cannot do anything because there is no other space to put the extra prisoners.

After few hours and just before the prison closed, we were informed that the minister of “Justice” of the troika, Kastanidis, is visiting the prisons of koridallos to “discuss” with a “delegation” of detainees the demands which have been placed with the mobilizations that are taking place all over greece in all prisons.

Then we decided the 19 prisoners of the basement, with common defiance, to deny to enter the cells at 8.00pm in the evening as sais the regulation of the prison and we demanded that the minister himself to come and visits the basement of the 6^th and see the situation for himself.

Since we realize that the minister came to koridallos in order to make another political “communication funfair” meeting with a non-existent “elected self-organized committee of struggle”, we denied as it was proposed to us by the prison authorities that 2 individuals go as representatives of the basement of the 6^th and we insisted that he should come down to the basement and that we will not enter the cells if he does not come. We had no intention to “discuss” with someone that, because of his political identity, the fake promises and the “i will” is his profession, e.g. he had promised when he was in the opposition to abolish the “hoodlaw” (law which says that if you cause damage while wearing a hood or mask, its a terrorist action) while now as minister of the troika of the International Monetary Fund, European Central Bank. and the E.U. applies even more draconian laws.

Naturally our demand that the minister comes to the basement of the 6^th was not accepted either because the “honorable” minister denied, or because the sergeant denied to transmit our demand.

We then decided that we are not going to enter the cells all night if the basement of the 6^th is not relieved of the overcrowding, which means the transport of the extra prisoners, something that finally happened at 11.30 at night.

Nothing of course guarantees that we will not have similar situations in the future.

The obvious that we demand is dignity and this consists the abolishment of the basement of the 6^th wing, the abolishment of the special division where they keep the sentenced of the 17N, the abolishment of every special regime of detainment for any category of prisoners, while we support all the demands of our fellow prisoners that participate in the mobilizations.

The most and real criminals are not behind the prison walls. The real robbers and murderers, those that rob the greek people, that plunder the wages and the pensions, those that deprive the care and health, are in the “Megaro Maximou” (maximou mansion, the greek equivalent of the white house, in the ministerial offices, in the seats of parliament, in the bourgeois districts, in the villas and in the luxurious offices of the bankers, the businessmen and the shipowners.

k.Gournas, S.Nikitopoulos, N.Maziotis 

boubourAs translation for actforfreedomnow 

9 December: International call for solidarity We are three political prisoners, members of the armed group Revolutionary Struggle

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 the armed struggle, and to highlight its timelessness and importance within the broader struggle for the 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 the 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 the Revolutionary Struggle was formed was set by the USA monocracy, the economic globalization, the neoliberalism and the fight against terrorism, which is the peak of the 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 the globalization. Whenever and wherever the 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 the repression, the 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 the capitalist development was continued ‘smoothly’ using the 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 fist ‘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 a deeper and deeper political and social scorn for the regime.

During its first period the 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 the 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 the 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 the 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 conduct 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, impoverish 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 the 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

Two anarchists charged with participation in Revolutionary Struggle are released on bail

M. Mperaha and N. Malapanis are two latest people who were charged with participation to the group Revolutionary Struggle. After appearing before the prosecutor general, the two were not ordered in pre-trial detention; instead, they have been given bail conditions (ban from exiting the country, sign-off at the police station monthly). In a justice system where even blatantly innocent people are ordered in pre-trial detention regularly, ordering bail conditions instead is a clear, if indirect, admission of lack of evidence on the side of the public prosecutor. 
Our solidarity freedom to all anarchists comrades in prison!!


NO PERSECUTION to M.Beraha and N.Malapanis
accused of participation in Revolutionary Struggle

SOLIDARITY GATHERING

thursday 11th november 8.30am at the Court of Appeals, (loukareos) athens

State terrorism DOES NOT PASS

Announcement of the three members of Revolutionary Struggle

In the modern junta of the I.M.F., the E.C.B., the E.U. and the Greek government, methods from the Nazi occupation in Greece are being mobilized. Just like when the Nazis attacked the families and the social environment of the guerrillas in order to isolate them and exterminate them easier, today the modern fascists that govern us target families, friends and comrades of ours and of the three comrades that are in prison accused of participating in “Revolutionary Struggle”, in an operation to terrorize a whole political movement, through new persecutions and mass interrogations.
The aim of our pursuers is revenge for the actions of “Revolutionary Struggle” and our political attitude from inside the prisons, our political isolation and that of our other three imprisoned comrades and the inactivity of the whole subversive movement through the imposition of a special hostage regime on a number of comrades.
Its of decisive importance the need to not let them terrorize fighters, do not allow the re-folding of the struggle for liberation. We should immediately go on the counter-attack. Anyway, the dominators are those who have been discredited politically and socially by the vast majority of the Greek society, while the fighters that fight for freedom, is the hope for the oppressed of this land, that are slowly dying under the yoke of modern totalitarianism of capitalism, market economy and representative democracy.


Pola Roupa, Nikos Maziotis, Kostas Gournas 

boubourAs translation actforfreedomnow

Monday 8/11 at the Polytechnic is the assembly for solidarity to imprisoned and persecuted fighters.

Matters to discuss:
-International day of solidarity to Giannis Dimitrakis for his upcoming appeals court on 6/12
-Potential for gathering to the prisons.
-Potential for interception in the 17^th november anniversary.


Actions of solidarity already decided:
-Solidarity gathering at the appeals court of Loukareos on 11/11 when Maria Beraha and Nikos Malapanis are going to appear before the interrogator accused of participating in R.S.
-Solidarity gathering on the 19/11 and 24/11 at the appeals court of Loukareos where Simos Seisidis is having his trial for the misdemeanors of the seven robberies of the “robbers in black” case.