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Arm The Spirit
Arm The Spirit #14/15 - August-December 1992
Index:
1) Editorial: "We're Still Here"
2) Some Useful Information
3) Ad Rates (For The Hard Copy Version)
4) War In Kurdistan
5) Interview With PKK General Secretary Abdullah Ocalan
6) ERNK European Representatives' Statement
7) ETA Militants Arrested In Uruguay
8) Palestinian Deportation Case Tests Immigration Law
9) Power Poles Sabotaged In Vermont
10) Better Late Than Never
11) Asylum Bill Demonstration In England
12) Workers Riot In Japan
13) News In Brief...
14) Rostock And Its Aftermath
15) Three Greek Militants Arrested
16) "500 Years Of Rape And Hate - We Refuse To Celebrate" -
International Tribunal Of Indigenous Peoples And Oppressed
Nations In The USA
17) Anti-Columbus Actions In Latin America
18) Message From German Political Prisoners To The Tribunal
19) Interview With Dr. Luis Nieves Falcon - Co-ordinator Of
Ofensiva '92
20) Puerto Rican News Shorts
21) Imperialist Peace Is War! - Excerpt From The Wotta Sitta
Document "Imperialist Peace Is War"
22) Free Sundiata Acoli!
23) Interview With Abdul Majid - Black Liberation Army Political
Prisoner
24) New York 3 Update
25) To Do What Is Possible, Rather Than What Is Permitted
26) Shawnee Unit - A Control Unit For Women
27) Resistance At F.C.I. Lexington
28) Geronimo Ji Jaga (Pratt)
29) "We Embrace Death With Weapons In Our Hands And Slogans On
Our Lips" - The Last Words
30) Red Army Fraction Dossier Introduction
31) Christian Klar's Trial Statement - Stammheim Process
32) "They Want To Destroy Us" - Interview With RAF Prisoners;
Lutz Taufer, Karl-Heinz Dellwo, Knut Folkerts
33) "There Is Much Which Unites Us"
34) "We Must Search For Something New" - Red Army Fraction
Discussion Paper - August 1992
35) Statement By Irmgard Moller Regarding The RAF Cease-Fire
36) Letter From Spain...
37) Letters...
38) Literature Available From Arm The Spirit
*****************************************************************
1. Editorial: "We're Still Here"
After an absence of many months we're finally back with a
new issue. As always, the usual problems seem to plague us, with
money being our biggest nemesis. Our last issue came out August
1992, and since then we have slowly been putting together this
issue. As one month turned into another, we realized that a lot
of the information and articles in this issue were becoming
dated. This was particularly problematic in light of the fact
that we are a bi-monthly publication and we attempt to be up-to-
date in our coverage of various revolutionary struggles. With
this in mind, we decided to produce a double-sized issue which
could be considered an overview of the various struggles that we
focus on in the Arm The Spirit. Therefore we have compiled
various statements, interviews, news and analysis on the Kurdish
liberation struggle, political prisoners in both North America
and Europe, urban guerrilla organizations such as the Red Army
Fraction and Devrimci Sol, and more, all from within the last
year or so. As 1992 was also an important year for indigenous
peoples in this hemisphere, we have also included information on
the various struggles and campaigns of "500 Years of Resistance".
We have also attempted to tie some of this together and show the
interconnectedness of the various struggles with the inclusion of
statements from both Italian and German political prisoners.
Hopefully we have achieved this to some degree.
While we have been slow to finish this issue, we have been
politically active in other ways. As some of you may have noticed
from our last issue, we now have an electronic mail address. Not
only are we able to send and receive information via electronic
mail but we're able to gain access to vast amounts of information
within the global computer network Internet. Within Internet
there exists a large number of newsgroups which are accessible to
anyone with Internet access and an e-mail address. A growing
number of leftists, including us, are taking advantage of this
technology and are using various newsgroups to provide
information on any number of struggles. We attempt to post
information on regular basis onto two newsgroups:
"misc.activism.progressive" and "alt.politics.radical-left". We
encourage comrades with access to Internet to read these
newsgroups as well as getting in touch with us via e-mail. We've
also made Arm The Spirit available in electronic form and can
send it via e-mail to anyone who requests it. As well, two
prison-oriented publications, "Prison News Service" and "Prison
Legal News" are now online and are available from our e-mail
address.
We wish to end this "editorial" with a correction and a call
for solidarity. First off, in our last issue we reprinted a
"Revolutionary Cells (RZ)" communique from a group that claimed
to carry out an action against fascists. We have learned that
this action was not successful and was not carried out by the
RZ's. Comrades in Europe have informed us that the bombs that had
been placed did not detonate and if this had occured, people may
have been injured or killed. This is not the practice of the
RZ's. If people could be injured or killed as the result of an
armed action by them, they will not carry it out. As well, the
communique has passages that were directly taken from an article
in a leftist magazine. While no one is sure of the identity of
those who placed the bomb and released the communique, it is not
improbable that fascists, or even the German secret services,
were responsible. One, after all, need only to look to the Piazza
Fontana bombing in 1969, in Italy, which killed 16 people. A
bombing which was blamed on leftists but was carried out by
fascists in collaboration with the Italian secret services.
Finally, we wish to point out the vital need to support two
New Afrikan prisoners of war - Geronimo ji Jaga Pratt and
Sundiata Acoli. These comrades share a similar history of
struggle and resistance for which they have suffered severe
repression from the U.S. government. As participants in the Black
liberation struggle in the 60's and 70's, both Sundiata and
Geronimo were targeted by COINTELPRO, an FBI counter-intelligence
program designed to neutralize and destroy Black liberation
organizations, most notably the Black Panther Party (BPP) and the
Black Liberation Army (BLA). As a result many BPP and BLA members
were killed and many more imprisoned. Some of these comrades
still remain in prison and the struggle to free them still
continues. Both Sundiata and Geronimo now face opportunities to
be released on parole. But this will not occur without
extraordinary pressure and we urge comrades everywhere to
undertake any form of action they are capable of to help achieve
Sundiata's and Geronimo's freedom. Information can be found
within this issue about their situation, except that in
Geronimo's case his parole hearing did not take place in December
1992. It has been postponed and a new date has not been set. As
well, a specific date has not been set for Sundiata. For up-to-
date information send us a letter, fax or get in touch by e-mail
- and keep up the pressure!
Arm The Spirit - January 1993
2. Some Useful Information
Editor: Gabriel Dumont
Subscriptions: $10 for 6 issues (Cash or postal money orders - no
cheques!). $25.00 for 6 issues for libraries and other
institutions.
Distribution Rates: A regular issue of Arm The Spirit is 20 pages
long and has a $1.50 cover price. If you order 10 or more copies
you can get them for $.90 each (50 or more will cost $.75 each).
This particular double issue has a cover price of $2.00 and 10 or
more copies cost $1.20 each (50 or more cost $1.00 each). Please
note that this does not include the cost of postage. We prefer
cash upfront, but we're quite willing to work out consignment
arrangements.
Prisoner Subscriptions: Due to our perpetually dire financial
situation we are no longer capable of offering free subscriptions
to prisoners. Prisoners, though, who are presently on our mailing
list, will remain there.
We Can Be Reached Through The Following:
Arm The Spirit
c/o Wild Seed Press
P.O. Box 57584, Jackson Stn.
Hamilton, Ont.
L8P 4X3 Canada
Arm The Spirit
c/o Autonome Forum
P.O. Box 1242
Burlington, VT
05402-1242 USA
FAX for Canadian address: 416 527 2419
E-mail for U.S. address: aforum@moose.uvm.edu
Caution: Protected Private Property! - This publication remains
the property of the sender unless and/or until it has been
personally and materially accepted by the prisoner to whom it is
addressed. In the event that the prisoner is denied direct
personal access to this publication, it must be returned to the
sender with notice of the reason(s) for failing to deliver it to
the addressee.
3. Ad Rates (For The Hard Copy Version)
1/6 page: $15.00 (5" wide x 2.5" high or 2.5" wide x 5" high)
1/3 page: $30.00 (5" wide x 5" high or 2.5" wide x 10" high)
1/2 page: $45.00 (7.5" wide x 5" high)
Full page: $90.00
With this issue of Arm The Spirit we are now offering paid
advertising space. This is one of the steps we've taken to
improve our financial situation so that we can have a regular
publishing schedule. We reserve the right to refuse ad space to
groups or organizations that we feel would be inappropriate in
our publication. At the same time we are also willing to trade ad
space with publications with whom we feel some affinity with.
4. War In Kurdistan
1992 has been a decisive year for the Kurdish liberation
struggle, particularly in North-West Kurdistan. The Workers Party
of Kurdistan (PKK) and the National Liberation Front of Kurdistan
(ERNK) have been instrumental in developing this struggle and
their strength and ability to achieve this is a measure of
support they have from the Kurdish people. One of the clearest
examples of this occurs during the celebrations of the Kurdish
New Year - Newroz - every March. This year, like the many before
it, saw Newroz celebrations in many Kurdish cities and towns turn
into militant demonstrations in support of the PKK and the
struggle to free and reunite all parts of occupied Kurdistan. The
Turkish state responded with brutal attacks on the Kurdish people
- dozens were killed and thousands were detained under martial
law for many days. The Turkish army then tried to justify these
measures by claiming that they had been attacked by the military
wing of the PKK - the People's Liberation Army of Kurdistan
(ARGK). They further used this lie as an excuse to attack many
cities, in particular, the city of Sirnak which was put under
siege the day after Newroz, resulting in many deaths and heavy
damage to the city itself.
The Special War Means A "Scorched Earth" Policy
This attack on Sirnak was a turning point in the war for
national liberation, as repression by the Turkish state has
clearly shifted from its "Special War" counter-insurgency
operations to all-out war. This escalation has manifested itself
in a 'scorched earth' policy which has seen the razing of towns
and cities such as Kulp, Varto, Hani, and Cizre and others. The
second and even more brutal attack, on Sirnak in August has been
by far the clearest example of Turkish atrocities against the
Kurdish people. Starting August 18/92, Turkish forces blocked all
roads in and out of Sirnak and went on a 3 day rampage, claiming
that the town was controlled by 1500 ARGK guerrillas. Women,
children, and elders were killed and wounded by the hundreds.
Houses and buildings were torched and animals were slaughtered.
Seventy per-cent of the city was destroyed and many people were
left homeless and destitute. There were no guerrilla units in the
city. At present the city is devastated and many of its
inhabitants have become refugees. Rebuilding efforts are underway
but due to the continued Turkish presence and repression these
efforts are proceeding slowly.
While the army has been carrying out full-scale warfare, it
has also continued to carry out a variety of counter-insurgency
operations. Contraguerrillas have been organized to assassinate
sympathetic journalists and politicians, PKK militants, and other
supporters of the Kurdish liberation struggle. This has included
the assassination of writer/journalist Huseyin Deniz, and of Musa
Anter, who was a journalist with the progressive newspaper 'Ozgur
Gundem' and a noted writer considered by many to be "the grand
old man of Kurdish culture." He was the fifth journalist from
this newspaper to be assassinated in 1992. In an obvious show of
contempt for their deaths, Prime Minister Suleyman Demirel stated
that "these are not the journalists you think they are. They are
all militants." In other words, in the view of the Turkish
government, their deaths were justified. On June 11,
contraguerrillas took 15 Kurdish patriots off a bus which was
returning from Hizan, and executed them. They also attacked a
train station the next day in Mus, injuring six and killing a
small child. These and many other attacks take place on a
consistent basis, often in conjunction with military operations.
Arbitrary detentions and mass arrests of Kurdish militants
and activists continue to be used to quell dissent and support
for an independent Kurdistan. On September 25, 11 members of the
People's Labour Party (HEP) were arrested on the orders of the
National Security Council - which includes the Prime Minister,
Army chiefs and certain cabinet ministers. The HEP is a
progressive political party which supports Kurdish rights; in the
1991 elections it elected 22 Kurdish MPs to parliament. The
arrest of the HEP members was based on the view of the National
Security Council that it would take "legal measures against those
democratic institutions and media which support separatism and
work against the unitary state structure, and thus have no
constitutional or legal basis."
Further, disinformation is used to falsely implicate the PKK
and ARGK in atrocities and attacks that are actually carried out
by the army or contraguerrillas. For example, the murder of the
15 Kurdish patriots mentioned above was blamed on the PKK in an
attempt to discredit them in the eyes of the Kurdish people. As
well there have been numerous attempts to turn international
opinion against them. The Turkish government has accused the PKK
of bombing the British consulate in Istanbul and of attempting to
shoot down an Arab airliner travelling to Saudi Arabia. The PKK
has denied these charges stating that "it is not their way of
operating and neither is it in their interest." They state that
it is the Turkish police and the contraguerrillas who have
carried out these attacks.
Counterinsurgency operations of this kind are used both to
instill fear in the Kurdish population and to deter the
population from supporting the PKK. All of these attempts have
failed and support for Kurdish independence continues to
flourish.
Kurdish Collaborators With Turkish Colonialism
In Iraqi-occupied Kurdistan the two leading political forces
in the region, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and
Kurdistan Democratic Party-Iraq (KDP), have consistently shown
themselves to be the enemies of an independent Kurdistan. They
have arrested, tortured and killed PKK supporters and members,
turned them over to the Turkish military, and passed on
information about PKK activities to Turkish and imperialist
agents who they allow to operate in south Kurdistan. In response
to this, the ARGK imposed an embargo on border trade at the
Turkish-Iraqi frontier on July 29th. This was not aimed at the
Kurdish people in the south but against the joint trade carried
out between the Turkish state and the KDP. Instead the PKK wishes
to forge better economic, social and political ties between the
people of north and south Kurdistan without the interference of
the Turkish state and its KDP-PUK collaborators.
The KDP-PUK retaliated by coordinating, with the Turkish
military, an offensive against PKK/ARGK bases in south Kurdistan
in October. Heavy clashes occured between ARGK guerrillas and
KDP-PUK peshmergas (Kurdish name for 'guerrilla') in Lolan,
Sheranis, Batufa, Zakho, Haftanin and other areas. When the
fighting began many peshmergas refused to fight against their own
people and a number went over the ARGK side. Also, splits began
occur within KDP-PUK forces with the resignations of ministers
from both parties who stated that the "clashes only helped the
Turkish state." On October 22, the PKK was able to prove
conclusively that collaboration was taking place between KDP-PUK
forces and the Turkish military. In an ARGK raid on a meeting of
KDP-PUK commanders, seized documents confirmed that a trilateral
committee existed which directed the operations of the
peshmergas. This committee was composed of one PUK commander, a
KDP commander and senior Turkish military major and had direct
access to the Turkish High Command who were directing military
operations.
During the initial offensive, ARGK forces were on the
defensive, facing heavy attacks in many areas. Despite rumours by
the media, of a withdrawal and surrender, the ARGK/PKK did not
lose any ground and towards the end of October were able to mount
an offensive. In early November, the PKK announced the lifting of
the embargo on border trade after a political settlement with the
forces of the KDP-PUK. Terms of the settlement allowed the
ARGK/PKK to continue to operate freely in south Kurdistan -
clearly showing the inability of the KDP-PUK/Turkish military
forces to achieve their desired goal.
The Struggle Moves Forward
Despite massive repression by the Turkish state of the
Kurdish people, the liberation struggle continues to grow. On a
military level, the ARGK continues to carry out many effective
and sometimes spectacular actions against the Turkish military
and police forces. For example, on September 29, 1250 ARGK
guerrillas simultaneously attacked 3 Turkish military garrisons
in the Semdinli region. The attack, which lasted for over 7 hours
completely destroyed the garrisons as well as killing close to
500 Turkish soldiers. They also shot down a helicopter and
captured numerous weapons while suffering minimal losses. On
November 10, they attacked the main military garrison in the town
of Hani. The 200 ARGK guerrillas, who used rockets and mortars
during the attack, completely destroyed the garrison when they
hit the ammunition dump. When military reinforcements entered the
town, they were attacked by the guerrillas who destroyed 4 tanks
and 2 armoured personnel carriers. Once again the ARGK suffered
minimal losses, while over 100 soldiers and police were killed
during the attack. Their most recent action, on December 14, saw
a raid on the Special Forces headquarters in Diyarbakir which
resulted in the death of 27 police officers. At the same time an
ARGK unit ambushed a military convoy on the road from Hani to
Diyarbakir.
Politically, the Kurdish independence movement has been
working towards the founding of a National Parliament of
Kurdistan. According to the Kurdistan National Assembly
Preparation Committee, the National Assembly of Kurdistan "will
be the highest body representing the people of Kurdistan. The
assembly will pass laws in all fields which interest the Kurdish
nation and be the only body representing them in the
international arena". This body aims to be the legitimate
representative body of the Kurdish people all over the world. To
this end, elections were held to elect delegates in all the
occupied areas of Kurdistan - Syria, Iraq, Iran, Turkey, as well
as among Turkish communities in the CIS and Europe, between
November 20-22, 1992. For the first time in their history the
Kurdish people were able to express their free will through these
elections. In Europe, 153 delegates were elected representing the
many different aspects of the exiled Kurdish community. Of these,
27 were women and 3 of the delegates came from south Kurdistan.
Almost 50% of those eligible to vote participated in the
elections, which was hampered by inexperience and technical
difficulties, as well as by misinformation and propaganda spread
by Turkish and pro-Turkish European media. We do not as yet know
the results of voting held in occupied Kurdistan due to the many
difficulties in holding elections in a fragmented nation. In the
second round of the European elections, held on December 19-20,
15 MP's were elected by the 153 delegates. These 15 MP's
represent the Kurdish people living in Europe in the Kurdistan
National Parliament.
The Future?
As the situation intensifies in north-west Kurdistan,
support for the PKK and Kurdish liberation struggle increases
correspondingly to growing Turkish state repression. In the words
of two Kurds, "Every person in the region now supports the
rebels. Everyone, almost without exception", and "Some used to be
uncertain, but not after Sirnak."
After the Gulf War and the break-up of the Soviet Union,
Turkey has set it sights on becoming the major power in the
Middle East as well as extending its influence throughout the
region. While denying that it plans to annex the Turkish-speaking
republics of the former Soviet Union, Turkey is making economic
and political overtures to, among others, Azerbaijan and
Kazakhstan. As Turkish Prime Minister Suleyman Demirel stated,
"...we saw [...] a Turkish world, at least in people's
intentions, ...a commonality that can't be denied." At the same
time, the recent collaboration with the KDP-PUK in south
Kurdistan, is perceived as a move by Turkey to obtain Iraqi
Kurdistan for itself. Because of Turkey's strategic importance as
a NATO ally, Turkish expansionism falls into line with western
imperialist/NATO strategy. An indication of this is the recent
redeployment this year of NATO military hardware from Central
Europe to Turkey. With the ending of the Cold War, Europe, and
Germany in particular, is no longer considered a frontline in an
'East/West' confrontation. As the world situation increasingly
shifts to a 'North/South' confrontation, Turkey assumes the role
of a frontline in imperialist domination. Clearly then, the
Kurdish liberation struggle poses a serious obstacle to the
implementation of imperialism's "New World Order". The formation
of an independent Kurdistan would not only seriously disrupt -
and perhaps even destroy - the Turkish state but it would also
destabilize the entire region as uprisings by Kurdish people in
Iran, Iraq and Syria would most likely be occurring at the same.
Further, the liberation of the Kurdish nation would be a powerful
example and signal for other colonized peoples in the region,
particularly the Palestinians. Of course, Turkey and its
imperialist allies cannot allow this happen and will use any
force necessary to crush the Kurdish liberation struggle.
For us, concrete solidarity with the Kurdish struggle, means
building resistance here in the imperialist centres and opposing
its aggression by any means necessary.
5. An Interview With The General Secretary Of The PKK, Abdullah
Ocalan
PKK General Secretary Abdullah Ocalan: "We will develop the
revolutionary war to counter the imperialist plot in south
Kurdistan"
General Secretary, how do you evaluate the developments in
south Kurdistan?
We are well aware that the enemy has intensified his attacks
on us. The all-out offensive of the Turkish state dates back to
the National Security Council and Cabinet meetings held in
Diyarbakir at the end of August. A consensus has been arrived at
between the parties in the Turkish Parliament and diplomatic
endeavours have been made to cut off supposed ties with Iran and
Syria. they then tried to put the southern collaborationist
forces into the breach. The basis for this is Demirel's phrase
"to break the back" of our activities in south Kurdistan. We know
that they have been preparing such a plan for a long time now.
For various reasons they timed it for October. By securing the
approval of the U.S. and Europe, and even taking into account the
U.S. elections they made their preparations accordingly.
Barzani's statement: "Turkey gave me seven days, I have to
succeed" proves the reality of this plan. The timing of the
meeting of the Iraqi opposition was also part of this plan. They
had hoped to defeat us by the 23rd of October, but the failure of
the peshmergas and the lack of success of the Turkish offensive
has resulted in the postponement of this meeting. The fact that
the Turkish army entered the fray in the last few days proves
that the collaborators were unable to deliver the goods. We will
develop the struggle on all fronts against these plans.
If you are victorious in this war, how do you see future
developments?
If we come out on top it will mean Turkey is staring defeat
in the face and it will have to withdraw. Kurdistan will then be
free, to a great extent. We will give our all and create a free
Kurdistan.
Our reporters in the region inform us that the peshmergas
are unwilling to fight. What is your opinion about this?
This is clearly the case, that the peshmergas have no
intention of fighting. They are being forced to fight. In a
prolonged war the collaborationist forces would lose the support
of the people and the peshmerga fighters. These forces have put
all their fighters at the disposal of the Turkish units. If the
Turkish units fail they, too, will collapse. For this reason we
do not see the clashes in the south as a PKK-Peshmerga conflict,
rather we see it as the liberation struggle of the people of the
south.
So can we say that you are going to open a front in south
Kurdistan?
The two fronts are linked. We cannot develop the front in
the north without doing the same in the south and vice versa. The
drawing of the Turkish army into the south makes things easier
for us in the north. We will draw them deeper into the swamp
which will be very disadvantageous for them.
War scenes are being shown on Turkish television and in the
press. How do you evaluate this?
For the enemy the war is intensifying and for us the
guerrilla war is coming to the stage of an all-out popular
uprising. This is an important stage. It gives us the possibility
of reaching equilibrium in the war. We will dedicate all our
forces to the struggle and believe our people will be the victors
in this war.
(From Berxwedan - Kurdish Newspaper - 92/10/24)
6. ERNK European Representatives' Statement
We are making the following statement as a party to the
clashes occurring at the present time between the "National
United Independence Front of Kurdistan" and the treacherous KDP
and PUK supported by Turkey.
After the Gulf War the "Poised Hammer" military force, led
by the U.S., was sent to Kurdistan to fill the power vacuum in
Iraq and to prevent any potential developments in the Middle
East. Turkey approved of this military force which was part of a
common regional plan of the Western States. Turkey wanted to
benefit from the advantages offered by this situation to crush
the movement in northern Kurdistan.
Turkey began to develop a policy in line with these
developments. First they claimed to defend the interest of the
Kurds. They then made contact with Talabani and Barzani and
invited them to Ankara. They were issued with Turkish diplomatic
passports. Turkey provides economic, military and political
support to these forces.
This fake "love of the Kurds" from a country whose chief of
staff states "there are no Kurds in Turkey" and which kills tens
of Kurds every day, flattens towns like Sirnak, Cukurca and Kulp
and starts proceedings to try Kurdish deputies under legislation
which carries the death penalty is all part of a bloody plan.
Talabani and Barzani started their preparations to attack
the PKK after receiving support at meetings in Ankara and
Washington last month. The date of the "ultimatum" was
established at the meeting in Ankara. Talabanin returned to
Kurdistan accompanied by a group of Turkish officers.
The clashes occurring in southern Kurdistan are the result
of an assault, the preparations for which were made previously.
The PKK is not the aggressor but is exercising its legitimate
right of self-defence against these forces' collaborationist and
treacherous attacks.
We have explained many times that this situation was being
incited by the colonialist, imperialist states, particularly
Turkey, but despite this they are imposing a war of annihilation
on our people, in alliance with Turkey.
We repeat that the PKK is not in favour of these clashes.
However, it is determined to carry out policies in line with the
interests of the people of Kurdistan. We will continue to defend
ourselves against attacks. The PKK is waging its war and its
defence on the soil of its own country, Kurdistan, for which its
goal is independence, not the soil of another country. For this
reason it is not possible for it to leave the land and positions
for which it has given many lives. In 1991 we defended this land
against attacks by Saddam and Turkey and in the process hundreds
of our members were martyred, but the KDP and PUK deserted their
people and ran away. We would like to stress that we have the
means necessary to defend ourselves against these forces.
At the moment violent clashes are continuing in an area from
Haftanin, near Zakho, to Hakurke, near the Iranian border, The
National United Independence Front of Kurdistan announced that it
would resist these attacks with all the power at its disposal.
This Front is composed of the PKK, PAK and forces and individuals
who have left the PUK and KDP. Since the clashes began on 1
October 9 PKK guerrillas have been martyred and 20 PAK members
have been killed in the towns of Zakho and Suleimaniye. Around
200 losses have been inflicted on the KDP and PUK forces in the
Zakho and Hakurke areas. 20 KDP members and 6 Turkish officers
have been captured. The Turkish officers will be presented to the
press in the areas where they were captured.
Since 6 October an embargo has been imposed on southern
Kurdistan and all roads leading to Turkey have been taken under
the control of the front with who the initiative in the clashes
now lies. Protest marches against the Attacks are spreading in
towns like Zakho and Suleimaniye. While some peshmerga leaders
are going over to the Independence Front along with the fighters
under their command, at least 1000 peshmergas have given up their
weapons and withdrawn.
The aggressors claim that "the PKK's presence in the area
leads to Turkish air attacks and the Kurdish villages have been
destroyed and the people have left." We have to point out that
the Turkish State is responsible for these attacks and that it is
they who should be called to account. Also the PKK did not come
from outer space. It emerged from its own people and receives
support from them. It is unthinkable that the PKK should harm its
own people. The PKK is contributing to the repair of the
villages. Kurdistan is a whole, for the Kurdish people Dersim and
Suleimaniye are our homeland.
All these attacks are being perpetrated in collusion with Turkey.
Turkish war planes are bombing the battle areas and a military
convoy trying to cross the border was destroyed by our forces.
Despite all its persecution and violent methods Turkey has
been unable to prevent the development of the PKK. Especially in
the summer of 1992 our guerrilla forces have limited the Turkish
State's military presence in rural areas. Our was is continuing
all over our country, which covers 800 thousand square
kilometres. The Turkish State is now using two treacherous
Kurdish parties in southern Kurdistan to attack the Kurdish
people.
The Kurdish people in all four parts of Kurdistan and those
living all over the world are expressing their disgust at this
dirty assault. They deem the acts of these two parties, which
have a 40-year history of defeat and disappointing the hopes of
the Kurdish people, as treachery. We call on these parties to
give up this assault on the Kurdish people. If they disregard our
call their isolation will increase and they will be consigned to
oblivion.
We call on all democratic organisations and bodies to show
solidarity with the Kurdish people against this externally
supported assault which is contrary to their will, and to oppose
the positions taken by their own governments which are
encouraging these clashes.
ERNK (National Liberation Front of Kurdistan) European
Representatives
Brussels October 9/92
7. ETA Militants Arrested In Uruguay
Montevideo, Uruguay - On May 15, 1992, police in this city
arrested a total of 28 persons, 6 of them Uruguayan, the rest
Basques accused of being members of ETA, the Basque liberation
organization. A lawyer and his secretary were among those
arrested, accused of obtaining false papers for the Basques. The
other Uruguayans were a dentist and his wife; whose names were in
one of the Basque's address book, the teacher of a five year old
Basque child, and his son-in-law.
The police called this Operation Alligator and the arrests
were the culmination of a two year old investigation. The Basques
were only charged with violating certain Uruguayan laws
pertaining to the use and possession of false documents. At their
first hearing a judge released all of the Uruguayans and 9 of the
Basques. Several of the Basques are accused of participating in
armed actions in Spain.
Uruguayan law prohibits the extradition of foreigners
accused of political crimes or common crimes with political
overtones. All of the Basques have requested political asylum and
it appears unlikely they will be extradited to Spain.
The Basques were all employed by a Basque restaurant in
Montevideo. Uruguayan military intelligence maintained
surveillance over the Basques (in violation of Uruguayan law
which requires judicial permission for lengthy investigation)
since 1988, at the request of the Spanish government. The Basques
in question were all "retired" militants. The position of the
army was not to disturb the Basques as long as they restricted
themselves to commercial activities, which in addition to the
restaurant, consisted of exporting raw materials, and another
restaurant.
This changed in April of 1991 when a grocery store was
robbed by a Tupamaro and the military determined that his lover,
Lourdes Garayalde, was one of the Basque militants. The military
reached an agreement with the Basques that they would not be
disturbed as long as they didn't participate in illegal
activities. Thus Garayalde was twice arrested and released
despite having false identity papers.
The arrests took place while the sub-secretary of Spanish
security was in Uruguay. The arrests are believed to be the
result of Spanish pressure. The arrests in Uruguay also coincide
with the arrests in France of ETA's top leadership.
In Uruguay the arrests have caused much commotion, because
they show that the police and military are still deeply involved
in surveillance and repression of political activists and the
left in general. At the same time there is a resurgence of right-
wing death squad activity. Given the unlikelihood of any of the
Basques being imprisoned in Uruguay or extradited to Spain, the
arrests, with attendant massive publicity, are seen as reminders
to the Uruguayan left that they live in a death-squad democracy.
8. Palestinian Deportation Case Tests Immigration Law
In early November, 1992, a deportation case against two
Palestinians, Khader Hamide and Michel Shehadeh, in Los Angeles
marks the first test of a controversial U.S. immigration law
which the government says denies non-citizens the
constitutionally protected rights to free speech and association.
According to their lawyers, if the government prevails in
its claim that it can deport the two men for raising money for
Palestinian causes, all non-citizens campaigning for social
change in their native lands would be liable for deportation.
Hamide and Shehadeh, both longtime residents of the U.S were
arrested in January 1987 along with 6 others, and together they
became known as the "L.A. 8". They were never charged with a
criminal offence, but were held without bail in high security
prisons for two weeks until released on their own recognizance.
According to the FBI "the individuals who were arrested in
California had not been found to have engaged themselves in
terrorist activity."
Five years later the government is still seeking to deport
the eight, and is trying to prove that Hamide and Shehadeh ran
afoul of a section of the 1990 Immigration Act which prohibits
non-citizens from providing "material support" to a "terrorist
organization" - in this case the Popular Front for the Liberation
of Palestine" (PFLP), part of the PLO. Both Hamide and Shehadeh
deny belonging to the PFLP.
David Cole of the Center for Constitutional Rights
contended: "If you are a Palestinian and you want to support your
people back home, as a practical matter, you have to send your
money through the PLO and its constituent organizations. There is
simply no reasonable alternative". The American Civil Liberties
Union (ACLU) and some of the other 70 civil and constitutional
rights groups that have formed the committee for justice to
support the "L.A. Eight" have argued strongly against the
government's position.
The government devoted the first two weeks of its case to an
attempt to establish that the PFLP was a "terrorist
organization". Its main witness was Ariel Merari, an adviser to
the Israeli Prime Minister and the Israeli Defence Forces, who
describes himself as a "terrorist" expert. Defence lawyers have
challenged Merari as an expert saying that he can neither speak
nor read Arabic and lacks any broad knowledge of Palestinian
affairs.
We will publish further developments of this trial in the
next issue of Arm The Spirit.
9. Power Poles Sabotaged In Vermont
In early January, Vermont's "Rutland Herald" and the
Associated Press reported that ten electrical transmission poles
in five different Vermont locations have been sabotaged since
April of 1992. Earlier, a letter had been received by the Central
Vermont Public Service Corporation (CVPS) headquarters in
Rutland, Vermont, saying that three utility poles in Rutland
needed to be replaced and that there could be other consequences
unless CVPS dropped its contract with Hydro-Quebec.
The wooden utility poles were all notched, cut, or drilled
in a way so that they would fall over in high winds or heavy
snowfall, according to Thomas Hurcomb, vice president of public
affairs for the utility corporation. In all cases, a "Q" roughly
approximating the logo used by the Canadian Hydro-Quebec-owned
utility was painted or drawn on the vandalized poles.
No group or individual has claimed responsibility for the
acts of sabotage. CVPS has issued a reward of $20,000 for
information leading to a successful prosecution of those
responsible.
The FBI is investigating the incidents. John Hersh, special
agent with the Rutland office of the FBI, said the acts appeared
to violate two federal laws. A federal extortion law says anyone
found guilty of interfering with interstate commerce through
threats of violence can be fined $10,000 and imprisoned for up to
20 years. Another federal law prohibits the destruction of an
energy facility and carries a penalty of $50,000 and 10 years in
jail.
Glenn Gershaneck, spokesman for Governor Howard Dean, said
the news had upset the governor who felt that it was the first
time that acts of potential violence like this had occurred in
Vermont.
The contract between Hydro-Quebec and 17 Vermont utilities
(CVPS has the largest contract for H-Q power) has been the
subject of controversy for several years. Opponents argue that
the Canadian utility's expansion plans threaten the indigenous
lifestyle of the Cree, Inuit, and Innu peoples who live in
northern Quebec. Environmentalists say that Hydro-Quebec's plans
threaten fragile habitats and the future of some species of
migratory fowl, fresh-water seals, beluga whales, caribou, etc.
Opponents have also argued that Vermont does not need the power
from H-Q, and that the contract is a disincentive to conservation
efforts.
(Biodiversity Liberation Front-Earth First)
10. Better Late Than Never
On November 16/92, a statue of Canada's first prime
minister, John A. Macdonald, was "beheaded" and the acronym
"F.L.Q." (Front de Liberation du Quebec - a Quebecois nationalist
guerrilla group that was active in the 60's and early 70's) was
spraypainted at its base. A message which claimed responsibility
for the action was received by a Canadian newsagency, the CBC,
and it stated that the "beheading" coincided with the 107th
anniversary of the hanging of Louis Riel. This action was
symbolic in a number of different ways. Riel was a leader of the
Metis - who were of First Nation and Quebecois blood - and had
led them in a number of uprisings against the Canadian government
during the mid- to late-1800's. The Metis uprisings culminated in
1885 when Canadian troops put down what is known as the Metis or
Northwest Rebellion, but is more accurately described - as the
Metis call it - the Northwest War of Resistance. After the defeat
of Metis forces at the Battle of Batoche, Riel was captured and
put on trial for treason. He was found guilty and was hung on
November 16, 1885. The Metis struggle, like that of many other
First Nations peoples, was a fight for self-determination and
land in the face of Euro-settler expansionism. At this time the
Canadian state was beginning to consolidate and one of its main
protagonists was John A. Macdonald who saw Metis and other First
Nation peoples as obstacles to achieving the formation of the
Euro-settler Canadian nation. It's too bad that someone didn't
lop off his head back then.
11. Asylum Bill Demonstration In England
On Saturday 21st November, up to 4000 people marched through
central London to demonstrate against the government's Asylum
Bill. The march was organised by RAHCAR (Refugees Ad-Hoc
Committee for Asylum Rights), an alliance of refugee community
groups in Britain. According to RAHCAR, "the government is
trying to close all avenues to the UK for people fleeing
persecution from the Third World". If the Asylum Bill becomes
law:
- all asylum seekers including young children will be
fingerprinted. Police and immigration officers will be able to
arrest without warrant anybody who refuses. At present in the UK,
only people who have been charged with an imprisonable offence
are required to give their fingerprints.
- the right of homeless asylum seekers to housing will be taken
away.
- asylum seekers will have very limited rights of appeal. Many
will only have two days to make an appeal after being refused
asylum, and they may have to appeal without even seeing the
evidence which the Home Office used to make its decision to
refuse.
- the right of appeal will be abolished altogether for visitors
to the UK. Visitors have been refused entry into Britain to
attend weddings, funerals, and other family occasions, or as
tourists. Last year 10,000 visitors appealed against the refusal
of their visa, and one in five won their appeal. If the Asylum
Bill becomes law, this will not be possible.
Even without the Asylum Bill things are getting worse for
asylum seekers in the UK. The government has promised to build an
extra 300 detention places for asylum seekers. The Immigration
Act 1971 gave the authorities power of unlimited detention for
people whose claims for asylum are under consideration, or who
have been refused. In 1991, two asylum seekers died in detention.
Contacts: RAHCAR, 365 Brixton Road, London SW9 7DB.
(From ECN London)
12. Workers Riot In Japan
Kamagasaki is a neighbourhood in Osaka, Japan, home to some
30,000 workers, mainly day-labourers, including many homeless
workers. On October 1, the local government in the neighbourhood
decided to stop paying out social security payments to needy
workers.
The approximately 80 workers who were turned out of the
social security office on October 1 and told they were not going
to receive any payments responded by smashing in the office's
windows. In the early afternoon, some 1500 police arrived in the
neighbourhood to prevent the discontent from spreading. But by
early evening, at least 1000 workers had gathered, alongside many
youths and "normal citizens". Burning barricades were erected in
the streets. Throughout the evening, the rioting spread as trains
and buses were set on fire and a large supermarket was looted.
The next day, the local government stood by its decision and
decided to once again refuse to make payments to the day-
labourers. The social security building closed its doors at
9:30am. Out came the stones and molotov cocktails once again, as
workers and police squared off in the streets for a second day.
By late afternoon, the local government gave in and agreed
to renew its payments to the day-labourers.
(From Interim #214 and Libera Volo #44)
13. News In Brief
A hunger-strike launched September 28 by Palestinian prisoners
ended October 15 when negotiators at Israel's Nahfa Prison
approved the principles of an accord accepted a week earlier at
four other prisons. The Israeli Prison Service Authorities
promised major improvements in living conditions in all prisons
and accepted the principle of unified treatment. A final
agreement is still being drafted. One participant in the fast,
Hussain Nimeer A'beedat, died October 14... On 14.8.92 two
comrades from the anti-imperialist resistance in Copenhagen were
jailed after being charged with 3 bank robberies. They are
Christian Zwettler from Bonn and Stefan Klinthoj. Both are being
held in total isolation, alone in their cells for 23.5 hours a
day. The only people they ever hear or see are guards. Christian
is not allowed visitors and Stefan has not been allowed to see
his parents. their mail is also excessively censored. In Denmark,
they have been victims of a negative smear campaign by the
capitalist media. The two are demanding to be grouped together.
Both of them would love to receive mail: Christian Zwettler,
Stefan Klinthoj: Vestre Faengsel, AFD.C., Politigarden,
Kopenhagen-Vesterbro, Denmark (Angehorigen Info 101)... On
December 4/92, the Corsican National Liberation Front carried out
a series of bombings across France and Corsica. The 24 bombings
took place mostly at tax or government finance offices in Paris,
Nice and Corsica. They were in response to proposed tax changes
by the French government... In Argentina, a recently-formed group
called the Revolutionary Organization of the People (ORP) has
announced a campaign against the government of President Carlos
Menem. The ORP has claimed responsibility for the October 29
bombing of the state oil company, which they said was in protest
of its planned privatization. The ORP has previously claimed
responsibility for attacks on two banks and the placing of
pamphlet bombs. Apparently, the ORP was a split from the People's
Revolutionary Party and the All for the Homeland Movement (MTP).
In January of 1989 an armed column of the MTP attacked the Fourth
Infantry Regiment in La Tablada. They were forced to withdraw
after thirty hours of combat, which resulted in the deaths of 40
people including guerrillas, military personnel and police
officers (NSN Weekly Update #145) ... The Anti-Defamation League
of B'nai Brith is suing the American Indian Anti-Defamation
Council in Federal Court due to the use of the word "Anti-
Defamation" in its name. The ADL claims that it coined the term
"anti-defamation" to serve as its distinctive name, and that it
has propriety rights to those words and uses them in connection
with its services which include combatting racial prejudice.
According to AIM spokesperson Russell Means, "had we American
Indians been more careful with our immigration policies 500 years
ago, it would have prevented those people who are racially
prejudiced from entering the continent which would have obviated
the need for any kind of Anti-Defamation Council or Anti-
Defamation League." The American Indian Anti-Defamation Council
needs financial contributions as they have no money and have not
been able to retain a lawyer as yet. Send contributions to:
American Indian Anti-Defamation Council, 215 West Fifth Avenue,
Denver, Colorado, USA 80011... On November 23/92, a group calling
itself the Fuerzas Punitivas de Izquierda (Punitive Forces of the
Left - FPI) assassinated right-wing business executive Arges
Segueira. Sequeira, who was killed in the northwestern Nicaraguan
city of Leon, was the president of the Association of the
Confiscated, a group of Nicaraguans who are attempting to reclaim
land that been appropriated under the FSLN's land reform
programs. Until the action had been claimed by the FPI on
November 26, the president of the rightwing business group COSEP,
Ramiro Gurdian, held the Sandinistas responsible. The FPI which
describes itself as an "anti-imperialist, Marxist and Leninist
organization" states that it has been in existence for two years.
On October 12, two bombings took place in Managua, one near the
U.S. embassy, which were claimed by the FPI. In the accompanying
communique, they threatened kill politicians who are continuing
to "play with the people's hunger and who aggravate the domestic
crisis." When claiming the November 23rd action, the FPI
threatened Gurdian and other right wing politicians and business
executives and stated that they wanted to rescue "the conquests
of the Sandinista revolution." (NSN Weekly Update #142 & #148)...
14. Rostock And Its Aftermath
Pogrom in Rostock
On October 3, Germany 'celebrated' the second-anniversary of
its reunification - or rather the annexation of the former German
Democratic Republic (GDR) by West Germany. Also on October 3,
both the far-right and the far-left in Germany took to the
streets in protest, the former to call for the expulsion of all
foreigners and refugees from the country, and the latter to
denounce neo-nazi violence and to demand open borders for all
refugees.
Germany's domestic political order has been greatly upset
for the past several months, particularly after a series of
racist pogroms in the former East German town of Rostock
unleashed an unprecedented wave of organized, militant attacks by
neo-nazi youth gangs throughout all of Germany. The attacks in
Rostock began on August 22 at an anti-foreigner rally in front of
a home for asylum-seekers. Despite a tip-off to police, only 20
officers were on hand when the violence began. At least 100 neo-
nazi youths smashed the windows of a building, and even though
100 extra police soon showed up, they did not intervene, and the
attacks on the refugee center continued until deep into the
night. TV images of the pogrom showed countless neighbourhood
residents standing nearby, applauding and cheering.
On Sunday night, a line of riot police could not prevent a
second night of attacks, this time by nazi youths armed with
molotov cocktails. What's more, it seemed the nazis were very
well organized. Christian Worch of the far-right National List
party from Hamburg was on hand to provide leadership, and neo-
nazi cadres with walky-talkies (and even police radios!) helped
provide organization. The obvious lack of police intervention
made it clear that at least some elements within the police force
either were quietly sympathetic, or may even have aided in
preparations for the neo-nazi attacks. This became further
evident when 100 anti-fascists were brutally dispersed when they
arrived on the scene. At least 60 anti-fascists were arrested in
Rostock on Sunday night, and many were placed in prison cells
full of neo-nazis.
By Monday, attacks on the refugee hostel in Rostock - just
like one year before in the town of Hoyerswerda - had become a
nightly event. The refugees were evacuated, in a sense meaning
that the neo-nazis had been successful. Moreover, inspired by the
events in Rostock, neo-nazis in at least 10 other German cities
rioted and attacked refugee centres on several consecutive
evenings after the initial pogroms in Rostock. And for weeks
after the events in Rostock, there were countless molotov attacks
and stabbings by neo-nazis in cities all across Germany.
The March Goes On
So far this year, over 2000 attacks on foreigners have been
carried out by fascists and neo-nazis in Germany, resulting in 15
deaths and countless injuries. Most recently, on November 20, a
Berlin squatter was killed when a group of autonomists came upon
a group of nazi youths who were beating a foreigner in a subway
station. In the ensuing clash, three of the autonomists were
stabbed, and one of them, Silvio Meier, a 27 year-old squatter,
was killed. In the nights following Silvio's death, there were
constant clashes between autonomists and neo-nazis. Autonomists
also injured at least 37 police in a militant march through
Berlin expressing their outrage at Silvio's death. Later in the
week, autonomists and Turkish youths fought against police in
riots in the neighbourhood of Kreuzberg.
The situation in Germany became further escalated on Sunday,
November 22, when neo-nazi skinheads firebombed the house of a
Turkish family, killing two Turkish women and 11 year-old Turkish
girl. Enraged at this attack, Turkish youths vowed: "Ten Germans
For Every Turk!" Nine other persons were wounded in this attack.
"Attack the Nazis Wherever They Are!"
The fact that neo-nazi gangs have been on an organized
offensive does not, however, mean that there has been no
resistance. Church groups, citizens, and Greens have organized
vigils in front of refugee centres - although it usually takes
just a few skinheads with steel-toed boots and rocks and bottles
to chase these folks away. In contrast to this approach,
autonomist ANTIFA (anti-fascist action) groups expanded their
approach of street-level confrontation with neo-nazis.
One week after the outbreak of violence in Rostock, a large
anti-fascist demonstration was held in that city. Whereas only a
handful of police were deployed to deal with the neo-nazis during
their week of attacks, upon the arrival of the ANTIFA
demonstrators, at least 2000 police were bussed into Rostock in
order to "keep the peace". In other cities as well, ANTIFA
marches were held, often resulting in confrontations with police
and gangs of neo-nazis.
On November 8, German political and business leaders
organized a massive "anti-racist" march in Berlin, mainly to
improve Germany's tarnished image in the international market.
When Chancellor Kohl - who has threatened to declare a state of
emergency in Germany so as to more easily deport refugees - tried
to march at the head of this march, he was attacked with stones
and rotting fruit and security forces had to rush him away.
German president Weizaecker was similarly prevented from
addressing the anti-racist rally when autonomists wrecked the
sound system and bombarded him with eggs. Cowering behind a
phalanx of riot police on live television, Germany's political
elite were effectively shown to be the hypocrites they really
are.
Apart from open, mass activities, autonomen in German cities
have also responded with clandestine attacks on nazi scene
structures like right-wing bars, youth centres, and far-right
political party offices. A group calling itself the "Red
Antifascist Fraction" burned down a fascist organizing center in
the city of Ahrensfelde, and in Rostock itself, just down the
block from the burned-out refugee center, the "Antonio Amadeo
Commando" (named for an Angolan beaten to death by nazis in 1990
in Eberswalde) trashed the far-right youth center "MAX". Such
attacks on nazi political/cultural structures have been
commonplace in Germany for several years, but the recent pogroms
in Rostock have given the actions a renewed sense of urgency,
particularly since the neo-nazi movement seems to be gaining in
numbers and organization. Autonomists have also carried out
attacks on governmental structures responsible for deportations
and racist asylum policies. Most recently, on November 21, a
clandestine cell fire-bombed the judicial faculty division of the
Volks-Uni university in Hamburg.
The Potential Of The Far-Right
The German government has only minimally reacted to the
recent upsurge in fascist violence. In the law courts, young
nazis are usually given lenient sentences, since the judges
usually rule that the attacks were not political, but were rather
the result of the youths' "poor, impoverished upbringing" or "too
much alchohol"; the German courts have refused to criminalize the
far-right. Many left-wing ANTIFA groups, however, have been
criminalized for some time. The entire Autonome ANTIFA scene in
the city of Gottingen has been criminalized under German law
paragraph 129a. In fact, there have been 300 cases brought
against the radical-left under paragraph 129a, while only 6
proceedings have been brought against fascists.
The far-right youth scene has also been enlivened by an
increasing number of neo-nazi rock bands. Bands such as Storkraft
rile up their fans at concerts with "Sieg Heil!" salutes and
lyrics about using flame-throwers to extinguish Jews, disabled
persons, and "gypsies". Under German law, such lyrics are
technically illegal, but only a few fascist bands have had their
songs banned. And obviously, being banned only makes them more
popular within neo-nazi youth scenes.
This lack of repression against the far-right has done much
to allow the movement's continued rise. The nazi's have seen
immediate results from their attacks: fire-bombing refugee homes
has led to refugees being moved out of certain cities; while
nazis shout "Foreigners Out!", the German government makes
payments to Romania as it deports the Roma people back to a land
where they are routinely attacked, and while the German
parliament debates the abolition of Article 16 of the German
constitution which guarantees all asylum-seekers the right to
enter Germany. Ideologically, the extreme right and the German
state are after the same ends: the German government wants to
limit and control the influx of outsiders into Germany, thus it
can effectively utilize neo-nazis as shock troops for this end.
The fact that many German police officers vote for far-right
political parties helps explain their reluctance to crack down on
protests rallies by far-right groups with whom they may tacitly
or openly feel sympathy. Thus, it is the ANTIFA movement which
has been criminalized, while the German government only pays lip
service to calls for a crack-down on far-right extremism.
There is some hope in the fact that most rank-and-file nazis
are not at all politically developed (although it would be
foolish to ignore the well-developed international ties which the
far-right movement's leadership has established). To a large
degree, young skinheads are motivated by the fact that many of
them live in the former GDR where the economic future is bleak.
Well-organized nazi organizations then channel their frustration
and energy and translate it into violence against foreigners. But
with resistance and repression, the far-right could be defeated.
The 19 year-old youth who confessed to taking part in the fatal
fire-bombing in Molln tried to commit suicide in prison. And if
nazi youths suddenly found themselves under continuous attack
from armed Turkish gangs, for example, then they would perhaps be
less confident in roaming the streets.
"Open Borders For All!"
Again, what was most frightening about the series of racist
attacks in Rostock and throughout Germany in August and September
was the degree of public support which the attacks commanded, and
the political results which the attacks had. The fact that
violence by neo-nazis was 'successful' in having refugees removed
from neighbourhoods where they were 'not wanted' is alarming. And
rather than lashing out at the far-right and calling for
solidarity with the oppressed peoples' of the world, Germany's
political leaders from all of Germany's major political parties
instead admitted that there was indeed a refugee "problem" and
that Germany's constitutional guarantee to a refugee's right to
asylum needed to be restricted.
As ever, the recent events in Germany have showed the
urgency for militant anti-racist/anti-fascist organizing. And
this organization needs to be two-fold: first, there needs to be
theoretical/ideological organizing, so as to be able to analyze,
for example, the reasons why global capitalism leads to large
numbers of refugees heading from the impoverished lands of the
South to the wealthy nations of the North, and why we should
support the call for "Open Borders For All!"; and second, the
left needs to provide both concrete solidarity with refugees by
supporting their own organizational efforts, as well as by
organizing our own militant, street-level resistance so as to
attack neo-nazis and their organizational structures wherever
they arise. Nazis should not be allowed to walk the streets
unmolested. They are like a cancer: if left unopposed, they will
continue to carry out their attacks. Anti-racists and anti-
fascists need to be just as effective at the street-level in
opposing them.
No Easy Solutions
Being effective at street level means more than only meeting
violence with violence. Militancy alone will not defeat fascism.
An anti-fascist movement must take into account the broader
perspective; it must look at the 'big picture'. For example, the
fact that fascists have been able to mobilize support,
particulary in East Germany, shows that the recent upsurge in
this activity has deeper roots. While the supposedly "real
existing" socialism in the former GDR was anti-fascist, it was so
in name only. Racism, anti-semitism, and sexism continued to
exist; simmering below the surface of East German society. The
many migrant workers brought into the GDR from other "socialist"
countries such as Vietnam, and Angola were detained in special
neighbourhoods - such as Rostock's Lichtenhagen - and kept
separate from East German society.
With reunification and the subsequent restructuring, East
German living conditions have deteriorated due to factory
closures, housing shortages and a decline in social services. The
combination of simmering racism and economic decline has made the
former GDR a fertile breeding ground for fascist organizing.
An anti-fascist strategy must take these and other issues
into account - it must avoid falling into the trap of 'single-
issue' politics. So, it has to be placed within a larger context
of the struggle against capitalism, racism, sexism, etc. There
are no easy solutions to the questions that these issues raise.
The realization that many East Germans are indeed racist is not
something that can be met only with moral condemnation or
violence - there must be dialogue and interaction. Beating them
up isn't going to necessarily turn them into an anti-fascists.
The left must offer practical alternatives; and its politics must
be relevant and accessible in relation to the everyday struggles
of not only the German working class but refugees and immigrants
who face fascist violence. Clearly, meeting organized fascist
violence requires a militant response but this can be only one
aspect of an anti-fascist strategy. This struggle must be fought
on many different levels whether on the streets, in the factories
or simply trying to win over people's "hearts and minds".
15. Three Greek Militants Arrested
Three Greek Militants Arrested
On Wednesday December 2, two men and one woman were arrested
in Athens: Jiorgos Balafas, Wasiliki Michu, and Andreas
Kiriakopulos. Jiorgos Balafas is accused of:
- founding a terrorist organization and membership in a terrorist
organization of more than two persons with the aim of murdering
persons with weapons;
- sale and possession of drugs;
- weapons construction, possession, and sale to various
organizations;
- supporting a terrorist organization;
- possession of an illegal radio transmitter;
- possession of falsified documents;
- auto theft.
Wasiliki Michu and Andreas Kiriakopulos are charged with
supporting a terrorist organization and the possession of
falsified documents. According to the cops, Jiorgos Balafas is
alleged to have taken part in the following actions:
- the shooting of state prosecutor Theofanopulu in April '85;
this action was claimed by the group "Anti-State Action" [now
called "1st of May Commando"].
- a shoot-out in Gizi, during which three cops were shot, as was
one of Balafas' alleged helpers, Christos Tsutsuvis; May '85.
- a shoot-out in Kalogrezas, during which the alleged leader of
"Anti-State Action", Michalis Prekas, was killed; October '87.
- a bomb-attack in Exarchia, for which Kiriakos Mavrokopos has
been sentenced; November '90.
- a bomb-attack in Sepolia; November '86.
- a bank robbery in Galatsi; May '86.
- attacks on groups of police carried out by the groups "November
17" and "Revolutionary Resistance"
- the shooting of a CIA agent in December '75.
Balafas has been sought by the cops for several years now,
and the Greek press has been portraying him as a "leading
terrorist". The press has repeatedly spread lies about him. The
conservative New Democracy government claimed in 1989 that
Balafas had ties with both November 17 and the social democratic
party PASOK. Many of the files regarding this case have been
burned by the police, leading to speculation that either they are
withholding information or preparing for more arrests.
The three arrested militants were observed for months and
were arrested in an intensive police raid during a party with
friends. Allegedly, police found a cache of weapons, hand
grenades, false documents, and drugs, as well as a car with a
fake licence plate. Shortly after the arrests, Greek TV uncovered
a scandal when the head of the police and a high-ranking general
gave conflicting accounts of what had been seized, etc. In the
end, the Greek interior minister resigned and publicly apologized
for some of the false information which was stated regarding the
number of weapons seized, etc. In the press as well, the cops
were made to look foolish on account of their blood-thirsty raid
on Balafas' house.
Balafas and the other two militants arrested did not make
any statements whatsoever to the police.
Nonetheless, a short press-release was issued by Balafas:
"The program of lies from the police over the last few years has
now reached its high-point. The press has also played its role in
this, by portraying me as 'the most dangerous and unpredictable
terrorist in Greece'. And the cops, who accuse me of having
weapons and explosives, have now added drugs to the list. I have
not killed or wounded anyone. I demand that these lies be
publicly set right. I have not made a statement to police,
because I do not want to become a victim of their so-called
'anti-terror campaign'. Cops lie today, just as they always have,
just because my ideas and my way of life are radically opposed to
the existing system and its values - and many people think this
way! That makes us dangerous to them, but it has nothing to do
with these charges. The people arrested with me are my personal
friends, and they have be detained so that our number might
constitute a "group". Oppose the 'anti-terror' program which
foreign capital is financing and which our government is
directing against the people and all of Greek society! In the
face of lies, truth will prevail! I will make a more lengthy
statement sometime in the future."
The three prisoners are being very heavily guarded. Friends
and relatives of the arrested militants have been putting
pressure on the state prosecutor demanding their release. Shortly
before the arrests, November 17 became active again, bombing
Athens' financial district in response to tax increases announced
by the conservative government.
(From Interim #220)
16. "500 Years of Rape and Hate - We Refuse to Celebrate!" -
International Tribunal Of Indigenous Peoples And Oppressed
Nations In The USA
From October 2-4 there was an "International Tribunal of
North American Native and Oppressed Peoples" in San Francisco.
Organized by AIM (American Indian Movement) and supported by
representatives of the Puerto Rican, New Afrikan, and Mexican
peoples movements, as well as progressive white groups, the
conference dealt with the 500th anniversary of the beginning of
European colonialism on the American continent.
Francis Boyle, professor of international law and key-note
speaker, who also addressed the political prisoners' tribunal in
New York in 1990, drew sharp parallels between the Nazi system
and the U.S. government. Other speakers included David
Cunningham, who also worked on the New York tribunal, as well as
other lawyers and experts.
Twenty witnesses, including a representative of the native
population of Hawaii as well as a long-time political prisoner of
the Puerto Rican independence movement, Rafael Cancel Miranda,
imprisoned along with other comrades for a 1954 shooting incident
inside the U.S. Congress, spoke against the U.S. government's
genocide, violation of human rights, and detention of prisoners
of war. Their statement had been delivered to the U.S. attorney
general ten days previously.
After several hours of testimony and jury deliberation, the
five female "judges" and two male "judges" from Spain, native
Canada, West Germany, the Philippines, and the U.S. (native
American, Asian-American, African-American/New Afrikan) found the
U.S. government guilty on all counts.
Part of the tribunal also consisted of conferences, a
cultural evening, and a women's podium, as well as work groups on
racism, homophobia, political prisoners/prisoners of war, as well
as information tables from various groups. The welcoming address
from the prisoners of the RAF and the German resistance [see next
page - ed.] was well received.
Approximately 1200 people took part in the Tribunal and the
other activities around the campaign of "500 Years of
Resistance", which received a fair amount of press on the West
coast. On October 11, there was a demo of about 7000 people to
oppose the Columbus Day celebrations in San Francisco. A "peace
navy" in the harbour successfully prevented the landing of
replicas of Columbus' ships. The day before, AIM had successfully
prevented a similar pro-Columbus celebration from taking place in
Denver, Colorado.
During the San Francisco anti-Columbus demo, fighting broke
out with police and approximately 40 people were arrested. Some
comrades were stuck with felony charges for fire-bombing a police
car.
(Adapted from Angehorigen Info #105 and Ides #612/613)
17. Anti-Columbus Actions In Latin America
Latin America was the site of massive native protests on
October 12 in opposition to the official celebrations of the
500th anniversary of the re-discovery of the continent by
Columbus. There was a mixture of mass protests and militant
actions.
Columbia: More than 10,000 natives wanted to demonstrate in
Popayan in southern Columbia, but we confronted by the armed
forces. More than 20 persons were wounded. Street barricades were
set up in many other regions throughout Columbia. Bombs caused
material damage in Bogota and Barranquilla.
Peru: In Cuszco (the former Inca capital) more than 40,000 native
peasants gathered to remember the "victims of the invasion" and
the "heroes of the resistance in the Andes". In Lima, guerrillas
blew up a bank office in a wealthy neighbourhood.
Equador: In Sierra, streets were blockaded with stones and
construction materials. Native also occupied several
establishments. There was a protest march to Quito under the
motto "500 Years of Resistance" involving 10,000 people.
Bolivia: Several natives, mostly Ketschuas and Aymaras, gathered
in La Paz. There, an "association of native peoples" was to be
established.
Chile: There were several press conferences, especially in
Temuco, where Mapuches had been protesting for months to get back
their land which had been stolen by white settlers. In Santiago,
a bomb damaged the Spanish embassy.
Mexico: The Maya Council in Yucatan called for protests in every
small village. There was also a ceremony by several thousand
natives to celebrate "the fact that we have retained our fighting
spirit".
18. Message From German Political Prisoners To The Tribunal
To the participants of the International Tribunal "500 Years
of resistance against genocide, colonialism and political
internment".
Here we send to you our warmest solidarity greetings of the
political prisoners in Germany. This tribunal will be an
outstanding event in the history of 500 years of resistance
against genocide and colonialism. It is integrated in a multitude
of activities during this year, all over the world as an
expression of the growing consciousness, that this continual
history of extermination of human life can only be changed when
we all join together internationally.
Today, with this consciousness and our experience from
resistance, our pain and the sorrow of people, but mainly our
hopes we can turn them into a common weapon: against the power of
the elite, against the deeply inhuman system.
Also in Europe many people are involved in the "500 years
campaign". We hope that this will be the beginning of an
intensive political work together which will help us to receive
answers for the questions urging all over. We'll only find real
answers when we carry our struggles for essential changes in an
international context. Even if may problems seem to be, at first
sight, limited regionally and nationally, the people of the Three
Continents and those of the metropolis are confronted with the
same basic problems. The globalized circumstances with which we
are confronted today, require common answers in a situation in
which the right to live is fundamentally called in question for
the majority of the people in the world. It is a vicious circle
of poverty and destruction of the natural living conditions and
out of the current world market-structure. Our whole future and
life depends on that we break through this circle by working
together internationally; understanding and discussion is
necessary between us, how to achieve a human perspective against
the destructive world order. For that the experiences of the
struggles have the same importance as the ideas to resolve these
problems, which quo and we want to develop now. Our hope for the
future is that there will be a development of intensive
interrelationship on the basis of mutual respect and solidarity.
When we have had a visit in prison from Puerto Ricans, from
members of the Black community in the USA or members of the
American Indian Movement and from Latin America, we could see
numerous possibilities and richness materializing from this
mutual respect and solidarity.
The liberation of the political prisoners and of the
prisoners of war all over the world is one of the concrete
political developments, on which this process will arise. In
Western Europe there are more than 2,000 political prisoners.
They are from struggles for self-determination and social
revolution. Also in Europe the ruling classes are violating basic
principles on international law and human rights. The legitimate
struggles are declared as "terrorism". We, the political
prisoners in Germany are part of the revolutionary struggles
during the last 25 years; one of us Irmgard Moller is in solitary
confinement since 1972, sentenced because of armed attacks
against the U.S. war in Vietnam. The internationalism, the
solidarity and the common fight with the people in the south and
the oppressed people of all continents is an elementary thing
since our beginning. It is the basis of our politics and
practice, that makes the possibilities for changing ascertainable
and real. And today we will resist as well any attempt to
liquidate these politics. We are imprisoned because we are
fighting to build up a revolutionary front in Western Europe,
which is part of the international movement for radical change of
the ruling system based on exploitation. For 22 years the German
State has tried to destroy us by all means, because we are
holding onto our struggle; the state is doing this with special
counterinsurgency programs, criminalization, solitary
confinement, etc. Our aims and conditions of detention unite us
with the political prisoners all over the world. At this stage we
extend solidarity greetings to Leonard Peltier, Mumia Abu Jamal
and Alejandrina Torres...!
In your appeal you say that this international tribunal will
help to organize the next 500 years in a completely different
way: that the world will live on through the solidarity of the
people, in which their own cultural identity is free and all
people will be able to share the rich resources of the earth by
saving the environment. We, the political prisoners are part in
this struggle and are involved in these discussions.
We are very conscious of the special responsibility in this
development that the people have in the metropolis, and
especially today while Germany is on its way to become a world
power. During the last 10 years, the propagated victory of the
"free market economy" has drastically intensified the misery of
the majority of the people in the world and the economic,
military and cultural attacks against them.
We are confronted very directly with the results of this
terroristic policy against the poor people and against those who
are pressed into a status as refugees. In Europe and especially
in Germany now we can see once more an escalation in racism that
is stimulated by the state but spreading also inside great parts
of society. Europe is building up to be a fortress to keep the
wealth for a small elite and to keep the standard of living for a
decreasing number of the metropolitan society.
However, this violent attempt to find a way out of the
capitalistic worldwide crisis will not be successful, because
this system isn't able to give any future for the human race and
a chance for the survival of the either in the imperialistic
states nor in the plundered and dependent nations.
The future is in our hands; the oppressed people, the people
who are denied any voice in the world-development. We are the
ones who will formulate our aims and our own conception for the
worldwide social development, for our own live and future
generations.
This tribunal is one step on the way forward.
Freedom now for all political prisoners and all prisoners of
war worldwide!
Prisoners from the guerilla and resistance in Germany.
September 21, 1992
19. Interview With Dr. Luis Nieves Falcon - Co-ordinator Of
Ofensiva '92
Could you tell us a bit about what Ofensiva '92 is, and what were
the reasons behind organizing the campaign?
Ofensiva '92 is what one could call a civic organization or
movement which includes persons from all the social classes,
political ideologies, sexes and ages. It is a national effort in
Puerto Rico to bring to the attention of the Puerto Rican people
on the island, and to the outside world the fact that we have
political prisoners, that they have been illegally sentenced and
imprisoned by the U.S. government, and in addition to the
illegality of these sentences and imprisonment, their human
rights are continuously violated.
We say their human rights are being continuously violated
taking into consideration the international treaty that has been
signed by various countries including the U.S. on the treatment
of prisoners. All the rules that are applicable in that treaty,
signed by the U.S. and other signatory nations, are violated
constantly in the treatment of the Puerto Rican political
prisoners. We feel that this constant violation and oppression
and harassment of Puerto Rican political prisoners is one way to
break their spirit and at the same time create fear and try to
prevent the growing feeling for independence and the growing
feeling for recognizing the brutality of the treatment by the
U.S.
How may political prisoners and Prisoners of War are currently
being held by the U.S.?
At the moment we have 19 political prisoners and Prisoners
of War. Six months ago there were 16, and last month there were
18, so we know that the number will continue growing as the
repression geared towards harassing supporters of freedom for
Puerto Rican increases. At the moment we have 19.
What kinds of organizing are being looked at both in Puerto Rico
and amongst the Puerto Rican community in the U.S.?
Our organizing efforts are, I think, three-fold. Our main
target actually is the Puerto Rican community. So we are
organizing support committees in every municipality of the
island. At the moment we have support committees in 30 out of the
70 municipalities on the island. And each one of them has a
varied calendar of programs and activities geared fundamentally
to letting the people know who the political prisoners are, so
that they may become acquainted with them, to let them know what
the reasons are that they have been incarcerated, and third, to
raise consciousness so that the people start calling for their
immediate liberation.
I feel, by the kinds of activities that are going on every
month on the island, that we are increasingly meeting these
objectives. On the other hand, we are inviting sister
organizations in the U.S. and organizations in the Puerto Rican
communities in the U.S. to follow the same example. At the moment
we already have 12 support committees in cities in the Eastern
part of the U.S. that are not Puerto Rican, but which are
organizations that are in solidarity with our cause, that are
working on the issue also.
Our third level is the international level, where I think we
have been quite successful. For example, for the first time we
have been able to get the Commission on human Rights in Geneva to
take notice that there are political prisoners in the U.S. and
that their rights have been violated. And the commission, as
normal procedure, has informed the U.S. of these complaints and
they have requested the U.S. to answer the charges that we have
presented to the Commission. This is more important precisely at
this moment since we know the strong pressures and the strong
power that the U.S. exerts throughout all the organizing of the
U.N.
In addition to that we are in the process of challenging the
violation of human rights in the Organization of American States
(O.A.S.). The O.A.S. has traditionally been controlled by the
U.S>, to such an extent that their main offices are in
Washington. It has a commission of human rights and we have
already placed a petition to the commission on human rights of
the O.A.S. to examine the violation of the U.S. We are also
frequent speakers at all of the international forums of the non-
aligned countries and other international forums interested in
human rights.
In the U.S. itself, we have been lobbying some of the
Congress people, trying to interest them in the violations that
daily occur against the Puerto Rican political prisoners and two
weeks ago four congress persons sent a letter to the Bureau of
Prisons inquiring about the violations we have reported to them.
So in a sense I think that we are progressing in the
international arena.
You have given the campaign the title "Ofensiva '92" and of
course 1992 is becoming a very significant year for many
communities. Of course it is being celebrated in some segments of
society as the 500 anniversary of the so-called discovery of the
Americas by Columbus. For many people it is a different legacy
and we are seeing the native communities in particular organizing
and celebrating 500 years of resistance. Similarly, the African-
American communities are organizing celebrations of their own
resistance to slavery, which was an inevitable result of
Columbus' invasion of the continent. What is the relevance of
1992 to the Puerto Rican people?
1992 is very relevant to the Puerto Rican people in
particular to the political prisoners and Prisoners of War,
because in a sense these comrades represent the resistance
against oppression. In a sense they are the recipients of the
legacy of resistance to colonialism in the spanish times by the
Native Americans and the slaves and the white presence. And our
presence in a way are the ones who have continued that tradition
of resistance. In that sense 1992 symbolizes not only the
conquest and the colonial domination of the Americas by the
European powers, but it also is a very definite representation of
the long tradition of resistance of Native Americans and Blacks
in the Americas.
Also by attaching the number '92' we want to signify that
this year we will increase all our efforts for the freedom of our
patriots and that we expect that the efforts will crystallize in
some concrete efforts towards their liberation.
When you talk about the prisoners today being the legacy of the
continued resistance of the Puerto Rican people to that kind of
genocide and colonialism, which is ongoing in the U.S. at this
point but from other countries before that, do you hope that
Ofensiva '92 will act in the same way as the campaign to free the
4 Puerto Rican prisoners a few years ago who had been in prison
for 20 years or more?
I would say that at the moment in the liberal sectors and
radical sectors of Puerto Rico society on the island there is no
unifying theme. We are hoping that the campaign for the
liberation of the political prisoners will be the unifying trend
amongst all the radical and progressive sectors of Puerto Rican
society. And that even the moderates, due to the human rights
issues included in it, will finally give the support to this
campaign for freedom in view of the fact that the political
prisoners and Prisoners of War, the only reason that they are in
jail is that they are anti-colonial combatants and very clearly
under international law anti-colonial combatants are not to be
persecuted by the colonial power, but would either be judged by
an international body, or should be allowed to receive asylum in
a neutral country. In the same way, these international
institutes forbid the oppressor country to criminalize the anti-
colonial combatants and the U.S. has always violated what is very
clearly stated by the international institutes.
(This interview took place March 1992 on CKLN, a progressive
radio station in Toronto, Canada.)
20. Puerto Rican News Shorts
On November 3, the New Progressive Party which supports U.S.
statehood for Puerto Rico won the governorship and the majority
of municipalities in the Puerto Rican general elections.
According to the Movimento Amplio de Pueblo (Broad People's
Movement - BPM), a recount shows that environmentalist candidate
Neftali Garcia won 70,189 votes in the election (3.8 % of the
total), some 12,000 more than in the first tabulation. The Puerto
Rican Independence Party came in behind with 3.3 %. According to
the BPM this error shows the State Election Commissions bias in
favour of the registered parties... On November 20, 1992, the New
York City Council, by a vote of 36 to 9 passed a resolution
asking the United Nations Decolonization Committee to urge the
United States Government to declare a general amnesty for all
Puerto Rican political prisoners and prisoners. The political
prisoners have also finally received the support of Amnesty
International, after 12 long years of struggle... According to a
report in a Navy magazine, for the first time in 10 years, Navy
practice manoeuvres on the Puerto Rican island of Vieques
included the dropping of napalm bombs. A Navy spokesperson stated
that because of the situation created among high-level officials
as result of the report, the practice would probably stop. He
also stated that the bombings were being done under controlled
conditions and the nearest home was 10 miles away. ... On
November 30, Carlo Pineiro, a leader of the Puerto Rican
independence movement died at age 37. He had worked tirelessly
for the release of Puerto Rican political prisoners being held in
the U.S., and his efforts led to the successful New York City
resolution.
21. Imperialist Peace Is War! - Excerpt From The Wotta Sitta
Document "Imperialist Peace Is War!"
In previous issues of Arm The Spirit we have printed
statements and letters from the Italian communist prisoners
collective Wotta Sitta. In A.T.S. #12 we published a letter from
some Wotta Sitta comrades who were on trial in Rome. At the end
of this trial they wrote a long paper called "Imperialist Peace
Is War!" in which they analyzed the present world-wide political
reality. In this excerpt they discuss, among other things, the
500 Years of Resistance campaigns.
Crisis And War
"Our epoch, the epoch of the bourgeoisie, possesses, however,
this distinctive feature: It has simplified the class
antagonisms. Society as a whole is more and more splitting into
two great camps, into two great classes directly facing each
other - bourgeoisie and proletariat." (Marx, Engels)
1. Last year saw an intensification of the imperialist
bourgeoisie's class rule around the world, under the pressure of
monopoly capital, which is trying to overcome the unresolved
crisis of the 70's by speeding up the process of the
concentration, centralization, and internalization of capital.
This process is leading (by itself) to a profound alteration
in the shape of class rule. On the one hand, it is leading to a
number of growing and explosive contradictions, which are multi-
productive and multinational, among states and economic areas,
thus making clear the inherent limits of the era of globalization
and economic interdependence. On the other hand, this same
process results in a direct attack against the living conditions
of billions of proletarians and people around the world, through
the ruthless policies that the G7, World Bank, NATO and the ONU,
as supranational bodies of capitalism, are controlling and
defining.
The Gulf War has been the clearest and most visible
demonstration of this intensified class rule, and of
imperialism's determination to accept no questions about its
interests and international settlements of power. The 90s are
beginning with the most logical and realistic scenario for
imperialism in this epoch: war and the reports of war that
characterize the today's struggle, and the consequent tragic
results of this barbaric domination over human life.
The might and power of the West hasn't translated into a
"new world order", rather it has translated into a period of
great confusion and upset, of rising conflict and instability.
The ending of the world order established at Yalta is proving to
be more complicated and traumatic than expected. The costs of
the Yalta settlement were the dead of WW II; and what the U.S.-
led imperialist powers are trying to impose will not cost any
less. Let us leave to the reformists and revisionists their
dangerous illusions and lies; we prefer to remember the lessons
of history: history has shown that when a balance of power
collapses, a new war is inevitable and necessary in order to
build up another balance of power. From Versailles to Yalta,
to...
Imperialism is war. War has always been the way by which the
bourgeoisie tries to resolve its crisis, by unloading the cost
of its propagation and reproduction on the proletarian class in a
destructive manner.
Also, today the war cannot be considered to have been
finished with the victory of the western alliance in the Gulf
War, because we have already seen, in this last decade of the
century, a lot of wars breaking out in the various geo-political
areas of the world. War is coming back again even in Europe, with
broad and rising armed conflicts and civil wars occurring,
particularly in the former Yugoslavia and the former USSR.
This scenario, which, tragically, we are seeing daily,
assumes specific characteristics and develops precisely in this
area that is the true nerve center of the entire planet, because
it is crossed by all of the contradictions of this epoch. The
principal and predominant one is between proletariat and
bourgeoisie; the explosion between the North and South of the
world that generates the inter-imperialist economic and political
conflict that already exists and which tends to develop among the
world powers in their dividing up and domination of the world.
The European imperialist bourgeoisie is speeding
up the necessary steps that cannot be given up (even though these
steps are contradictory) to put forward the economic, political
and military integration process of the european states in order
to be a bloc, i.e. a political subject being able to establish
homogenous policies that are binding internally and significantly
to advance on the rest of the world.
"1992" is not to be merely a formal celebration of the birth
of the "European Union", but the moment for the practical
realization of its basic passage as a whole and a turning point
in its fulfilment. Therefore the "European Union" is an
advancement of class rule in the entire continental area and of
its imperialist projection in the other areas of the world,
beginning with the Mediterranean-Middle East, as shown already
with its active involvement in the Gulf war.
Europe wants to take part and does take part as a
protagonist in the "new world order". In Italy it is enough to
remember the actions against the Iraqi people by the "heroes"
Bellini and Cocciolone and their other stooges a year ago; the
air-lifts to get rid of the Albanian refugees and control them in
their own country, from now on little more than a new Italian
protectorate; and the increasing political and military missions
in Yugoslavia, a true backyard of De Michelis and his stooges, or
in far off El Salvador.
Obviously, the aims of "Great Germany", England and France
and the resurrected Spain are not any less, and they can rely on
a considerable legacy of world colonization. "1992" sees the
European states aiming at the conquest and exploitation of
resources and peoples, just like 500 years ago.
The proletarian in Europe and around the world have felt for
a longtime the new quality of the struggle and they have never
stopped their resistance against the capitalist strategies that
are more and more destructive and directed only towards profit.
The proletarian struggles, the liberation and freedom processes,
have to deal with a huge advancement in the repressive counter-
revolution that heavily marked many revolutionary experiences and
which are trying to prevent the coming together of new
experiences. Nevertheless, one can already see many features of a
passage to a new revolutionary age marked by a deeper struggle,
wherein the proletarian struggle throughout the world is more and
more connected and linked against the common enemy. The mass
mobilizations and the initiatives of the revolutionary forces
within the areas of the imperialist 'centres', as well as those
of the Third World, during the Gulf War, have undoubtedly
contributed to strengthening the ground of anti-imperialism and
proletarian internationalism. The varied examples of proletarian
resistance and the many revolutionary initiatives that are
starting to strike and sabotage all of the processes
characterizing "1992" are moving in this same direction. Such
processes are seen by the proletariat as a capitalist turning
point under the guise of "deregulation" and reaction.
This is a tendency that sees the intensification of
exploitation, the widening of unemployment and marginalization,
the worsening of living standards, along with a more and more
alienated life, and more and more the imposition of repressive,
fascist, and racist policies against those people that are
pressing against the borders of "Fortress Europe".
500 years ago the "conquest of the Americas" was the
beginning of a new age and of a european policy of oppression
against the countries and peoples possessing resources and wealth
that enabled the establishment of world colonization and
domination, and rule for rising capitalism and its emerging
class.
But that was not all; the increasing impoverishment of these
peoples - the basis for the progress of the "developed and
civilized Europe" - was often accompanied by extermination.
As Marx wrote in "Capital": "The discovery of gold and
silver in America, the extirpation, enslavement and entombment in
mines of the aboriginal population, the beginning of the conquest
and looting of the East Indies, the turning of Africa into a
warren for the commercial hunting of black-skins, signalled the
rosy dawn of the era of capitalist production. These idyllic
processes are the chief momenta of primitive accumulation"
Historical research measures the quality of these "idyllic
processes": in 1500 the population of the world was 400 million,
80 million of which were in America. After 50 years, there
remained only 10 million of these 80 million. In Mexico, at the
time of the conquest there were about 25 million, in 1600 there
were only 1 million.
This is the historical meaning of the proceedings that
capitalism wants to celebrate with its endless productions around
the "Fifth Centennial of the Discovery of the Americas". If
European countries are once again taking the lead in these
initiatives, it isn't simply out of a spirit of celebration, but
rather it is a highlighting of the present rights of capitalist
accumulation which are most advantageous to the world's big
monopolies. It is a neo-colonialism in which the EEC, as the main
character and protagonist, attempts to win the growing resources
and spaces for exploitation in the Three Continents, in
competition with U.S. and Japanese capital. Penetration by
European capital is the form that the "conquest" takes today: a
new dividing up of the world.
The threads of the proletarian struggles that are linking up
in the various geographical areas of the world against U.S.,
European and Japanese imperialism are making concrete a new
proletarian internationalism. This new proletarian
internationalism is radically questioning and fighting against
the basic premises of the rise and development of the
capitalistic social formations.
The political and economic strategies that are guiding
capitalist reorganization have for many years produced rising
social and class contradictions that define the features of, and
extent of, the class war at this stage. There is a huge scale
process of proletarianization, due to the changes in the
international division of labour that is characterizing the
present half of this century. The advance of capitalism had
forced most of the world's population in a proletarian condition,
and this increasingly prevents almost any possibility of a non-
capitalist existence, both in the center and periphery's areas,
in the North as well as in the South and East of the world. More
and more, every human being is directly confronted with the "bare
profit law"; the inhuman effect of an oppressive and destructive
process on humanity, nature and the environment. It is a process
of unprecedented dimension because this time capitalism
intervenes directly against them for its exploitive,
reproductive, and expansionist needs.
Having reached complete maturity at this stage of
metropolitan capitalism's advanced development, this combination
of factors results more and more in an increase and expansion of
social unrest and conflict, throwing a growing number of men and
women into a dimension of class struggle. At the same time, it
establishes a terrain of objective connections between the
struggles of the proletariat and the people of the world against
the economic, political and military system that has
historically imposed itself, and which revolves around the U.S.
at the present, and against its new deployment over the last few
years.
In Europe, to struggle against all of the policies that are
pushing forward the dynamics of European integration and that
extend imperialism's advancement in the world, means to have an
awareness that in Europe, now more than before, many of the
confrontation lines between imperialism and revolution, as well
as between neo-colonialism and liberation struggles, are
converging. It also means to concretely stand by the campesinos,
natives and revolutionary forces against the "500 Year"
celebration, so that they can raise their voices "against the
ignominy of the colonial, neo-colonial and imperialist
oppression, with the aim to consolidate our identity and to
fortify our liberation struggle throughout all the continent".
(Quito Statement, by Campesinos-Indigenous Organization)
(For more information or copies of other writings by Wotta Sitta
please write to our Canadian address.)
22. Free Sundiata Acoli!
After 20 long, hard years, Sundiata Acoli, ex-Black Panther,
is coming up for parole in early 1993. Because of his outstanding
achievements, New Jersey Department of Corrections recently
restored all of the "good time" they had taken from him during
the early 70's; which made him immediately eligible for parole.
Yet the parole board plans to give him a 10 year "hit", meaning,
"Do 10 more years!" We are asking all people concerned about
justice to write the parole board today, demanding that Sundiata
be released when he comes up for parole. Send personal and form
letters and signature petitions to:
The New Jersey State Parole Board
CN-862
Trenton, NJ
08625 USA
(609) 292 4257
Also send a copy of your letter or petition to:
Sundiata Acoli Freedom Campaign
P.O. Box 5538, Manhattanville Station
Harlem, NY
10027 USA
(203) 966 9048
This will help his attorney, Jill Soffiyah Elijah, (718) 575 4460
(Work); (718) 575 4478 (FAX); (718) 282 3576 (Home), verify to
the parole board that the letters and petitions were sent.
A Bit Of History About Sundiata
In 1973, Sundiata and Assata Shakur were captured after a
shoot-out on the New Jersey Turnpike during which their companion
Zayd Shakur and a state trooper, Werner Foerster, were killed.
Following a highly publicized trial, Sundiata was convicted
and sentenced to life at Trenton State Prison. There he was
confined for 5 years in a MCU isolation cell which was smaller
then the SPCA's space requirement for a 90 lb. German Shepherd
dog. He was then secretly transferred over 1,000 miles to the
infamous Federal Penitentiary at Marion, Illinois, although he
had no federal charges or convictions. An entrance physical exam
showed that Sundiata had been heavily exposed to tuberculosis
while he was at Trenton Prison. Even so, for the next 8 years at
Marion, he was confined 23 hours per day in an isolation cell
containing only a stone bed, toilet bowl and sink. Finally in
1987, Sundiata was transferred to general population at
Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary, Kansas.
Sundiata has had only one minor disciplinary infraction in
the last 10 years. At Leavenworth he has maintained a straight
"A" average in all his college courses while earning diplomas in
both Desktop Computers and Paralegal Real Estate Law. He has also
received "above average" job-performance ratings and he has
worked 7 days per week for the last 5 years as a cellblock
janitor.
Because of his outstanding record, the New Jersey Department
of Corrections recently restored the 2.5 years of "good time" he
had lost while confined in Trenton's MCU Unit; which made him
immediately eligible for parole. Yet the New Jersey Parole Board
plans to "hit" him with 10 more years when he comes up for
parole. For Sundiata, already 56 years old and infected with
tuberculosis, that will amount to a death sentence. Write the
parole board today, and demand that Sundiata be released at his
parole hearing.
Write To Sundiata!
Sundiata Acoli #39794-066
P.O. Box 1000
Leavenworth, KS
66048 USA
(Adapted from a leaflet by the Sundiata Acoli Freedom Campaign.)
23. Interview With Abdul Majid - Black Liberation Army Political
Prisoner
The following is an edited transcript of an interview that took
place October 7/92 on CKLN, a progressive radio station in
Toronto, Canada.
Could you give us an update on, and maybe a bit of a background
to, the case of the Queens 2?
Right. The case stems from a shooting incident in the spring
of 1981, in the county of Queens, which is in New York City. Two
police officers, during the course of their tour, pulled over a
van during the early morning, and two men allegedly got out of
the van and opened fire on the police. As a result one police
officer was killed and one was wounded.
Myself and my co-defendant, Bashir Hameed, were subsequently
marked as the individuals who allegedly were involved in the
shooting. And as a result of that, warrants were taken out for
our arrest. I was arrested in January of 1982 and Bashir was
arrested in August of 1981.
We went to trial on the charge of murder and attempted
murder of police officers back in 1982 which resulted in a hung
jury on the murder charge and we were convicted of one of the
lesser charges of attempted murder of one of the officers.
We were tried again in 1983 and that ended with a 8 to 4, 9
to 3 verdict of jurors leaning towards acquittal. After this
second trial we were tried again in 1986, which resulted in our
conviction on the murder charge. So we were tried three times on
the same indictment, and presently, in 1992, we are back in
Queens on an appeal, not an appeal actually, but an evidentiary
hearing on an appeal resulting from the murder conviction. The
hearing begins on the 13th.
The purpose of the hearing is to determine whether or not
during the course of the third trial the prosecutor used his
preemptory challenges, which each side had, to exclude a certain
number of jurors - whether or not the prosecutor used his
preemptory challenge to prevent Blacks from being on the jury.
So we can see that the prosecutor was running a very political
prosecution against you and Bashir. They don't try too many
people three times in order to get a conviction - especially
after two hung juries. What sort of tactics did you see the
prosecution using, besides as you mentioned the jury selection
and the barring of Black jurors. Did they do anything else in
terms of manipulating evidence against you?
The case was very highly publicized, and it was political.
One of the reason for that was that both Bashir and I were former
members of the Black Panther Party, as well as being still very
politically active in the New York/New Jersey area, in the
Afrikan-American community, and working with the progressive
white community as well as with the Latino community. And so we
were pretty well known from our Black Panther Party days, and
through our still active involvement. So, we became the likely
suspects.
In the third trial not only did the prosecutor do everything
possible to eliminate Blacks from the jury, as well as other
Third World and non-white people, but he also manipulated
evidence. Evidence was withheld from the defence. One example of
withheld evidence was the reports that were made by the
investigating officers. At the first trial we were given about
350 or 370 of these, and by the third trial we had been given
about a total of 400. After the third trial I instituted a
Freedom of Information suit to find out what stuff the police and
prosecution had in their possession pertaining to the case. I
just recently learned that they had some 3000 documents in their
possession, and we were given only approximately 400 of these
documents. So now we are in the process of trying to obtain these
documents to see what other materials there are that may have
been helpful to exonerate us, or to explore other areas that the
prosecution could have but refused to for whatever reason. So we
are waiting for these documents now.
Also, there was a manipulation of witnesses who were
arrested across the south-eastern part of the U.S. and they were
brought to New York to give testimony about matters which they
had no knowledge of. There was also manipulation of the
fingerprints that were supposedly lifted off the van that was
involved in the shooting. Police officers themselves got on the
stand and deliberately perjured themselves and gave false
testimony, and this was common practice. So these are the sorts
of things that went on during the third trial.
Did the witnesses and people supporting you and Bashir face a lot
of harassment by the police and the state? I know that in other
political trials, particulary of people whose testimony conflicts
with the story that the state tries to put together, they are
often faced with really high levels of intimidation and violence
directed against them in order to silence them or get them to
change their story. Were there any instances of this in your
case?
Well, yes, in fact this is what was done; this is what I was
referring to when I said that there were people dragged in from
across the south-eastern part of United States. They went as far
as South Carolina, and people were arrested and held under order
of protective custody. Friends of mine and Bashir's were
arbitrarily arrested. These were people who had given statements
to the police during the course of their investigation, and over
a period of time they were coerced into changing their prior
statements, in order to conform with what the police wanted them
to testify to, and this was in contrast to their original
statements that the police had gotten during the course of their
investigation. It was at least six or seven people who were
brought into court in this fashion - under protest you know - but
nonetheless they were coerced into testifying. In fact, one of
the witnesses came back and he recanted his original statement
that he had made on the stand during the third trial, and he told
the court and the jury about what had been done to him. And the
jury nonetheless convicted us. This is just a small glimpse of
what was being done to other witnesses who were brought in and
intimidated.
Also, I might add, that at least three witnesses received
reward money. There were some $30,000 in reward money, and one
witness, who was a taxi-driver who had not witnessed the
shooting, but who had picked up two men in the vicinity of the
shooting, in 1982 he appeared at a preliminary trial hearing on
the identification issue to see if he could identify Bashir or
myself, and he unequivocally said that he did not see the two men
that he picked up in his taxi in court at the present time. In
1986, during the third trial this man was called to testify - he
did not testify at the first or second trial - and he positively
identified Bashir and myself as the two men that he had picked up
on the day in question. It was learned later that he was also a
recipient of some of the $30,000 reward money that was put up by
the police department and the Policeman's Benevolent Association
of New York City.
And there were also two other witnesses - a taxi-driver and
his passenger - one identified both of us and one identified
Bashir as being the persons they saw exit the van, shoot the
police, and then get back in the van and drive away. And they got
some of the reward money. In fact, one of them, the one who
identified both Bashir and myself, was subjected to hypnosis, and
so his whole identification was questionable because in his pre-
hypnotic statement he identified the two men as being in their
early twenties and 5'6 or 5'7 in height, and around 150 pounds in
weight. At the time, I was 32 and Bashir was roughly 39; I'm 6'3
and Bashir is about 6'1, so the descriptions were totally at odds
with what became his testimony in court. And again, these
contradictions were raised during the first two trials, and
apparently the jury didn't buy it, but I guess it was due to the
pressure that was applied to the jurors because the first two
trials they deliberated a week before coming back with a verdict
- the result of the first trial being a compromise verdict, and
at the second trial they could not reach a verdict.
You mentioned that both you and Bashir were working with the
Black Panther Party (BPP). Could you tell us something of your
own political development and your involvement in the Black
Liberation Movement, and what sorts of activities led you to
become a target of the government?
Back in the latter part of the 1960's, J. Edgar Hoover, who
was then the head of the FBI, had made a statement that he
believed the BPP to be the most dangerous organization in
existence. He characterized it as a terrorist organization, an
extremist organization, a militant radical organization, etc.,
etc. It was his position that the BPP should be destroyed at all
cost; and you are probably familiar with the infamous COINTELPRO
program which has been divulged by members of Congress, as well
as by people in the legal and political community, and they have
gone into great detail about the tactics that were used by the
FBI to disrupt and destroy the BPP.
I'll give you a short history of the BPP. It was started by
Huey Newton and Bobby Seale in 1966, as a result of the police
brutality that was rampant in the Afrikan-American community and
Latino and other non-white communities in America. The Party put
its emphasis primarily on controlling police in the Afrikan-
American community, and this was done in a lawful manner. It
started out in Oakland, California, and then spread throughout
California. It then grew and expanded to become national and
international. Our focus went from just the issue of police
brutality to encompassing the whole issue of the right to self-
determination of Afrikan-American people, that is, the right to
control the police department, the right to control the schools,
and housing, and the economy of our communities, and exemption
from fighting for the racist government and its military which
did not protect the civil rights and human rights of the Afrikan-
American people. We were demanding the release of Afrikan-
American people from prison who had been imprisoned falsely or
who had not been tried in a fair and impartial manner. We were
demanding justice in the courts and we also called for a
plebiscite to decide as to what national course Afrikan-American
people wanted to take in terms of their destiny.
There were also several programs that the Party initiated.
We had a breakfast program because we realized that hunger was a
real issue. We instituted free medical and health services in our
community, Liberation schools and political education classes for
adults. We organized clothing drives from time to time. This was
all done in an attempt to meet the needs of our people who were
being neglected by the government and the various agencies of the
government. These were attempts by us to take matters concerning
our destiny into our own hands and hopefully by the example that
the Party set it would encourage the masses of our people to
follow suit. So these were the objectives and aims of the BPP -
to teach Afrikan-Americans the need for self-reliance.
You mentioned the counter-intelligence program of the FBI, and
that both you and Bashir became targeted for this frame-up
because of your involvement in political projects within the
Afrikan-American community. At what point did you become aware
that you yourself were being targeted by the FBI or other police
agencies?
Well, I was aware at the time of my involvement in the BPP
that the police and different law enforcement agencies kept files
on Party members. At rallies they would take photographs, plus
they had informants, and agent provocateurs and there was police
infiltration of the Party that we were aware of.
As to who they felt was an immediate threat, some of this
information did not come to light until after my having been
arrested and charged in this case. However, a fellow comrade of
mine, Dhoruba Bin Wahad, who served 19 years in prison for a
similar charge of attempted murder of a police officer - and back
in 1975/1976 I worked with some people on Dhoruba's case - he had
a Freedom of Information request that he had sent in to the FBI,
and maybe 3 or 4 years later after the suit began, the FBI was
forced by the courts to turn over the documents that they had in
their possession pertaining to a program they called "NewKill" -
the codename of one of their investigations. And they turned over
some 30,000 pages of documents. And through my reading of the
documents, I learned that I was very much a target of the FBI -
there was constant mention of myself and other Party members from
the New York area.
So this gave me some idea of the level or the magnitude of
interest that they had in BPP members here in New York.
What should activists on the outside do in supporting comrades
who are inside prison?
I'm sure you are familiar with the case of Mumia Abu-Jamal,
who is facing the death penalty, and that is imminent, and we
need to try and work to get people to come out in support of him.
There has been some success, as I understand the Governor of
Pennsylvania has deferred to sign the death warrant. Pressure has
to be kept on continuously because as soon as the concern and the
vigilance lower, naturally the State will go and sign the warrant
to execute this brother.
What we need, and what we encourage those on the outside to
do is try to make inroads into the community. Because for those
of us who are incarcerated - while it is true that we need
support and that support is what keeps us alive - there is a need
to mobilize the masses, not only around the issue of political
prisoners and Prisoners of War, but around their own condition,
because, here, from what I have been able to observe from the
inside, there appears to be a great deal of apathy among the
masses, particularly in the Afrikan-American communities, and the
poor and Third World communities. People are concerned about
their immediate survival, and they seem to look upon the system
as being omnipotent or unchallengeable, or because of the
failures they have seen as a result of the activities of some of
us, they have taken the attitude that nothing, or next to nothing
can be done, and that very little will change no matter what we
do.
So there is a need for those with that level of political
consciousness and awareness to become more involved and more
active in the community.
I think by first concentrating on mobilizing the masses
around the political prisoners and Prisoners of War will not
solve the problem, and will not be the motivating factor in
getting the masses moving. There is a need to motivate and move
the masses around their own existence, their own needs - housing,
an end to police brutality, jobs, getting people involved in
controlling their own destiny.
I think it has to be a two-pronged approach by those of us
who still have political consciousness and the spirit to fight.
There are those who have political consciousness, but do not
display the fighting spirit. You not only have to have the will,
you have to put that will into motion and into action.
Write to Abdul and Bashir:
Abdul Majid #83-A-483
s/n Anthony LaBorde
Sullivan Correctional Facility
Box A-G
Fallsburg, NY
12733 USA
Bashir Hameed #82-A-6313
s/n James York
135 State Street
Auburn, NY
13024 USA
For more information:
Queens Two Support Coalition
P.O. Box 1354
Brooklyn, NY
11247 USA
24. New York 3 Update
On June 26 and 27, 1992, the New York 3, Herman Bell, Jalil
Muntaquin (s/n Anthony Bottom), and Albert "Nuh" Washington -
Black Liberation Army p.o.w.'s since 1971 - were together for the
first time in 17 years. They came together in a New York State
court for an evidentiary hearing in an effort to overturn their
1975 conviction.
The NY3 are victims of the U.S. government's 1970's
COINTELPRO (Counter Intelligence Program) which targeted Afrikan-
Amerikan and progressive organizations for extermination and
disruption. In 1975, after their third trial the New York 3 were
convicted in the 1971 assassination of two New York City police
officers. Since that time information released about COINTELPRO
shows that the prosecution repressed crucial evidence necessary
for their defence. The FBI ballistics tests had proven that the
guns reported to belong to the NY3 were not the weapons involved
in the assassinations. The New York prosecutors knew this and
deliberately withheld it from the defence attorneys and jury.
The recent June hearings, which took place after 17 years of
appeal attempts, included the FBI reports and testimony from a
former NYC police sergeant who worked on the case. While on the
stand he admitted that the police and the prosecution had
manipulated and withheld statements and evidence to obtain the
convictions.
From this hearing, the attorneys for the NY3 originally
filed motions on 15 separate violations, but the judge only
permitted arguments over the repressed information about the
ballistics evidence. If a ruling is made that the NY3 did not
receive a fair trial it will be possible for their release since
the NYC police department has already destroyed the evidence for
this case.
(From The Black Panther Fall 1992, Vol.1 No.4)
25. To Do What Is Possible, Rather Than What Is Permitted
"I feel that this was the right thing to do, and I'm glad we did
it. Only when ordinary people like us take the waging of peace
and disarmament as seriously as soldiers take war can we say that
we have listened to the cries of the victims. Behind the shiny
facade of Rockwell International's headquarters lie the horribly-
burned children and terrorized third-world civilians fleeing
NavSTAR-guided bombing from Guatemala to Indonesia, and
ultimately people everywhere under the threat of an automated
nuclear first-strike holocaust that G.P.S. makes possible." -
Peter Lumsdaine
"Our disarmament action can point the way to a renewed anti-
militarist campaign that builds on the foundation laid down by
past Plowshares actions, growing out of that tradition and yet a
challenge to it. This action was a repudiation to all - whether
friend or foe of the peace movement - who have clung to the
assumption that only symbolic action is possible." - Keith
Kjoller
On May 10th, 1992, Keith Kjoller and Peter Lumsdaine, both
of Santa Cruz, CA, broke into the world headquarters of Rockwell
International in Seal Beach, CA and dismantled a NavSTAR
(Navigational System Time and Ranging) satellite with axes.
According to affidavits given to the F.B.I. by Rockwell (a
major military contractor), the damage to the $50 million
satellite and the "clean room where seven other NavSTAR
satellites were being assembled is in excess of $2.8 million."
The action was also highly effective in terms of its impact
on the continued deployment of the Global Positioning System
(GPS). Bob Aldridge, a former Lockheed Missles and Space Company
engineer who is now a peace activist, writes, "It has finally
happened. A citizen intervention action has significantly slowed
the arms race. In the past they have caused delays - usually for
minutes or hours, occasionally days. But the Mothers' Day action
last May 10th at Rockwell's Seal Beach facility has shut down
NavSTAR for months." The satellites were scheduled to launch
every 2-3 months, but as of mid-October none has been launched
since the action.
Because Keith and Peter halted production at a time when the
system was only partially deployed (13 of 24 satellites are
currently in orbit) they have significantly limited the U.S.
military's ability to wage war. According to Aldridge, "since
each satellite adds about one hour to NavSTAR's availability,
Keith and Peter have deprived the military of two to three hours
per day of warmaking. That is a significant act of disarmament."
The NavSTAR satellites were chosen because of the integral
role they play in the U.S. military's plans to dominate the
people of the earth through the use of space technology. NavSTAR
GPS is, as of now, a partially deployed constellation of
satellites which are designed to give the military precise
information about location (longitude, latitude, and altitude
within 16 feet, velocity within a quarter of a mile per hour, and
time within one ten-millionth of a second) in all weather, in all
terrain, at all times, anywhere on the planet.
During much of the Cold War (1940's through 1980's), nuclear
confrontation was deterred, it may be argued, due to the fact
that neither side thought that it could "win" a nuclear
confrontation. The ideological theory used to justify this state
of tense limbo was appropriately called MAD - Mutually Assured
Destruction. While MAD made just about everyone sick with worry,
fear of retaliation may have kept either side from initiating a
nuclear attack. But while MAD was used by pundits to reassure a
doubting public, the Pentagon was quietly attempting to gain an
advantage over their rivals. According to testimony from such
people as former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfield (1978),
former Defense Secretary Harold Brown (1979), and General David
Jones (1979), MAD was not the preferred policy. What the military
sought, and what they are very close to having, is first strike
capability.
While MAD's precarious idea of peace through strength (or
intimidation, or retaliatory genocide) was dangerous, first
strike theory is even more pernicious. And NavSTAR is the
embodiment of that theory. One of NavSTAR's primary purposes is
to guide nuclear missiles to their targets (e.g. "enemy" missile
silos) before the "enemy" is able to retaliate. Thus, in the
twisted logic of the first strike theory, a nuclear war is now
seen as "winnable" because the U.S. can strike first, without
being struck back. It is NavSTAR's extremely accurate targeting
information, in conjunction with new, faster missiles that have
made the first strike theory a possibility for the first time.
NavSTAR GPS has even farther-reaching implications. It can
be utilized not only with nuclear weapons systems, but with
conventional weapons systems as well. NavSTAR was used
extensively during the Persian Gulf War, guiding missiles to both
military and civilian targets. NavSTAR can also be deployed
against guerrilla movements, for patrolling nation-state borders,
and in cases of domestic civil unrest. Because NavSTAR can
provide extremely accurate targeting information at all times, it
effectively removes the advantage that local resistance groups
have had until now. Before the deployment of NavSTAR, guerrilla
"focos" were able to move around easily and escape government
ground patrols and helicopter gunships because of their extensive
knowledge of the local terrain. With NavSTAR there will be no
place to hide. In other words, NavSTAR is inherently an
instrument of oppression because it enables a distant power to
control local communities - plot globally, dominate locally.
Keith and Peter were sentenced on September 21st in Federal
Court in Orange County CA. When Keith addressed the court he
spoke of the urgent necessity of finding alternatives to war and
violence for solving our differences. In order to make that a
reality he said that it is necessary to take direct action: "I
tried to do what was possible rather than what was permitted. I
tried to do what was right rather than what was convenient".
Keith responded to the Probation Department's recommendation that
the two receive longer sentences because their action could be
considered a "terrorist act", and they showed no remorse and
didn't agree that the law was just, saying that it troubled him
deeply because it insulted the daily work that tens of thousands
of people do for peace and justice.
Peter spoke articulately of being inspired by the Gospel of
Jesus, indicating that in order for swords to turn into
plowshares, the hammer has to fall. (Peter is a Christian, Keith
an atheist) He made an impassioned plea on behalf of "those who
are not here, those who have no standing", and explained that it
was his love for his four year-old daughter Lucy and "for the
children and people of the planet... that gave me the strength to
go on and split open this... engine of murder and terror called
NavSTAR". He also told of the suffering and sacrifice that the
people of the Philippines, Guatemala, and other places make each
day - both of their own choosing and out of necessity. Peter
ended by quoting Robert Coles: "The issue is not whether we
'agree' with what we have heard and read and studied. The issue
is us and what we have become".
Before pronouncing the sentence the judge also responded to
the Probation Department's report. He said it was not necessary
to show remorse, only to accept responsibility, and he could not
imagine a case in which responsibility was more clearly accepted.
He went on to say that Peter and Keith acted out of their
consciences, in the american tradition of civil disobedience.
The judge, however, apparently did not feel up to joining in
that tradition. He sentenced Keith to 18 months and Peter to 24
months in federal prison. Each received 3 years of supervised
release, during which they may not go within 500 feet of any
military installation or facility where military equipment is
tested, stored or produced. They must also make what the
Probation Department considers a reasonable effort to find an
appropriate job in order to pay restitution: each must pay
Rockwell $15,000 within 5 years of their release.
If you would like more information, or would like to become
involved in on-going resistance organizing call (408) 426-7970 or
(415) 824-0214. Donations to support Peter's four-year-old
daughter, Lucy can be sent to her mother, Jean Petersen at P.O.
Box 8003, Santa Cruz, CA 95061. Donations to support Keith and
Peter, and resistance organizing may be make out to Stop First
Strike, Box 11645, Berkeley, CA 94701. If you care to correspond
directly with them you may write to Keith Kjoller #94358-012, or
Peter Lumsdaine #94359-012, Metropolitan Detention Center, P.O.
Box 1500, Los Angeles CA 90053. Peace. No Fate!
26. Shawnee Unit - A Control Unit For Women
In May of this year, a nationally coordinated mobilization
against control units took place. The call was issued by the
Puerto Rican and New Afrikan liberation movements, the Committee
to End the Marion Lockdown (CEML), and other solidarity
organizations on the twentieth anniversary of the Attica
Rebellion. The first control unit was also built twenty years
ago, as part of a wave of repression carried out by the
government against the upsurge of revolutionary and progressive
movements in that period. The mobilization condemned the
Marionization of prisons and the proliferation of control units.
In the preceding months a process of education by the sponsors
focused on:
- The use of control units as tools of political repression. A
past warden of Marion has stated: "The purpose of the Marion
control unit is to control revolutionary attitudes in the prison
system and in society at large.
- The fact that the national oppression and white supremacy of
U.S. society determines who is incarcerated in these units.
- The brutal physical and psychological conditions in the control
units.
There was no mention of women and women's control units in
the mobilization propaganda. The history of the use of control
units against women, including the current federal incarnation,
the Shawnee Unit at Marianna, Florida, was ignored. A false
picture was projected - that women are exempt from placement in
control units; that Shawnee is not a control unit because it does
not use the same physical brutality as men's control units.
This view undermines the struggle against control units.
Important milestones are overlooked; the mobilization against the
Cardinal Unit at Alderson, West Virginia, and the national
campaign to shut down the High Security Unit (HSU) at Lexington,
Kentucky. These efforts were significant because of the explicit
political mission of these units: targeting women political
prisoners and Prisoners of War from the Puerto Rican Independence
Movement and white anti-imperialist movement.
Sidelining women as equal participants in the struggle to
close all control units has deeper implications. It diminishes
the importance of women's resistance. It ignores the brutality of
psychological methods of control and behaviour modification. It
plays into the government mythology that women are more
submissive and open to manipulation. And because a number of
political prisoners and Prisoners of War have spent the majority
of our sentences in control units, this omission further
distances us from our movements, indirectly playing into the
principle objective of the government: isolation. By isolation we
don't mean the physical barriers created by any incarceration,
but rather the lack of an organic relationship to the very
movements and struggles that we were part of - the activities for
which we are imprisoned. By isolation we mean the turning of
political prisoners into symbols to be remembered as historical
leftovers of a more militant past, while ignoring them as
continuing participants in today's progressive movements.
The government relies on secrecy and silence to accomplish
its goals. This article was written to break with the secrecy and
silence of Shawnee Unit; to recognize women as equal participants
in the struggle to shut down all control units; and to be
responsible to ongoing political struggle.
Shawnee Is A Control Unit
CEML, in "Walkin' Steel", defines a control unit as a
"combination of physical conditions, the policies which determine
who is sent there, and the overall purpose of the unit".
Shawnee Unit was opened by the BOP in August 1988, after the
small group isolation experiment at Lexington HSU was shutdown.
The political and security mission of Shawnee Unit is the same as
that of the HSU: to control, isolate and neutralize women who,
for varying reasons, pose either a political, escape, or
disruption threat. Neutralization insures that the women
imprisoned here will never leave prison with the full capacity to
function. Central to the mission is the understanding that
Washington can decide at any point to transfer any woman
political prisoner or Prisoner of War here. The recent transfer
of Laura Whitehorn is a case in point.
A distinct profile emerges: membership in or association
with any of the national liberation movements, particularly the
Puerto Rican and New Afrikan Independence Movements (as
determined by the FBI); on-going surveillance and
counterinsurgency against the progressive movements;
classification of political acts as "sophisticated criminal
conspiracies", characterized by employment of armed struggle; and
punishment for continued commitment to non-collaboration.
Reflecting the centrality of the oppression of Black people in
the history of the U.S., we have been told that we were
designated here because of our conviction in or association with
the so-called "Brinks Case." (Underlying all the charges in this
case, now 11 years old, is the struggle for self-determination by
Black people and active solidarity with this struggle by white
anti-imperialists.) The unit serves as a public admonishment to
those who would challenge the supremacy of the U.S. - deterrence
and isolation are central to its mission. It also serves to
maintain control over all women in BOP prisons: in less than 24
hours, twelve women who were targeted as leadership of the recent
demonstration by women at Lexington against police violence were
transferred here.
Once a control unit is set up, it fulfils many needs. The
BOP operates Shawnee with some flexibility. Protected witnesses,
disciplinary cases, high profile individuals, members of various
Columbian cartels, and women with successful escape histories are
imprisoned here. What distinguishes them from the political
prisoners is their ability to transfer out of Shawnee. Over the
past year, there has been a massive movement out of the unit. But
the political prisoners, despite repeated requests to be
transferred, have been excluded from this.
Psychological Control
To wash away the brutal image of the HSU, the BOP has
created the deception that life at Shawnee is normal, not
designated or manipulated. The physical plant is designed to
deflect any concern from the outside about human rights abuses -
it looks comfortable and attractive. This appearance is a lie.
The women of Shawnee live in a psychologically assaultive
environment that aims at destabilizing women's personal and
social identities. This is true of the prison system as a whole;
here it has been elevated to a primary weapon, implemented
through a physical layout and day-to-day regimen that produce
inwardness and self-containment. The unit is a small triangle
with a small yard. Within this severely limited space, women are
under constant scrutiny and observation. In the unit, cameras and
listening devices (the latter are installed in every cell) insure
constant surveillance and control of even the most intimate
conversation. Lockdown is not necessary because there is nowhere
to go, and individuals can be observed and controlled better
while having the illusion of some mobility.
The fences around the yard - the only place where one could
have any sense that an outside world existed - were recently
covered with green cloth, further hammering into the women the
sense of being completely apart and separate. It is one thing to
be imprisoned in this tiny isolation unit for a year or two,
another to be told one will be here for three more decades - that
this small unit will be one's world for the rest of one's life.
Compared to the other federal prisons for women, Shawnee is
like being in a suffocating cocoon. What replaces visual
stimulation and communication is TV. As in Marion control unit,
there is a TV in every cell - the perfect answer to any
complaints about isolation or boredom. TV provides the major link
to the world - a link which conveniently produces passivity and
inculcates "family values".
The intense physical limitations are compounded by a total
lack of educational, training, or recreational programs. At a
time when such programs are being expanded at other prisons,
here, at the end of the line, women are not worthy of even the
pretence of rehabilitation. The geographical location of Shawnee
makes contact with family and community an almost impossible
task. Gradually, women here begin to lose their ability to relate
to the outside world. As time moves on, frustration sets in,
accompanied by alienation and despair. The result is the creation
of dysfunctional individuals who are completely self-involved,
unable to participate in organized social activities, and
unprepared for eventual reintegration into life on the outside:
women who resist less, demand less, and see others as fierce
competitors for the few privileges allowed.
Competition and individualism become the defining
characteristics of personality distortion here. The staff seeks
out the most needy personalities and molds them into informants.
Unit life has been rocked by a number of internal investigations
begun when individual prisoners "confided" in ambitious staff
members. Snitching and cooperation are the pillars of the
"justice system." Those who refuse to accept this standard of
behaviour are isolated and targeted by those who do. In the tiny
world of the unit, this can have a massive effect on one's daily
life.
A system of hierarchical privileges governs the unit and
destroys any potential unity. Small comforts, such as personal
clothing, have become the mechanism through which cooperation and
collaboration are obtained. The latest wrinkle is the institution
of "privileged housing" - the arbitrary designation of a limited
number of cells on the upper tier as a reward for acceptable
behaviour. This is classic behaviour modification. The unit is in
a constant state of uproar over the daily moves that enforce the
fall from privileged status.
White Supremacy And Racism
There are close to 90 women imprisoned at Shawnee: 1/3 Black
women from various parts of the world, 1/3 Latin women, 1/3 white
women, and a very small number of Native American women. The
numerical balance belies the hegemony of white supremacist
ideology. As outside the walls, a permanent conflict exists
between Black people and those in power. Prisoners experience and
are affected by the sharpening of conflict on the outside and the
increasing national oppression experienced by Black people in
particular. Events in California have given focus to the
discontent and heightened the contradictions. Since May, an
unprecedented number of Black women have been put in the hole -
more than the total for the past two years. Currently, five women
from the unit are in the hole; all are Black. And while the
administration says that they do not deal with gangs, "Boyz 'N
the Hood" and "Jungle Fever" were banned from the prison after
the Aryan Brotherhood protested.
A strict segregationist policy determines who gets the jobs.
After four years, no Black women have ever worked for education
or recreation, except in janitorial jobs. It has taken just as
long to place a Black woman in commissary and to promote one
woman to be a trainer in the UNICOR factory. All Black staff have
left the unit, eliminating the small cushion they provided. This
is significant, as staff in the federal system determine
everything from access to family to release conditions.
Racism governs how religion can be practised. Islam,
Judaism, and Native American religions are either totally ignored
or marginalized. One cannot help but notice this, since there is
a daily diet of fundamentalist Protestant and Catholic services,
seminars and retreats.
Superexploitation Of Women's Labour
Like B block at Marion, there is no productive labour at
Shawnee besides UNICOR. Unit life is organized to facilitate the
functioning of the Automated Data Processing (ADP) factory.
Nearly 40 women work here, twelve hours a day and five more hours
on Saturday. The forced rhythm of this work has made the ADP
factory the most profitable UNICOR operation in the BOP for its
size. The complete lack of any other jobs, the need for funds,
the lack of family support, the enormous expense of living in
Shawnee, all push women into UNICOR, into intense competition and
into an acceptance of their exploitation. Unlike general
population prisons, Shawnee prisoners are not even permitted to
work in jobs maintaining the physical plant. Removing productive
labour is an element is destroying human identity and self-worth.
The Use Of Violence Against Women In Prisons Is Increasing
The recent attacks by male guards at Lexington, and a
similar incident here at Shawnee, illustrate the marked tendency
towards using greater force to control women prisoners. While
lower security women are being sent to minimum security
facilities, those left in high security prisons will be more and
more vulnerable to physical attack - justified by being
characterized by the BOP as "dangerous".
Misogyny And Homophobia
Women in prison are at the very bottom. The misogyny and
contempt for women in the society as a whole are compounded by
the way the prison system is organized to exploit and utilize
women's oppression. The BOP characterizes some women as
"dangerous" and "terrorist" (having gone beyond the bounds of
acceptable female behaviour in the U.S.), making them the target
of particularized repression, scorn and hatred. To be classified
maximum security is to be seen as less than human, by definition
not eligible for "rehabilitation".
All women's prisons operate on the all-pervasive threat of
sexual assault and the dehumanizing invasion of privacy.
Throughout the state and federal system in the U.S., invasive
'pat searches' of women by male guards ensure that a women is
daily reminded of her powerlessness; she cannot even defend her
own body. In the control unit there is absolutely no privacy:
windows in the cell doors (which cannot be covered), patrolling
of the unit by male guards, and the presence of the bathrooms in
the cells guarantee this. The voyeuristic nature of the constant
surveillance is a matter of record: in the past year alone there
have been three major internal investigations of sexual
harassment and misconduct by male officers - including rape.
Programs that exist in other women's prisons, addressing the
particular needs of women, are deemed frivolous at Shawnee. Most
women here are mothers, but no support at all is given to efforts
to maintain the relationship between mother and child. Similarly,
if Shawnee were not a control unit, then education, recreation,
religious and cultural programs should be on a par with those at
Lewisburg, Leavenworth, and Lompoc (three men's high security
prisons). But not a single program available in those prisons is
available here.
The median age of the women here is 37 - a situation
distinct from any other women's prison. Nearly everyone is doing
more than 15 years; more than 10 women are serving life sentences
without parole. Menopause is the main medical problem in the
unit. Menopause is an emotional as well as a physiological
process. Ignoring this is a pillar of misogynist Western
medicine. In the repressive reality of Shawnee, refusal to
recognize and treat the symptoms of menopause becomes a cruel
means of punishment and an attack on the integrity of one's
personality.
Security determines all medical care. Two women who have
suffered strokes here were both denied access to necessary
treatment in a hospital: a life-threatening decision, made solely
for "security reasons."
Intense isolation and lack of activities mean that the
loving relationships that provide intimacy and comfort to women
in all prisons are of heightened importance here. Until recently,
a seemingly tolerant attitude towards lesbian relationships was
actually a form of control. For lesbian relationships to function
without disciplinary intervention by the police, the women had to
negotiate with and in some instances work for, the staff. This
tolerance was viewed as necessary because the relationships
served as a safety valve for the tensions and anger in the
population. As a result of they system of police-sanctioned
tolerance, people tended to elevate the individual relationships
above any collective alliances that might endanger the
administrations rule over the unit.
This situation served to increase the already intense
homophobia in the population. A new administration has now ended
the tolerance, and lesbians are now suffering greater harassment
and discrimination. A witch hunt is underway to identify lesbians
and couples engaging in homosexual behaviour.
Together with racism, misogyny and homophobia define
conditions here. When coupled with the repressive practices of a
control unit, psychological disablement can result - fulfilling
the Shawnee mission.
Conclusion
Partly as a result of the astronomic rise in the number of
women in prison and the resulting public interest in women's
prisons, and partly as a result of the struggle against the
Lexington HSU, the BOP has to be very careful not to appear to be
brutal in its treatment of women prisoners. The investigations of
the HSU by Amnesty International, the Methodist Church, the
American Civil Liberties Union and others struck a nerve in
Washington. The experiment carried out within the walls of the
HSU failed because of the personal and political resistance of
those inside and outside the walls. But this defeat did not deter
the BOP from its stated goals. It just drove them to hide them
cosmetically behind a veneer of new paint and the momentary
elimination of the most notorious abuses. The BOP always denies
the truth of its workings. It denies the existence of control
units and this unit in particular, not even listing it in the BOP
Register of Prisons. Nevertheless, Shawnee is the present women's
version of the Marionization of the prison system. The next one
is supposed to be opened in North Carolina in 1994. The movement
should not fall into the trap and ignore the particular control
strategy aimed at women. Uncovering and exposing the reality that
the Shawnee Unit is a control unit will contribute to the
movement against all control units.
Silvia Baraldini
Marilyn Buck
Susan Rosenberg
Laura Whitehorn
Anti-Imperialist Political Prisoners
Marianna, Florida August 1992
27. Resistance At F.C.I. Lexington
On 12-14 August, the first sustained act of resistance by
women prisoners in the u.s. federal prison system in twenty years
took place.
Here's what happened:
On Wednesday night 12/August, there was an argument between
two prisoners in the central yard area ("Central Park") at about
8;30 p.m. It was over quickly and everyone was walking away,
towards the housing units, because we have to be inside at 9 p.m.
A lieutenant came running to see what had happened - pulling on
his black leather gloves. He yelled, "Hey, you! Stop!" When no
one stopped he grabbed the first Black women that he saw, lifted
her in the air, and body-slammed her to the ground. Other women
yelled at him, saying she wasn't even involved in the argument,
but he kept on attacking her - putting his knee in the back of
her neck and smashing her face to the pavement. He pulled her
hands behind her back, cuffed her, dragged her to her feet, and
another guard took her to the lieutenants's office.
This was witnessed by about one-hundred women. They were all
very upset by it, and gathered to talk to the Captain. At 9 p.m.,
all but about fifteen returned to their housing units, after
being assured that the beaten woman would be released back into
general population, and that a thorough investigation would be
undertaken. But on Thursday morning it turned out that
the woman had not been released, and some of the women who had
witnessed the incident had been put in the hole ("segregation")
as well. Despite the promise of an investigation, by 3 p.m.
prisoners were told that the investigation was completed, and no
further statements would be taken.
This was not the first instance of physical brutality at
Lexington - nor, certainly of racism. The male guards have been
putting their hands on us more and more - both in frequent pat
searches and whenever they want us to move, to stop, or whatever.
This particular lieutenant had threatened several women with
brutality. The normally high level of racism had also recently
heightened, following the Los Angeles verdict and the uprisings
there. Several Black women who had complained of prejudice had
been put in the hole for "inciting to riot."
But this time it all struck a nerve. On Thursday world
travelled: don't go in at 4 p.m. (the major daily "standing
count" throughout the Bureau of Prisons) Stay out in Central Park
and demand the women be released from the hole - and the
lieutenant suspended.
At 3:50 p.m., when the hourly "movement" began, the scene in
Central Park was tense and exciting. Usually, it's rush hour -
1900 women, in the largest woman's prison in the world, rushing
to the units to try and fet a few things done before the 4 p.m.
count. On this Thursday, instead, it was like gridlock: everyone
moved slowly, if at all, waiting to see what would happen.
At 4 p.m., an announcement ordered us all to go inside for
the count. Many did, but ninety of us stayed out, moving into the
center of the Park. We sang Bob Marley's "Stand up for your
rights", and chanted "Stop Police Brutality", "We Want Justice",
"Let Them Out of Seg.", and "Figueroa (the lieutenant) must go".
Ringed by guards - including a S.O.R.T. (SWAT) team in full
regalia - we demanded to speak to the Captain. While we
demonstrated we heard shouts of support from the windows of the
housing units and at least two "all available officers" codes to
different units - meaning that the women who had returned to the
units for count were doing some kind of support actions too.
We had to shout the Captain down, when he finally came to
talk to us, because he was telling too many lies. He finally said
the lieutenant would be back at work on Monday, and we all knew
there was no point in any further discussion. We were handcuffed
and escorted to seg - most of us being taken to the old High
Security Unit, which has been out of use almost entirely since
the BOP was forced to close it in 1988. Seven women to a cell, no
blankets, no water - it was payback time.
The next day, twelve of us were taken out and chained up on
a bus to Marianna, Florida (the new women's high security unit).
As each of us was taken out of prison the whole place was locked
down. But it was midday, so there were over 100 women in Central
Park on their lunch breaks. As each of us was escorted through
the Park, we were cheered - loudly, enthusiastically, joyfully -
by everyone there.
I've since learned that while we were in transit to
Marianna, a smaller group of women repeated the action in Central
PArk at 4 p.m. There were also quite a few small fires set in
various housing units during the night. And a number of women
were shipped out to Pleasanton after we twelve were shipped here
to Marianna.
It was the first active resistance in a federal women's
prison in the u.s. in twenty years.
For a few brief moments, we felt free. As we moved into
Central Park, defying the daily, grinding regulations and control
of prison life, we were liberated for the fear that holds
prisoners in check. We had the power of justice on our side - and
in our eyes as we looked at one another.
The most common thing you hear people say at Lexington is:
"If the men (prisoners - the prison used to be co-ed) were here,
the police wouldn't get away with this. Women don't stick
together, so the prison can put anything they want on us."
We proved that's not true. The racism and brutality that go
down everyday just didn't go down on this day. We'd had enough
and we trusted and respected ourselves and one another enough to
stand up together. The demonstration was international - inspired
primarily by Jamaican, Haitian and African-American women, it was
joined by Latina women and some white women as well. It was
clear, for once, that if the police could continue to attack
Black women (as they do everyday - for example, at any given time
the hole holds more Black women than any other nationality), then
no one would be safe.
Anger is a constant reality in prison, and the entire system
is designed to ensure that such anger is turned inwards,
destroying one's self-respect and humanity, instead of being
turned outwards towards the system and the oppressors. It took
courage to resist all that, in the context of the total control,
abuse and disrespect of women that constitutes women's prison. We
had to trust each other, that we would not be standing there
alone. As we looked around at one another, we knew our
demonstration was a victory, no matter what punishment might
follow. A small flame of power, sisterhood, and dignity had been
rekindled.
Laura Whitehorn, Anti-Imperialist Political Prisoner
28. Geronimo Ji Jaga (Pratt)
Nearly 23 years have passed since Geronimo ji Jaga (Pratt)
was targeted for "neutralization" by J. Edgar Hoover's infamous
COINTELPRO, framed by the FBI and the LAPD, and imprisoned for
his political work with the Black Panther Party. Recently
Geronimo marked his 45th birthday - a serious milestone because
this means that he has now spent more than half his life in
prison for a crime he did not commit.
Geronimo appeared before the parole board for the tenth time
in December 1991. Although he was denied justice once again, the
Parole Board was presented with evidence of community support for
Geronimo's immediate release. This evidence included 10,000
petition signatures and many letters of support from prominent
public officials, members of the entertainment industry, union
officials, and religious leaders, and a resolution from the City
Council of Oakland, California - the birthplace of the Black
Panther Party - calling for Geronimo's freedom on behalf of the
city's 400,000 residents.
While Geronimo was again denied parole, the parole board did
take the unusual step of setting Geronimo's next parole hearing
in one year rather than the usual two or three. They also
recommended that Geronimo be transferred to a treatment centre
for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) from which he suffers
due to his experiences in Vietnam.
The actions of the parole board and the California
Department of Corrections in Geronimo's case are a clear
indication that the COINTELPRO activities of the FBI continue to
this day. While it is evident that the government will do almost
anything to keep Geronimo locked up, the members of the
International Campaign believe that Geronimo's parole hearing in
December, 1992, can be used to increase community awareness of
political prisoners and Prisoners of War in the U.S., and to turn
up the pressure on the state to free Geronimo. For this, your
help is needed:
Write a letter to the parole board, stating your support for
Geronimo's release. Address it to:
John Gillis, Chairperson
California Board of Prison Terms
545 Downtown Plaza, Suite 200
Sacramento, CA
95814 USA
For more information on the campaign to free Geronimo, write to:
International Campaign to Free geronimo ji Jaga (Pratt)
P.O. Box 3585
Oakland, CA
94609 USA
Write to Geronimo:
Geronimo ji Jaga (Pratt) #B40319
P.O. Box 1902B 1C-211U
Tehachapi, CA
93581 USA
[Adapted from a leaflet from the International Campaign to Free
geronimo ji Jaga (Pratt)]
29. "We Embrace Death With Weapons In Our Hands And Slogans On
Our Lips" - The Last Words
On April 16/17, there were raids on six houses in Istanbul.
It was a large-scale, carefully planned attack by the Turkish
army and police force, along with the Turkish secret service
(MIT). The six houses had been 'identified' as the homes or
hiding places of active Devrimci Sol members. Devrimci Sol
(Revolutionary Left) is an illegal organization in Turkey, and
the group has carried out more than 50 major armed actions since
1985 against Turkish military leaders and former junta members.
The French paper 'Liberation' described the attack as "an
execution by the Turkish police, during which 11 people, 5 men
and 6 women, were killed and 6 others were wounded. According to
police, those killed and two of those wounded and arrested could
not be identified, since they had false identification papers.
But they believe that all the terrorists were members of the
Devrimci Sol central committee. Not a single one of the security
forces were killed or wounded during the operation, which has
been described by human rights advocates as an arbitrary
execution." (Liberation, 20.4.92)
The involvement of the army in this blood-bath came despite
the fact that official state power in Turkey now rests in the
'civilian' hands of president Demirel. This 'democratization' has
not silenced fears of a possible military coup. Not even the
governor of Istanbul has denied the fact that the MIT took part
in the action, a large-scale operation which was the result of a
civilian's tip-off to police. And the Turkish interior minister
made the following comment regarding the mass-murder: "This was
the first operation, we shall defeat them. We shall soon make up
for what is lacking in the police. The 120 foreign-trained secret
service agents will first be utilized to make up for our lack of
information. There will be more." (Gunaydin, 21.4.92). Turkey has
an increasingly important role to play in the U.S.'s New World
Order - police agent for the Middle East - but at the same time
has to cope with a strong internal opposition. This they hope to
quickly eradicate. Considering the fact that Devrimci Sol
commands a lot of support in certain sectors of the population,
Turkey's ruling powers have to continually resort to terror and
intimidation. Of this, Ercan Kanar, the head of a moderate human
rights organization, remarked: "The 11 persons killed on April 17
could have been taken alive if the government had wished. The
executions took place without any legal basis and these
destructive operations are taking place as if human rights have
been completely put aside." (Hurriyet, 22.4.92). Human rights
have been disregarded ever since the days of the junta, and the
exploitation and impoverishment of the population has continued,
despite the transfer of power from generals to civilians. Thus,
human rights are not even an issue; they weren't then, and they
aren't now, despite the new democratic veneer.
The following (translated from issue 12 of the Dutch paper
Konfrontatie) is the transcript of a telephone call made 30
minutes after the April 17 operation was underway. Devrimci Sol
militants Sabo, Eda, and Taskin, inside their besieged house in
Ciftehavuzlar, were on the phone with the chairperson of TAYAD,
Fatma Sesen, and kept her informed of the events taking place.
The Last Words
00.20
(A woman's voice on the phone)
Sabo: Hello. They have surrounded our house. A half an hour ago.
We have been keeping them busy for a half an hour. We have burned
all our documents in the bathroom. We have not left a single
trace behind. But they'll shoot their way in soon. We will defend
ourselves. We will join Niyazi, Apo, and Haydar (1). We will join
the July 12th martyrs (2). My comrade here next to me would like
to speak with you.
Eda: We, as Devrimci Sol fighters, will die for the Turkish
people. We feel very good. We are very calm. Just like our
comrades in Kizildere (3) and Malatya (4), we will greet death
laughing and struggling. Long live Devrimci Sol! Long live our
leader Dursan Karatas! Long live our armed revolutionary units!
Farewell. We love you all and our people very much.
Sabo: We are calling you, because you are the head of TAYAD (5).
We want you to pass on what you have heard and what we have said
to the whole world through your newspaper... Go outside and call
them. Don't keep the line busy...Get the message out quickly. Has
news come in from Sinan (6) yet? Ask about Sinan. Turn the news
on. Try to get information. Wait a minute. I repeat. At this
moment our house is surrounded. We have been keeping them busy
for half an hour. All documents, including identification papers,
have been burned. The shoot-out will begin soon. We will resist.
We will die laughing, like our comrades who were murdered in the
houses, streets, and mountains of Malatya. We will die like
Hamiyet and Olcay (7). We will resist like Devrimci Sol fighters.
We want to get this out to the world via your newspaper. You are
our witness. You must report everything you have heard. We want
to be buried next to the July 12 martyrs. The Devrimci Sol flag
must fly at our funeral. Our people must take part. Help our
families, give them information. We are hanging up now. I will
call back soon. Keep the line free.
01.20
Sabo: Has there been any news from Sinan? Have you all called?
Have you watched the news? They are talking about Sinan. Please
don't keep the line busy! Call from outside if you have to make a
call. (Shots can be heard over the phone) They have started
shooting, do you hear? Do you want me to hang up?"
Answer: No!
Sabo: Ok. (Slogans are heard over the phone) Long live Devrimci
Sol! Destroy fascism! Long live our struggle! Long live the July
12 martyrs! Long live our resistance in Malatya! Long live our
resistance! Long live Kizildere!
Sabo: Look...Get the message out, don't delay. (Intensive
shooting) I have to hang up!
02.30
Sabo: Is there any news from Sinan? Have you all gotten any
message? Have you...heard anything? There are two telephones. Let
them ring. They say they have killed Sinan.
(Eda's voice is heard, shouting at the police.)
Eda: You all can't touch Sinan.
Sabo: They are constantly shouting insults at us. Especially at
me. Of course we answer. You all will hear it. When they came,
they said they were tax collectors. Then they called me Ms.
Sabahat. (Shots, slogans, the doorbell, pounding on the door)
Long live our armed revolutionary units! Long live our leader
Dursan Karatas! Long live Devrimci Sol!
Sabo: When we looked through the peep-hole, we saw that they had
bullet-proof vests on. They say that Sinan is dead. Please give
me some information. Call someone. At this moment, they are
upstairs. They are trying to make a hole through the ceiling.
(The sound of shots, pounding on the door, shouts from police)
Eda's voice: Come on, bring your tanks and bombs, come inside,
our bodies alone are enough to scare you. We come into your
dreams and make them nightmares. You are all shuddering with
fear. Don't think you can hide. You are mistaken. Even if only
one tiny hole is left, we shall use it. You can't escape
revolutionary justice. Our comrades will punish you. (More
insults from police)
Sabo: You all have thousands of fathers and mothers. Your fathers
are Bush and your mothers are Manukyan (8). You were born and
raised in a sewer. (Slogans) Long live our revolutionary justice!
Long live our armed revolutionary units! Long live Devrimci Sol!
(The shooting is intensive; the door is being rammed; they
continue to say farewell on the phone)
Sabo: They have dropped gas through the chimney. We are on the
12th floor. They are threatening to throw us to the ground from
the 12th floor. They say that this house belongs to the
organization. They are ramming the door. They can't open it. The
door is made of steel. But they have made a big hole in it.
(Intensive shooting) I am going to help my comrades. Farewell!
(Shots, slogans) Long live Devrimci Sol! Long live our leader
Dursan Karatas! Long live the brotherhood of the Turkish and
Kurdish peoples! The resistance of the Turkish and Kurdish
peoples will defeat fascism!" (More gun shots)
Sabo: We have strengthened the barricade. They can't get the door
open. A comrade was wounded in his arm. They say Sinan has been
killed. Inform people of his condition. Look...ask for "uncle".
Comrades know him. They are talking about the Ikizler apartment.
They have mentioned the names Sinan and Gunes. They say they have
made several raids. It could be a heavy blow. Ask, listen for
news. (More shooting, slogans) They are getting ready to use
bombs. We feel good and calm. (The police shout insults; the
comrades reply) We shall bloom like red wild flowers all across
the land!
Eda: Our Devrimci Sol flag shall fly all over Turkey. You can't
touch Sinan. Our comrades will punish you! Nothing can save you.
Sabo: I am sitting here thinking and I want to help my comrades.
I wonder how they found us? I don't know. Nothing was wrong when
I went outside. If something happened, it must have been today.
We burned all the documents in the bathroom. We always have a
supply of gasoline on hand. We burned the identification papers.
And the money. We don't want to leave anything behind. Sorry.
There's still money in our bags. We forgot to look. Report all of
this. We burned all the documents. There is nothing more.
(Slogans, shots) Can you hear me? I still have two comrades with
me. They are worth a lot. They have resisted well.
Eda: Don't believe [the police], my people. They lie. (She is
hard to hear)
Sabo: The people outside are on our side. Except for one woman.
But we gave her the correct answer. Tell the newspapers to send
reporters. I want our friends to see this. Send the TAYAD
mothers. Our house is around the corner from the Meterological
Bureau in Goztepe (9), parallel to the Baghdadstreet, the Karasu
apartment. You'll know you're in the neighbourhood when you see
the security forces. (Everytime the call is interrupted she says
farewell and intensified shooting and more slogans can be heard)
I've been wounded in the arm. The bullets went right through.
They want to blow up the bathroom wall with bombs. (The sound of
a bomb explosion; slogans) They weren't able to break down the
wall. We will barricade the wall again. (The sounds of furniture
being moved around can be heard) They knew that I was here. They
say they have killed Sinan. They are talking about the Ikizler
apartment. "Uncle" is there. Listen to the reports. Give me the
news. I am sitting and thinking how I can help my comrades. I
don't know how this happened. Nothing was wrong this morning. It
must have been afterwards. Yes, it must have happened tonight.
(The person on the other end tells her that contact has been made
with the press, and that there were two other raids. At one
house, three persons were killed, including Sinan, and one person
was killed at the other house.)
Sabo: We are very calm and we feel good. We shall resist until
our last drop of blood has fallen. (She shouts at the police)
Eda's voice: Come with your tanks and guns, you cowards. (Again
the police swear at them) Sewer rats! You only think with your
dicks! (Intensive shooting)
Sabo: Like our comrades on the 12th of July and in the mountains
near Malataya have welcomed death, we are also going to welcome
death like Hamiyet and Olcay... I want to turn to my comrades...
(Intensive shooting and more slogans) Long live Devrimci Sol!
Long live our July 12th resistance! Long live Kizildere! Long
live Dursan Karatas! Long live our resistance! Down with fascism!
Long live Devrimci Sol! Long live our Goztepe resistance!
06.45
(They don't come on the line very often. To get to the phone,
they must crawl along the floor. Sabo has been wounded in the
leg. After about an hour, they address the people on the street.
The voices are too faint to be understood.)
Sabo: They are going to blow out the door with explosives. We
can't get to the phone because it's by the door. After this, we
are going to the rear of the room. They are coming in.
(The last words...)
Sabo: We greet death with weapons in our hands and with slogans
on our lips. Especially send greetings to my partner, my leader,
the leader of Devrimci Sol. Greetings to all comrades. Farewell!
(Many shots are heard; the bodies of the comrades can be heard
falling to the ground)
07.15
(The sound of shooting is so loud, it sounds as if hundreds of
people are firing; the phone makes a strange noise; no voices are
heard, only gun shots)
07.25
(The phone line goes dead)
(1) Niyazi, Apo, and Haydar; died during a hunger-strike in 1984.
(2) July 12: Massacre in 1991, during which 12 Devrimci Sol
militants were killed, including Hiyazi.
(3) Kizildere; village where the leading cadre of the THKP/C, a
predecessor of Devrimci Sol, were killed.
(4) Malatya; place where five members of Devrimci Sol were killed
in early 1992.
(5) TAYAD; an organization of the relatives of political
prisoners, declared an illegal organization in 1991.
(6) Sinan; a leader of Devrimci Sol, also killed on April 17.
(7) Hamiyet and Olcay; members of Devrimci Sol, killed in Izmir.
(8) Manukyan; famous prostitute in Turkey who pays high taxes.
(9) Goztepe; neighbourhood in Istanbul where the apartment was
located.
30. Red Army Fraction Dossier Introduction
With the communique of April 10, 1992, (see ATS #12) the Red
Army Fraction has opened a new phase in its history. In short,
they announced a ceasefire, on their part, and decided that they
needed to find a new political orientation. In their words: "We
had severely limited our politics to attacks on the strategists
of imperialism and had failed to search for immediate positive
goals and for how a social alternative could begin and exist here
and now."
However, the immediate goal of the RAF has been the release
of sick and injured political prisoners and the regroupment of
all others until their release. In the early part of 1992,
Justice Minister Kinkel (now Minister of Defence) proposed the
release of some RAF members who were physically unfit for
detention and sentence of prisoners who had served 2/3 of their
or had served 15 years of a life sentence. Recently released have
been Gunter Sonnenberg and Claudia Wannersdorfer, two of the
sick/injured prisoners, whose release has been repeatedly called
for by the RAF and the legal resistance. Also released recently
have been Christa Eckes and Luitigard Hornstein. Nonetheless 3
sick/injured political prisoners still remain in prison - Isabel
Jacob, Ali Janssen, and Bernd Rossner. At this time the main
campaign is around Bernd's situation, as his health has badly
deteriorated after 17 years of isolation torture. The Kinkel
initiative is an attempt by the state to show that it is flexible
and "humane", and treats the RAF prisoners like any others. This
of course is a farce, as at the same time the state is pursuing
new trials against imprisoned members of the RAF, based on
testimony by collaborating ex-members of the RAF who were
captured in the ex-GDR. Sieglinde Hofmann, Ingrid Jakobsmeir,
Rolf Clemens Wagner and Christian Klar are all facing trials
based on the evidence given by the ex-RAF militants who are
trying to reduce their own prison sentences. (This strategy by
the RAF traitors has failed, and in some cases has led to longer
sentences then what the prosecution demanded.) The first of these
trials began in September against Christian Klar and we have
reprinted his statement to the court on the following page.
It is unclear whether the release of Sonnenberg and
Wannersdorfer was the result of the Kinkel initiative or the RAF
ceasefire declaration. What is clear is that the state is still
pursing its policy of repression and persecution against the
prisoners of the RAF and the resistance.
In this issue we are reprinting the first part of a long
statement by the RAF from August 1992 in which they attempt to
analyze and explain their past actions and political direction,
particulary their concept of building of an anti-imperialist
front in the metropoles with the guerrilla at its centre. This
statement, along with their statement of April 10/92 and their
July/92 statement to anti-G7 counter congress in Munich has
provoked an intense discussion and debate amongst the European
revolutionary movements. A number of political prisoners in
Europe, including those from Action Directe in France and the CCC
in Belgium, have released statements critical of the cease-fire
decision of the RAF. As well, the Central Committee of the PCE
® - Communist Party of Spain (reconstituted) - released a
communique critical of the RAF decision. The PCE ®, whose
military wing is GRAPO (First of October, Anti-Fascist Resistance
Groups), has long been critical of the RAF's anti-imperialist
strategy, and they themselves support armed struggle based within
class opposition. Within Germany there has been ongoing
discussion amongst various parts of the radical-left movement as
well as with the political prisoners. The interview with 3 RAF
prisoners which we have included in this issue concerns itself
primarily with the April 10 declaration and the broader issues
which it addresses.
We have copies of many of the discussion papers and
statements mentioned above as well as others not mentioned here.
As well we have communiques from the Revolutionary Cells and
subsequent responses concerning their own discussion surrounding
the role of armed struggle. We would like to publish all of these
together in one collection but at the present time our weak
financial situation does not allow us to so. Those comrades who
wish to read the various statements and papers can send us money
for copies. More importantly we ask for financial support so that
we can publish a booklet containing as many of these as possible.
31. Christian Klar's Trial Statement - Stammheim Process
Christian Klar - RAF prisoner, imprisoned since 1982 - and
Peter-Jurgen Boock - (renouncing) RAF prisoner, imprisoned since
1981 - are both accused of an action to obtain money in Zurich
(Switzerland) in 1979. During this action one passer-by was
killed and a car-owner was seriously injured. Peter-Jurgen Boock
accuses Christian Klar of the shootings.
In early '92 the "Koordinationsgruppe fur Terror" which
coordinates all intelligence services and institutions of
repression in Wiesbaden (it links all the forces which had to be
kept separate from each other since the Gestapo) came out with a
thing called "the new attitude towards the question of political
prisoners". Ever since the former Minister of Justice (Kinkel)
presented this to the public, it is called "Kinkel-Initiative".
And optimism arose about the situation of political prisoners and
more generally: The expectation that the criminalization and
suppression of the Left and the radical movements in this country
would be retracted. Eight months have passed in the meantime. I
can't go into specific questions here. Those who don't make daily
immediate experiences, are at least reading newspapers and
watching TV-pictures.
But briefly about the area of jails and trials. The planning
of this trial and the following ones is a crucial point. The
situation of the political prisoners is the same as it ever was.
The refusal of regroupment and the handling of releases (refusing
to release even dangerously ill prisoners) is not a new attitude.
It is rather a new ambitious calculation with hostages that has
developed over the past few months. The rhythm they started now
gives them hostages material for the next 10 years.
Does this mean (self)discipline of militant politics over
the next 10 years in Germany? Another initiative has become fat
at the same time. A "Kinkel-Initiative" again [Kinkel became
Foreign Minister in the meantime). But a real one this time.
Remaining obstacles were removed in persistent steps to bring the
German military forces in a starting position for the coming
bloody race among the imperialist powers for a new distribution
of global areas of influence. Of course, there is a relationship
between these two things. They want to chain the one organization
which has gained the most internationalist aura and moral respect
in Germany over the past 22 years to the issue of political
prisoners in order to pave the way for their rise to world power
and to new domination and devastation of european and
non-european peoples.
But the western tendency to global policing, the politics of
devastation to force more space for a greater position of power
and new booms for the lords of the world market and the fact that
since Rostock's pogroms racism has been declared the official
state ideology, these developments are bringing me to the view
that the newly emerging Left in this country should develop and
create its strategy without being impressed by the state's threat
of having political prisoners in its hand.
About the trial here: it is built upon the done deals with
the state witnesses. The judicial meaning is: the state
security's justice system is coming to its old essence again.
Everything that makes it run as an instrument to eliminate
revolutionary opposition is useful, is right. But there is a more
important point. This is the model of western-media-factory,
which was used in 1991 to force a consensus by projection of a
sham reality into the living rooms of the metropolitan population
until the consensus was ready for gulf-intervention. It is the
same technique of power in presenting the so-called state's
witnesses. The few criminalistic informations are secondary. The
main thing is staging a sham reality for the politics of the
state - to appropriate history, so it can not be acquired from
below for our future. The apparatus is getting fat from the
collaborator. But he can not give anything authentic about his
history. He is vanished in the stress of inner defense, of
reinsurance and fulfilling of his own contribution to the
bargains's reward.
At last about the money action in Zurich. There would be no
need to talk about it if there hadn't been victims among
non-participants.
As a matter of principle it's justified to get money out of
capital's safes for the needs of revolutionary movements. So the
money is taken out of the circle of exploitation and slavery and
brought to just goals.
We are talking about the action to obtain money in downtown
Zurich in 1979. The origin of the problems was that the escape
from the bank was not prepared well enough. Add a toss-up to the
situation, and you get the conditions where an "active" citizen
feels empowered to assist the police. Such people guided
mobilized police to the RAF-group. Until that nobody was hurt.
But two policemen caused the shootings at two different places
and in this context one passer-by was killed and a second woman
was seriously hurt. But it was different than the monstrous
claims of the indictment. There was no intentional shooting from
the RAF-group against the lives of civilians and not against the
two women in the situation of escape. Based on the available
facts it is not certain if the death of the passer-by or the
injuring of the car owner was caused by police bullets or by
weapons of the RAF-group. Reconstructing the situation later,
there were just probabilities concluded from positions of people
and directions of fire. But this is not to obscure
responsibility. This responsibility exists, because it was our
own action. Specifically, when it became impossible to avoid
exchanging fire with the police, the guns were used without the
necessary carefulness, even with some bad ruthlessness, which
must not happen under such circumstances. It is part of the
principle of responsibility: if you can not avoid the use of
firearms you have to do it in a way that excludes endangering
non-participants.
These are essential principles of the revolutionary Left.
And it has to be the (self)education of left organizations
involved in armed struggle to empower the individuals and the
whole group to put these principles to practice.
Christian Klar Stammheim, September '92
(From Angehorigen-Info, No.101, 9/10/92)
32. "They Want To Destroy Us" - Interview With RAF Prisoners;
Lutz Taufer, Karl-Heinz Dellwo, Knut Folkerts
Interview from 'Konkret' (monthly magazine for left theory,
discussion and culture), June 1992. The participants in this talk
are: Karl-Heinz Dellwo, Knut Folkerts and Lutz Taufer, captured
members of the RAF - prisoners since 1975 (Knut Folkerts since
1977), Rosita Timm, member of the Green Party in Hamburg and
involved in the movement to free the political prisoners, Thomas
Ebermann, former member of the Green Party, and Hermann L.
Gremliza, publisher of 'Konkret'.
Gremliza: "If it is true that American imperialism is a paper
tiger, i.e. that it can be defeated in the end; and if the
Chinese communists are correct that the victory against American
imperialism has become possible because the struggle is being
waged all over the globe and imperialism's strengths have been
spread thin and have splintered, which makes imperialism
surmountable - if all this is true, then there is no reason to
exclude any particular country or region from the anti-
imperialist struggle because the reactionary forces happen to be
especially strong in that country. As wrong as it is to
discourage the forces of revolution by under-estimating them, it
is equally wrong to suggest points of confrontation to them were
they can only be destroyed and used as cannon-fodder."
This was a quote from the April 1971 RAF-document "The Urban
Guerilla Concept". Exactly 21 years later, the most recent RAF-
declaration which we want to discuss here, draws the conclusions
from the founding document: because imperialism turned out not to
be a paper tiger, but to be invincible, the proposal is made not
to waste any more energies in a hopeless struggle. Is this the
meaning of the declaration?
Taufer: The world of the 1970s is different than the world of the
1990s. 20 years ago we were thinking, living and fighting as a
part of the world-wide uprising against the world system U.S.
imperialism. The world was divided into two parts. The Soviet
Union forced imperialism into a global balance of power that
limited imperialism's options against the peoples and liberation
movements in the third world. There was at least one liberation
movement in armed struggle in each country of latin america for
example. Successful, victorious liberation organizations were in
Africa, the Middle East and Asia. Especially in Vietnam there was
a people of peasants in pajamas and tire sandals pushing the
world's most powerful military machine against the wall. And not
at last: there were the revolts in the metropoles. As we know
today, the movements against the Vietnam War - especially in the
U.S. - contributed to a large extent to the fact that Nixon and
Kissinger considered the war lost as early as 1969.
The wide-spread sense of the global situation being at a
point of decision was marked by West German politicians referring
to a spreading "lack of confidence in the state ", by a
Trilateral Commission investigation titled "Crisis of Democracy"
- while a fresh wind of grass-roots democracy was ventilating
through the metropoles. And former chancellor Willy Brandt was
talking about the freedom of Westberlin being defended in
Vietnam.
Our assessment in those days was: strategically, imperialism
is put on the defensive. There had been growing forces against
the U.S. dominated imperialist world system simultaneously all
over the world. And with the background of Auschwitz and Vietnam
it was worth to think about (morally and politically) joining the
uprising with the attempt of armed struggle in the centres of
imperialism. The ambivalent position of the political, economic,
judiciary and military elite on the fascist past and their clear
support for the genocide in Vietnam, left the question unanswered
whether or not fascism in Germany could reappear. To some extent,
armed struggle in the FRG was an attempt to make up for [the
previous lack of anti-fascist] resistance.
To expect an approaching breakdown of the US-imperialist
system turned out to be mistaken. Today we live in a completely
different world. By creating "two, three, many Vietnams", the
goal in the 1960s and 1970s was to take away the sources of
exploitation and enrichment from the Western system. Supported by
this, the Non-Aligned Movement demanded a New Global Economic
Order. Today the situation is reversed: it is imperialism which
is discarding entire peoples like squeezed lemons. Their cheap
resources and labour power is no longer needed, and therefore
they have lost their right to exist.
The world is no longer polarized between the Third World and
the metropoles. There are two worlds now: the world of the haves
and the world of the have-nots. These two worlds exist within the
FRG, within the U.S., in Brazil, Chile, Egypt, India, Nigeria.
They are everywhere. Today in the U.S., the demand for a new
world order and the un-focused uprising are only separated by a
few blocks. After the marines had gone into Grenada and Panama,
they now go into Los Angeles. The marginalized, that is the vast
majority of all humankind, find themselves in the situation of
Robinson Crusoe. The washed-up of imperialism and of the world
market are forced to depend on what they find in themselves and
in their immediate environment, when they organize their lives
and their social world.
The coming era will be the era of the social movements, of
economic and social inventions. Suppose we are successful in
opening the necessary space to give concrete utopian schemes its
this sided sense at last. The alternative would be spreading,
scattered violence and destruction from those and against those
who fight for their survival. And the RAF's answer to the
"question of violence" would be one of no importance - facing
this increasing gravity of the situation.
The RAF's declaration is talking about this changed world
situation. It's not a surrender, it's a principled new
orientation towards a situation. Armed struggle goes against the
grain of [liegt quer zu] this new situation.
Gremliza: Do you want to add anything to this declaration or do
you have any criticism?
Dellwo: I think this declaration is right. Its heart is that we
have reached certain boundaries on the one hand and we shouldn't
give up on the other hand. I wouldn't criticize what others find
out for themselves and how they express that.
The RAF has reached a limit, a boundary. Everybody has a
sense that a lot of work has been done over the last twenty
years, but that we're walking on one spot now. The RAF during its
founding period, the concept of a metropolitan guerilla - that
meant: putting the question of power on the table. And breaking
open our position of powerlessness, in which we found ourselves
again and again in our specific struggles against the policies of
the ruling class. We wanted to create a space for the Left, the
space of illegality in which you are able to create yourself as a
subject. As a political subject in a position of attack. The
state and the politics of the ruling class, the question of the
system itself - that was a taboo. Those at the bottom have to be
subordinated - that idea, too, had to be attacked. It's the logic
of power to keep people tiny. We were shooting back. We reversed
the relationship they had to the bottom of society, and turned it
against them.
Today, something else is missing. It's not limited by the
power of the state. There is a lack of new social ideas,
something like a new historical social sense for society. I know
that is has something to do with the self-validity of human
beings and of nature, which we have to win back. But the first
boundary today is the alienation in society.
Of course, we also had in mind an expropriation or
socialization of the means of production. This is one goal and we
can do a lot with it. But it remained vague. It was more this:
you couldn't live here - not in this capital-dominated present
period. And you didn't want to watch the worldwide crimes - not
with that history. You were already made for this system before
you even woke up. At first you have to get up and hold your own
against that.
Our orientation didn't fall apart with the collapse of state
socialism [real existierender Sozialismus]. Its structure of
society was not one of our aims. But it was the existing counter-
system to capitalism. And another idea about society as a whole
has not been born yet. We always said that we don't have a
history, we are starting at point zero. Today I think, this was
even more true than we understood at the time. Now there is no
centralized perspective any more and perhaps there will never be
a centralized perspective again - but this doesn't have to be a
loss. The old perspective remained external to human beings. It
was not helpful to watch the world and life in a new way. We have
to find something new in the concrete questions. This concrete
question is the same as the everyday aspect of society. We have
to bring the moment of transformation to this everyday life. It's
the only way to create a new view for society as a whole. I want
to create a break with the whole system in this everyday life. We
have to search for that.
Gremliza: When I compare the situation of 1970/71 to today I see
only one significant change: state socialism doesn't exist
anymore and along with this: most of the movements which had a
sort of rear cover from it don't exist anymore, either.
Taufer: The question is: is this a positive or a negative change.
This kind of rear cover was always an ambiguous affair, as early
as during the Vietnam War. It maintained a certain mentality of
centralized perspective. In today's discussions we learn from the
Tupamaros, that this collapse of state socialism had a liberating
aspect for the Left, for the political movements. They have to
rely upon themselves and are working on developing an
emancipatory perspective out of their own concrete conditions and
their own history. That's what the Left has to do here, too.
Gremliza: When I look at the Left and especially at the parts of
the Left that always had the sharpest criticism of state
socialism, I don't see anyone taking a free deep breath and
searching for new, liberating perspectives. I see a final
farewell from any resistance and a joining of the victorious
fatherland.
Taufer: This love of fatherland, which many are discovering now
originates in the liquidation of the spirit of fundamental
opposition against capitalism in 1968. This spirit has been
liquidated by the myth of the definitive democracy, that was
supposed effected by the movement 1968. The discussion now begun
by the RAF also gives the chance for evaluating the past 25 years
in a new way.
Ebermann: Reading the declaration of the RAF, my sense was: It
draws a good conclusion but it is partly based on very bad
reasoning. It seems to me as if there is not enough admission of
the depth of defeat.
Dellwo: And what if we don't have the feeling of defeat?
Ebermann: It's a political disagreement then. If one is not a
cynical person, there is the hope to be less correct in the end
compared to the person who painted the situation in extremely
dark colours.
Folkerts: Victory and defeat are really relative terms. We had to
get along with defeats and losses. We went through extremely
tough situations inside and outside of prison. But even now,
being confronted with a very difficult situation of transition,
we are never talking about 'being defeated'. We accumulated a lot
during those years and we'd like to socialize that, connect it
with other experiences. For this we want communication with many.
With the Left - and what's left of it, and with all the forces,
that are newly emerging from the contradictions now. During this
long confrontation we made experiences, got a consciousness about
our power. Even if we can't show weighty victories (perhaps they
are plain and not spectacular) we certainly gained something by
fighting.
Dellwo: Neither do I think we are coming from defeat. We are
imprisoned for 17 years now, Knut for 15 years. And this is our
experience of all that time: they want to silence us.
But they didn't succeed. To the contrary. We have that feeling
that we made it. We went through all this. As RAF we have reached
a boundary. And I am asking myself, did we achieve anything or
didn't we? Did we set something historically new, which is what
we wanted? What about the experiences that didn't exist before we
made them?
Taufer: It has become a bit fashionable among the Left to chat
about all kinds of defeat. Me myself, I never understood that -
from prison. If there ever was a strong Left in Western Europe
after 1966, it was in the FRG, beginning with the first sit-in at
the university in Berlin up to the last action of the RAF. Where
else in Western Europe did there exist a Left with such a
potential of regeneration? I am all for a thorough search for
mistakes and weaknesses over the past 25 years. Our search will
depend on whether we start this work with a fundamental
historical pessimism or with trust and confidence. The Left has
reached a limit, and has fallen into a deep crisis, in the FRG
and worldwide. This is a unique chance to learn everything from
the past we never thought we would have to.
A lot of experiences have been accumulated, including by us.
We have been in this totalitarian situation, ten years in maximum
security. It was like a miniature 'third reich'. And, although
they scanned every expression of life with video-cameras,
microphones, brain-washing-programs, everything you can imagine,
they didn't defeat us. There are experiences you can only
accumulate in maximum security units, at least in the northern
hemisphere. And that's what we did. We know a lot about this
question of defeat and victory. This knowledge is now needed
outside of prison.
Ebermann: O.K. You can say that: It's only then a defeat when
they break us, when they take away our political thinking, our
fundamental opposition. If this is the understanding of defeat -
then neither are you defeated nor am I. It's not at that point
now and I hope it never will be.
But there is a second sense of defeat. When every experience
is buried, no future rebel will be able to learn from it. A lot
of people act like that, when they fail in their concrete goals.
There is also a disgusting sort of criticism towards state
socialism. Everybody is rushing to say: I didn't agree with it
anyway. I wrote a lot of criticism towards state socialism. But I
always hoped that the GDR [East Germany] can survive against the
FRG [West Germany]. I always hoped that certain projects (e.q.
the plans to kill the East and spare the West at the same time)
will fail. I did hope that this arming to death and economic
penetration of the east will not work. When I eliminate all this
now and say: this was no socialism at all, where did they have
real emancipation, wasn't alienation the same or didn't they have
the same commodity relations - then I'm going to destroy the
subject I could be able to learn from.
I don't mean this second term of defeat. When I'm talking
about defeat - I'm talking about a balance of power within
society. They didn't break you and they didn't break me. And I'm
not talking about a time we all were doing shit. But this balance
of power brings us in such a deserted and lonely position. And I
never experienced that since I'm grown-up.
Dellwo: Do you claim that this system is more stable then it was
20 years ago?
Ebermann: Yes, that's what I think. And I refuse to say that our
hopes were pure craziness that, with our help, an encircling of
the metropoles might be successful. I try to keep our biography
and history in sight, try to keep in everybody's mind that it
once was an open question - an open question for years - which
forces will succeed in the world. We didn't yell this slogan
"Create two, three, many Vietnams" because we were crazy. At that
time, it was a real possibility.
There is this horrible re-writing of history now: We all
were dreamers, idiots, and if we had been realistic, we would
have anticipated the victories of imperialism. It's a history for
couch-potatoes, still happy, that they didn't pick up one stone
20 years ago.
But today, with certain views we are beyond the parameters
of legitimate debate. For me, it was always like that: If there
was a controversial debate in society there was always a certain
range of views. We were an extreme wing but always in touch with
a pool of left reformists. In contact with one or another
progressive member of parliament or an interested radio or TV
moderator. Today there are a lot of discussions about the Soviet
Union, Yugoslavia, about the public debt, about what should
happen with the former GDR. And suddenly we have no voice in this
discussion.
Folkerts: This is just a sign that the Left's frame of reference
has fallen apart. The East-West line of demarcation, the
struggles against colonialism, the metropolitan movements and the
relations between these struggles including their realistic
revolutionary possibilities - this historical period (beginning
with the October Revolution in 1917) has ended. This fact demands
a caesura. A new combination of emancipatory forces can not and
will not drive in old lanes.
New social space, situations, relations - national and
international - will be created. The lonely position you are
talking about - we don't make ourselves dependent on that.
In times of illegality we learned to swim against the stream.
What we learned from the loneliness of isolation is to hold up
against a superior force. These experiences are the origins of
our basic confidence. A basic confidence in ourselves and the
potential abilities of human beings.
Taufer: If there is a weakness of the Left at the time, it has a
lot to do with its inability to create a credible utopian scheme.
Ebermann: No, you are wrong! There is no lack of utopian schemes.
There is just nobody listening to them. Take this critique of
productivity. It was a wide-spread phenomenon some years ago.
Both good and bad sides in it. The idealization of alternative
firms and companies, the romanticizing of former crafts, the
absurd self-exploitation - in spite of that there was a
discussion about productivity, the chaining of human beings to
industrial work, the humiliation of human beings by machines and
assembly lines. There was a discussion about the question of
fighting this kind of production.
Something like 5 or 10 percent of this society dreamt of
somehow organizing life in a better way. This is the origin of
each utopian scheme. And this has disappeared. The desire to
overcome alienation is not very present in this society. You have
to admit, they momentarily won ideologically, they were able to
plant into people's minds that this is the best of all worlds
imaginable.
Folkerts: This is because you look at the present time in old
patterns. You have to learn to watch exactly how contradictions
are expressed in a new way, where they are articulated in a new
way. Of course they need a Left. And this becomes a circle: the
Left doesn't exist and everything is dominated by reactionary
forces.
Timm: The main contradiction between Thomas [Ebermann] and you
all is the assessment of imperialism's stability. And my
impression is, that Thomas is mainly looking at the economic
side. The economic stability and expansion, the economic
opportunities which have opened up and play an important role in
the countries of former state socialism. But remembering Vietnam
and what took place there: the economic and military power of the
U.S. against a people who had little more than their own idea,
their own will to be independent. And this couldn't be broken by
economic and military power.
Today we see this economic power on the one hand. On the
other hand we see bourgeois, humanist ideas and ideals thrown
out. Nobody, including the ruling class, keeps them. If they
would be starting with slogans like: "Let's dare more democracy"
[1969 election campaign slogan] or something like that, everybody
would laugh - it would be so ridiculous. Today it is difficult to
determine: which point we are starting from, under which
conditions? How can you analyze something when you keep staring
at the media? If everything that is really moving does not get
published, it will remain within small circles - like in the St.
Georg neighbourhood in Hamburg, where a social initiative, a
neighbourhood association, the gray panthers, the kindergarten
and some others came together because of the drug policy made by
the Hamburg government. This is not the ideological direction of
"Free distribution of Heroin". They say with a great sense for
practical decisions: "What the police is doing here in St. Georg
is to our disadvantage. When the junkies are banished from the
public space of the main train station they come to the entrances
and backyards of our houses. This is why the needles are laying
around here. So they come together and demand: "Police out of
this community". This is something concrete you can start with
today.
Ebermann: They are probably doing useful things there. But You
can't talk about politics and society this way.
Timm: Why not?
Ebermann: I'm giving another example. The state government of
Schleswig Holstein crowded all the refugees in front of the
welfare offices - to document the so-called abuse. And there was
a demonstration against this. Less than 200 people were at this
demonstration. But the basis for the current hegemony of the
ruling class is that they have been successful in establishing
ideologically that the world is fucked up, and that it is
"everyone for her/himself". This is reflected in the total lack
of opposition against the racism that is directed at the
refugees.
Taufer: That's what I think, more or less. But often in history,
when forces of solidarity and freedom have been kept down and the
power was in position of hegemony, counter forces emerged from
below. You can see that clearly in the United States. The ruling
class has no solution anymore for a practicable civil society.
This is not only an issue for Blacks in the ghettos. This is also
an issue for the middle class, although it is moving to the right
at the time. But the question is: how can we develop these
forces. That includes an examination of the past 25 years history
to learn from the mistakes and strengths.
Dellwo: Thomas [Ebermann] thinks that this system has become more
stable over the past 20 years. I don't see that. We had to go
through a certain process and had to walk certain wrong streets.
And we walked many wrong streets. We're not going to repeat that
but they had to be walked. All this, our lack of ideas, the
momentary vacuum because we have no answer to the question of
centralized perspective, that state socialism has failed as the
first break with history (and we don't know how to start again) -
all this doesn't mean the system has become more stabile.
We can list a lot of reasons why we see the system as weaker,
less stabile than before. But that doesn't help. Because the
weakness of the other side doesn't mean our power. There is no
automatic relationship between misery and liberation.
Vice versa, if the system was stabile, this wouldn't be the
origin of our weakness. But I can not think like that. Whether it
is more stabile or not - everybody who doesn't give up life in
this society has to break away from that consensus and has to
develop their own good sense, has to live and fight that it will
come to existence as a developing subversive reality. This way I
understand the declaration of our comrades.
We are coming to this situation from a different history. We
accepted our isolation in those days as an initial condition. It
was hard sometimes but we didn't lose ourselves. That means: we
always came to a break with this system in a material way. Others
had a lot of fear towards this isolation, but today they find
themselves in that isolation, against their own will. It's wrong
to declare it's all about the power of the system rather than
criticizing yourself that you always kept surrendering, too. So
many people covered up that breaking with the system has to be
something real in your life. And if it's right it becomes
insignificant if you're alone with it. And it comes back to us as
a pre-condition for any further development.
It should be easier today because the question of competence
has become more clear now. How much confidence do people put in
the capability of capitalism to solve the existential problems of
life? And isn't that a sign that this system is politically less
stabile?
Taufer: Except if one defines this stability as follows: all this
brutality, egoism, unrestrained greed are mechanisms to keep and
develop this scheme of society. Then one can speak of stability.
But this egoism and brutality are immensely destructive against
any scheme of society.
Ebermann: Maybe I can explain my thoughts by reading a part of
the RAF's declaration. "It is an important question for how much
longer the state will be able to feed into the racism against
refugees and to treat the refugees as sub-human in order to avoid
its responsibility for unemployment, lack of housing, poverty
among the elderly, etc. - and how much longer the state will be
able to send these people back into the misery that it keeps
contributing to in the first place."
This is cruel. We are living in times when almost everything
from us that was able to take root in society - the demand for
"open borders," e.g., sounded good to liberal church circles - is
replaced by a consensus to deal with refugees hard and
ruthlessly. There is no relevant resistance against this any
more. Now I am comparing this with the part of the declaration
that suggests that the future remains a somewhat open question
and perhaps even suggests that the ceasing of armed actions is
related to this. It seems to me that the authors still need to
claim that they just won grand victories and are therefore able
to take such and such specific steps.
This is even more clear at another point where it says:
"...there are factions within the ruling apparatus that have
realized they can't suppress resistance and social contradictions
through police-military means." First, all factions within the
state have always known not to use these means in a pure fashion.
And second, there will be one element structuring politics in
future, which is repression. Both quotes seem to be in a
relation. It sounds like: "Because everything is going well, we
can change the form of struggle."
Dellwo: My understanding is different. There were times when a
guerilla came into being here. And it's not possible to eliminate
this from history - even if they would quit. And it can come into
being again at any time. That's what they want to say. What the
RAF meant to me is: to break out of a certain relation of
extermination that the state was pronouncing towards minorities
and opposition. We know what they did to the KPD after 1945 [The
German Communist Party KPD was banned in 1956, followed by
150.000 political trials against its members and other
progressives] and we know how the state responded in 1968. And I
know how they cleared our squatted house in Hamburg with special
forces and with machine guns - and they were ready to shoot us.
We set something against that until today. They couldn't destroy
the RAF. They couldn't break the prisoners in jail.
And we fought for the ability to practice a certain kind of
resistance when it is necessary. That remained limited to us who
were living underground or in prison, and to a few people around
that. And I'd like to disseminate and to broaden this attitude,
the willingness to stand up for something. I'm not talking about
the form of our struggle, which has to be determined anew. I am
talking about the willingness to assert something, and to carry
through with it - a willingness to determine a question from our
point of view and to demand an answer.
It was not the attitude of most in the Left. They always
stopped and surrendered at certain boundaries. And this is one of
the subjects in the RAF declaration: You should fight for the
ability to resist. This noon I thought, look, both of you have
been part of the Left for much longer than I have. And you have
never been in jail. Why is that? Why didn't you carry through
with a certain thing, paid a price too? There is something
missing in this Left. We have to reach that point, I suppose.
Gremliza: Make the Left go to prison?
Dellwo: Not make the Left go to prison. But we have to reach the
point where we insist on certain things. When we fought for
regroupment we reached that boundary, we had dead prisoners, too.
But we knew we had to pay this price, otherwise you won't be able
to survive. You have to fight. You are here in this maximum
security unit and you realize that the whole thing is going to
wipe you out - wipe you out as a human being. You know this would
be a defeat, you have to set something against it, your self-
affirmation. Then you can carry through. And if you say that so
much has disappeared, then one of the reasons might be that you
never insisted: "We refuse to have this taken away from us." A
little bit of self-criticism won't hurt you.
Timm: If the subject is discussion and a new orientation now, it
must be possible to criticize certain things with this RAF
declaration. There is a mistake, an imprecise political
assessment. The RAF is talking about the change in the balance of
power and they are basing this on Kinkel's remarks about the
political prisoners [in early 1992, suggesting that some
political prisoners could be released under certain conditions.
Kinkel used to be Minister of the Interior and Law Enforcement.
He has since become Foreign Minister]. They take the fact that he
is saying anything as proof for the existence of certain factions
within the state, factions that are willing to handle
contradictions in a different way, for example regarding the
question of foreigners and asylum. But this is one of the areas
where we haven't achieved anything. There is no indication for a
decline in repression, but only for an intensification.
Dellwo: But you agree, that ten years ago they never would have
been doing the things Kinkel is doing today?
Timm: There's some moving in the question of political prisoners.
But we don't know the reasons why.
Folkerts: There is a misunderstanding. The RAF is not taking the
state policies against immigrants as an example to suppose the
existence of factions within the apparatus handling the
contradictions in a different way. The subject matter of their
declaration is starting from the opposite and is referring to the
necessity of social struggles. These struggles will settle the
questions of winning space for all the essential questions
politically. In these struggles we'll learn to demolish the
ruling consensus.
And in the question of political prisoners: there are
factions within the institutions. But we are not overestimating
them. Those who are searching for new ways still have the same
aims. However, Kinkel's remarks are a political expression of
these contradictions that have matured for a long time. This is
especially remarkable because it's an apparatus with a very
strong ability to persist. We are talking about the complex of
state security with its fascist roots and its relative autonomy
which is - together with the media - a machine of self-
legitimation. Although it has long been obvious from the facts
that they are unable to break the RAF or the prisoners this way,
they have been going on and on for years. The psychological
campaigns, the lies and the frauds were meant to prevent the
political consequences of a situation without a way out. The
invention of "successful searches for fugitives" (like the
"absolutely credible witness of the prosecution" in early 1992)
is to simulate the capability to vanquish the RAF - in a moment
when one of the RAF's heart has supposedly deserted to the state.
After 22 years, they are revealing their true essence: the
reality pretended by BAW (Federal Prosecutor), BKA (Federal
Police), VS (Domestic Political Intelligence) and the media is
identical to the fancy world of a mentally ill person.
Taufer: I think, it's important to emphasize that the RAF's
declaration is not a reaction to Kinkel but the first result of
an ongoing discussion which started 2 years ago. This discussion
was a result of the tremendous changes in the world which called
for a new determination.
Gremliza: But one can hardly deny that the effect of this
declaration is going into a direction that you consider to be a
misunderstanding. The RAF responds to Kinkel's demands and hoists
the white flag to get the prisoners out. You can say: the public
got the wrong picture and Kinkel got the wrong picture. But for
me it's hard to believe that the authors of this declaration
didn't anticipate this effect and therefore didn't want it.
Folkerts: Perhaps the sequence of events gives you that
impression. But it's a necessary and right decision within the
whole development. How people will work with this decision in the
future will depend on how the Left will intervene into the
situation in order to prevent a defeatist tendency. Of course,
it's an open situation - which the other side knows. They, of
course, want everything for themselves and nothing for us.
Ebermann: The whole movie is directed towards two different
audiences.
Folkerts: The declaration is directed to society, to everyone who
is searching for ways to assert a life worthy of human beings.
It's the same with the declaration from us, the prisoners. Our
remarks towards the state are clear. So the state can start from
facts and not from illusions and the primitive calculations of
its "specialists" - like when they recently announced to release
some of the prisoners and to start additional trials against
others at the same time.
Ebermann: Everything that is somehow useful to free political
prisoners is more than legitimate. It's above any criticism. I
think that you defined the boundaries yourself. And if I caught
that right there are two boundaries: the first is when you drag
other people down and the second is to drag your own history
through the mud so that nobody feels the desire to learn from it.
Everything else has to be done. And you got to know that we are
not very helpful in pushing your release. This is a decision by
the structure of ruling politics, or of the accepted opposition
within the frame of that politics. And so they are the correct
addressees for that RAF declaration.
The other addressee is the remaining Left. And we really
have to watch out that your success which hopefully has become
possible now will not get registered as being a part of a
"civilizing" and "liberalizing" development. Strong forces are
trying to play this music, calling for certain self-criticisms.
And I think those quotes of the declaration which are
suggesting things are going well in Germany, are harmful under
these aspects. For me, [Marxist economist] Robert Kurz - whom you
quote many times - does not so much represent an economic
analysis, but for a political assessment that liberalization
broke out in Germany: liberalization because assistant judges (or
whatever the name of that sort of rabble is) are wearing
ear-diamonds, wearing their hair in ponytails. The cosmopolitan
is growing up here and a nazi can't be a nazi because he bought
his wife in Singapore. Kurz stands for all these smuggled
substitutes of ideology.
Dellwo: I disagree. I didn't understand Kurz this way.
Ebermann: Two themes have preoccupied the world for centuries.
One: is the world going down with all hands? And the other: is
humankind going to civilize? Kurz is the prophet of the latter.
Folkerts: His assertion that capitalism's victory over socialism
lasted just one second and that this victory will intensify
capitalism's own crisis is much more important. If you don't only
watch superficial appearances but the growing potential of global
crisis coming back to the centres - accelerated in the FRG by the
annexation of the GDR - you can't talk anymore about this system
becoming more stabile.
Ebermann: How does one define this stability? Any stupid
reformist says that IMF and Worldbank have failed. You recognize
this by the gap between the stated ideals of these institutions
and reality. Somehow all the ideals never become reality. But in
reality these institution are functioning perfectly. Of course, I
can say there is no stability because there is no tranquillity
for them. But they don't need this tranquillity. They can leave
huge communities in New York without supervision as long as they
can be sure that people are killing each other, selling drugs to
each other. As long as it's not concerning materials they want to
turn into commodities, they don't care.
Folkerts: The idea of emancipation should be grounded anew from
deep down and from historical maturity because a whole epoch has
ended. Liberation - what does that mean today? Today there is the
possibility of suspensions and it never was before. Structural
mass-unemployment is the negative expression of the eventual
possibility to suspense labour. We do need a real and an obvious
moment at the present time because it will be a long lasting
process of transition. Liberation can't remain an abstraction or
a distant goal. Goals have to start from living reality, as a
movement of acquisition.
Ebermann: I read Taufer's letter to the people in Tuebingen where
he quotes this Tupamaro who talks about the situation when he is
coming into the slums and about what it means to be a talking
head when people live in extreme misery. For those who don't live
in such conditions, who don't have to worry about having a bed
when they get sick or about feeding their children the next day
- that is: for many in this country emancipation can only mean a
critique of needs.
Gremliza: The view that every improvement of any other human
being's situation on earth will lead to a degeneration of the own
situation has grown up in the mass consciousness of the FRG. This
view is correct. And this is why every glimpse at the misery of
the world is avoided. Otherwise there would have to be a support
for emancipatory movements. Down with international solidarity!
If you want to do something for yourself and your needs you are
well advised to join the wealthy german fatherland. This is why I
think the chances that you claim to have discovered in guiding
the needs of german masses into emancipatory politics are almost
pathetic.
Taufer: We were talking about the Left and its history and not
about the german masses. The critique of needs is a crucial point
within this context. The illusory process which was guided by the
Left (and especially the metropolitan left) which is ending now,
failed because they didn't give birth to new needs. This is what
the Tupamaros are trying now in Uruguay. If you are talking about
socialism to people, who are living in slums, who don't have
food, who are selling their 12 year old daughters - they feel
that you aren't taking them serious.
Gremliza: If one criticizes the need for food towards people who
are living in slums, selling their 12 year old daughters just to
survive, instead of sending them a freighter full of wheat (in
real socialist manner) one deserves to get punched in the face.
Taufer: It's one of the basic problems within the socialist
movement during the last hundred years that it always tried to
talk people into an idealist aim. But wherever capitalism offered
real-life possibilities to unfold - in the manner of wolves in
generally - there was a blind spot in state socialism. Critique
of needs - we were talking about that in 1968 already. We gave
birth to something new in this country. And a friend from Uruguay
experienced this as an achievement when he came into touch with
it here. He didn't know it from Uruguay.
In 1968 the critique of needs broke either down on a field
of moralistic signposts - and I'm saying nothing of the cruelties
- or wherever alternatives were tried the whole thing stayed
cautious or sometimes naive. Nothing of that imagination and the
certain courage one had to learn with us. And so the return to
the status quo looked like a realistic compromise. The need for
fundamental change is going to arise, where ever you can feel the
life in and from another land of needs. And it will taste so
well, that the other needs will be looking rather old.
In the examination of state socialism you now often hear the
term use value. Just like the market economy, really existing
socialism was not the suspension of commodity relations and
particularly not the suspension of commodity fetishism which
makes people passive. A society focused use values would be a
society of prioritizing the self-initiative and self-
determination and not the traditional satisfaction of needs.
Self-determination - this is not just the different organizing of
the individual-subjective expression. Wherever such a new
mentality can rise, the needs for consumption will become less
important because a personal and social activity is quite another
way to satisfy needs than consumption is. The world is going to
be destroyed by these orgies of consumption and economic
abscesses. I can't imagine that Kurz's book won't be discussed
within the next years.
Dellwo: Hermann, you seem to be impressed by our optimism?
Gremliza: Not impressed, but devastated. This is not optimism. We
are talking about different worlds.
Dellwo: I don't think that any positive development can still be
expected from this state. Even if they wanted it - it's
materially impossible. But the subject is also the self-
affirmation of human beings. You are talking a lot about the
Left. And that means the political Left which emerged from the
movement of 1968. But the contradiction now reaches far beyond
that. Would you call the people in the Hafenstrasse/Hamburg
leftist? Or the people in the Mainzer Strasse/Berlin? I disagree.
Maybe the term "leftist" has become useless.
Ebermann: Maybe we are living in times when nothing can be done
except for some people trying to preserve emancipatory ideas over
the years.
Dellwo: What I caught well in the books of Robert Kurz is the
difference between the period of "Fordism" when masses of people
were absorbed and nowadays, the period of "Automatization" when
masses of people are thrown onto the streets and are declared to
be useless. In the former GDR, for example, - there is no use for
anybody who is older than 45 years. These people are kept
speechless by retraining programs and social programs until they
will be to old to resist. Isn't this something, where a lot of
things can rise from?
I'm not asking: where is the revolutionary subject? In
previous times people were looking for it in the "third world"
and after that they were searching among the marginalized parts
of society. And I once said: "Look into your mirror. Either you
see a revolutionary subject then or you don't." We are being
asked: Can we create and develop something where other people can
recognize something [they missed?]. Only if we're negating that
question, would we be defeated.
Ebermann: When I hear this I am reminded of Poder Popular,
people's power: creating a space where the ideological and
material influence of the ruling class is limited. And that's why
it always comes to the example of the Hafenstrasse because this
is the most obvious example - and there is always a need to
abstract from the real things going on there. They are
advertising for the Hafenstrasse as Pippi Longstocking.
Dellwo: I don't know about that.
Gremliza: It seems to me as if the Hafenstrasse functions as a
rather successful model of self-therapy.
Taufer: Isn't this because the process remained superficial
there, too? And isn't this related to your pessimism? Of course,
I, too, see the Left as stagnating. But there was a strong,
multi-faceted and very original left process over the past 25
years which was expropriated by the state again and again. After
1945 only the Left proved its talent to create and to push
forward with social innovations - today we need such innovations
again. Right wing theoreticians like Rohrmoser ascertain a much
more pessimistic state of the system than people on the Left. But
the Left is sitting on its backside and crying about its defeat.
Gremliza: Precondition for everything is a concept of reality -
though it might hurt. Defeat is a reality and only if you don't
cheat along this knowledge you'll be able to learn by recognizing
your own mistakes - both the avoidable and the unavoidable
mistakes which were forced on you by the superiority of the
state.
Dellwo: Do we have to call that "defeat"? We are speaking of
boundaries we reached. Of course we wanted more. But we made a
lot of very important experiences. And we are steady. It wasn't
easy but it's possible.
Ebermann: I feel a deep hatred for all the scum commenting on
everything with: "there are possibilities and dangers in it". The
reason why we are debating about "boundaries" and "defeat" and
why we do this so vehemently, is that the key for all dirty
tricks is this notion of inherent "possibilities and danger".
Folkerts: What does this have to do with us?
Gremliza: Nothing yet.
Taufer: Whether you call it "boundary" or "defeat", the important
thing is a relation of honesty, self-consciousness and
self-criticism towards one's own history.
Folkerts: The occasion to this talk is the RAF's declaration. And
the essential thing is that they took this step. This should be
your subject and not criticism of individual points.
Gremliza: I haven't criticized the declaration yet but I have
tried to discover its meaning. What does it mean when the RAF
stops the attacks on persons? What are they going to do instead
of this? If the prisoners are released, will the RAF still exist?
And if, how? I didn't read about that in the declaration.
Folkerts: One can not determine that yet. It's an open process.
Gremliza: But the decision to end the armed struggle is your
decision, too?
Folkerts: We won't retreat from that. But if you see the
declaration, you see that there is a beginning and an end. You
cannot voluntarily eject yourself out of a situation. The
transition itself is a process of struggle, which will decide
about opening possibilities. So there is something coming back to
everyone: the responsibility for the changed situation.
Gremliza: For Kinkel's reconciliation?
Folkerts: This word "reconciliation" is completely wrong. The
contradictions are antagonistic and they will always be. We are
coming out of these contradictions. The RAF made public that the
contradictions will be carried out in a certain sharpness.
Gremliza: If the prisoners don't want this reconciliation - i.e.
if they don't offer anything to the state - the subject of
release is up to the calculation solely of the ruling class. They
can keep you - for security reasons - in prison. Or they can
release you, hoping to be able to walk their dogs without
bodyguards. This is a subject that Mr. Kinkel, Ms. Vollmer (Green
party leader) and Mr. Waigel (government official) have to
negotiate with their clientele. This is not a question for the
Left.
Folkerts: Indeed, there was influence from the economic elite.
They paid 20 years for this state security, which never brought
the results, they were waiting for. It came to the point where
large corporations were sending checks to the BND (intelligence
service) to finance secret activities. In these activities
hirelings were paid (parallel to the official apparatus) to track
and kill RAF-members in foreign countries. The president of this
intelligence service (BND) was Kinkel, among others.
Gremliza: Maybe they didn't get rid of you like they wished, but
you're not going to claim that this RAF-declaration is a state's
document of surrender to the RAF?
Folkerts: It's not self-aggrandizing to point out after 22 years
that they couldn't destroy the RAF. The RAF has shown an ability
to act politically. You cannot claim that about the other side.
Dellwo: This declaration is addressed to the Left in the first
place, with the question if - in contrast to the mid-70s when
this was impossible - we can create a connection in different
struggles. If we can do that, we can quit this relation of war to
the other side. This would enable the other side to change their
relation to us. If this is not possible and everybody is just
sitting around and lamenting, then we have to ask ourselves what
to do then. We are saying to this Left: We all tried certain
projects over the past 25 years, and we all made certain
experiences. Let's draw some conclusions now.
Gremliza: And what do you expect to be the answer of the state?
Dellwo: Freedom for all the (political) prisoners.
Gremliza: Are there any conditions for the method of release?
Should it be a kind of amnesty?
Dellwo: The method is secondary to me as long as all the
prisoners will be released within a foreseeable future. We will
not agree to a solution of releases after 15 years [in Germany,
prisoners with life sentences may be eligible for parole after 15
years]. That would mean some of us will be imprisoned for 5 or 10
more years. The method is their problem. I don't want to deal
with their normative problems.
Gremliza: Will the prisoners accept any conditions for their
release?
Dellwo: They attempt to make us deny and to reject our own
history. They want a creed to their authority. But this is not
the end of their demands. The parole hearing of Guenter
Sonnenberg [prisoner/RAF] shows that. After Guenter was shot in
the head in 1977, he was in the same situation like Rudi Dutschke
was. [Dutschke was a SDS-leader in the 1960s and was shot in the
head by a worker in 1969, who knew about Dutschke from the media.
Dutschke survived this shooting but since that day he suffered
from epileptic attacks. He died from one from such an attack in
1979] Guenter also had to learn everything anew. They held him in
isolation for years and years. Not only did he have to fight
against isolation, but also against the consequences of the
shooting. The demand in many hungerstrikes - Guenter participated
in all these strikes - was to get him in a group, to be able to
learn talking again, against the epileptic attacks, and to give
him a comrade he can trust. That was necessary from medical point
of view anyway. At one point, they brought him a tv-set to his
cell and said: "Okay, here is something you can relate to now."
They wanted to turn him into a vegetable. What they said now in
the parole-hearing is: "Well, you can talk, you're physically in
a good condition - you have to admit, we treated you well." They
wanted him to deny the pain they did to him, even to thank them.
There's no lack of cynicism.
Folkerts: While they presumably don't know of any political
prisoners, they wanted a political statement about the
RAF-declaration from Guenter Sonnenberg. In a statement about
Bernd Roessner's [prisoner/RAF] serious illness the Federal
Prosecutor stated in April 1992 that Bernd needs to remain in
prison (after 17 years) to obtain a change of his convictions.
And the OLG [senior court] Frankfurt ruled about Ali Jansen
[prisoner/ resistance] that "although there might be a greater
sensitivity for punishment because of his asthmatic attacks, no
change of convictions has resulted from that yet."
All this shows that the state security apparatus cannot be
the resort of jurisdiction. And it should be clear from the past:
Stammheim is known worldwide for the failed attempt to eliminate
fundamental opposition and to depoliticize the struggle at the
same time.
Dellwo: Though they want that in first place I'm not willing to
reject my past. And though we have reached a certain boundary
today, it was right that the RAF was founded. There's a
historical and moral legitimation for armed struggle to have
existed in this society.
Folkerts: Of course, we're not surprised about their persistence
at this point: they are starting with the knowledge that you can
determine the future if you define the past. Nothing but their
universe of commodities and money is allowed to exist. Caught
within this madness, they think they are the end of history. But
they couldn't even begin solving any problem within the society.
Ebermann: Your statements seem rather non-tactical to me.
Dellwo: Maybe they are. But they have to take it as it is. We
can't use tactics at this point. They can say that they had to
fight us and they were right to do it - I don't care. But they
have to accept that they couldn't break our awareness of
ourselves [political consciousness]. If they can't accept that,
we don't see any way for a solution. We will never come to common
views with them.
Ebermann: I'm not afraid of the word surrender. If you are
succumbed by a superior force (as described by Lenin at the time
of the "Peace of Brest-Litovsk") surrender is reasonable, and you
have to act against the talking heads who demand heroic postures.
Taufer: The issue is not heroic postures but our history. We
didn't fight for 18 years to throw it away now - although it is
necessary to deal with our mistakes.
Folkerts: They still want to erase us and our history.
Dellwo: I can't do that. I can't go there and speak tactically.
If they are asking for that - you can only stand up for your
project. There were always too few within the Left who would
stick out their necks and play for all the stakes. I mean this in
a quite non-dramatical way. I'm not the person for their moral
remonstrances. We have different morals.
Ebermann: This is true. For people like me it is difficult not to
mix up what were political disagreements with you and what was
simply a consideration for my own safety. The whole history of
the Left and the RAF is not exclusively a history of political
disagreements, but also a history of the missing will to stand up
for something you think is right. We have to defend principled
positions against an attitude that promotes success as the only
criteria for political action. If we don't do that, we will not
be prepared for the things which have to be done in the future,
even individually. There are always situations when you can't
change the course of history but you still have a lot of
different possibilities for your own actions. For example in
Nazi-Germany: it was impossible to organize successful resistance
at that time. But you could still hide someone who was
persecuted, although it surely would have been an exaggeration to
claim to be involved in a project to bring down Hitler with that.
You only could do it or leave it.
Taufer: This is an important point. It's not only about our
situation when we insist on a correct and critical examination of
our history. It's for the Left outside of prison, too. And,
talking about the "Peace of Brest-Litovsk": Lenin's tactical
compromise was not only a relief for the October Revolution, it
was also a burden for others. If we made the peace they want us
to make, it would be a burden on the Left in the long run.
33. "There Is Much Which Unites Us"
The following speech was delivered by former RAF prisoner Gunter
Sonnenberg at a demonstration of 2000 people, including many ex-
prisoners, in Bonn on 20.6.92
I have been free since May 15. So I'd like to thank all
those people who struggled for my freedom for the 15 years and
two weeks that I spent in jail. All of the various initiatives
and campaigns which led to my release supported me against the
state's plan of destruction during my more than 15 years in
prison - and they are also the reason that I'm standing before
you today. For all those who struggled, it's important to realize
that all those efforts and all that work did achieve results.
Thus, every public initiative and every political and militant
action was important.
At this time, I'd especially like to thank all of the
attorneys and the friends and family group. They have worked
tirelessly over the years to publicize my situation and that of
all the political prisoners, as well as countering the state's
program of destruction. The fact that I'm standing here now is
not the result of the state's generosity - it's because we
struggled together.
It's now our responsibility - those of us who are now free -
to see to it that all of our comrades who are still in prison get
released. First of all, those who are ill must be released: Bernd
Rossner, Isabel Jacob, and Ali Jansen.
Bernd has been in prison for 17 years. He was a part of the
Holger Meins Commando that occupied the West German embassy in
Stockholm in an attempt to win the release of political
prisoners. He was held in isolation for several years and he
remains separated from all the other political prisoners. Bernd
has been ill since 1983. Since that time, his lawyers have
consistently maintained that his illness in due to the 8 years he
spent in isolation. In June 1988, it was decided that Bernd is
medically unfit for detention. And that was four years ago!
Bernd has struggled for his identity to this very day. He is
unbroken. His body and his physical condition have been so
savagely attacked by the inhuman prison system, that Prof. Rasch
testified in May/92 that with each passing day and week that
Bernd spends in prison, the danger increases that he will indeed
have served a "life-long sentence". That means, Bernd is in
danger of losing his life so long as he remains in prison.
The federal government and the Dusseldorf district court
refuse to release him. They are working on new plans to destroy
Bernd and to break his identity. When the matter of his release
is discussed, they mention closed psychiatric care. They have
tried for years to force Bernd into psychiatric care. They are
continuing this process today.
His release must be central to us. The release of further
prisoners rests on this. That means, no more prisoners will take
political-judicial steps as long as Bernd is not free.
The struggle for the release of political prisoners is, for
us, a part of the continuity of our revolutionary struggle for
liberation from the imperialist system and for freedom from the
clutches of the state. This is closely tied to the discussions
which have taken place here on the outside: the anti-racist
struggle, the anti-G7 mobilization, the "500 Years of Colonialism
and Resistance" campaign, and even with the squatters' struggle
against housing shortages.
The goal and means which we have struggled for and worked
towards, we see in those people getting beaten down by the cops
today in Mannheim. It has taken a struggle to be able to
demonstrate in this manner. Many people have ended up in prison
for doing political work supporting political prisoners. The
police attacks in Mannheim, and the special conditions put in
place there, are also being planned for Munich; these, like the
isolation-torture used against us in the prisons, are designed to
keep us from our goals and to deter our struggle for a humane
society.
Torture in the prisons, just like the blows being struck
against young anti-fascists here on the outside, is designed to
induce fear and distress, capitulation and resignation.
There is much which unites us, we have much in common.
In countless countries, peoples are confronted with an
imperialist system which denies them their right to existence.
Germany is a big part of this. One example: in Kurdistan, weapons
from Germany are used by the Turkish army to destroy villages and
murder Kurds.
Through proletarian internationalism and actions connected
with this, revolutionary groups in Germany have helped aid the
liberation movements of the Three Continents. What we have done
up until now has not defeated imperialism. But these struggles
have connected us somewhat to the conditions faced by
revolutionaries in other countries. Today, we met people from
other countries who were imprisoned over the last two decades.
They, like us, are now struggling to free their imprisoned
comrades from the clutches of the state.
That's why it's important to develop a new orientation and
broaden revolutionary struggle at the same time. The similarities
between their and our experiences, the commonality of goals and
the warmth, intensity, and precision of these encounters have
given us a great hope that we can build a new revolutionary
front, despite the new global conditions, to combat the
destruction of peoples and their means of existence.
There are people from all across the world who have to live
here for the time being and carry out their revolutionary
struggle for the freedom of their land and people from here, or
who come here simply to discuss with us.
In the meantime, we have exchanged a whole wealth of
experiences relating to our experiences in the guerrilla, the
prisons, and our political praxis. Our horizontal perspective has
been broadened by these meetings. In this way, we can catch hold
of, and together find the answers to the complex problems and
contradictions in the world which are reflected in our own
country.
One answer has to be, the release of all imprisoned
revolutionaries.
On behalf of everyone, I'd like to name a few: Leonard
Peltier, Mumia Abu-Jamal, Irmgard Moller, Alan Berkman, Geronimo
Pratt, Nathalie Menigon, Dylcia Pagan, Susan Rosenberg, Manuel
Hernandez, and many others!
Freedom for all political prisoners!
(from Angehorigen Info #96)
34. "We Must Search For Something New" Red Army Fraction
Discussion Paper - August 1992
"Proletarian revolutions...naturally critique themselves, they
take breaks in their steps forward, they seemingly end up back
where they started, they jeer at the cruelly fundamental
shortcomings, weaknesses, and miserable experiences of their
first attempts. But when they seem to have thrown their opponents
down, thereby sucking new life out of the earth and once again
aligning themselves against the enemy, they are shocked at the
new realization of the incredible degree of their own purpose,
until such time as the time is right, when it's no longer
possible to turn back, and the conditions cry out: Hic Rhodus;
Hic Salta."
- Karl Marx
In our letter of April 10, we stated that we realized that
one of our mistakes has been too little discussion of our own
processes. We have been sharply criticized for this from all
sides. What we offered was self-indulgence, not answers to the
questions which arose from our political situation. It was
unnecessary, apolitical chatter, and besides this, we failed on
our promise to discuss our mistakes. Rather than have all of this
get us upset, we would like to briefly go into all of this.
Today, when we take a step forward in our history, it's
important to reflect also on our history, to make it useful for
both ourselves and for others. Anything else would be pointless.
We have a history of 22 years of struggle, and it's important in
this country to learn as much as possible from the experiences of
those struggles so as to move on into the future. That's why we
need to discuss mistakes, so that they won't be repeated in the
future. Our identity and our pride are not based on a notion of
infallibility, nor do we think that mistakes should call into
question the legitimacy of revolutionary struggles. On the
contrary: we have some things to say that we think are relevant
to future struggles.
We would like to have an open discussion with all those who
are struggling for changes here. Open means talking about
everything which is significant, and not feeling the need to have
one's own, radiant position on every issue. Comrades who go about
things in that way should rid themselves of that bourgeois
tendency - the bourgeois are pleasing unto themselves. The
experience that such an outlook brings nothing good has been
proven by the socialist states. Many liberation movements had to
then adjust to this, and so did we. This is an outlook from a
past epoch and won't be of any use in the future. There are many
people here who swallow up the texts of Trikont [the 3 continents
of the so-called "Third World" - Asia, Africa and Latin America -
ed.] liberation movements and then criticize a past phase and,
from that, develop a plan for the next phase. But when we do
this, there's an uproar.
The rigid tendency to cling to certain clear notions is
often times a sign of a fear of criticism, and it's also often an
attempt to avoid one's own uncertainties and the questions of
others. If we didn't talk about our experiences, we'd have to
take all the criticisms levelled against us, which we have
struggled against over the last few years, and drag them through
one enormous discussion. We aren't concerned with this. Taking a
step forward means, to us, engaging in a deep-reaching process of
discussion rather than removing ourselves from the discussions.
It has become increasingly clear to us over the last few
weeks that we need to be more concrete in our discussions about
what we have been up to for the last few years so that people can
more easily understand our recent steps. We know that some
comrades see our steps not only as the result of the changed
international situation, but rather one we should have taken back
in '89. But the proposal to see our role of the last few years as
"a form of confrontation" is also unrealistic. This can't be
guerrilla politics. Guerrilla politics is a permanent process of
searching for right answers within the existing, changing
political situation, and also a redevelopment of one's own
strength.
In our discussion process since '89/'90, it became
increasingly clear within the group that we had to break off from
our old clarities, directions, and orientations and make a
change. We would not be able to find solutions for new situations
in old goals. Now, we can only speak of our own discussions and
process and not those of our imprisoned comrades. We see this
text as a part of a discussion with them. In any case, they
hardly have the opportunity to take full part in this discussion.
That's another reason why we must fight for their freedom.
As for our history in the 1980's: not a single one of us who
are in the RAF today was a member prior to 1984. That means that
we did not take part in the discussions in the group in the early
80's, for example when the "Front Paper" [in May 1982, the RAF
released a paper which called for the building of an anti-
imperialist front in Europe with the urban guerrilla as the
vanguard - ed.] was issued. To come to a full understanding of
our history at this time - and even more so for the history since
the 70's - we need to have a discussion with our imprisoned
comrades.
For those of us who joined the guerrilla in '84 and
thereafter, the early 80's were a time of significant
experiences, decisions, and changes in our country, and from out
of these came the decision to take up armed struggle. This was a
period of struggle around many issues: the anti-NATO movement;
the 1981 hungerstrike of the political prisoners, during which
Sigurd Debus was murdered; anti-nuclear struggles; struggles
against Startbahn West [NATO runway in Frankfurt - ed.];
squatting actions; and of course the mass-mobilizations against
the stationing of cruise missiles. We took part in these
struggles ourselves and we had the same experience as everyone
else: we can't break through this power.
During this time, there weren't just hundreds of thousands
of people on the streets, it was also about contradictions
involving millions of people, and they weren't able to make the
powers budge on even one demand - so it's only logical that the
struggles became more radical and more militant. Many people
decided to organize various militant initiatives during these
years, especially for attacking the U.S./NATO military strategy.
This was designed to give our struggles a new strength and
vitality. Every day, the state just ignored the protests of
hundreds of thousands of people in the streets, while at the same
time attacking these people who took their demands to the streets
harder and harder. It was only a coincidence that our side didn't
suffer more deaths (Klaus Jurgen Rattay, Olaf Ritzmann) and
serious injuries than it did. The cruelty and brutality inflicted
on the prisoners in the '81 hungerstrike and the club and gas
attacks by police and para-military units showed that the state
was prepared to cause deaths to our side. Of the stationing of
the cruise missiles, Kohl remarked: "They protest; we govern."
This summed up the balance of power against all those who wanted
something different.
These developments were also to be noticed at the
international level, for example in the confrontations between
liberation movements and liberated nations and imperialism. This
was the time of coordinated roll-back: the cruise missiles were
to hold the Soviets in check; the bombing of Libya; the Malvinas
war; the destruction of the Palestinian refugee camps in Sabra,
Shatila, Tel Zaatar; against the liberation movement in El
Salvador; low-intensity warfare to drag out wars and wear out the
population; conflict in the lands of southern Africa; the contra
war, which prevented independent development and led to deaths
from war and hunger. We can only briefly sketch the developments
of these years; in each case, imperialism sought to fulfil its
centuries-old dream of subduing all of humanity with all forms of
violence, including nuclear weapons. It sought to push through
its plans and projects despite massive contradictions, and thus
all forms of resistance had to be crushed and dissolved.
So it became increasingly clear to us and many others that
we had to build up a strength here which could also make use of
militant and militarist methods. From all our experiences of
these years, it was clear that we needed a new quality of
struggle if we wanted to confront this power - the only
alternative was to give up and subject ourselves to this power.
For ever more people, the proposal set forth by the RAF in '82 in
the "Front Paper" - namely, to organize together as guerilla,
militant, and resistance - seemed to fit with the consequences of
peoples' own experiences. For some of us, it meant that in 1984,
we decided to join the guerrilla.
There were many considerations which led us to believe that
our struggles had to become increasingly militant in their
organization if we hoped to achieve anything. That was clear
during the '84/'85 hungerstrike. During this campaign, many
people from various groups carried out fire-bomb attacks and
attacks with explosives to press the demand for the regroupment
of the political prisoners, and this was a concrete result of the
experiences of the early 80's. Many people realized that if the
demands were to be pushed through, if we were to insure that that
state didn't just murder the prisoners during the strike, then we
would have to employ a variety of methods from demos to press
conferences to struggles with a higher degree of confrontation.
It's always the same with the spiral of violence - the
struggles of the left and the revolutionary forces are always
made responsible. To this, what we have said briefly about the
developments from the early 80's shows that it was clearly
different than this. The decision to form a guerrilla and to take
on armed struggle was a decision made by people all around the
world in response to the ruling conditions; to the ignorance of
the ruling powers in the face of peoples' demands and struggles;
to the continuation of destructive developments and war despite
massive resistance; to repression and exploitative relations with
regard to the resistance. When you seek to change those
conditions which don't allow you and others to live, the decision
to take up arms is always made last - never first. You first try
many other methods, and then you make the decision - ultimately a
life or death decision - that it's clear or at least somewhat
more clear that an armed force is necessary, because without it
nothing will be achieved.
Throughout its entire 22 year history, the RAF has always
been a relatively small group. During this time, the imprisonment
of comrades almost wiped us out more than once, but from the
relations and contradictions in this country, there were always
more comrades who took up the armed struggle and carried it
forward to press for changes in these conditions. The year 1984
was such a year for us. That summer, seven comrades were
imprisoned and state again openly celebrated our total demise.
For us, the fact was that no one involved in guerrilla politics
from the earlier years remained.
In '84, we made our attempt to make a common offensive by
West European guerrilla groups together with the militant
resistance here and we often came under heavy pressure. On the
one hand, there were those that were apprehensive of imperialism
achieving a total victory if we did not make a common
intervention quickly. They were to develop a power force here in
the metropoles which, along with the world-wide liberation
movements, would prevent imperialism from turning back history.
On the other hand there was us with our experiences. We were
afraid that the state would once again be able to inflict heavy
damage on us before we had even taken the first steps towards
this common front.
The "front" concept assumed that our development of a force
in the power-centres would be able to confront the development
and escalation of imperialism in its attempt to roll-back the
world-wide liberation movements. We didn't envision the success
of any of the liberation movements. Despite this, the number of
victims increased. Everywhere, the numbers of dead and wounded
and displaced persons increased, with no end to the war in sight
- quite the contrary, for low-intensity warfare strategy which
imperialism was escalating during this period was designed to
wear people down and deny them their hopes of a life of dignity,
freedom, and self-determination by confronting them with the
prospects of never-ending war. Our attempt was to break through
the boundaries which had been imposed upon the world-wide
liberation struggle and to prevent imperialism's victory by
blocking its efforts in the power-centres. That was our central
idea: to build the front in Europe as one part of a global
liberation front.
The consequences of the unfolding of imperialism's
international strategies here in the metropoles was a decline in
many peoples' living conditions. The number of people no longer
needed by Capital to achieve profits steadily rose, while at the
same time production became increasingly focused on military
production, and restructuring meant that hundreds of thousands of
jobs were rationalized away. It was the time of the 2/3 society
being pushed through here, in other words, the powers made it
clear that 1/3 of the population were no longer needed and were
superfluous - and that they should also feel as such. On account
of imperialism's focus on roll-back and war, the rich nations of
Western Europe - especially West Germany and France - linked up
their high-tech and military industries. This was designed to
form the states of Western Europe into a common political trading
bloc so as to match the power of Japan and the USA.
We raised these points in our common offensive with our
comrades in Action Directe and militant groups here, since the
fast and efficient implementation of this would determine whether
the West European states would be able to fulfil their specific
role in the war against the liberation struggles. We saw our
central role in this as aligning with all revolutionary forces in
Western Europe, wherever possible, so as to organize against this
development. For us, that meant: to sharpen the international
strategy in our own country through our attacks on the strategic
pillars of imperialist politics.
At that time we were conscious of the fact that there were
very few of us here and in all of Western Europe and we accepted
that as natural. Working from this assumption, in other words,
from our own weak forces, we were convinced that we could come to
a sharp form of action. In this time of global escalation of war
and destruction, we didn't really discuss building a relevant
force to counter this development, but rather we sought to unite
the various more-or-less isolated agitating revolutionary forces.
With our first steps in the development of this front
proposal, we found ourselves in the middle of a historical
upheaval. And even though we weren't conscious of it then, we
were really running against the times. Even afterwards we
thought, if we don't act fast, it'll be too late, and imperialism
will have decided the entire epoch in its favour.
Our orientation towards the possibility of swift and sharp
action in our initiatives had, in hindsight, catastrophic
effects. This way of thinking leads automatically to militarist
escalation and obscures the view of political processes and
possibilities. In the various multiple struggles we didn't see
any possibilities or room for ideas, rather we only saw
separation, instead of searching for what linked the various
consciousnesses together so as to find out together what was
going on. In this limited political corner, it wasn't possible
for the front concept to develop a strong political force. Our
practice was primarily determined by the political explosiveness
of our targets and the coordinated sharpness of our actions.
So we never saw the possibility to renew and redevelop the
links to the struggles of the early 80's, the struggles which we
ourselves came out of. That which arose from the consequences of
the lack of results of our struggles - namely, common organizing
and choice of targets - could have been an answer for others'
experiences. Many people over the years just withdrew into
resignation, but this shouldn't have happened. These people
didn't come to grips with the system and its destructiveness, but
they did resign themselves to it, because they hadn't found any
answers for how to push through changes here. We had an answer,
or at least a start, but we weren't able to explain how we could
renew the links with the movements and the people who, for
example, were struggling against the stationing of the cruise
missiles and imperialist destruction, or who were struggling
against projects like the Wackersdorf atomic program, and how we
could make a common strength against this destruction together
with these people. Our notion of a "front" was too narrow for
some people, it was only designed for those in the
internationalist struggle against the strategic imperialist
developments. There was no room for other ideas and proposals.
There were other comrades involved in the front process
whose history and experiences were in the anti-NATO movement and
who wanted to develop the front concept so that we seek ties to
unite the struggles. But our narrow focus and that of others
seemed to allow no room for the thoughts and proposals of these
comrades. For these comrades, a central point was always the
question of how our initiatives could help develop a broad and
strong force. But we hardly touched on these points in our
discussions. We were more concerned with estimating imperialist
developments and advances and looking at our lines of attack
against this. When other comrades wanted to develop the front
into a different revolutionary strength, when they questioned our
statement of the need to "wage the war here at the level of the
international counter-revolution", we often just dismissed this
as signs of personal weakness and indecisiveness. This political
problem of the diversity of political outlooks was often just
negated and dismissed as subjectivism.
One of our fundamental thoughts during those years, namely
that the level of confrontation between the revolutionary forces
and imperialism here in the metropoles was to be determined by
the sharpness of the international confrontation, contradicted
the development of a broad revolutionary force here. We often
said that such actions serve to polarize, which is true, but they
also produce false divisions, rather than bringing people
together.
Our actions against responsible military leaders, economic
officials, and functionaries from the political apparatus were
deemed effective and morally legitimate by many people. They were
legitimate actions which sprang from the sharpness of our own
living situation and oppression, and they made millions of people
realize that the powers that be are responsible for war and
global distress. This wasn't the case with the Air Base action
when the GI was shot [On August 8/1985, the George Jackson
Commando of the RAF carried out a bomb attack at the Rhein-Main
Air Base near Frankfurt. RAF militants were able to gain entry to
the Air Base using the ID card of an American GI, Edward
Pimental, whom they had murdered the day before - ed.] Neither
of these were developed from the situation here, neither had a
basis in conditions here which people could identify with, rather
its basis was the war being waged by imperialism and the U.S.
army in other parts of the world. In terms of further developing
a revolutionary struggle here and finding roots in the society,
it was a big mistake.
"Our heads are round, that way we can change directions in our
thought."
In 1989, we were confronted with the legacy which the front
process has left for us. There were arrests and heavy sentences
handed down to comrades in the legal resistance and
investigations for "membership in the RAF" against people all
over Germany, and many comrades in the anti-imperialist
resistance began to withdraw. At the same time, many groups fell
apart. Many people who saw a role for themselves in the front
process became resigned or, at least, frustrated. The foundations
of the May Paper of 1982 - the common front between the guerrilla
and the resistance - were a step in the right direction, but we
were not successful in developing a productive link between the
struggle of the guerrilla and the struggles of other comrades who
had developed a praxis from other modes of life, and we were not
able to revive and advance and strengthen the revolutionary
process.
In capitalism, hierarchy is a part of the social structure
which everyone is subjected to from day one. We didn't dissolve
this structure within our own ranks. Through our strong
orientation on attacks and our sole orientation towards the
projects and strategies of imperialism, we reproduced this
structure within our own group. These were false divisions which
stood between us and other comrades, and again between them and
others in the legal associations. In this structure, the
guerrilla was not only a special part of the struggle, rather it
was the absolute part. Waging armed struggle here and operating
from a status of illegality was not seen a part of a larger
whole, rather we regarded it as the highest form of struggle.
Many people measured themselves according to this and were broken
by it. Today we see this as the result of being too focused on
attacks on the power structure. Through this concentration, armed
actions were quickly regarded as the best or most important. But
this form of evaluation stands in the way of revolutionary
development.
At this time, we had a false orientation and we passed this
on to others. Certainly, attacks on strategic projects of the
ruling powers are an integral part of guerrilla politics. But
it's wrong to become exclusively dedicated to this. Such an
orientation doesn't aid in the question of the development of a
political process. Understanding what steps to take and why the
ruling powers need to be attacked should not exclude the need to
discuss our own goals, which forces and struggles are near to our
own, and what links can be sought out; links which are not
renewed merely so that others begin to orient themselves to us.
We recognize today that one of our big mistakes was to
wholly adopt the orientation of our previous comrades back in '84
without questioning it, and accepting the "Front Paper" as
correct without seeing what we should change or redevelop. We
only did this as the result of our actions: it became
increasingly clear that Western Europe, with Germany at its head,
was going to rise to become a world power.
From the experiences in Nicaragua and El Salvador in
particular, a new discussion of the possibilities of armed
struggle arose. The Sandinistas had shown that reality was
different than they had previously assumed. The liberation
struggle doesn't always play out as the theory directs; the
people didn't support the guerrilla, rather the armed forces
supported the people. In the last phase, the orientation became
centred on the struggle of the people. From El Salvador came the
discussion of the experience of double-power: the FMLN had always
recognized that the organization of day-to-day life had to go
hand-in-hand with the rest of the struggle.
We examined these experiences, but failed to see what they
meant to us, rather we just decided that the situation in these
countries was different and left it at that. These developments -
just as after the Intifada in Palestine in '87 - were the
beginning of new processes of orientation of armed liberation
struggles in many countries towards the idea of organizing from
below. "The problem is as follows, is the guerrilla in a position
to form a realistic power alternative, is it an option for the
peoples' movement; not to be a alien body which the peoples'
movement is obliged to follow, rather a project whose base and
rearguard is its center of power." (a quotation from comrades in
UCELN, Colombia)
These new orientations were also the result of changes in
the international balance of power, when it became clear that
success would only be achieved through a much longer struggle. We
didn't sufficiently realize this and we only escalated in
response to imperialist roll-back.
One result of our conduct at that time was the drying up of
our discussions with many political comrades. Many people we were
previously associated with, on account of the hierarchy which was
the logical result of these political proposals, didn't criticize
us or push through their own contradictions, proposals, or
thoughts. In many peoples' eyes, we were The authority, and they
oriented themselves to us and failed to further develop their own
thoughts. We ourselves were often not open to criticism and we
had no positive proposals for the variety of thoughts for the
development of another side. So we lost the chance to develop a
broader orientation from a living process of exchange.
In all that we are self-critiquing now, no one should forget
that we also made mistakes in other realms. The world-wide
counter-revolution, the Contras in Nicaragua, Angola, and
Mozambique; NATO's arms race; the military attacks on Libya and
Grenada; the resonating increase in the distress on the Three
Continents - this was the reality which we were operating within.
Internally, there was the extremely high degree of repression
which excluded all thoughts of a viable revolutionary development
for those people put under heavy pressure. The years 1985/86 were
also the high-point of the smear campaign against us, when TV
accounts came out daily. The repression which followed the '86
Offensive [The RAF and other guerrilla organizations, carried out
a number of attacks during this period. The RAF along with the
French guerrilla organization, Action Directe, had formed an
anti-imperialist front in Europe and some the actions they
carried included the assassinations of Karl-Heinz Beckurts and
Gerald von Braunmuhl - ed.] was the state's answer to the
beginnings of a commonly-acting front, which, due to its narrow
orientation, was no longer able to further develop the process
for us.
In this case, we let the political process slip through our
hands. We never dealt with the question of becoming rooted in the
society. Our reaction was to expand the confrontation from our
side. In doing this, we introduced false impulses into the
discussions of the resistance movement. After the '86 Offensive,
we decided that the only answer to increased repression was to
organize in illegality. The question of how to bring the state to
its political boundaries wasn't central to our discussion. So we
helped bring about a process where more and more comrades
defensively withdrew from open associations and dropped out of
discussions, even when they saw no perspectives for themselves
and couldn't imagine adopting illegality. In many cities, this
happened to such a degree that the demand for regroupment [for
the imprisoned members of the RAF and the resistance - ed.] was
never made in public. For a long time, people no longer struggled
for an open space to make this demand. During this time, there
were of course illegal leaflets and newspapers, but these can
only achieve so much.
This was the background to which the state saw an
opportunity to turn the screws a little tighter by hitting
comrades with heavy sentences who had pushed the demand for
regroupment.
Alongside this development, for us and those in political
associations with us, there were other divisive political
developments such as the struggle around Startbahn West which
reached its peak with the shooting of the cops in November 1987.
At the same time, the struggle to preserve the Hafenstrasse [A
group of squatted buildings in Hamburg which has been the focus
of strong repression by the state. The state has long maintained
that the Hafenstrasse is a "RAF nest" - ed.] was an entirely new
experience. This was a different process than our own.
This was an experience which increasingly worked its way
into our consciousness. It started many discussions in our ranks
and got us thinking about how those people were able to wage a
committed struggle for their goal, to live according to their own
perspective, and to stand up to the state apparatus with the same
commitment, while successfully struggling along with thousands of
different people throughout the city and elsewhere. It wasn't
only this form of coalition politics in which everything
functioned to push through whatever position possible, but rather
the discussion of a common advance was central, while at the same
time sifting through and understanding everything, despite the
various histories and proposals of the people involved. They
carried out this process to its conclusion out in the open. With
this strength, they withstood the "hard line" politics of the
state. That was the first time since 1977, when the state pushed
the resistance to its absolute limits with the murders of Gudrun,
Andreas, and Jan [3 founders of the RAF who were murdered by the
state in 1977 at Stammheim prison - ed.], that there was the
experience of being able to push through a struggle despite the
state's opposition.
The Hafen events made it possible once again for people to
experience the fact that it is possible to develop another way of
living. A life that is not crushed by the principles of
capitalism's day-to-day reality. Because the comrades there were
very clear about their goals, the struggle was able to attract a
lot of people. And out of the Hafenstrasse arose many subsequent
internationalist initiatives which launched discussions well
beyond the Hafen's own boundaries, for example the Palestinian
slogans on the outside walls, or the support which was given to
the Roma being threatened with deportation. These initiatives
showed how closely tied international solidarity is to peoples'
conditions here and how it can be developed from a position of
strength. (And we say this in opposition to the remarks made by
Georg Fulberth in the August edition of "Konkret", when he said
that the struggles for living conditions and social change here
had no bearing on the global situation and were, in fact, often
to the benefit of the ruling powers.)
The concrete result of the struggle around the Hafenstrasse
was a reversal of the defensive posture which was adopted after
the state attacks on the front process and other revolutionary
associations. It was a strong impulse which was taken up into our
discussions. That's another reason why we more than once had
taken an interest in the Hafenstrasse in recent years.
Of course we also experienced the fact that many people
there today are clueless - like many others. But we think it's
important in the discussions to see what was significant in their
experiences, as will also be shown in the next phases of the
struggle. And to you all in the Hafenstrasse: what's going on
with you all? We have heard that you all rarely involve
yourselves in discussions anymore. We can hardly imagine that
your experiences have brought you to a position of not having
anything to offer in response to the resignation and weakness
which are present everywhere. How is it you all aren't able to
link yourselves to anything and get on the road of the search?
The "Initiative for the Defense of the Hafenstrasse", with
its call for the regroupment of our imprisoned comrades, took a
big step towards fighting back against criminalization and making
room for discussion. The call made possible the massive
mobilization around the '89 hungerstrike. It was significant that
there were people who didn't let their thoughts get directed by
the expected response of the state security apparatus, but rather
worked towards their own goals from their own experiences.
Another impulse which was significant in our discussions
came from our imprisoned comrades. In around their hungerstrike
of 1989, in their hungerstrike declaration, as well as in their
letters, they made it clear that they wanted to initiate a
discussion around the reorientation of the revolutionary
struggle. They wanted to search and restore new links and
discussions with all people who were involved in the resistance
process over the years, or who were struggling for change in
other sectors of society. They prisoners were very open and
discussed many of their past mistakes. In doing so, they broke
with a long-standing tradition which we were still stuck in,
namely to quickly perceive all criticism directed at us a
negative and to therefore ignore it. This old tradition was the
result of years of experience with being confronted at all levels
with an agitating counter apparatus which the society utilized to
wage psychological warfare and smear campaigns against us and
other revolutionary forces, even in so-called leftist media such
as the "TAZ" [A daily "leftist" newspaper, ideologically close to
the Greens, which consistently attacked the RAF and guerrilla
politics - ed.]
This revived in us a long-dormant analysis of criticisms. An
analysis which we had previously overlooked, namely of where the
critiques were coming from and why, and what could be correct in
all of it. Through the fact that the prisoners had taken a
broader look at new developments in the resistance and in society
as a whole and adopted this into their struggles, they
strengthened us in our search and development.
For us, the situation in '89 put a lot of questions on the
table. We had reached the limits of the front process. At the
same time, new struggles had developed around us, and the entire
international situation had changed as well. At first, our
thoughts of a new orientation and development were very timid. At
that time, it was the beginning of a process of separating
ourselves from old notions - or, we could say, liberating
ourselves. That meant separating ourselves from the notion, which
had become increasingly prevalent in our discussions, that the
strength of a revolutionary movement was determined by its
ability to escalate its attacks in response to the imperialist
system.
The period '89/'90 was the time for us when we began to
question the last few years of our history and to test out the
notions and ideas from the front discussions to see if they were
correct. Whereas before we worked from the assumption that
guerrilla politics should bring together all of the
contradictions and attack them, we started asking ourselves
whether we shouldn't instead start dealing more directly with the
sharpening of peoples' living conditions and utilize our strength
to push through changes in struggles already current, since
neither the people of the Three Continents nor the people here
have time to wait for global revolution.
In the May Paper of 82, our comrades wrote: " ...our
strategy is basically a strategy against their strategy..." Our
implementation of this was actions which were directed at and
which oriented ourselves around imperialism's plans and
destructiveness.
In '89/'90, we repeatedly sought for a notion to develop as
the guerrilla strategy. In our communique after the Herrhausen
action in November '89, we said: "All of us in the entire
revolutionary movement in Western Europe find ourselves before a
new epoch. The entirely changed international situation and the
entirely new developments here demand that the revolutionary
process reorient itself and redevelop itself on new
foundations...A new epoch, which for us means a new alignment of
the revolutionary movement."
A new alignment of the revolutionary movement means, to us,
searching for ties with new people who are struggling for changes
in thousands of various sectors and with various demands. We were
concerned with a process in which the guerrilla would have a role
in searching for social change from below. We arrived at the
notion of the 'guerrilla as a weapon for the social movement'.
This notion is correct, for without a social purpose, armed
struggle has no possibility for development. For us, this was not
a tactical question, but rather the realization that
revolutionary politics could only be further developed on a
fundamentally new basis.
As late as '88, the politics developed up until that point
were carried out by an increasingly small number of comrades and
had not launched any new process of politicization or
organization. True, we could inflict losses on the ruling powers,
but this didn't get us any closer to our goals. We had to break
out of this stagnation. In '89, it was clear: we need to search
for something new. At that time it was clear which new struggles
could be developed and when there were concrete and attainable
goals which many people could rediscover themselves in. In
various cities there were struggles for self-determined spaces
(not merely buildings), and there was also the struggle of the
prisoners for their lives and against their destruction.
We often said that the weakness of the '89 hungerstrike
mobilization was its inability to push through the regroupment
demand. The changes of '89 and the collapse of the DDR [formerly
East Germany - ed.] and the entire state socialist system gave
renewed power to the West German government. Against this
background, the ruling powers decided to go hard line. The German
state and German capital wielded seemingly unlimited power. In
the face of such opposition, not even the strongest ever
mobilization which we had ever managed in common with our
imprisoned comrades could have success.
If the prisoners had not called off their strike in '89, and
if the state had stuck to its hard line and brought about the
deaths of some of the prisoners, then there would have been a
further escalation on the outside. This was the opinion of many
comrades, and of us as well. But the prisoners decided things
differently: to stop the escalation, since it would have been
pointless. Nonetheless they stuck to their goals, but insisted
that the issue was their lives and that this was central. After
they called off the strike, they expressed great trust in those
that had taken part in the mobilization that many people would
not drop this demand and that the prisoners could take part in
the discussions, but also that there should be a struggle for the
lives of the prisoners and against their destruction. The only
weakness we see was that many people lapsed into resignation and
dropped the struggle for the demand.
"We can only propose the changing of the entire conditions as a
process in which we build a counter-power for the pushing through
of concrete demands and goals. A counter-power which, along with
the struggles of the people of the Three Continents, can push
through necessary changes of the imperialist system and fight in
a long-lasting struggle for the liberation of people."
(from the Rohwedder communique)
After '89 and after the hungerstrike, we were convinced that
the concentrated power of the West German state would push
through its developments with any means available. Nonetheless,
we saw our role as the guerrilla to place our weight on the scale
wherever the achieving of necessary human developments was at
issue, since the ruling powers need to always be opposed. One
effect which we sought through our attacks in '89 was to break
through the ruling powers' seemingly unlimited grasp on power and
our own side's sense of powerlessness and to thereby struggle for
political space.
One thought which was redeveloped in our discussions in this
direction was the threatened eviction of the Mainzerstrasse
[squatted buildings in east Berlin which were evicted in 1990
after 3 days of heavy fighting with the police and other security
forces - ed.] in Berlin. After this eviction, we were convinced
that it was right to answer such an eviction immediately. This
would have been of little benefit to those people, but an action
from us could have influenced other struggles. The fact that we
were forced to make such an answer in the Rohwedder communique
had the function of making the state make a cost-benefit analysis
in contemplating an eviction of the Hafenstrasse (since that was
once again as issue). 'Taking us into account' meant that the
state should bear in mind that such an eviction would have
directly lead to a coming together of the struggle for a self-
determined living space and the struggle of the guerrilla. This
was politically significant, and it seems clear that it
influenced their decision. What sort of dynamic this would have
unleashed and whether we would have worked closely together,
neither we nor that state can really say, but the danger or the
possibility (depending on your bias) existed. We, of course,
hoped that this threat would have gotten more people into the
discussions - but we fooled ourselves once again.
We didn't propose the process of building a counter-power
from below as a short-term one, rather we wanted to begin a
discussion which would involve more people than we had previously
dealt with. A new discussion structure was to be developed which
was to have its basis in various political associations. We
wanted to re-establish on a new foundation all the ties which we
had previously had with comrades in our old phase and to reject
our old certainties and the deadening relationship of hierarchy.
The new ties were to be such that those with whom we were
associated with would develop their own initiatives and that
these would become the starting point for common discussions and
praxis. For us, much of this was new ground, that which we
undertook and wanted to discover. We had discussions among
ourselves for an entire year, during which we constantly took on
new things which had to then be partially worked under so that
they could be redeveloped. This all led to a re-analysis of our
praxis from our previous period, in relation to both the
situation here and internationally, as well as what function the
guerrilla can play in the process of social change.
35. Statement By Irmgard Moller Regarding The RAF Cease-Fire
We'd like to briefly state the following: the decision made
by our comrades on the outside is a correct one, one which
identifies a political process which we prisoners are also a part
of.
We have wanted - ever since '89 - to make a break in the
entire political spectrum, and such a step can only be taken by
all of us together, not just in the area of prisoners.
We see this now much clearer than we did in the mid-80s, and
the hunger-strike of '89 was the first time we made this a part
of our political praxis.
The fact that the global and domestic social contradictions
are so deep makes the simple pressing-forward of the politics and
praxis of the 70s and 80s impossible.
Whoever sees the necessity of the revolutionary change of
the existing global and domestic injustices and destructive
relationships should also see the need for a change and re-
orientation of political content and forms, also in relation to
other leftist experiences and ways of living.
We prisoners see this as our task both for now and "after
prison".
Re-orientating within society and within international
groupings and conditions requires an open learning process.
This must first be achieved for the four sick prisoners.
Bernd and Gunter must be released immediately.
With their release, a rational moment can exist for
discussions between the political prisoners and the state.
This means a thorough break for all involved.
A break with our 22-year history.
We are not trying to fool anyone when we say that we want to
achieve freedom for all of us within a foreseeable period of
time. We don't expect this to happen right away or for all of us
at once.
But we'd like to make it clear that, after 22 years of
considering and criticising the attempted destruction of the
prisoners (with everything from special legislation to isolation)
- against which we struggled as a collective, a struggle in which
9 imprisoned comrades died, although in the end we wrecked the
state's plans - after all these decades, there can be no talk of
a normal "solution".
That just isn't realistic, and it's a ridiculous thought to
anyone who has become familiar with Germany's justice system and
state security apparatus over the last 25 years and who doesn't
want to disregard their own political history.
The state can't own history; the state's official version is
not ours.
It's just a matter of dealing politically with social
contradictions.
We, the prisoners from the RAF and the resistance, and the
RAF have made room for this.
This has nothing to do with "tactics".
Irmgard Moller, on behalf of the prisoners from the RAF and the
resistance
15.4.92 Lubeck
36. Letter From Spain...
ETA Round Up
At the end of March this year the ETA [Euskadi Ta
Askatasuna-Basque Homeland and Liberty - Basque guerrilla
organization - ed.] leadership was captured in Iparralde (French
Basque country). Among them, the most important leaders are:
"Pakito" (Francisco Mujika Garmendia - presented as the number 1
of the organization), "Txelis" (Jose Luis Alvarez - political
apparatus) and "Fitipaldi" or "Fiti" (Jose Maria Arregi -
explosives and infrastructure). Aside from these three, many
other militants were also arrested in Iparralde.
What is certain is that there continues to be a lot of
confusion as to what led the police on the path to arrest these
three (they were meeting in a chalet when they were captured) as
the police aren't saying. The mass media says the key clue came
from an address book "Joseba" (Jose Luis Urrusoll Sistiaga - the
most sought after militant at this time) lost in mid-March in a
telephone booth in a town near Barcelona. Another version says it
was because of information they picked up in Catalonia province
where an Etarra [the name for an ETA militant - ed.] was arrested
(on the same date that "Joseba" lost the address book, even
though the media says the address book didn't reach the police
for 2 or 3 days because it was found by a person who mailed it to
them). According to this version, "Joseba" lost the address book
precisely when he ran out of the telephone book while calling the
Etarra in Catalonia to confirm he had in fact been arrested.
The latest version says that a few weeks ago police arrested
a commando group in Euskadi, who, according to the police, were
preparing the helicopter escape of Etarra prisoners in the
Spanish prison at Ocana. According to this version, it was one of
the members of this commando who, while under police
surveillance, gave away the location of the ETA leadership
because they maintained contact with "Txelis" in Iparralde. In
fact, after the commandos capture the police gave the mass media
a video tape that showed "Txelis" with the member of the
commando.
In short, things are pretty confusing.
Other ETA captures were those of "Pelopintxo" (finances) in
a Paris airport, a few days after the arrests of "Pakito",
"Fiti", "Txelis" and company. It was said "Pelopintxo" was
fleeing to Mexico.
A few weeks ago there was a very big round up (of between 20
and 30 people) in Iparralde. A few days ago "Xabi de Uransolo"
was arrested in Euskadi but Iglesia Chouzas ("Gadafi") was able
to escape. According to police, "Xabi" and "Gadafi" were
preparing a kidnapping to raise funds for the organization.
"Xabi's" arrest and the later dragnet lasting several days in a
rural area looking for "Gadafi", was carried out by the
autonomous Basque police (Ertzaintza).
And the latest news is that of the big round up on May 16/92
in Uruguay.
Aside from these arrests, various levels of the organization
in the Spanish state have fallen, including safe houses, weapons,
etc.
It is clear that all these blows have done great damage to
ETA. In the past, whenever there was a setback for the
organization, after a short period there would be a bombing or
such to demonstrate they could still attack with the same
strength as before. But not this time. If memory serves me right
(this may not be 100% correct), all they have done since the
arrest of "Pakito", "Fiti", "Txelis" and company was a few days
later they killed a police officer in Euskadi. According to the
police version, 2 Etarras were following a plainclothes cop. This
cop, who had survived an ETA attack years before, went into a bar
and called police to say he was being followed. Two police
officers went to investigate if this was true or not and while
one stayed in the patrol car, the other went to ask the two men
for their identity papers, and instead of producing their papers
they pulled out their guns and killed him.
In any case, the other possibility is that they are not
carrying out attacks because there are secret negotiations with
the government.
Something else that came out after the leaderships capture
and the fall of the Tarragona apparatus were letters which
supposedly reflected a very strong polemic between "Joseba"
(Urrusolo Sistiaga) and the leaders of the organization.
According to the media, who cite the letters, "Joseba" made
disparaging remarks about "Pakito" and company to his comrades in
the commandos, that after years and years in Iparralde they had
lost the notion of what it was like to risk your life south of
the Pyrenees, and that in general they were incompetents who had
reached the top not because of their merits or real capacity but
because of their friendship with the previous leadership. Another
difference with the leadership was the use of car bombs, as
"Joseba" advocated using them only in very concrete cases and not
in the indiscriminate manner they had been used resulting in so
many innocent victims. Another criticism of the ETA leadership
was their omnipotence of not accepting criticism, leading the
organization as if it were just their thing and not that of all
its militants. According to this, critics were immediately
expelled from the circle of influence in ETA and if he ("Joseba")
and another of his comrades, "Pajas", weren't condemned to
ostracism and formed part of the most sought after commandos, it
was/is because the leadership lacks militants with good military
skills and had to resort to them even if it was inconvenient.
According to the letters (from a female commando member and some
from "Joseba" himself) "Joseba" had also taken up the case of
Txema Montero (an HB [Herri Batasuna-Popular Unity - Basque
political party that is politically aligned with ETA - ed.]
leader who for months has been on a second level), who had been
"retired" from important posts because of his disagreements with
the political coalition's line. Despite all these big differences
with the leadership, if "Joseba" was still active it was because
of the organization's prisoners.
To end this topic, the mass media said, from the captured
documents, that because of these criticisms and others (like
providing the commandos with explosives in bad condition), that
"Joseba" had been summoned to a meeting with the leadership to
discuss his attitude. Lately it has been published that, after
the capture of "Txelis", "Fiti", "Paktio" and company, that
"Joseba" could go on to occupy an important post, perhaps that of
leader of the organization. In any case, all "information" from
the mass media must be viewed with scepticism.
Negotiations Between The Government And Autonomous Anti-
Capitalist Commando Prisoners
First, a bit of background. The CAA (Autonomous Anti-
Capitalist Commandos) were born at the end of the 70's and
carried out their activities until 1985, the year in which a
commando that had kidnapped a Basque industrialist was arrested.
Since then the organization as such no longer exists. At this
time there are about 15 members in Spanish prisons, various
refugees in Iparralde and Central America. Some of their
militants have joined ETA-militar [ETA split in two organizations
in the early 70's, ETA-m (militar) and ETA-pm (politico-militar).
ETA-pm is basically non-existent as an organization but there
still are a number of ETA-pm prisoners. ETA-m is the organization
that is referred to in this letter - ed.].
The origin of the Autonomous Commandos as an armed group is
in the convergence of the Basque workers and anti-repressive
initiatives that developed with an autonomous and/or anarcho-
syndicalist manner and of members of ETA-pm (poli-milis) who were
as unhappy with that groups evolution as that of ETA-m (milis).
The Autonomous Commandos had their deepest roots in the northern
Basque industrial regions of Valle de Urolla, the Upper Deba,
Gasteiz-Vitoria and Pasaia Rentana.
At no time did the autonomists accept the KAS (Koordinadora
Abertzale Sozialista) Alternative [the basic platform for an
independent Basque nation - ed.] which is today composed of ETA-
m, HB and their whole political retinue, because they "don't
question capitalist power". The autonomist define themselves as
"independists, anti-capitalists and self-managers", without
exception they were against political parties (including HB),
against the police in general (Including the Ertzainza who,
Basque as they may be, did not stop being police. In fact, at
first KAS saw the establishment of the Ertzaintza as a good
thing), etc. Proof of their radicalism is that they not only
acted against collaborationist unions of capital (like CC.OO and
ELA-STV) within the labour conflicts they acted from a general
anti-capitalist perspective, while the mili's did not take part
in these struggles and the poli-mili's did so to help in
negotiations. An example of the autonomists' perspective would be
their actions against executives of Moulinex, Michelin, etc.,
kidnapping businessmen, etc. Another difference they had with
respect to the mili's and poli mili's was in their anti-
repressive actions. They didn't concentrate on "bulk" actions
against the police, but they also attacked those politically
responsible (even though they also, naturally, acted against the
police). It was precisely these actions against politicians and
parties which most irritated ETA and HB, already upset at the
existence of a Basque guerrilla organization that did not submit
to their strategy. The drop that overflowed the glass was the
death, at the autonomists' hands, of PSOE [Socialist Workers'
Party of Spain, presently the ruling party in Spain - ed.]
senator Enrique Casas, directly implicated in the imposition of
extreme police measures in Euskal Herria [Basque nation - ed.].
As to the execution of the senator, even HB joined the rest of
the political parties and unions in calling for a general strike
to show they were against the action. The electoralist interests
of the Abertzale coalition made HB create in the rest of the
supposedly enemy parties a climate of "All the people against the
CAA" who backed the assassination, a few months later (March 22,
1984) of CAA members: "Rafa", "Txapas", "Kurro" and "Pelitxo". It
was in the Bay of Pasaia where 4 of 5 members of a commando
(there was 1 survivor) fell in a police ambush. This commando was
presented as "menbeku" ("revenge" in Euskara [the Basque language
- ed.]), the one which had killed Enrique Casas and in fact, the
survivor, Joseba Merino, is still in prison, convicted of this
action (among others). Aside from the four activists mentioned,
other fatal casualties of the organization have been "Naparra"
(also know as "Bakunin"), who disappeared in Ipparalde, kidnapped
by a fascist group linked to the Guardia Civil, and 2 other
militants killed by a bomb they were making.
Another of the autonomists' criticism of the mili's was
ETA's desire to want to lead and direct the Basque revolutionary
process, while the CAA's were parties to actions (in all senses,
including armed) that were popular, without separation of tasks
nor the existence of leaders-obedient masses.
All of this "historic introduction" is so you can better
understand why ETA (but more so HB and their associates)
considered the autonomists to be, in practice, political enemies,
why they were upset and why they were probably very happy at the
CAA's collapse, despite the fact that this meant several of their
members died at the hands of the police.
In the time they were active and even now, the slogan
followed by the mass media (except of course Egin [Basque
newspaper which supports Basque sovereignty - ed.] and a few
others, but Egin totally or partially censured CAA communiques)
was to identify the CAA as a "branch" of ETA-m, which neither one
wanted apparently.
Once again we have the historical background, let's go on to
the polemics of "negotiation". I don't recall the exact date, if
it started at the end of last year ('91) or the beginning of this
one ('92), but Egin published an article in which a person,
"Cabra", was proposing a general renunciation of the autonomous
Basque prisoners; in practice he was identified as a government
infiltrator, a paid informer. According to the article, the CAA
refugees did not know anything about such a manoeuvre, except one
of them who would be whoever published the matter, being totally
against it.
After this article the prisoner family members sent Egin a
communique to contradict the focus of the paper. Egin published
the communique but next to it added a part reconfirming its
previous version.
From Euskadi the version of the comrades carrying out the
"negotiations" from overseas, is as follows: effectively, there
is contact with the government and they have started to talk, the
prisoners knew it and things did not go beyond contact with
nothing more happening, not exactly negotiations as such.
Prisoners as well as refugees knew about the matter from the
beginning and were in agreement and, generally, waiting to get to
a good point. Thus it is clear that HB, through its Egin
mouthpiece, wanted to poison the matter from the beginning, faced
with the "danger" that negotiations would be arrived at beyond
its control. From there to present the contacts as the manoeuvres
of the government through a peoa (Cabra), when in reality it was
something already agreed upon by those most affected (basically
the prisoners themselves) from the beginning with the
participation with various comrades and family members;
presenting it as Cabra's plan, that of just one person, is to
emphasize the subject's sinister theme.
- When the "news" was published there were no negotiations
(logically, at this time we don't know how things are going), it
was simply a contact with no concrete agreements.
- All of the Basque autonomous prisoners, refugees and deportees
backed the talks. That, according to Egin, the refugees and
deportees didn't know of the talks and one of them publicly
denounced the "government's strategy" is a bald-faced lie.
- The prisoners are not naive. They are aware that if the
government decides to establish negotiations, as such and from
there concede some type of release or substantial improvements in
the prison situation, it would publicize it at the most
convenient time. The government would take advantage of the
situation to present the question as one of "we're hard" and
"soft" or something similar. We know this.
- Even then, if the talks reach negotiations and through it they
obtain something they consider opportune, the prisoners have been
clear they will not sign a "repentance" in Italian style nor a
renunciation of armed struggle as such, aside from the
considerations on the guerrilla organization CAA.
That's what's happening now, we'll inform you how the matter
ends.
The Escape Of Fernando Silva Sande
The escape from Granada prison of Fernando Silva, well-known
member of GRAPO [communist guerrilla organization - ed.], clouded
the joy felt by the government and the mass media over the ETA
captures in France as it happened a few hours after those
arrests. Despite the classicness of the means (digging a tunnel)
it was very effective. At this time Silva is still being sought.
The hysteria of the government and mass media is such that they
claim Silva participates in half the crimes committed in Spain!
If they're not careful they'll soon start blaming him for attacks
that occured while he was in prison. The mass claims Silva
participated in the actions of April 30/92 by GRAPO in Madrid and
a heist with a take of 20 million pesetas at a toll booth on a
highway in the eastern coastal zone.
The April 30 attack was a bombing of the Labour Ministry
(extensive material and morale damage; and 2 Guardia Civil
injured) and another in the headquarters of the National
Institute of Industry (state organization of public industries),
both in Madrid. The morale damage is because one bomb was placed
in the bathroom a few meters from the Labour Minister's office,
mocking all their security measures.
What is interesting is that the GRAPO communique was in an
incredibly "neutral" revolutionary tone. Neutral in the sense
that it isn't in the orthodox Leninist sense, as they usually
are, nor refer to Marxism-Leninism, the Party, etc. Naturally it
was signed by the Central Committee, as always. They ascribe the
actions to opposition to the new government laws which eliminate
many workers' rights (strike laws, decree cutting unemployment
compensation, etc.) They did it April 30, the day before May Day
and made a call to the unions (peaceful and domesticated) CC.OO,
UGT and such to give real opposition to these policies, to show
radical opposition (by sabotage and similar means) to this plan
by capital and the government.
Call For A General Strike
In recent months the government has taken forward some
initiatives (strike laws and cutting the unemployment stipend)
which in one blow sweep away workers' rights gained after years
and years of workers' struggle, the self-proclaimed "workers"
party has the guts to take such anti-worker measures that not
even the extreme right would have dared to do.
With the strike law they openly seek to control all strikes
from the beginning. To carry out a strike it will be necessary to
go through various bureaucratic hoops which try to avoid, at all
costs, that the strike become uncontrollable. But in this case
most of the domesticated unions are silent because it gives them
even more power and the law guarantees, or tries to guarantee,
that no radical struggle takes place in the labour world that
could escape their control.
Thus the collaborator unions, workers' commissions (the
CC.OO, linked to the PCE [Communist Party of Spain, Eurocommunist
and reformist - ed.] and as such to the united left which is a
coalition of parties with the PCE at its head). And the General
Workers' Union (UGT, linked to the government itself) reserve
their hypocritic vitriol for the cutting of unemployment pay.
Prior to this decree-law, to get the subsidy after the job had
been lost and a person was unemployed, it was only necessary to
have 6 months of legal work to get 3 months of subsidy. Now it is
necessary to work for 1 year to get subsidy for only 4 months. As
you can see this is a very singular proportion as before with a
year of work you could get 6 months of subsidy if you were
unemployed. The decree also affects retirement pay as well.
The government tries to justify this decree by saying that
the unemployment subsidy is an enormous expense for the state
which doesn't allow it to spend money on "higher priorities"
according to them. It is true that, effectively the state spends
too much money (in the cost of public administration, the
creation of commissions and organisms which don't do anything, in
celebrations and all the privileges and perks that certain
government officials, their friends and family get, on
corruption, etc.). All of this in the administration as well as
that of the towns and provinces. So when the government talks
about "tightening our belts" it is clear that when they say "our"
they mean "your".
The pantomime of the unions collaborating with capital, the
CC.OO and UGT as minority "colleagues" is to make a gesture
presented as scandalous and radical when in reality it's nothing
but another scene in the great spectacle of capital. That gesture
is the call for a national strike (for only half a day - 4 hours)
for the 28th of May. And planning for a complete day - 8 hours -
a few months later if an agreement isn't reached with the
government. It is clear the government isn't going to retreat on
this. What do they care about billions of pesetas in losses from
a half day strike if by cutting the unemployment subsidy they'll
save far more? Their electoral interests? Perhaps that interests
them a little more, but we have to admit something: the PSOE has
practically no parliamentary opposition and the popular
opposition aims at promoting electoral abstention. It is quite
probable that within this absurd spectacle, this ridiculous
charade, the government will make public a detail, perhaps repeal
part of the decree (it would not be unusual if it had already
agreed to this with the unions) but only that, some unimportant
aspect that will be cut to "demonstrate" that the government and
capital aren't intransigent and that the sell-out unions are good
for something, but nothing more. It's really pathetic, a real
shit.
>From comrades in Spain.
37. Letters...
It is a tactic of oppressive governments to deny the
existence of political prisoners and prisoners of war. By
criminalizing their actions, they successfully delegitimize the
struggles of the prisoners and they are kept serving impossible
sentences. The radical movement recognizes the need to support
these prisoners and their organizations, to keep their struggles
alive. But the movement is also making a grave mistake with their
practice of making distinctions between political prisoners and
social prisoners. Not only does this error create and perpetuate
crippling divisions in the struggle against the oppressive
political system, but it also negates the political nature of
prisons in general. Even worse, it undermines the potential of
the resistance/revolutionary movement.
Factual statistics reveal that currently, Canada has the
second highest rate of incarceration in the western world. The
U.S. is leading, with 426 persons in jail out of every 100,000
persons. This makes it highly obvious that so-called liberal-
democratic governments maintain control using their laws, the
courts, and prisons. And if we consider just who are imprisoned
we are left with no doubt as to why the populations of prisons
and the number of prisons is increasing - prison are the ultimate
expression of the oppressive regimes.
An analysis of the populations of prisons will show that
there are indeed many who are incarcerated because of their
political beliefs and actions. But when we consider who the
majority of prisoners are, we also wee that while there are
certainly a few who possess a truly malevolent or criminal
nature, the criminal behaviours of the majority are but symptoms
of deeper disturbances. These disturbances are in effect created
by the capitalist democratic environment and its rulers.
Not many prisoners will claim that their intentions were to
become murderers, robbers, or sexual perverts. Why then do people
resort to such extreme and negative behaviour? In reality, these
so-called criminals do not have, as other will claim, actual free
choices in their decisions. Some have had their choices made for
them in their infancy or childhood. Others form their concepts
from what amount to social ills of an oppressive political order.
The majority of prisoners are therefore, products of the social
and economic order maintained by such political malaise as
violence, unemployment, racism, and class and gender divisions.
What is necessary in order to change these socio-economic
conditions then is to first resist the political order. Only then
will the rapidly increasing populations of prisons and penal
institutions decrease.
Never should we minimize the importance of the struggle of
freedom fighters and their organizations; especially those who
have been imprisoned. These people have led the effort to resist
and overthrow the political order in their various struggles;
fighting for justice for Blacks, Puerto Rican Independence
Movements, resistance and revolutionary movements of all kinds.
Their legitimacy and struggles cannot be emphasized enough!
However, we must ask here, how do we determine, given the
previously mentioned analysis, who are the freedom fighters and
where do they come from? And whose actions are of a political
nature? And whose actions are simply criminal?
Observations concerned with who are in prisons conclude that
prisons are an extension of the political system. The reasons
people are in prisons is because of social and economic
conditions. Consider the following: When unemployment coupled
with drug addiction causes an individual to engage in unlawful
acts, is that person not a product of economic and social ills?
And therefore of the malaise of the political order?
Is it not the politics of the justice system that
criminalizes drug addiction, alcoholism, unemployment, poverty,
and even disabilities? When an illiterate member of an
impoverished minority in desperation resorts to robbery or steals
to feed and clothe his or her family, is this person a mere
criminal? Or does this persons act of self-determination and
simple survival come under the category of freedom fighting?
If we consider the nature of each and every prisoner's
actions, are we not able to determine some type of politic
underlying their intentions? Again, we must conclude that we can
no longer make a distinction between types of prisoners, neither
should we categorize their actions to be strictly criminal or
strictly political. Not if we are to build a strong and united
movement to ultimately question and overthrow the order that
already thrives on divisions of race, class, and gender.
A consequence of the growing political movement against
racism, militarism, imperialism and for the basic tenets of
justice is a progressive and alternative media. This media has
been an important source of information and support for political
prisoners and prisoners of war who fight what often appear to be
fruitless struggles. However, by perpetuating the distinctions
between prisoners, this media negates the political nature of
prisons. It also maintains the already debilitating divisions
within prisons and society that it claims to denounce.
Furthermore, this media is excluding a majority of prisoners from
a growing movement that could fight oppression in all its forms.
In effect, the progressive media could be an educational tool to
empower prisoners and provoke the transformation of the criminal
mentality to a revolutionary one. As recently stated by a member
of the anarchist/autonomous movement, "we should make prisoner
support work a higher priority then it has been in the past.
After all, all militants/revolutionaries are potential
prisoners." It follows then that prisoners are also potential
militants and revolutionaries.
As all prisoners need to develop their sense of worth
through a struggle for liberty, equality, and self-determination,
so does the progressive movement and media need to change their
perspective regarding distinctions between prisoners. A much
larger and thus stronger movement would result from the
elimination of the distinctions/divisions within the prisons.
Prisoners already face a seemingly powerless position instilled
by the process of the justice system and oppressive governments.
Only after eliminating the present distinctions made between
prisoners will there be a united and effective
political/revolutionary movement.
Zoltan Lugosi
Millhaven Penitentiary
P.O. Box 280
Bath, Ontario
K0H 1G0 Canada
38. Literature Available From Arm The Spirit (Hard Copy)
Magazines/Newsletters
Beag Inis
A small anti-imperialist newsletter from Montreal, Quebec. FREE
Breakthrough
The political journal of the anti-imperialist Prairie Fire
Organizing Committee which focuses on national liberation
struggles, political prisoners and much more. $3.00
Crossroad: A New Afrikan Captured Combatant Newsletter
News, analysis and discussion by and about Black/New Afrikan
political prisoners and prisoners of war. $3.00
Democratic Palestine
A quarterly english-language magazine focusing on the Palestinian
liberation struggle as well as other revolutionary movements in
the Middle East and beyond. $2.00
Love And Rage
A revolutionary anarchist newspaper with a strong focus on anti-
racism, lesbian and gay liberation as well providing news on many
other struggles in North America and elsewhere. $1.00
No KKK, No Fascist USA
An anti-racist/anti-fascist magazine published by the John Brown
Anti-Klan Committee. $1.00
Oh-To-Kin
A First Nations newspaper with its most recent issue focusing on
Native peoples in prison. $2.00
Prison News Service
With the bulk of its content written by prisoners, PNS is one of
the best sources of information on prisons in North America.
$1.00
Prison Legal News
Along with PNS, this an excellent source of information on
prisons in the U.S. with particular emphasis on legal information
and resources for prisoners. $1.00
Revolutionary Left - Against Imperialism And Fascism
The english-language political review of Devrimci Sol
(Revolutionary Left), a Turkish communist political-military
organization active since the late 70's. $3.00
Books/Pamphlets
Armed Insurrection
A. Neuberg
A fascinating and well-documented book on armed uprisings and
political-military strategies in the early part of this century.
Originally published in German in 1928 this illegal (at that
time) book was commissioned by the Comintern to serve as a guide
for communists organizing towards armed proletarian insurrection.
(Photocopy Only) $7.00
Armed Struggle In Italy 1976-78: A Chronology
This extensive chronology is a good overview of the various forms
of revolutionary struggle and resistance that took place in Italy
in the mid-70's.
Elephant Editions $5.00
Bottomfish Blues: Voice For The Amazon Nation
An uncompromising and relentless attack on racism and patriarchy
is found in the pages of this now-defunct magazine. We have
photocopies of issues 4 and 5 (combined into one) which includes
"RZ= Feminist Guerrillas", "Lords And Warlords Of Central Park",
"Women And Children In The Armed Struggle" and much more. We are
selling photocopies of Bottomfish Blues because back issues in
their original form are no longer available.
(Photocopy Only) $2.00
A Brief History Of The New Afrikan Prison Struggle
Sundiata Acoli
This segment of history from the New Afrikan liberation movement
focuses on those "behind the walls" who have fought for the
liberation of Black people in the United States.
SAFC (Photocopy Only) $1.50
Chronicles of Dissent
Noam Chomsky & David Barsamian
A collection of interviews done by radio journalist David
Barsamian with noted writer and political activist Noam Chomsky.
AK Press/Common Courage Press $19.00
False Nationalism False Internationalism: Class Contradictions In
The Armed Struggle
E. Tani & Kae Sera
A historical and analytical overview of some of the alliances
made between revolutionaries from white oppressor nations and
oppressed nations. Its primary critique is that of the
relationship between white anti-imperialists and New Afrikan
revolutionaries in the U.S. from the 60's up until today. "The
primary contradiction within the U.S. Empire is between
imperialism and the oppressed nations. National and class
contradictions, which are not completely separate but
interrelated, continue to grow sharper within the U.S. Empire.
Indeed, the ebbing of the '60s protest movements could not stop
or even slow the growth of national contradictions." - from the
introduction
Seeds Beneath The Snow $8.50
Herstory Of The Revolutionary Cells And Rote Zora
Avanti Militanti
A brief introduction to two German autonomous guerrilla groups.
BARA $1.00
International Revolutionary Solidarity Movement
ed. Albert Meltzer
A short history of the "First of May Group" - an anarchist
guerrilla organization that fought against the fascist regime in
Spain in the 60's and 70's.
Cienfuegos Press $3.00
Strike One To Educate One Hundred: The Rise Of The Red Brigades
In Italy In The 1960s-1970s
Chris Aronson Beck, Reggie Emilia, Lee Morris, Ollie Patterson
The Red Brigades arose out of the worker-student revolts of '68
and grew throughout the 70's into a powerful guerrilla
organization that shook the foundations of the Italian capitalist
system. This book covers their early years and provides extensive
documentation from the Red Brigades themselves.
Seeds Beneath The Snow $8.50
This Bridge Called My Back: Writings By Radical Women Of Color
Ed. Cherrie Moraga & Gloria Anzaldua
A collection of prose, poetry, personal narrative and analysis
that reflects an uncompromised definition of feminism by women of
colour.
Kitchen Table: Women Of Color Press $13.00
Towards People's War For Independence And Socialism In Puerto
Rico: In Defense Of Armed Struggle
Originally published in 1979, this collection of communiques and
documents from both the mass revolutionary organizations and the
armed clandestine movement gives an excellent overview of the
Puerto Rican struggle for self-determination in the 60's and
70's. Long out of print, we offer it here in photocopied form.
(Photocopy Only) $2.50
Unfinished Business: The Politics Of Class War
Class War Federation
Unfinished Business, collectively written by the British-based
organization Class War, argues for "the re-creation of an
independent revolutionary movement within the working class,
under the control of no one but themselves, inspired by the best
traditions of unity and solidarity."
AK Press $9.00
West-German Repression Of The Women's Movement
A documentation of the arrest and trials in the late 80's of
Ingrid Strobl and Ulla Penselin, feminists active in the campaign
against gene and reproductive technology.
(Photocopy Only) $4.00
Ordering Information
Postage: Surface mail postage costs in North America are 20% of
the total cost of the order with a $1.00 minimum. It's 30% for
airmail in North America or surface mail overseas ($2.00
minimum). Airmail outside of North America is 40% ($3.00
minimum).
Payment: We accept well-concealed cash (preferably U.S.,
Canadian, British or German currency) or postal money orders. No
cheques! Please make money orders out to Arm The Spirit with our
full mailing address.
Availability: We do not always have the above-listed items in
stock, so please list alternates. Back issues of certain
magazines are available.
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