CHRONOLOGY

9 February, Holland. On the night, Barbara Smedema sabotaged the parabolic reflectors of the communication center of the American Comms Bunker in the military airport of Volkel, in the south of Holland. The damage is estimated at 500,000 Euros. This action was an act of resistance against the threat of the war against Iraq. The Comms Bunker, active 24 hours a day, is the communication center for American nuclear warheads kept in wait at Vlkel in 11 special bunkers.

“With this action we are not fooling ourselves about the possibility of stopping the war machine, but we feel the necessity of demonstrating the hope and confidence that the world could be different.”

15 February, Athens (Greece). During the demonstration against the war, some anarchist groups have decided to break up the festive and pacifist climate attacking some symbols of power (the office of the pro-government, social democratic newspaper “Ta Nea”, some banks and the British embassy) with molotov cocktails, afterwards running up against the forces of order during the march outside the American embassy where the demonstration ended. The police responded with charges, tear gas, beatings and a manhunt that has as its outcome the arrest of 25 people who were then beaten at the police station.

12 of the arrested were released a few hours later, while 10 other comrades who were released on the morning of February 17, were charged with minor crimes, some with the obligation to sign in. Three of the arrested have heavier charges (throwing a molotov cocktail, violence against the forces of order, etc.); in the meantime, outside the court a few dozen people demonstrated their solidarity with the arrested, and the flying squads and the plainclothes cops provoked, trying uselessly to terrorize the comrades present.

The following day (February 18), the magistrate decided to release another comrade, but also to imprison Thanos Michalakelis. On February 19 Panos P was released, sanctioning him to the payment of a fine of 3000 Euros. Thanos Michalakelis, already well-known to the Athenian police from his arrest during the occupation of the Polytechnical school (November 1995), is the only one of the arrested locked up behind the hateful prison walls of Coridallos until the day of his trial. It is worthwhile to remember that most of those arrested were stopped either far from the places where the crimes with which they are charged occurred or eve before such events happened and that the only “evidence” is the testimony of the cops.

Freedom for Thanos Michalakelis! Solidarity with those arrested at the anti-war demonstration! Terrorism will not pass!

Coridallos Prison, 27 February 2003 (a little before the locking of the cells)

Dear friends, comrades, fighters.

Once again we are facing a farce trial, where their plainclothes cops construct the evidence and their magistrates already decide the penalty before the trial.

I know that the forms of the arrests of February 15 are more or less well-known. While they beat us and tortured us, normal practices inside their lairs and in the prisons, the state machine had already decided that a few had to pay for the “damages”. It falls to me for reasons that some of you already know. This however is not important. Today is the thirteenth day that I am locked up. I will stay here until my liberation. With my head high, with dignity and fierceness as is the duty of any fighter and with the strength that all of you who struggle outside, in the “great prison” have given me.

I struggle for my liberation and for that of all those who are locked up in prison. That my arrest and imprisonment are unjust and function as an example that the people of state and their guard dogs want to send to all “agitators”, I think is expected.

P.S. Greetings and kisses to all and thanks to all those, my friend and acquaintances and those who don’t know me, who mobilized seeking to bring me out of this loathsome place.

Immediate liberation for all those who are in the cages. The passion for the freedom is stronger than every jail. Ignorance is death. Fear is death.

Thanos Michalakelis, third section of the Coridallos Prison, cell. 52 (Atene, Grecia).

22 February, Ferrara (Italy). The demonstration against the war in Ferrara involved about 800 people, coming from various situations in Emilia Romagna, gathered from the early hours of the afternoon in the plaza Castello, in the heart of the city. Many flyers were distributed, many slogans and interventions against NATO and the USA launched, a few American flags burned. Around 6 pm, having come into the neighborhood of the shipyard buildings in which a complex of houses destined to accomodate US soldiers would be built, the march invaded the open space in front of the gates of the military base, eluding the prohibition imposed by an inadequate police barricade. Before the gate, the launching of insults is joined by the launching of rocks, plastic bottles and other garbage that could be found in the immediate vicinity... To the attempt to prevent the eradication of signs bearing the writing: “access forbidden: military zone”, the demonstrators opposed a quick and determined reaction. Some unfortunate paramilitary police found themselves on the ground, after having been knocked down, enduring the reaction of demonstrators irritated by the swinging of the clubs. A little later the march came together again on the street leading to the square of the afternoon concentration. During the journey, one of the video-cameras carried by a cops in civilian clothes, who walked in front of the march, was quickly snatched away. It seems that on a certain occasion, the vice-commissioner of Ferrara, along with some other officers, was bruised. The march proceeded from there to the end without problems. From later news it is known that two comrades from Ferrara were stopped in a bar next to the path of the march, one of them was handcuffed and repeatedly beaten, being forced to resort to hospital treatment. This occurred before the march arrived at the gat of the base, in other words before any friction with the forces of order. The Digos [special political police] had told one Ferrari comrade of having transported a omrade to the hospital due to a sudden illness. Pigs! (23 February 2003, from www.autprol.org)

22 February, Fornovo, Parma (Italy). Ok, let’s put our bodies on the line. Around three hundred people guarded the tracks of the Fornovo station in order to block the military convoy. To this end, some comrades began to place rocks, pieces of iron and other material on the tracks. Immediately, bureaucrats of the CGIL (some well-known for the infamous role of co-management of the bosses’ interests upon our territory) together with leaders and mini-leaders of the “movement of movements” tried to clear off the tracks. These same pacifists who with their refusal of violence sendcomrades to the slaughter, weakening the radicality of the struggle, recuperating it for the normality of the Spectacle… the customary shit of Politics. The same practice was seen during the FIAT industrial dispute, when the CGIL and Rifondazione invited the workers of the Imerese Terminal to abandon the blockade of the Melfi establishment in order to go to march in Rome.

The comrades who tried to practice some form of direct action were called fascists and provocateurs by the pacifists, with the same phraseology used by Stalinists to criminalize revolutionaries. Calling for the clearing off of the tracks, the reasons the presented were the importance of bodily intervention in order to sensitize “public opinion” that the violence is only that of the police who drag you away by the hair, while they beat you, and to avoid the temporary blockade of civilian trains. Such a blockade would recriminate on the conditions of the passengers and on the train workers who wanted to go home; but weren’t those who blocked the railroad workers and proletarians? Wouldn’t the expected strike against the ware have to serve to block everything?

Around 10:30 pm, notice was given that the military convoy would not be passing through the Fornovo station perhaps due to a deviation in its course. Then one seemed to be able to see a veil of sadness on the faces of the pacifists, whose heroic gesture would have been told by the mass media… pity, with all the flashes that went off on all sides and all the hours of retaken videos of news directors of every kind…

We don’t want the criminal acts of civil disobedience that permitted the physical – but above all mental – demobilization of the demonstrators, favoring the police orgy by now much to well known to everyone to be repeated. In order to block the war machine we will have need of every means necessary that proletarian fantasy will be able to express.

Paraphrasing a famous article by Otto Ruhle (German council communist) from 1939: the struggle against fascism starts with the struggle against bolshevism, now the struggle against imperialist war starts with the struggle against pacifism. (25 February 2003, from www.autprol.org)

The mobilization to stop the transport of military vehicles at Fornovo poses various questions that go beyond the war in Iraq. Military intervention in the middle east has roused radical forms of protest, in the meanwhile uncovering the nerves of the repressive apparatus in all its articulations, military and ideological, revealing weak points and strong points.

Deluded wretches who believe that in the face of the military deployment of the state and economic calculation, they could offer opposition by “interposing” their bodies as a weight to be lifted. The only thing that they have gotten is a sufficient dose of beating and the weariness of the cops from lifting whatever weight… but we don’t want to enter into the false violence-nonviolence opposition, each one does as s/he believes and the problem is hers/his.

If it had not been for the unconditional surrender of almost all those present, that train at Fornovo, despite the unfavorable relations of forces of one to one between cops and demonstrators, could have been slowed if not stopped. Of course, the majority of the demonstrators were already disappointed with regard to the possibility of standing up to the paramilitary police. But what hauled in the cable the most were the usual not so veiled threats from the side of the petty leaders of the movement toward the few who tried to retake the position on the tracks and afterwards to damage the military vehicles that passed in front of them by throwing rocks. If the objective was to stop or slow down the train, all means available would have had to be used, or at least attempted. Otherwise the new Ghandis run the risk of convincing themselves that the train could be stopped through some “fuck off” or “shame” in the direction of the forces of order. Besides, the cops only do their duty: the defense of the state and the economy. (23 February 2003, from www.autprol.org)

11 March, Fife, Scotland (UK). An activist of the Trident Ploughshares group, Ulla Roder, entered the airport of British military aviation and struck a Tornado airplane with a hammer, damaging the nose, the cockpit, the fuselage, the wings, the tail and other parts. The airplane was rendered unusable, In consequence, Ulla was arrested and has been subjected to preventive imprisonment.

13 March, Gloucestershire, England (UK). On the night, Arthur Paul Milling and Margaret Jones entered the Fairford military base and caused 50,000 pounds in damages to military aviation vehicles. The Fairford British aviation base currently has 14 American B-52 bombers waiting to be used in the war against Iraq. Arthur and Margaret have been imprisoned and are charged with “conspiracy to commit criminal damages”.

18 March, Edison, New Jersey (USA). An armed forces recruitment center was attacked. According to the communiqué spread by Direct Action Front “the intention was to cause the maximum economic damage possible”.

20 March, Stadium Village, Minneapolis (USA). During the night paint was used against the windows and locks were sealed at a Marine recruitment center.

21 March, Athens (Greece). A demonstration (200,000 people) against the war in Iraq. A thousand anarchists formed a fine “block” of the excited. The march passed into the zone of government palaces: during the passage rocks, eggs, red paint, bottles and other objects were thrown at the central offices of the European Union, as well as at journalists. Outside the US embassy, protected by dozens of cops and flying squads, there was an attack by comrades against the flying squads using rocks and molotovs. The leaders of the so-called communist Party tried to block the attack at the embassy. Due to a thick rain of tear gas, the struggles were continued in the neighboring streets. There were about forty demonstrators arrested, including 12 Iraqis who were tortured.

22 March, Milan (Italy). At the peace march there is also space for social war: molotovs against a real estate agency, video-cameras of a journalist destroyed, the windows of a McDonald’s, a few central businesses and the Isreali tourist office smashed to bits.

24 March, Maniago, Pordenone (Italy). A US military car (labeled AFI) was burned at the nearby bas of Aviano.

25 March, Vicenza (Italy). Two military vehicles were set on fire at the US base.

25 March, Bologna (Italy). Today, personnel from the DIGOS proceeded with the issuing of four security warnings and related restrictive measures to as many comrades (one woman and three men) in relationship to the events at Ferrara this past February 22. Let’s briefly recall that on this occasion acts of “public health” were realized due to which a few “zealous” servants of the democratic order were left somewhat battered (Dr. Raffaele Zurlo, first director of the State Police of Ferrara and the assistant chief, Marco Fabbri, the latter alleviated of his video camera).

The comrades will have to present themselves March 27 at the offices of the DIGOS in Bologna for the application of the obligation of residence, of the obligation of presenting themselves daily at the police station of Bologna and the obligation of not leaving their house between 2pm and 7pm every day.