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  1. Press Release: National Democratic Front of the Philippines-Cagayan Valley

    Surface missing NDFP-CV staff Scarlet Lyne Gayo and uphold her rights!

    Robert Reid | Global Chair FFPS In a statement by the National Democratic Front of the Philippines-Cagayan Valley (NDFP-CV), spokesperson Salvador del Pueblo alerted the public that Scarlet Lyne Gayo is a missing staff of their regional public information team who was cornered by elements of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP). There are indications that she is being held by the military and pressured to turn against her revolutionary comrades in exchange for the dismissal of several trumped-up charges against her. This clearly goes against her rights to her own political beliefs and to not be subjected to arrest without a warrant from a case filed against her. If there is a case, she should be surfaced in court and her rights as arrested person need to be respected, such as the Miranda rights, right to attorney of her own choice, etc. This type of fascist violence has been a popular weapon of the US-Marcos regime, as well as previous administrations, and its armed forces in their psywar and all-out counterinsurgency war of suppression against the Filipino people. The NDFP and the people’s movement in Cagayan Valley and surrounding areas in Northern Luzon, as well as all parts of the country, have long been subjected to fascist terror by the AFP and other armed state forces. Such as the abduction, torture and killing of Ariel Arbitrario in Cagayan Valley on September 11, 2024, as well as the killing of Randy Malayao inside a bus in Nueva Vizcaya in 2019. Both had been NDFP consultants in peace negotiations, carried their document of information under the Joint Agreement on Safety and Immunity Guarantees (JASIG) and as such should have been protected from attacks. NDFP peace consultants and staff perform important roles in the road to a just and lasting peace. Many of them are leaders and members of mass organizations and unions who are deeply engaged in the struggle for the rights and interests of the masses, and for the people’s desire for national and social liberation. Through this integration they are in the best position to help inform and put forward the people’s demands for a just and lasting peace. NDFP staff and consultants are spread all throughout the many islands of the Philippines and their role in updating the negotiating panel on the situation of the people, on their needs and demands, is an essential contribution to the peace process. They are the pulse that keep the Negotiating Panel informed of the situation on the ground. Furthermore, they help ensure that the NDFP’s vision advances the people’s agenda for genuine change, and as such contribute to the just and internationally recognized struggle for self-determination. Under the JASIG, NDFP staff’s safety is to be protected to ensure their full participation in peace negotiations. The abductions, imprisonments, torture and killings of NDFP peace consultants and staff involved in the peace process, are not only a violation of the signed JASIG and a violation of their fundamental rights but also undermine the peace process between the GRP and the NDFP. It means that the Negotiating Panel has less people in the field supporting the panel and representing the demands of the Filipino people. The abduction and continued disappearance of NDFP-CV staff member Scarlet Lyne Gayo amongst the continuing US-Marcos’ war of suppression represents the insincerity of the GRP in pursuing just and lasting peace. From previous cases in recent years involving the abduction and disappearance of legal activists and NDFP personnel, it is well documented that victims are regularly subjected to severe physical and psychological torture aimed at coercing them to renounce their comrades and organizations. This heightens our concern for the grave danger now faced by Scarlet Lyne Gayo, who has been missing since December 9, 2025, and underscores the urgency of the situation.

    We therefore urgently call on the entire international community to stand with the struggling Filipino masses, call for the immediate surfacing of Scarlet Lyne Gayo and the full respect of her rights as an individual, as well as the respect of international law and existing signed agreements. We furthermore advocate for her prompt and unconditional release. Stand with the Filipino people for a just and lasting peace in the Philippines!

    About Friends of the Filipino People in Struggle (FFPS):

    Friends of the Filipino People in Struggle (FFPS) / Friends of the National Democratic Front (FNDF) is a global organization that supports the Filipino people’s struggle for genuine national liberation as outlined in the 12 point program of the NDF. For more information, visit https://ffps.info.

    abolitionmedia.noblogs.org/?p= #antifascism #antiimperialism #armedStruggle #FilipinoPeopleInStruggl #NationalDemocraticFrontOfThePhilippinesCagayanValley #ndf #phillipines #ScarletLyneGayo
  2. Subversive Comrade Marcela Rodriguez Dies in Italy

    On the night of October 3rd, subversive comrade Marcela Rodriguez died in Italy after two weeks of hospitalization due to pneumonia. Marcela was part of the Lautaro Popular Rebel Forces, where she played a key role in actions against the dictatorship and the subsequent “democracy” of the Concertación.

    “We didn’t believe that the Concertación would solve the problems of poverty, so we continued the armed struggle.” Marcela Rodriguez

    In an interview we conducted with the collaboration of @buscandolakalle, we asked Marcela about the nickname “Machine Gun Woman,” which initially emerged from the fascist media with a derogatory purpose, but which ultimately left her forever in the collective imagination: “A stupid thing… But in the end, if what they wanted was to provoke rejection among the people toward us, toward women, it backfired, and they always put us on the front pages.” When we arrived in the towns, they applauded us and shouted “Long live women!” she told La Zarzamora.

    Marcela was born on March 3, 1953, in Santiago. She spent her childhood in a working-class neighborhood in the southern part of Santiago called Villa Sur. She completed her primary education at the Alfonso Matte School in the Dávila neighborhood and her secondary education at the Technical Girls’ School No. 3 in the commune of San Miguel, where she says she received “the necessary tools to understand the world.” This, combined with the lessons at home, completed her education. “At family gatherings, my father would talk to us about the history of Chile and the world, especially the history of the labor movement, since he had been a union leader in his youth,” she told us.

    In 1982, when the MAPU split, the Mapu Lautaro was formed, and she actively participated. After being part of the Lautaro militia, Marcela began participating in the FRPL (Lautaro Popular Rebel Forces), where she took action against the dictatorship and later against the coalition that maintained the regime’s continuity through political imprisonment, the murder of combatants, and the impunity of military personnel and civilians involved in the dictatorship.

    On November 14, 1990, she participated in the rescue of political prisoner Marco Ariel Antonioletti from the Sótero del Río Hospital in Santiago, where she was seriously injured. Regarding this incident, Marcela told us: “I faced it with great courage. The truth is, I never thought they would kill me, that I would be imprisoned, or that I would die. I always thought what I was doing was the right thing, and the moment the bullet hit me, I said to myself, ‘I’m screwed, but they won’t see me cry,’ and that’s what happened.

    Supposedly, everything that happened shouldn’t have happened; our actions were always clean. Unfortunately, when I was wounded, everything changed.” I believe the rescued comrade was taken to a house where he shouldn’t have been, and then the owner of the house, named Juan Carvajal, who would later become the Director of Communications for the Bachelet administration, betrayed him, and there he was murdered by police, rats, and special forces. The comrade was unarmed.”

    The active memory of this brave comrade, with her irreducible attitude and absolute conviction in combating the enemy, is essential.

    Marcela Rodriguez is undoubtedly a comrade of tremendous importance in our recent history of struggle, an example of the strength and conviction with all the intersections that inhabit the life of a woman, a woman who decided to stand up against tyranny and who dared to take up arms against the murderers who gave rise to the new order of capital in Latin America.

    We embrace her comrade Julio from afar.

    Comrade Marcela, today we raise your memory.

    Marcela Rodriguez Present!!!

    La Zarzamora

    Read the full interview at: https://lazarzamora.cl/memoria-y-accion-entrevista-a-marcela-rodriguez-ex-combatiente-de-las-fuerzas-rebeldes-populares-lautaro-a-50-anos-del-golpe/

    Source: https://lazarzamora.cl/fallece-en-italia-la-companera-subversiva-marcela-rodriguez/

    abolitionmedia.noblogs.org/?p=

    #armedStruggle #chile #europe #italy #MarcelaRodriguez #rip #southAmerica

  3. Announcing the 4th Issue of International Anarcho-Nihilist/Insurrectionary Paper “Blessed Is The Flame”

    **Download link (PDF):** http://blessed-is-the-flame.espivblogs.net/files/2025/09/ENG-Blessed-Is-The-Flame-Issue-4.pdf

    In early September, the 4th issue of the international anarcho-nihilist/insurrectionary newspaper “Blessed Is The Flame” has been published. As always, along whith the counter-information of July and August, we have also collected texts on counter-surveillance, counter-repression and direct action.

    The newspaper is available in both digital and printed form. If anyone is interested on printing it themselves, the best way is either to print it as simple A4 with a stapler, or as A3 in booklet format.

    Note: for printing, we suggest you download the file directly from our website (https://blessed-is-the-flame.espivblogs.net/4o-teychos-tis-exegersiakis-anarchikis-efimeridas-eylogimeni-i-floga/) in case any minor corrections may be made and therefore the download link is renewed.

    **CONTENTS**

    ⚫ Counter-information for July & August 2025
    ⚫ Challenges of police investigations into anarchist direct actions
    ⚫ A search for anarchist practices against torture
    ⚫ Useful information for anarchists of action from the investigation files of Operation Diana
    ⚫ Responsibility claim with guide for action [arson attack on machinery of Holcim, Switzerland]
    ⚫ Chile: Black August and solidarity actions for comrades Aldo and Lucas
    ⚫ Monica Caballero Sepulveda: “Political violence”
    ⚫ Uprising in Indonesia and calls of solidarity and support
    ⚫ The authoritaria trap of identity logic
    ⚫ Greece: Summer news about the “Synergy of Vengeance” case
    ⚫ Squat evacuations
    ⚫ About persecuted comrades from USA
    ⚫ Update and call for solidarity assembly for Alfredo Cospito
    ⚫ Message to the climate movement
    ⚫ Why are we being led to our slaughter? We don’t

    *Note: Some of the news and responsibility claims for July and August were published after the completion of this issue.

    All of this will be posted in the next few days on our website.*

    **OTHER LANGUAGES:**
    The newspaper is currently being published in seven languages.
    The links for the file of the issue in the other available languages are the following:

    English: http://blessed-is-the-flame.espivblogs.net/files/2025/09/ENG-Blessed-Is-The-Flame-Issue-4.pdf
    Español: http://blessed-is-the-flame.espivblogs.net/files/2025/09/ES-Bendita-Sea-La-Llama-Numero-4.pdf
    Français: http://blessed-is-the-flame.espivblogs.net/files/2025/09/FR-Benie-Soit-La-Flamme-Numero-4.pdf
    Deutsch: http://blessed-is-the-flame.espivblogs.net/files/2025/09/DE-Gesegnet-Sei-Die-Flamme-Heft-4.pdf
    Italiano: http://blessed-is-the-flame.espivblogs.net/files/2025/09/IT-Benedetta-Sia-La-Fiamma-Numero-4.pdf
    Bahasa Indonesia: http://blessed-is-the-flame.espivblogs.net/files/2025/09/ID-Berbahagialah-Nyala-Api-Edisi-4.pdf
    Ελληνικά: http://blessed-is-the-flame.espivblogs.net/files/2025/09/EL-%CE%95%CF%85%CE%BB%CE%BF%CE%B3%CE%B7%CE%BC%CE%AD%CE%BD%CE%B7-%CE%97-%CE%A6%CE%BB%CF%8C%CE%B3%CE%B1-%CE%A4%CE%B5%CF%8D%CF%87%CE%BF%CF%82-4.pdf
    Feedback for the quality of the translations is very welcome.

    abolitionmedia.noblogs.org/?p=

    #armedStruggle #blessedIsTheFlame #guerrilla #insurrectionaryAnarchism #nihilism

  4. (Important notice : not interested by any means in your opinion towards Fidel, his brother, Communism, Cuba or Marxism.
    Violators will be unmercifully and immediately erased...yeah, that's right, like all Commies do with freedom of speech)

    #Revolution #ArmedStruggle #Oppression #Memes

  5. (Important notice : not interested by any means in your opinion towards Fidel, his brother, Communism, Cuba or Marxism.
    Violators will be unmercifully and immediately erased...yeah, that's right, like all Commies do with freedom of speech)

    #Revolution #ArmedStruggle #Oppression #Memes

  6. Año’s Recycled Lies Meant to Obscure Real Roots of Armed Conflict

    Kabataang Makabayan (KM) strongly condemns the recent statements made by National Security Adviser Eduardo Año and the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-Elcac), which once again weaponize so-called “former rebels” to prop up the discredited narrative of a so-called “spent revolutionary force.” What Año parades as “raw, unfiltered testimonies” are, in truth, manufactured scripts extracted through coercion, bribery, and threats, designed to mislead the public and justify the militarist crackdown on democratic dissent in the Philippines.

    The formation of organizations composed of alleged “former rebels,” organized under the close direction of the military and intelligence agencies, is a state-sponsored ploy aimed at legitimizing repressive policies, red-tagging, and the silencing of legitimate criticism against the Marcos Jr. regime’s corruption, foreign subservience, and anti-people programs.

    Año’s recycled lies and fear-mongering narratives do more than insult the intelligence of the Filipino people—they actively obscure the real, deeply rooted causes of the armed conflict in the Philippines. Landlessness, joblessness, widespread poverty, fascist state violence, and a foreign-dominated economic system that denies the Filipino people sovereignty and justice are still the norm today.

    Año’s attempt to weaponize “former rebels” in the information war is a desperate move in the face of growing international exposure and condemnation of human rights violations under their “counterinsurgency” programs as well as the mounting call to abolish the NTF-Elcac. It also exposes the regime’s failure to crush the revolutionary movement, which continues to persevere and grow.

    It is not the revolutionary movement but the ruling classes and their security apparatuses who exploit the urban poor, workers, farmers, and indigenous peoples—through demolition, union-busting, land grabbing, environmental plunder, and killings of rights defenders. Far from being deceived, the Filipino masses experience firsthand the crushing poverty, joblessness and lack of access to basic services that further foment their resolve to join the armed struggle in the countryside. The people’s democratic revolution is a rational, collective response to a system that offers no meaningful future to the youth, urban poor, workers, and peasants.

    Kabataang Makabayan reiterates its commitment to a just and lasting peace—one that addresses the fundamental issues of land reform, national industrialization, and democratic rights. We call on all Filipino youth, students, migrants, and professionals, to reject the fascist propaganda of the AFP and NTF-Elcac, and instead join the struggle for genuine change and national and social liberation.

    Source: https://ndfp.info/anos-recycled-lies-meant-to-obscure-real-roots-of-armed-conflict/

    abolitionmedia.noblogs.org/?p=

    #armedStruggle #asia #communist #KabataangMakabayan #philippines

  7. A Brief Greeting from Dimitris Koufontinas

    A brief greeting from Dimitris Koufontinas from the special prison of Domokos, for the presentation of his book “The Revolutionary Organization November 17. 13 Answers from Prison” in Milan [Occupied Bakery, 17/04/2025]

    I am very happy that today I find myself with my mind together with you in Milan, for the presentation of the book “13 answers”, translated by comrade Leonidas.

    This year coincides with the 50th anniversary of the first armed action of the November 17 Revolutionary Organization, in December 1975 against the head of the CIA in Greece. This is a further reason for a broader discussion, with the distance of time, for the armed counter-violence movement in our countries and around the world.

    In this little book there is no simple account of the facts of the Greek version of this movement. If we want to get closer to the truth, we cannot isolate it from its historical roots, we cannot exclude it from the totality of the historical process, from the path of social evolution, from the international conjuncture and from the geostrategy of the movement throughout the world.

    17N always considered itself as part of the current of resistance that runs through the history of our earth, and as part of the broader current of the resistance of peoples. The answers it gave as well as its evolutionary path are similar to the answers that have been given in other lands and to the evolutionary path of other movements in other countries.

    In my opinion, in addition to the warning that the weak can make the powerful tremble, the most important contribution of the 17N was its adherence to ideological warfare, in the attempt to interpret reality by the socially active, in the face of the dominant lie and its organized reproduction. In an attempt not to rewrite history.

    The edition of this book, as well as today’s debate, are part of this ongoing ideological struggle, as an attempt to be useful to those who seek their own paths to social liberation.

    Source: https://panetteriaoccupata.noblogs.org/post/2025/04/18/un-breve-saluto-di-dimitris-koufontinas/

    abolitionmedia.noblogs.org/?p=

    #17N #armedStruggle #DimitrisKoufontinas #europe #greece #italy #milan #PoliticalPrisoners

  8. Armed Struggle: Natural Response to Fascism: Martin Sostre, 1975

    “The question now is: What are we going to do about this murderous fascism?”

    One might not guess it from its title, but Martin Sostre ’s essay, “Armed Struggle: Natural Response to Fascism,” is a nuanced, careful, and eloquent consideration of political strategy in the context of repressive, totalitarian rule. Published in 1975 in the magazine Black Flag: Organ of the Anarchist Black Cross , Sostre’s essay is partly a response to leftist critiques of the strategies of the controversial Symbionese Liberation Army, or SLA, whose acts of assassination, kidnapping, and armed-robbery were often deemed vanguardist, tactically-ill thought, and politically disastrous. Yet Sostre reads the theoretical manifesto of the SLA against the real-world political conditions in the United States, where in the 1970s, just as now, a set of “repressive fascist measures” were being implemented—from restoration of the death penalty to a system of total surveillance to “ infiltration, frame-ups, assassinations, brutalisations, de-humanisations, behaviour modification, and genocide.”

    In this light, Sostre asks, what should the popular response to fascism look like? If the political rhetoric of fascism is white supremacy and its primal political program is violence, can it only be challenged via appeals to humanity, calls for reform, or prayers for peace, democracy, and non-violence? Sostre is also clear, however, that the fight against fascism demands not a single strategy, but a range of strategies: the anti-fascist response must be “multi-dimensional,” “complex,” and able to meet people where they are.

    Born in East Harlem on March 20, 1923, Martin Ramirez Sostre , was an Afro-Puerto Rican revolutionary anarchist. After a short stint in the army and a longer period of hustling, Sostre opened the legendary Afro Asian Book Shop at 1412 Jefferson Avenue in Buffalo, NY. The bookstore became a political and pedagogical refuge for many during the urban strife and whitesupremacist warfare that rocked the city in the late 1960s. In 1967, Sostre and co-worker Geraldine Robinson were arrested on COINTELPRO fabricated drug charges. He was sentenced by an all-white jury to thirty to forty years in prison. Sostre spent the next decade in prison, often in solitary confinement, regularly humiliated and tortured by guards.

    While incarcerated , Sostre became a successful “jailhouse lawyer” using legal appeals for his own rights. He also advocated for the religious and political rights of all prisoners and for the end of draconian policies of censorship, solitary confinement, and invasive bodily exams. As the editors of the North Carolina Central Law Review note in their introduction to Sostre’s 1973 essay “The New Prisoner” Sostre was also “the moving force behind the formation of a prisoners’ union in New York State and an advocate of minimum wages for inmate workers.” Sostre also introduced figures like Black anarchist Lorenzo Kom’Boa Ervin to anarchist theory and practice. Sostre was released from prison in 1976 through a combination of his own efforts and of the Free Martin Sostre campaign. He died on August 12, 2015 at the age of 92.

    A visionary with a highly attuned sense of both justice and praxis, Martin Sostre had the mind of a political strategist. These qualities are demonstrated in his essay “Armed Struggle: Natural Response to Fascism.” We reprint it below.

    Armed Struggle: Natural Response to Fascism

    Martin Sostre

    Sisters and Brothers:

    The escalating repression by this predatory, racist and sexist capitalist system makes glaringly clear to all but the most politically backward that the dire predictions that U.S. capitalism would evolve into fascism have come to pass. Restoration of the death penalty, life sentences for drugs, recent supreme Court rulings upholding the denial of the right to live in communes, the right to privacy and human dignity (by granting police the right to arbitrarily invade peoples’ persons and homes and use as evidence in court anything seized during the illegal search), police electronic eavesdropping, infiltration, frame-ups, assassinations, brutalisations, de-humanisations, behaviour modification, and genocide are some of the repressive fascist measures now being implemented.

    The question now is: What are we going to do about this murderous fascism? Shall we continue spouting revolutionary rhetoric without commensurate deeds and passively stand by like sheep while our comrades are framed by the gestapo police kidnapped off the streets and murdered one by one? Must we passively wait our turn to be led to the oppressors’ cages, brutalised or murdered? Or shall we oppose the choking fascist oppression which if allowed to continue encroaching on what is left of our personal freedoms will eventually convert us into de-humanised mindless robots? The answer is obvious. Indeed, to defend ourselves by all means necessary against the destruction of our human rights and personhood not only is the natural right to self-defence but a human duty.

    By what means then shall we resist the fascist oppressors? The answer to this is determined by the means employed to press us. Our oppression is multi-dimensional. We are oppressed economically, legally, psychologically, culturally, physically and by all other means deemed necessary by the criminal ruling class to maintain themselves in power. Since oppression is multi-dimensional, does not common sense dictate that resistance to it be multi-dimensional with each level of oppression challenged by a commensurate level of revolutionary resistance?

    For example, the fascist lies propagated by the controlled media press must be challenged with revolutionary truth disseminated by the movement press, tapes, films, books, pamphlets, leaflets, posters, etc. Not too many revolutionaries and militants will disagree with this. Only when the same common-sense is applied to opposing fascist violence with revolutionary armed resistance do many of them become horrified. Witness the reaction of most of the movement people to SLA’s [Symbionese Liberation Army] revolutionary response to fascist repression.

    The current revolutionary action of the SLA is the correct and inevitable response to the countless kidnappings, frame-ups, brutalisations and murders perpetrated by the ruling class members upon resistors of oppression. At long last the individual members of this exploitative-racist-sexist system are being subjected to revolutionary justice. As Malcolm X said, “It’s a case of the chickens coming home to roost.” I extend my revolutionary love and solidarity to my SLA comrades and wish them every success.

    Why then are so-called militants and revolutionaries so horrified when armed fascist repression is resisted by the armed might of the people? Do they expect the people to revert to the turn-the-other-cheek state of the 1950s and respond to fascist murder, sadistic brutalisation, frame-ups and tortures with passive acquiescence, love for our fascist enemies and cooperation in our own oppression?

    Or is it that these horrified so-called militants and revolutionaries see the liberation struggle as one dimensional, to be fought solely on the level of consciousness they happen to be on? Surely they cannot be so politically retarded [sic] as to believe that in a liberation struggle the enemy should be fought on only one level – that approved by the enemy.

    It is just as absurd to propose that everyone resist fascist oppression through peaceful means as to propose armed resistance for everyone. Just because I’m a revolutionary anarcho-communist who believes in armed struggle does not dogmatize me to propose that everyone arm and go underground. Nor would I denounce those who refuse to do so.

    Paradoxically, though these leftists bitterly denounce all violence by US revolutionaries against the US ruling class, they highly praise as “heroic” the armed violence of the revolutionaries in Africa, Asia, Ireland, the Middle-East and Latin America. The rule seems to be that armed violence is an acceptable form of revolutionary struggle except when employed by US revolutionaries against the fascist ruling class of the US. In effect, it’s as if the role of these left groups is to protect the ruling class from violence and confine the liberation struggle to the boundaries of legal activities approved by the ruling class.

    However, the irrefutable truth is that a liberation struggle is revolutionary war. Revolutionary war is a complicated process of mass struggle, armed and unarmed, peace and violent, legal and clandestine, economic and political, where all forms of struggle are developed harmoniously around the axle of armed struggle. Anyone who by now has not grasped these basic facts does not know what liberation struggle is – or is trying to palm off reformism for liberation struggle.

    A distinction must be made between reformists and revolutionaries. Reformists seek merely to reform through legal means, and not overthrow the existing fascist system. That’s why they panic when the people exercise their right to armed self-defence against the genocidal violence of the fascist ruling class. Revolutionaries seek the complete overthrow of the fascist system by all means necessary including armed struggle. Revolutionaries seek, moreover, to subject to peoples’ justice individual members of the ruling class for their many crimes against humanity.

    The spreading of the East and West coasts of the philosophy of subjecting members and agents of the ruling class to people’s justice attests to how widespread this revolutionary concept has become. It can never be erased from the consciousness of the people, the revolutionary clock.

    At long last the peoples’ armed force has emerged within the United States to oppose the gestapo of the ruling class. The balance of power has radically shifted. Gone forever are the days when fascists could prepare every conceivable crime with impunity. The price of oppression has been raised and shall soon become prohibitive.

    The stolen billions of dollars possessed by members of the criminal ruling class shall soon become a liability. They’ll be forced to convert their mansions into fortresses protected by round the clock armed guards and electronic protective devices. Every venture outside the besieged fortress will require escorts of armed guards. Even this will not guarantee safety. For revolutionary justice shall stalk the fascist criminals at every turn. Already the people’s army has sent shivers of fear through the spine of the criminal ruling class who clearly recognise the signs as meaning: the beginning of the end.

    Conversely, the people’s armed self-defence force has created new hope in the hearts of the oppressed – particularly revolutionary comrades held hostage in fascist prisons serving long sentences. Soon the fascist ruling class will be forced to free these prisoners of war in exchange for captured members of their own class.

    The denunciation of the SLA by the movement press is indistinguishable from that of the ruling class. Indeed, some movement papers quoted statements from the controlled press to support their claim that the people rejected the kidnapping. The criminal ruling class rubbed their hands in glee and publicised how divided the left was over the SLA. Each left organisation seemed to be competing with the others for legitimacy by denouncing the SLA. It was utterly disgusting, reactionary and opportunistic.

    Nor were the denunciations made in a spirit of constructive criticism by fellow comrades. No attempt was made by the movement press to publicise the SLA’s programme, analyse it and point out where it was erroneous. The criticism was deliberately hostile and designed to isolate the SLA by poisoning people’s minds against them.

    Conspicuously absent from the denunciations of the SLA in the movement press is any discussion of the role of armed struggle. The impression given is that armed struggle is not an essential part of the revolutionary struggle, that revolutionary violence is something repulsive which should be shunned. The left movement press would have one believe that to overthrow the criminal ruling class we have merely to organise mass movements, demonstrations, protest and repeat revolutionary slogans. Even after Chile (the lates of a series of tragedies where thousands of defenceless comrades were slaughtered because of the criminal refusal of leftist leaders to arm the people against the armed might of the ruling class) the movement in the United States still follows the same ill-fated line of Allende – as evidenced by the bitter denunciations of the armed action of the SLA.

    Most movement organisations are so busy following their dogmatic party lines, repeating revolutionary cliches and downing other movement groups that they’re unable to see the self-evident. Were their natural powers of perception and consciousness not stultified by party-lineism they would know that a revolutionary liberation movement must deal with the enemy concurrently on all levels, including armed violence. Otherwise when the inevitable showdown with the ruling class comes, the revolution will be left defenceless and the lives of our beloved comrades needlessly sacrificed.

    The SLA is the armed resistance of the people to the exploitative, racist and sexist fascism which is now upon us. All resistors of oppression, on whatever level of conscience they may be, should rejoice at the SLA’s existence, at their successful deeds  and the fear they put in the hearts of the criminal ruling class. It’s therefore the duty of us all to support by all means necessary, our SLA comrades. We must close ranks with them and give them the support they need. Let’s not fall for the malicious lies spread by agents of the FBI about the SLA which are designed to isolate the SLA from the people to make it easier to capture and murder them.

    I have carefully studied the Declaration of the Revolutionary War and the Symbionese Liberation Army and find it generally sound. It incorporates much of our historical revolutionary experience. I believe that the Symbionese Liberation Army has one of the most advanced revolutionary programmes for liberation in operation within the United States of America.

    The SLA represents the greatest challenge to fascist power because it objectifies the nucleus of the people’s army which as history shows is necessary to deliver the death-blow to the military arm of the fascist parasitic class.

    Your comrade in struggle,

    Martin Sostre

    Martin Sostre, “Armed Struggle: Natural Response to Fascism,” Black Flag: Organ of the Anarchist Black Cross 4 no. 3 (August 1975)

    source: Black Agenda Report

    abolitionmedia.noblogs.org/?p=

    #armedStruggle #blackLiberation #martinSostre #northAmerica #revolution

  9. #MartinSostre #ArmedStruggle #fascism #DiversityOfTactics

    "One might not guess it from its title, but Martin Sostre’s essay, 'Armed Struggle: Natural Response to Fascism,' is a nuanced, careful, and eloquent consideration of political strategy in the context of repressive, totalitarian rule. Published in 1975 in the magazine 'Black Flag: Organ of the Anarchist Black Cross', Sostre’s essay is partly a response to leftist critiques of the strategies of the controversial Symbionese Liberation Army, or SLA, whose acts of assassination, kidnapping, and armed-robbery were often deemed vanguardist, tactically-ill thought, and politically disastrous. Yet Sostre reads the theoretical manifesto of the SLA against the real-world political conditions in the United States, where in the 1970s, just as now, a set of 'repressive fascist measures' were being implemented—from restoration of the death penalty to a system of total surveillance to 'infiltration, frame-ups, assassinations, brutalisations, de-humanisations, behaviour modification, and genocide.'

    In this light, Sostre asks, what should the popular response to fascism look like? If the political rhetoric of fascism is white supremacy and its primal political program is violence, can it only be challenged via appeals to humanity, calls for reform, or prayers for peace, democracy, and non-violence? Sostre is also clear, however, that the fight against fascism demands not a single strategy, but a range of strategies: the anti-fascist response must be 'multi-dimensional,' 'complex,' and able to meet people where they are."

    blackagendareport.com/essay-ar

  10. #MartinSostre #ArmedStruggle #fascism #DiversityOfTactics

    "One might not guess it from its title, but Martin Sostre’s essay, 'Armed Struggle: Natural Response to Fascism,' is a nuanced, careful, and eloquent consideration of political strategy in the context of repressive, totalitarian rule. Published in 1975 in the magazine 'Black Flag: Organ of the Anarchist Black Cross', Sostre’s essay is partly a response to leftist critiques of the strategies of the controversial Symbionese Liberation Army, or SLA, whose acts of assassination, kidnapping, and armed-robbery were often deemed vanguardist, tactically-ill thought, and politically disastrous. Yet Sostre reads the theoretical manifesto of the SLA against the real-world political conditions in the United States, where in the 1970s, just as now, a set of 'repressive fascist measures' were being implemented—from restoration of the death penalty to a system of total surveillance to 'infiltration, frame-ups, assassinations, brutalisations, de-humanisations, behaviour modification, and genocide.'

    In this light, Sostre asks, what should the popular response to fascism look like? If the political rhetoric of fascism is white supremacy and its primal political program is violence, can it only be challenged via appeals to humanity, calls for reform, or prayers for peace, democracy, and non-violence? Sostre is also clear, however, that the fight against fascism demands not a single strategy, but a range of strategies: the anti-fascist response must be 'multi-dimensional,' 'complex,' and able to meet people where they are."

    blackagendareport.com/essay-ar

  11. “The Possibility of a Historic Moment is Now” – Burkhard Garweg

    … from the German newsite “nd” …

    Below we document a letter from Burkhard Garweg, which was sent exclusively to »nd«. Garweg is one of the most wanted people by German police authorities because of suspected RAF membership and several robberies in which millions of euros were stolen. His letter is a critical outline of the history of the Red Army Faction (RAF) and at the same time a response to Caroline Braunmühl, daughter of RAF victim Gerold von Braunmühl, who in January in the »nd« was critical of her brother’s »call for clarification« , but also responded to a previous letter from Burkhard Garweg. Burkhard Garweg now addresses Braunmühl’s statements in his current text. He criticizes the RAF for a phase lasting from 1977 to around 1990 in which the urban guerrillas made military confrontation with the state the focus of their politics and neglected social revolutionary struggles. The author, born in 1968, comes from the autonomous squatter movement and now lives illegally, alternates between two levels in his text: one that analyses and evaluates from today’s perspective and a second, in italics, that speaks very personally from the past and his youth. Burkhard Garweg’s contribution is fully documented below.

    “The possibility of a historic moment is now”

    On the history of the RAF and the question of the reconstruction of an anti-capitalist, social revolutionary, anti-patriarchal and internationalist movement in the present day.

     

    “The possibility of a historic moment is now”

    On the history of the RAF and the question of the reconstruction of an anti-capitalist, social revolutionary, anti-patriarchal and internationalist movement in the present day.

    In her text in »nd.Die Woche« of January 18, 2025, Caroline Braunmühl presents an alternative position to the bourgeois attitude that attempts to depoliticize the history of militant and armed resistance by reducing its content to violence and negating a political conflict.

    In my statement of December 2024, it was also important to me to present resistance to capitalism in the context of the relations of violence – exploitation, the rule of man over man, nationalism, militarism and war – and thus to conduct the debate according to historical reality and to counter the historiography of the rulers and their attempts at manipulation.

    The aim of bourgeois historiography is to delegitimize and criminalize anti-capitalist resistance and its history. Its elites have a fundamental interest in maintaining the conditions of exploitation and oppression and in being able to continue to make profits. This is what the proclamation from the ranks of its elites in the 1990s, which has gone down in history, stands for: “there is no alternative.”

    Caroline Braunmühl associates the RAF and other militant groups, such as the Rote Zora, with radical resistance against the “violence of socially dominant groups and individuals against socially subordinates – such as class justice, patriarchal violence or transnational relationships of exploitation, oppression and war, from which the economic elites in the Federal Republic of Germany have profited and continue to profit today.” She identifies the justification for militant resistance against violent relations and at the same time denies the legitimacy of targeted assassinations by the RAF in its history.

    She criticizes my statement from a feminist perspective and for lacking criticism of the RAF.

    I agree with her that a reflective picture of the history of the struggles with the ability to see their weaknesses is necessary. The main thing is to be able to draw conclusions for the struggles of the future.

    The world of the dominant capitalist system is moving at an increasing pace towards social and global erosion: war, poverty, displacement and the destruction of the planet’s ecological basis for life. The bourgeois state – and this affects the entire capitalist center of Europe and the USA – is increasingly using right-wing and authoritarian means. It uses the construction of a “national community” to differentiate itself from migrants, Muslims, refugees and the poor. It uses racism, nationalism and rapid militarization both internally and externally. This has repercussions – some of which are also intended – on bourgeois society.

    This is becoming radicalized by the deeply rooted racist, patriarchal and social forms of differentiation, exclusion and oppression within society. The world is unmistakably moving towards an infernal tipping point of social, ecological and military erosion.

    Capitalism offers no solution to this. It would also be a contradiction in terms. The elites’ solutions to the crisis are now authoritarianism, fascism, war and the process of unifying bourgeois and fascist politics. This is nothing other than a journey into the possible abyss with clear parallels to the historical crises that culminated in the world wars of 1914 and 1939 – albeit with an extremely increased global destructive potential in modern times.

    Anyone who wants to prevent this should focus less on the hopeless rescue of bourgeois democracy as a facet of capitalism and the associated retention of the fundamental relations of violence, but rather on social revolutionary alternatives that can only be achieved as a result of social revolutionary and emancipatory struggles.

    Existential questions arise: In which steps, initiatives and processes can the reconstruction of an anti-capitalist, social revolutionary and internationalist left be achieved?

    But also: What do we take with us into the future from the struggles and concepts of history, from the attempts to overcome the thoroughly violent capitalism and imperialism? How do we as revolutionary leftists discuss and write history from below and appropriate it for the struggles of today and tomorrow and against the propagandistic, depoliticizing and criminalizing historiography from above?

    I see in the history of the RAF courage and determination to dare something, to take risks and the unconditionality and seriousness and the surrender of one’s own privileges that are also needed to achieve the transformation of the misery of domination and oppression – including the overturning of power imbalances within society.

    How much I was moved as a young person by their determination and unconditionality and the way they put themselves aside in deep and true solidarity with the poor and colonized people of this world, with the exploited in the countries of the starving Tricontinent and the insurgents there. How much I was moved – still wet behind the ears and without much knowledge and above all out of empathy with those who had nothing or almost nothing – by the militant internationalism they stood for. There were times when I read the texts of Ernesto Cardenal or later the last texts of Ulrike, which I was not yet able to fully understand.

    I heard about Nelson Mandela and Steve Biko, one of whom was a political prisoner in South Africa for decades, and the other an insurgent against South Africa’s apartheid system who was tortured and murdered by the South African police. I was outraged by this unspeakable, racist violence, including state violence, but also moved by the resistance of so many and that of the ANC. At the same time, however, I also learned that I myself lived in a country whose elite profited from this system of violence known as apartheid, and was deeply connected to the racist regime in South Africa, its military and its police. It was a regime made up of predominantly South African, German or US capital, of the local government, military and police, of the self-proclaimed elite of white colonialists, who treated people like slaves, exploited them, killed them and declared them second or third class citizens because they were black. I perceived it – and it also shaped my life – this oppressive and violent reality of this colonial and state crime, this “normality” of the world of capitalism. The perpetrators and accomplices of this unspeakable racism, also committed by the state, and these crimes of colonialism sat in their headquarters in Pretoria or Johannesburg. They sat in Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Munich or Bonn on the boards of banks and corporations, in the German government or in the barracks of the Western world, especially the German, Israeli or US military.

    For me, it was the RAF that showed solidarity in the struggle with the poor and the revolutionaries in Nicaragua, El Salvador and South Africa, those attempts at revolution that had moved me since my early youth. I began to realise that it was a shared resistance – that in the metropolis and that in the Tricontinent. And that was what the RAF meant.

    History is also the history of mistakes, defeats and moments of sadness
    For me, the history of the RAF is also a history of strategic and tactical errors.

    In the history of the RAF, there are also moments that were not shaped by the moral compass of the revolution.

    Nobody has to find the whole story correct today. For me, this does not call into question the fundamental legitimacy of the contribution of various attempts at resistance over the centuries – including that of the RAF – to liberation from the violent conditions.

    The RAF emerged from the resistance of the (19)68 movement. The 68 movement reconstructed the anti-capitalist resistance that had been crushed by the Nazis in Germany. It brought the personal continuities of the elite into the consciousness of society. It is the miserable reality of the Federal Republic of Germany that it was built up by the old Nazis. They made careers as converted democrats in all state institutions and on the boards of banks and corporations – under the umbrella of the USA. The Nazi elite became the elite of West German democracy overnight.

    It was a rebellion against the reactionary stuffiness of the West German democracy shaped by National Socialism and a questioning of the existing capitalist order, which was socially reactionary and repressive and structurally based on exploitation and militarization.

    After the murder of the anti-rearmament demonstrator Philipp Müller by the police and after the ban on the KPD in 1956, police violence, professional bans and emergency laws were the state’s response at the end of the 1960s to the movement of students and apprentices, youth, the sub-proletariat and other sections of the population.

    It was the time of the Vietnam War, the merciless brutality of the US military machine, which tried to wipe out the Vietnamese attempt at revolution and went down in history with the massacres of the Vietnamese population and the use of the chemical warfare agent napalm. Huge movements of solidarity against the imperialist war and for the right to liberation by the Vietnamese armed and revolutionary movement arose around the world. “Bring the war home” – a slogan of the US anti-war movement. The 1968 movement and the RAF did exactly that and brought the worldwide resistance against the Vietnam War into German society. With the immense resistance against the Western world’s war of terror, the possibility of liberation had entered the consciousness of humanity worldwide and was on the table at the time. Revolutionary, anti-colonial and anti-racist struggles developed worldwide. Capitalism and imperialism were up for debate. Armed struggle of the Gauche Proletarienne in France, the Red Brigades in Italy, armed struggle in Spain, Northern Ireland, England, the Basque Country, Greece, Japan, Palestine, the Black Panthers and the Weather Underground in the USA, the Tupamaros in Uruguay, the urban guerrillas in Mexico and Brazil or the anti-fascist uprising of the Carnation Revolution in Portugal.

    It was the time of anti-colonial struggles in the South, in Mozambique, Algeria and many other places of anti-colonial liberation against the crimes of the West there.

    The “racial segregation” of apartheid in South Africa, the state and social racism in the USA, the murder of a million people during the crushing of the Communist Party in Indonesia by US military forces or the CIA-led military coup against the government of Salvador Allende in Chile are examples of Western self-evident truths and brutalities that humanity should accept.

    This violence of Western capitalism and imperialism generated revolutionary counter-violence around the world, such as the resistance of the ANC and the Black Panthers. It showed millions of people around the world that capitalism is built on the foundation of violence.

    In Paris, a million people took to the streets, on strike and on the barricades – large parts of the population, students and proletarians together.

    Berlin, Turin, Paris, New York: Revolution no longer seemed unthinkable. Things were shaking tremendously in the Western world.

    In Germany, the state attempted to crush the insurgent movement with harsh repression, emergency laws, professional bans, the imprisonment of thousands and police violence. The first shot came from the weapon of the German state: the police murdered Benno Ohnesorg on June 2, 1967.

    The social democratic version of the crackdown consisted of carrot and stick, of repression and the offer of integration, which was intended to bring about the abandonment of any resistance to capitalism and imperialism in the march through the institutions – and continues to this day.

    The situation in the world at that time, this age of uprisings and imperialism, whose state terror is visualized in the image of the Vietnamese girl fleeing from the bombs of the West, the social situation in the post-Nazi Federal Republic of Germany, the harsh and systematic state repression against the awakening, the elite of the Federal Republic of Germany riddled with Nazi perpetrators, the strikes – including wild ones, those marked by migrants – at the end of the 1960s and beginning of the 1970s, the virulence of ideas of the revolutionary transformation of the status quo in all parts of society and the worldwide uprisings against imperialism, state racism and colonialism as well as the emergence of urban guerrilla groups in many countries, including the metropolises – allow, in my view, only one conclusion: the emergence of the various armed fighting groups in the Federal Republic of Germany, this risk, this revolutionary experiment was completely justified and had to be attempted. Not trying would have been a failure in revolutionary history. A historic moment was possible.

    1972
    The “Urban Guerrilla Concept” and other RAF texts of this period were also an attempt to halt the decline of the movement, which had been plagued by repression and integration, and to bring it into the perspective of liberation.

    The RAF’s actions were directed against the imperialist war, against the means of power through repression and the aggressive and violent manipulation of society by the Springer press and other media. In all attacks, they were a link to the (19)68 movement.

    By attacking the US Army headquarters and destroying the computer there, which was essential for the state terrorist bombing, the RAF clearly sided with the oppressed and those trying to free themselves, and thus played a part in defeating the cruel Western imperialism that was raging in Vietnam as part of the worldwide resistance. The destruction of the US military computer in Heidelberg meant that the bombing and the mass killing of people that went with it had to be stopped for several days. In Vietnam, the massacred population appreciated this.

    In 1972, the RAF had a social revolutionary and anti-imperialist concept that was in a social context and proclaimed the primacy of practice. How sympathetic and right as a part of the class struggle was the serious and credible reference of Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin, Jan Raspe, Holger Meins and Ulrike Meinhof and all the others to the fringes of society, the sub-proletariat, the children in care homes, those who had become mentally ill in the system or to the proletarian women of the Märkisches Viertel – that proletarian and poor part of Berlin. The militants of the RAF came from all classes and from the history of different political ideas of this time of awakening: anarchism, communism, feminism, social revolutionaries and anti-imperialists. That is what I assume. How open the RAF was.

    The RAF had a base in the insurgent movement that was in decline. Its practice was an attempt to take this movement into the revolutionary struggle against the decline. It was in line with social reality and the worldwide, revolutionary and anti-colonial awakening.

    The RAF in its inception – just like 2 June and later the Revolutionary Cells and the Rote Zora – was, in its relationship to state violence and to the fundamental power relations in capitalism, legitimate revolutionary counter-violence and a legitimate attempt at liberation. All of the actions in its early days, which ended with the arrests of the militants of the time in 1972 and ’73, are a very clear expression of this and convey exactly that.

    In a survey conducted at the time, one in five German citizens said they would be willing to protect a member of the RAF from arrest.

    The time was ripe for this revolutionary attempt and it was part of worldwide revolutionary attempts. The emergence of the urban guerrilla groups RAF and 2 June at that time was based on historical conditions.

    Given the circumstances, an attempt had to be made to reconstruct the fundamental resistance and the option of liberation that the Nazi state had once destroyed with the extermination of the workers’ movement and whose Nazi elites now opposed it again as converted, flawless democrats.

    Looking back on this history of resistance and this contribution to the liberation attempt, how important this early period of the RAF is to me and how it helped to shape my relationship with it. I would not be able to understand the history of the RAF in its entirety – neither in its merits nor in its lows – without being aware of this time and the legitimacy of its creation. That time – I was just born at the beginning of it – seems distant, but the content of their attempt, even if it is history, is close to me.

    After the arrests in 1972/73, the RAF only existed as prisoners
    “Dare to be more democratic,” as Willy Brandt said in 1972, had no reality in the execution of Tommy Weisbecker, Georg von Rauch, Petra Schelm or of bystanders during the manhunt, such as Ian McLeod – shot through a closed door – or the killing of the unarmed apprentice Richard Epple by the police.

    In the prisons, it was the Federal Prosecutor’s Office, the Ministry of Justice and the government – in other words, the state – that decided on war against the imprisoned RAF and bore responsibility for it: solitary confinement for all political prisoners, daily cell raids, physical abuse by the rolling squads in the prisons, the dead wing in Cologne-Ossendorf, in which Ulrike Meinhof and Astrid Proll were sealed off from all sensory perceptions, or the research into isolation as a method of subjugating people in prison at the University of Hamburg.

    The state’s plan to forcibly open Ulrike Meinhof’s skull in order to examine her brain and “prove” that her resistance was due to “brain damage” was only prevented due to public protest. The factual parallels to the research of the Nazi perpetrator Josef Mengele, who carried out forced examinations on living people in the German extermination camps during the Nazi regime and killed or mutilated them in the process, are obvious. These are traces of this period and of the state’s attempt – in its excesses one could also call fascist – to annihilate or subjugate those who had questioned the existing order in a revolutionary way and were at the mercy of the system as prisoners.

    The death of Holger Meins in 1974 during a hunger strike against the torture of solitary confinement through force-feeding, the dosage of which was designed to lead to his death, and the denial of medical help, was a state murder. They knew and wanted him to die as a result of their measures. In the war against prisoners and in the attempt to subjugate or destroy them, the elite clearly broke with the basic law of bourgeois democracy that they proclaimed: “Human dignity is inviolable” and openly showed the violence inherent in the bourgeois state.

    The former officers of the Wehrmacht of the Nazi state: Schmidt, Buback, Herold and others, were the ones who ordered this extreme form of state violence and were responsible for it.

    Even much later in the next decade of the (19)80s, as a young person I was moved by the violent and state-terrorist reality of that time and helped me to understand that the foundation of the bourgeois state in capitalism is based on violence, terror, war and exploitation.

    A little later, in the 1980s – I remember being very moved by it myself – I once told my mother about the torture of prisoners in solitary confinement. She was visibly moved. Unbeknownst to her, I had broken the windows of some banks with others to support the prisoners on hunger strike. Many years later, I would hear that my father and mother had themselves moved in solidarity with the prisoners and had begun to support the Kurdish liberation struggle as part of their lives.

    Social and societal empathy is something they gave me in life. It was also reflected in their decisions, which led them to become involved in the history of resistance in solidarity and, despite the repression of German or Turkish “security forces”, were prepared to leave the privilege of their own safety behind at times.

    1975, Stockholm
    After the death of Holger Meins, whose death also demonstrated that the German state was once again prepared to liquidate prisoners 29 years after the end of Nazi fascism, the justified fear of further state murders of prisoners and in an attempt to free the prisoners from the obvious attempt at subjugation and extermination in the prisons led the newly formed Holger Meins Commando of the RAF to the German embassy in Stockholm. It demanded that the German government release 26 political prisoners and threatened to blow up the embassy if it did not do so. The state refused to contact the occupiers and preferred to sacrifice its embassy staff for the sake of German state interests.

    During the occupation and in response to the German government’s refusal to enter into negotiations, the commando shot the diplomats Andreas von Mirbach and Heinz Hillegaart.

    Siegfried Hausner, a member of Holger Meins’ commando, was seriously injured during the occupation of the embassy. With burns all over his body, he was no longer able to be transported. Contrary to medical instructions, the federal government insisted on transporting him to Stuttgart-Stammheim, which was tantamount to a death sentence. They knew he would die from it, and he died.

    The RAF’s reaction to the tough stance of the federal government, which placed military priority over politics, was to be countered with the same logic. By shooting the two hostages, who themselves had no direct responsibility for the violent situation to which the RAF responded by murdering them, the RAF lost the moment of revolutionary morality and legitimacy in this action.

    1976
    Ulrike Meinhof died after four years in the dungeons of the powerful.

    After the failed occupation of the embassy in Stockholm, there was no longer any visible RAF outside until 1977. The state’s war against RAF prisoners, solitary confinement, special laws and special justice remained. With the verdict against the Stammheimers, the prisoners in the power’s isolation cells were to disappear forever. The system of annihilation or subjugation and special justice continued unbroken.

    The brutality of the ongoing state terrorist war in the prisons, which could not be stopped by Stockholm or by the prisoners’ hunger strikes, shows today a historical phase in which the attempt at self-defense and, in principle, the attempt to free political prisoners from the torture of solitary confinement was justified and legitimate. The occupation of the Stockholm embassy and the RAF’s ’77 offensive took place under this banner.

    This is also demonstrated by the successful liberation of prisoners through the kidnapping of Peter Lorenz in 1975 by the June 2nd Movement.

    1977
    Siegfried Buback, Federal Prosecutor General and largely responsible for the repression of the time and in particular for his orders for solitary confinement and special justice as well as for the murder of Holger Meins, Siegfried Hausner and Ulrike Meinhof, was killed by the RAF’s Ulrike Meinhof commando. From the perspective of those who were aware of the violent relationships in capitalism and who perceived or were affected by the extreme state violence of the time, this act was a form of legitimate counter-violence and self-defense. Denying this connection cannot in any way capture the historical reality.

    This was the beginning of Offensive ’77, with which the RAF attempted to end the “special detention” of the RAF prisoners by liberating them and to enable a reorientation of the RAF and the prisoners.

    She wanted to kidnap the head of the Dresden bank, Jürgen Ponto, but failed and ended with his unintentional killing.

    Schleier kidnapping 1977: “Those responsible for the crisis team decided to sacrifice Schleyer for the sake of state.”

    During the kidnapping of Hans Martin Schleyer, four police officers, Schleyer’s bodyguards, were shot dead.

    The federal government declared a state of emergency. The executive branch assumed decision-making power in the crisis team. The press declared itself to be in line.

    Historically, the state of emergency at that time represents the fascist power option that bourgeois democracy can use in capitalism. It also represents the elite’s willingness to use it when necessary.

    Those responsible for the crisis team decided to sacrifice Schleyer for reasons of state. They refused to exchange him for the prisoners. This was the state’s decision for a purely military solution. This was accompanied by discussions in the crisis team at the time about shooting RAF prisoners every hour. All of this speaks of the government’s responsibility for the course of history.

    The RAF responded, in the hope of persuading the ruling crisis team to adopt a different stance, by authorizing a commando of the Palestinian PFLP to hijack an airplane carrying innocent civilians.

    The Offensive ’77 completely isolated the RAF. It created a situation in which the entire left turned away from it and the RAF closed itself off to the left. Revolutionary goals that attempted to achieve a social impact were no longer a visible and direct element of its actions. It acted primarily for itself and therefore subjectivistically. It escalated the question of power against the state on a purely military level and thus opened a duel against the state that it could only lose.

    The military dynamics ran counter to political analysis. The isolated and subjectivist struggle was the precondition for an unjustifiable hijacking that ran counter to revolutionary principles and the idea of ​​revolution as class struggle.

    The killing of the four police officers as a prerequisite for negotiations is difficult to understand today and corresponds to a purely military logic. The killing of Ponto was not intentional and in itself ran counter to a realistic negotiating position for the release of the prisoners. Therefore, this action is part of the actions of the offensive at the time, which had lost its revolutionary legitimacy.

    October 18, 1977
    The German government had rejected any political solution and risked the lives of the hostages by storming the plane in Mogadishu for the sake of German state interests.

    Gudrun Enslin, Jan Raspe and Andreas Baader did not survive the night of October 18th in Stammheim. Irmgard Möller survived with serious injuries and declared: It was murder.

    With Schleyer died a man who went down in history as the right-hand man of the SS leader Heydrich, head of the Protectorate of Czech Bohemia/Moravia, which was occupied by the Nazi state. Schleyer was a careerist in the SS and responsible for the deportation of more than 40,000 Jews to the German extermination camps. As a person, he was partly responsible for the extermination of the Jews in the Shoah.

    He died as the personified continuity of Nazi perpetrators who made careers in the Federal Republic of Germany after 1945 and whose elite he represented. He died as the boss of bosses, as the person responsible for the exploitative conditions of the capitalist Federal Republic of Germany state.

    He also died as a prisoner of the RAF.

    The death of the Nazi perpetrator and the representative of the continuity of Nazi fascism in West German capitalism is certainly not a moment of mourning.

    Killing a prisoner or hostage is per se a moment of weakness and even a moment of defeat.

    The defeat of ’77 marked the beginning of long phases in which the military dominated the visible path of the RAF before the political moment. The military confrontation between the guerrillas and the state was the focus of politics, unlike during the May ’72 offensive.

    ’77 shows that armed struggle can only work if it is part of political movements and is politically committed to them. Armed struggle is always only one possibility for revolutionary movements and not something that can work on its own. The isolated guerrilla always runs the risk of entering into a militaristic and subjectivist dynamic. In the conflict based on military logic, it can only lose in the metropolis.

    The RAF was completely isolated after ’77. It had no base and had decided against social revolutionary politics in ’77.

    The militaristic moment of Offensive ’77 marked the beginning of a policy focused on assassinations for the next 14 years.

    The dissolving base of the guerrilla by the mid-1970s had led the Stammheim prisoners in their statements of 1976 to begin to emphasize that the RAF in anti-imperialism was beginning to distance itself from the social revolutionary and class struggle aspects of its concept of revolutionary struggle.

    1979
    With the attacks from 1979 to ’81 against the US military and two of its generals as high decision-makers and co-responsible for the most aggressive and powerful part of Western imperialism, the RAF ushered in the policy of urban guerrilla warfare focused on anti-imperialism. From then on, it sought its purpose in the international coordinates between liberation and the counter-strategy of imperialism. It saw itself – and was – part of the anti-imperialist liberation movements of the world. However, it was separated from the social conditions of its battle terrain. It shifted its analysis to the coordinates between liberation and imperialism. It only knew the world proletariat, which mutated into an abstraction without orientation to the social conditions.

    May 1982
    The strategy statement of the “May Paper”, which formulated the RAF’s policy and contained its purpose, conceptualized the mistakes of ’77 and laid the groundwork for the 1980s. The idea of ​​politics in the ’82 concept was an anti-imperialism whose focus was no longer on the consciousness of the society in which it fought. The bombs against the state and US imperialism had been planted. What was not intended were bombs in the consciousness of society.

    It was a departure from the strategic principles of the “urban guerrilla concept” of 1972. The RAF’s anti-imperialism was now detached from any social revolutionary strategy.

    The offer to others was militant attack or militancy in general at various levels in the context of the guerrilla’s anti-imperialist strategy and under its leadership.

    In doing so, it appropriated a concept of avant-garde, with which it declared itself to be the avant-garde. However, whether something is avant-garde is ultimately decided by the course of history and the potential to bring others into the revolutionary struggle.

    Due to the RAF’s lack of class analysis and its reduction to anti-imperialism in international coordinates, politics remained abstract and did not lead the guerrillas out of their isolation throughout the 1980s. Isolation here means isolation in a social relationship. The RAF was deeply connected and organized with comrades in the resistance and other small urban guerrilla groups, especially Action Directe from France, on the anti-imperialist and Western European fronts. But that was not enough for the revolutionary process, which fundamentally develops in a social context.

    Without the social reference and without the primacy of the political, politics remained subjectivist and did not lead it out of the duel between state and guerrilla.

    This was not changed by the “Fighting Units” strategically linked to the RAF or by militant groups calling themselves otherwise, who carried out a large number of arson and bomb attacks throughout the 1980s – for example, in 1982: militant actions against Siemens, AEG, US military barracks; 1984/85 Turkish consulate, NATO pipelines, NATO/US/German armed forces facilities, US secret service, Interior Ministry in Hanover, AEG data center; 1988 Renault branch, Deutsche Bank training center; 1989 Frankfurt Stock Exchange; 1990 Deutsche Bank data center and many more – all militant, non-armed actions in which the killing of human life was excluded and never happened.

    In reality, the Western European front was weak and could not replace the missing strategy in social relations, which as a fundamental opposition could only have been social revolutionary and anti-imperialist.

    The policy, reduced to anti-imperialism and free of class struggle, was an immense strategic mistake and was rightly criticized, for example, by the Belgian CCC, the Belgian communist urban guerrilla group of the 1980s, and completely ignored by the RAF throughout the 1980s.

    The factual and historical prerequisites for a redefinition of politics since 1979 would have been both the completely isolated RAF and its reasons as well as the class situation in neoliberalism: the pacified proletarian layers, the integration of the proletariat with the promise of mass consumption in the metropolises; as well as isolation as a neoliberal principle of life, which was a result of the restructuring of industry in globalized neoliberalism. This was also a consequence of capitalism in response to the uprisings in the factories at the end of the 1960s and beginning of the 1970s, as had occurred in Italy and France. The rulers feared the “mass worker” and preferred the isolation of the population in production and society.

    The development of the worldwide liberation movements, the strategies of NATO in the coordinates between liberation and imperialism and the existence of various large, naturally reformist but partly also militant sub-sector movements would also have been the prerequisite for the necessary strategic repositioning of the urban guerrilla.

    An urban guerrilla that was also socially revolutionary and not just anti-imperialist might have had the chance to bring together the movements that emerged independently of the RAF in the late 1970s and 1980s, some of which were also militant: the house-to-house fighting movement, the anti-nuclear movement, the anti-NATO movement, the feminist movement and the solidarity movements with the liberation movements of the Tricontinent, into a socially revolutionary and anti-imperialist fundamental opposition. Then it would undoubtedly not have been possible to focus on the RAF/state conflict within the international coordinates and to set a militaristic dynamic in motion.

    But the RAF was only committed to itself and did not manage to break out of it in the 1980s.

    Politics from 1977 and throughout the 1980s involved only a few people. The radical left largely became spectators in the conflict between the anti-imperialist RAF and the state.

    1984
    The militaristic actions of the second half of the 1980s, which were rightly criticized as incomprehensible, had little political connection to society and remained abstract and subjectivist, were based on the strategic errors that had occurred in 1977 and were declared a concept in 1982.

    With the lack of revision of the strategic errors since ’77 and their conceptualization in May ’82, a militaristic logic took on a life of its own in the course of the 1980s, which, from a revolutionary perspective, brought moments of loss of the moral compass of the revolution and moments of loss of legitimacy into the struggle.

    The shooting of Gerold von Braunmühl in 1986 is an expression of this. The lack of response by RAF militants to legitimate questions posed by the von Braunmühl brothers at the time is a further expression of political weakness and the destructive development after ’77.

    From the failure to come to terms with the ’77 offensive as a phase of militaristic logic and the resulting lack of revision, to the militaristic strategy of May ’82, in which the social question mutated into an abstraction detached from society and in which class struggle only played an abstract role, and the equally class-struggle-free and militaristic independence with the unjustified killing of the US soldier Pimental, it was precisely a coherent path.

    The reduction to anti-imperialism and “politics of assassination” after ’77 tells more about subjectivism and the independence of the military from the political than about class struggle and social revolutionary processes. The primacy of the practice of an anti-imperialist and social revolutionary urban guerrilla of the awakening from 1970 to ’72 ended up in a militaristic dynamic with the dividing line between oneself and the enemy as a now subjectivist consciousness.

    The lack of pause since the defeat of ’77 – meant as a collective conclusion, summary, reflection, new justification and change of strategy – characterized the policy of the primacy of the RAF’s practice from ’79 through the 1980s. 1979 would quite obviously have been the time for social analysis or class analysis and a re-positioning of the fundamental opposition in the form of the RAF. The re-formation of the RAF in 1984 would also have provided reason to pause, as would the epochal break in 1989.

    After 1977, the state used a manhunt against the guerrillas: no prisoners were taken. Willy Peter Stoll and Elisabeth von Dyck were deliberately shot by the police without resistance. Rolf Heißler survived a shot to the head when he entered an apartment, but was seriously injured.

    The harsh repression and massive criminalization reached large parts of the left and forced various legal activists to go underground in the course of the 1980s in order to avoid arbitrary arrests. Some ended up in exile for many years. The climate of repression, not only against the RAF, was extraordinary and, if seriously examined, its structure and form since the 1970s can only be seen as state terrorism.

    1989
    There came a turning point and the hunger strike of the political prisoners.

    The permanent state of emergency, designed to destroy or subjugate the political prisoners, continued into its 19th year as a form of terror.

    19 years of a state of emergency in prisons meant 19 years of isolation, sometimes in the form of small group isolation. 19 years of isolation as white torture and internationally condemned. 19 years of various hunger strikes as the remaining possibility of fighting for survival and dignity and of defending oneself against torture and extermination.

    Günter Sonnenberg, who was seriously wounded by a gunshot wound to the head, was denied appropriate life-sustaining treatment by the state for many years, which would have been a prerequisite for his release. Sigurd Debus died during a hunger strike against solitary confinement torture.

    The misery of prisons and solitary confinement torture was endless.

    The turning point and the hunger strike of the prisoners occurred in the same year, 1989. It was the end of real socialism and a decisive change in the global coordinates between real socialism, liberation movements and capitalism.

    With the hunger strike in 1989, the prisoners tried one last time to collectively bring about a change in their situation. They also declared that they wanted to initiate a discussion with other social groups.

    The end of the international order of the 1980s, which was the prerequisite for the RAF’s determination in May 1982: The dissolution of the real socialist bloc and the decline of the remaining liberation movements dissolved the RAF’s determination framework.

    After the hunger strike, the political changes at various levels, including international ones, and the invalidity of the guerrilla strategy of May 1982, the state executive was sure that the RAF would not return to this practice.

    The state reacted to the prisoners’ political openness and their attempt to put an end to extermination imprisonment, and despite the broad solidarity for their demands from many people across all sectors of society, as it had done for 18 years: it maintained the extermination regime in the form of isolation torture.

    In retrospect, the epochal turning point in 1989 would have been a historically imperative moment – ​​as it was after 1977 – to review the continued existence of the RAF, to conduct an appropriate investigation and class analysis and to decide whether the project should be transformed or terminated.

    At that moment, the RAF did not have the political strength to fully grasp the dimension of this historical moment in relation to its own situation. However, it was determined not to give up in the face of the gloom of the times, which loomed large with the prospect of German capital now gaining what it had not achieved under National Socialist rule: becoming one of the world powers behind the USA, the hegemonic power in Europe and an active actor in imperialist wars.

    In retrospect, it is unrealistic that the RAF would have simply carried on in the face of the epochal turning point of 1989 if, at the same time, an end to the hostage-taking of the prisoners, which was designed to destroy them, could have been enforced and thus the discussion about updating the transformative strategies of the left and the old fundamental opposition inside and outside would have been possible.

    In this respect, the state bears its share of responsibility for the killing of the head of Deutsche Bank and the head of the Treuhand by the RAF. The action against Herrhausen was also clearly a response to the persistence of the state’s desire to destroy the prisoners. The RAF was objectively at a historical point at which it could only have disbanded or come back as a new project with a new strategy – if at all, given the real state of society and that of the remaining left.

    1989
    The RAF’s action against Herrhausen was a contradiction in terms: the RAF was clearly reacting in the context of the state terrorist violence of immense proportions that had existed since 1970. At the same time, it was no longer acting within an inadequate strategy, but without a strategy. There is, of course, a visible contradiction here: an action of this magnitude without an explainable strategy, but as the initiation of a process of search and redefinition, has a legitimacy deficit from the outset.

    At the same time, however, an action against Deutsche Bank at that time represented a return to a policy that was objectively determined by a social relationship. Herrhausen was the man who set the course for German capital’s reunification, for Germany’s rise to become one of the world’s leading economic powers, and represented the emerging new German imperialism after the fall of the Soviet Union like no other on the side of German capitalism. In political terms, addressing and/or attacking the Deutsche Bank group at that time – regardless of its form – was objectively the possibility of a social revolutionary and anti-imperialist perspective and marked a departure from subjectivism – that is, acting outside of the social relationship.

    1990
    The RAF’s practice in the 1990s was clearly an unconditional adherence to fundamental opposition in the form of the RAF in the face of Germany’s rise to the “Fourth Reich”, as many on the left feared at the time, and the rise of German capitalism. Their will to change something that had long since become wrong was unmistakable. Their courage to define themselves as seekers and not as responders was clear.

    However, it was also marked by its obvious theoretical weakness. In this respect, it was clearly a child of the 1980s. The early RAF group and the comrades of the 1970s still drew on the wealth of profound and diverse, worldwide discussions of the 1968 era and the effort to collectively acquire theoretical knowledge. In the 1980s, the RAF militants then drew on the wealth of May 1982 and remained stuck in it. The 1980s were years of practice rather than theory, even in the legal sub-movements.

    In the 1980s, at the historical moment of epochal change, I myself was part of the squatter movement and a resident of Hamburg’s Hafenstrasse – what a unique, special and formative time in my life, I thought of it for a long time with nostalgia and affection – and was more driven by a youthful, emotional and immature radicalism and determination than by profound conceptual debates or the theoretical acquisition of knowledge.

    I was not yet aware of the importance of the wealth of knowledge of my fellow residents on Hafenstrasse at the time, some of whom had already brought experience from the 1970s, and some of whom were anarchists, social revolutionaries or former prisoners of June 2nd and the Red Army Faction, nor of the possibility of drawing on it and taking it with me into life.

    1990
    The action against the then Secretary of State for the Interior, Neusel, showed how the RAF, despite the recognition in their statement that something had to change, still acted outside of social relations, i.e. subjectivistically, despite the fact that it was still influenced by the 1980s. A non-fatal assassination attempt in the context of the hunger strike of Spanish revolutionary prisoners during the collapse of the Soviet Union and the takeover of the GDR by the FRG, i.e. the triumph of capitalism with its serious social upheavals in Germany and Eastern Europe, is absurd in retrospect. Not that solidarity with the Spanish prisoners would not have been a good thing – but an assassination attempt in this context during the fundamental changes in the world and the social and political effects of this in Germany was completely politically disorientating. A true irony of history.

    1991
    The action against the US embassy in the war against the people of Iraq, the first violent expression of the new world order in which only the capitalist centres would have power, a war that would lead to millions of deaths as a result of military force and sanctions, was a first departure from the “assassination policy” of the 1980s. It was the first political/military non-lethal action, the declared aim of which was not to endanger others, since the action against the Springer group in 1972, which only resulted in accidental injuries on the part of the RAF. This action in 1972 was an attempt to reach out to a dying movement of the 1968 generation, which was denounced by the constant lies of the Springer press.

    The action against the US embassy in 1991 was also declared to be the first clear approach to left-wing movements since the early 1970s and an attempt to connect with them – even without the expectation that they should join the guerrillas with militancy. In fact, the false concept of avant-garde was off the table and obsolete in the proclaimed process of searching.

    1991
    With the action against Rohwedder, the RAF returned, in contradiction, to the “politics of assassination.” In political terms, in contrast to the 1980s, it acted in a clear relationship to society. The action explained itself in terms of social conditions: the “incorporation” of the GDR by capitalism and the social upheavals that this brought about. It was essentially class-fighting and socially revolutionary. It had an obvious and declared addressee: the workers and masses affected by the upheavals and the realignment of capitalism, who were exposed to the new conditions of capitalism. The decision to attack the Treuhandanstalt as a front institution of West German capital in this process was self-explanatory and politically coherent as an attack on the institution, regardless of the form.

    At the same time, the RAF was in the process of searching for a new conception and a path to an updated strategy and therefore did not yet know a possible future of a “political-military” conception.

    Furthermore, the RAF’s “assassination policy” had been thoroughly discredited since 1977, which should have inevitably led to a break with it as a political decision and marked a moment of political weakness and lack of foresight on the part of the RAF at that time.

    Both delegitimized the attack on the Treuhand boss. So what had to happen happened: it left society and the remaining left as spectators on the sidelines. The attack’s severity ran counter to the growing together of the urban guerrillas and the remaining left. The same applies to the obvious attempt to reach out to others who were battered, degraded or downgraded by great uncertainty and social upheaval in the new Germany. Many people noticed this attempt by the RAF, and not just leftists, but also on a broader social level – especially that of the downgraded and insecure, proletarian sections of the population of the defunct GDR. But nothing came of it. Despite its unmistakably social revolutionary orientation and purpose, an assassination attempt could not contribute to a new beginning.

    Individual assassinations in the long history of revolutions and uprisings over the centuries can only be assessed in a differentiated and historical context. In fact, history can only be discussed in a differentiated and political manner. On the other hand, an “assassination policy” – there is no way around calling it that in the form of practice that has been elevated to dogma (and the RAF never called it that, but the term sums up the practice from 1977 to 1990) – and this term already tells of its political weakness – could not achieve what revolutionary politics and practice in the metropolis are all about. “Assassination policy” in its structural application is an expression of militaristic independence and subjectivist consciousness. “Assassination policy” negates the structural interchangeability of individual decision-makers in bourgeois democracy, which inevitably leads to a legitimacy deficit. “Assassination policy” simply has too little effect on society’s consciousness in the construction of revolutionary counter-power in the metropolis.

    “Assassination politics” reaches only a few people and leaves those it wants to reach as spectators on the sidelines.

    A primary goal of revolutionary strategy should surely be to reach the consciousness of the addressees in the social context – those who are to be reached.

    The RAF has been losing this since 1977 and could not be eliminated with the necessary consequence even at the beginning of the 1990s. Here the form of the assassination was at odds with the goal and countered the proclaimed political realignment in the early 1990s.

    Historically, there are of course assassinations as a form of revolutionary self-defense and counter-violence that are clear and whose legitimacy cannot be denied from a revolutionary perspective: for example, the assassination attempt against the former boss of Schleyer and SS mass murderer Heydrich, the attempt by Georg Elser to kill Hitler, or the assassination attempt in the anti-fascist struggle in Spain on Carrero Blanco – the successor and deputy of the Spanish fascist and dictator Franco.

    At this point it should be said that the violence of the Federal Republic of Germany in the fight against insurgency, which from a realistic point of view can only be seen as state terrorism with partly fascistoid forms, led to moments of legitimate self-defense in the history of the RAF.

    There were undoubtedly moments of weakness in the RAF’s struggle and political decisions that were wrong. There were also moments when the moral compass of the revolution did not determine the historical moment. Every moment of this is one too many and remains as a burden on history.

    Moments of collective memory of the revolutionary left are also linked to the numerous militants of the RAF and the resistance who did not survive the fight for a world free from the rule of man over man and state terrorism, either in prison or outside.

    1993
    The year in which Wolfgang Grams was executed by the police while lying incapacitated on the tracks in Bad Kleinen. For Birgit Hogefeld, long years of life in prison began.

    Before that, the RAF blew up the Weiterstadt prison. This was the end of the RAF’s armed politics and the beginning of another possible perspective of militant politics.

    The destruction of the prison had opened up a social relationship in which prison as a means of domination affects all those who are affected by the repression and misery of prison out of need and necessity or because of their awareness of it. They are the poor; they are those who do not have the money for tickets; they are those who sink into drugs so that they no longer have to feel the misery of the violent conditions; they are the recalcitrant; they are those in deportation detention, they are those who defend themselves and those who rebel against domination and violent conditions – and who end up in prison for it.

    The bombing of the Weiterstadt prison will go down in history as a political direct hit. It touched the hearts of many. And that is how it should be.

    The RAF of the 1990s – with all its weaknesses, its sometimes lack of foresight and the weakness of its theoretical foundations, and despite the fact that in moments of its search it was more “clumsy” than sharp-witted and analytical, but what distinguished it was courageous enough to move forward in a questioning and searching manner, and despite the fact that it did not bury “assassination politics” until 1992: Under the changed conditions of that decade, it had tried to find its way back to the social revolutionary, class-fighting and internationalist principles that the RAF had known in its early days.

    With the actions against the US embassy and the blowing up of the Weiterstadt prison, the guerrillas found their way to propaganda of action, that idea of ​​revolutionary practice from the history of the anarchist movement. In this way, their return to acting within the social context was appropriately populist in the best sense. A moment that also guided the Red Brigades in Italy in their early days up to 1974 – despite completely different circumstances and incomparable strength.

    Ultimately, the left, the RAF and the social conditions in the 1990s were not ready for an armed struggle for a social revolutionary transformation.

    The West German left and what was left of it was preoccupied with the emerging nationalism and racism and its fascist and widespread violence.

    They, the radical left, had neither the strength nor the foresight to find a social revolutionary response to the surprising incorporation of the GDR. The up to 50,000 people who took part in individual demonstrations in the defunct GDR at the time of the fall of the Berlin Wall against the integration into capitalism and in the dwindling hope of a “third – socialist and emancipatory – way”, beyond the great mistakes of repressive and rigid real socialism and beyond capitalism, remained more or less alone. In the years that followed, no relevant, social revolutionary left was formed, and none that could have posed a political threat to the new German imperialism that had begun to kill during the war in Yugoslavia.

    The RAF had already become history and any idea of ​​a repeat is absurd.

    The time in the 1990s was not ripe for new forms of militant struggle as an arm and option of large emancipatory movements that no longer existed and do not yet exist.

    After the upheavals and divisions among the RAF prisoners at the time and the RAF itself – and after the RAF declared its end in 1998 – I felt an inner distance from this story.

    Today I see in the history of the RAF the moment of justified resistance and its moments in history.

    In these 28 years of history, I see those who gave everything for the goal of a better and fairer world. I see those who had to bear the decades of misery of prison on their shoulders or those who died in this fight for liberation from the violent conditions of the capitalist system.

    I also see in the history of the RAF its strategic and tactical mistakes.

    I see its low points, with which it robbed itself of legitimacy at times and which remain as a burden of history.

    Probably every revolution or its attempts, probably every story of struggle between domination and liberation throughout the centuries has had its ambivalences.

    The collective appropriation of revolutionary history and its reflection lays the trail into the future of the struggles of human emancipation and liberation as well as one’s own development and change within it.

    The RAF is history, the question of resistance and transformation remains and is existential.

    The legacy of revolutionary history is the struggle for liberation today and in the future until all domination is overcome and all are free.

    Today

    Today we are in the midst of another epochal turning point. The crisis of eroding capitalism has opened a window of opportunity in which new dimensions of imperialism, up to the dimensions of World War III, are realistic. It is the age of authoritarianism, progressive impoverishment, nationalism, comprehensive militarization and ecological destruction of the planet, of flight and expulsion.

    Today’s epochal break is a threatening age. However, the erosion of conditions could also present the possibility and opportunity for system transformation and liberation from capitalism.

    Emancipation and revolution are only possible in the coexistence of different struggles and in the “recognition of interconnectedness”, as Caroline Braunmühl wrote – and of the existence of privileges and power imbalances in all areas of humanity. This too is an important and decisive prerequisite for transformative processes. I agree with this certainty without reservation.

    An emancipatory revolution begins with our own awareness and then leads to change within us.

    Coming together in recognition of different axes of power and privilege and in the certainty of the need for processes of our own change – in struggles against exploitation, oppression and war in capitalism – would be a process of revolutionary transformation. This would be, in a sense, looking in the mirror and then at society.

    There we see exploitation, poverty and a top and a bottom. There we see patriarchy and its relations of violence; racism as an instrument of domination and its social independence; militarism and war and the few who profit from it and the many who flee from it. There we see weapons that are produced, the class that profits from it and the many they kill. We see the protest against it and the daily repression of the protest. We see structural police violence and class justice. We see the ecological destruction of the planet for the profit of the few and the masses who have to flee because of it. These are spaces in which we can come together today in all our diversity and in the awareness of a complex and multi-layered power structure in the process of transformation. They could be the spaces of the uprising of tomorrow.

    The end of violent relations, a peaceful world, a world beyond ecological destruction, freedom from patriarchy, exploitation, domination and nation will not exist under capitalism. This is the factual prerequisite that cannot be changed and is evident.

    The questions of revolutionary transformation instead of barbarism are current and existential today.

    The emancipatory left today inevitably faces the question of whether it wants to save bourgeois democracy with the persistence of the relations of violence inherent in it – although the fascist option and authoritarianism are based on bourgeois democracy and the one arises from the other – or instead deal with its transformation into a domination-free and anti-capitalist future.

    Bourgeois anti-fascism as a form of left-liberal politics that focuses on right-wing extremist parties, fights symptoms, negates the systemic cause and intends to save bourgeois democracy will not be able to stop the run into further authoritarianism, fascism, war and climate destruction and therefore leads to nothing. System transformation into an anti-capitalist age would be the only option that could lead to the goal.

    Pure doctrines are a thing of the past. For the future of revolutionary transformation, we need the insights of the history of emancipatory movements: feminism, anarchism, communism, anti-racism, the movements of people of color, left-wing queer communities, communities of people with disabilities and their movements for self-determination, social revolutionary and subcultural movements, left-wing migrant communities, the migrant history of resistance, the failure of real socialism and many more.

    Rosa Luxemburg’s words in the face of the great crisis of capitalism in 1918 are still valid today – and stand for the possibility of building a liberated society instead of domination, patriarchy, fascism, war, nationalism, exploitation and destruction:

    Socialism or barbarism!

    The circle closes.

    The possibility of a historic moment could come and is now.

    As long as we live in a system that is based on violence and locks up people who resist it in prison, diverse resistance is justified and necessary.

    The special prison conditions and the imprisonment of Daniela Klette – like that of all prisoners in the history of emancipation struggles worldwide – are an expression of the violent relations of capitalist realities.

    This applies not only to prisoners, but to all of humanity: we can only be free if everyone is free.

    Freedom for Daniela!

    smash the system

    Burkhard Garweg

    Source: Arm The Spirit

    abolitionmedia.noblogs.org/?p=

    #anarchism #antiImperialism #armedStruggle #BurkhardGarweg #europe #germany #raf #urbanGuerrilla

  12. Peru. After 29 Years in Prison, MRTA Revolutionary Miguel Rincón Dies

    COMMUNIQUÉ:

    A revolutionary has died.

    Long live the revolution.

    Miguel Rincón R. was 2nd secretary general of the MRTA.

    In his intense political life, at the time of being secretary general of the Peruvian communist youth, he led a tendency that proclaimed the political-military struggle, and joined the ranks of the MRTA with 80% of the communist youth. In 1980.
    It was a substantial contribution that allowed Tupacamarismo to make the leap from armed struggle in the fields, jungles and mountains of Peru. Throughout the ’80s and much of the ’90s, he led the political front of the MRTA (People on the Move, and then Free Homeland) and was political advisor for the newspaper CAMBIO, an unofficial spokesman for Tupacamarismo.
    After the fall into prison of the general commander of the MRTA, comrade Victor Polay Campos, in June 1992, Commander Nestor Cerpa Cartolini assumed the general command. And, Miguel the 2nd in command.
    In this condition he was arrested on November 30, 1995, in Lima, after a whole night of combat, the most important urban combat in the history of the guerrillas in Peru. This happened when the party had an important military force of commandos concentrated in Lima, to take over the national congress, deal a hard blow to the Fujimori dictatorship and demand the release of all its brothers and sisters who were political and war prisoners. In number, approximately 500.
    The imperialist bourgeois enemy frustrated this central task of the organization.
    From prison, the comrade carried out an intense campaign of comprehensive training of cadres, preparing us for the next liberation that the party was preparing.
    This was the seizure of the Japanese ambassador’s residence.
    The story is known.

    After this new tactical defeat of the revolutionaries, the comrade was transferred to the military prison of the Callao naval base.
    There, together with Victor, they faced with dignity and consistency a brutal extermination prison of the Peruvian state.
    This did not prevent them from continuing to develop revolutionary theory and write several books each, which will be a source of knowledge for our people and our militants.
    Here is the result.
    He died with 29 years in prison.
    He was sentenced to 35.

    Miguel, brother, you are one of the dead who never die.
    An example of integral revolutionary.
    COMMANDER MIGUEL RINCÓN, YOUR CONDORS ARE WAITING FOR YOU SINGING SONGS OF STRUGGLE AND VICTORY.

    UNTIL VICTORY ALWAYS‼️‼️

    Santiago, 11 December 2024

    Resumen Latinoamericano, December 11, 2024.

    abolitionmedia.noblogs.org/?p=

    #armedStruggle #MiguelRincón #MRTA #peru #PoliticalPrisoners #rip #southAmerica #Tupacamarismo

  13. ‘Surrender or Fight’: Leila Khaled on Palestinian Liberation, Women’s Participation in Armed Struggle

    Historic Palestinian activist praised Brazil’s MST and said Cuba will always be an example for liberation movements

    Leila Khaled is a historic activist for the liberation of the Palestinian people. At 80 years of age, she continues to be active in promoting international collaboration with political organizations, popular movements and governments to denounce Israeli violence and expand the struggle for the formation of the Palestinian state.

    Venezuela is one of the countries that most echoes this struggle. The defense of the Palestinian people has been, since Hugo Chávez, one of the pillars of Venezuelan foreign policy. In the last week of November, Khaled was in Caracas to participate in the International Conference of Solidarity with Palestine. She received Brasil de Fato at the hotel where she was staying in the capital of Venezuela. In a conversation that lasted almost 1 hour, she spoke about the relationship between socialism and the Palestinian liberation process, the role of women in the armed struggle, and the relationship between the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and other countries.

    According to Khaled, it is necessary to discuss a specific political formation in each state that adapts to the reality of each country. That is why the Popular Front understands that Marxism-Leninism is an important tool, because it is an instrument of action that can be incorporated by any country.

    Khaled was born in Haifa, which was part of the British Mandate of Palestine, but had to leave her home after Israel’s founding in 1948. She then grew up in the Tyre refugee camp in Lebanon. At the age of 15, the young Palestinian began her activism and over time expanded her participation in the struggle for the formation of a Palestinian state.

    Joining the PFLP was decisive for the political line Khaled would adopt to this day. As a communist activist, she began to be inspired by leaders such as Fidel Castro, Lenin, Ho Chi Minh and Kim Il Sung. She is responsible for founding one of the Popular Front cells in Kuwait and participated in military operations in the Middle East, including the hijacking of two planes, one from Trans World Airlines and the other from the Israeli airline El Al.

    Khaled sees two challenges in women’s participation in the armed struggle for the liberation of Palestine: from society, because society is sexist and patriarchal, and also from the Israeli occupation. According to her, for women in this context there is no middle ground: “surrender or fight”.

    Brasil de Fato: Leila, what are the necessary adaptations of socialism in the liberation struggles of Palestine?

    Leila Khaled: The Palestinian people are in different countries and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) is where the Palestinian people are. There are many people in occupied Palestine, Gaza, the West Bank, and others in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and other Arab countries. Our party is in these countries and we have a political program. And this is similar to other organizations. In some countries we do not say that we are from the PFLP because it is an organization banned in some territories. That is why we speak in committees for a democratic Palestine or form a union of delegations.

    The political program is what guides the policy of the Popular Front. But labor policy is different as an objective situation in each country. Some countries do not accept a militant organization, so we changed the names. But they are still militants of the Popular Front. Therefore, the mission of each group of activists in each place is for them to design and carry out their own line of work that fits our political program.

    And here comes the discussion about socialism. In our cultural and educational program we have theory. From the beginning we adopted Marxist-Leninist thought. But at the fifth congress of the Popular Front, in 1993, we put Marxism-Leninism not only as a political line, but as a working instrument. As we are citizens of the third world, talking about socialism and Marxism-Leninism has to be adapted to each territory and objective condition.

    The context of each country is different in relation to another country. That is why Lenin always said that theory is gray, but reality is green. We apply a socialism different from ours in each country. These are experiences that we adopt from other countries. We, as a political organization, build alliances based on the political position of any country. And the position of a given country on the Palestinian cause is what determines our position in relation to that country.

    And how can we build a Palestinian society that is socialist in a context of increasing Israeli attacks and an increase in violence in more than 12 months?

    It’s a challenge, we need to educate our activists, educate them about socialism at the same time that we’re in a process of national liberation. We set ourselves the historic goal of returning to our land to build a new society. In a process of liberation, all taboos and paradigms are broken, from religious to political. That is why we are interested in confronting the war and genocide that our people are suffering. We raise our slogan: we have the right to return and to be a people whose self-determination is respected.

    Can the coordination of international agencies help end the conflict?

    It is the first time in Israel’s history since its founding that there has been a decision to hold Israelis accountable, as was the International Criminal Court’s decision that Netanyahu is a war criminal as its defense minister.

    But Israel considers itself above the law. They do not surrender internationally because they are protected by the colonial West and U.S. imperialism. For the first time, Israel in the war against Gaza asks the United States for protection, this frightened Israel. But because of this protection, they follow it.

    Could China’s growing involvement on the geopolitical chessboard change this?

    Of course, today there are the BRICS, which is an economic alliance that must be reflected in a political alliance to confront the imperialists. Not through weapons, but through the economy. I think this will change and the United States will no longer protect Israel, they are giant and powerful countries. In its history there are revolutions and we learn from these revolutions. In the Cold War between the USSR and the United States, the United States won and today the world is changing. And it must change in favor of the people. And this provides a positive environment for the people of the world. Specifically Latin America, because it is close to imperialism. This means that all together we can break this rule. This world will no longer be ruled by the United States.

    You have already mentioned several times the imperialist actions of the U.S. in different places, mainly in stifling revolutionary struggles. What has been the role of the United States today in the Palestinian liberation movement and in Latin American revolutionary movements?

    We always present our experience and the particular problems we face, but Latin America began to have revolutionary experiences a long time ago and Cuba is the great example. And this is reflected in a reaction of imperialism. Cuba has suffered sanctions since it decided to have its own revolutionary process and this has had a huge effect on Latin American politics. [Salvador] Allende’s revolution in Chile and Venezuela was also influenced by Cuba. Cubans play an important role in Latin American politics.

    In many other countries there were revolutions that failed and this is because the U.S. and the Zionist movement penetrate these societies and have the role of destroying them. So that these societies see the United States as the “liberator”.

    How was your relationship with Venezuela over time and with Chávez?

    Chavez supported the Palestinian cause from the beginning and publicly announced it at the UN in 2003. This created a relationship between Venezuelans and Palestinians that was marked and continues to be an important point of support. I saw him in 2005 in Brazil, when I went to the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre. We also saw each other in other cities. When I first came to Venezuela, he was already undergoing treatment for cancer.

    How do political struggles in other countries serve as a reference for the Palestinian liberation struggle?

    We study the results of different processes. In any process of national liberation in a country, since the Bolshevik revolution, in China, in Vietnam, in Algeria, in South Africa, it is necessary to educate our activists through ideas. Our struggle is not a few years, it is from one generation to another. Because we are facing a common enemy: the Zionist movement, which has Israel and US imperialism as its governments. This is the enemy’s camp. We understand in advance that we have to sacrifice ourselves and pass the banner of liberation from generation to generation until we liberate the Palestinian territory and return to Palestine, expelling the Zionists.

    Personally and in general, we carry a scientific thought and it is not something emotional based on this. I continue to carry this responsibility when I see friends in the world. Many revolutionary and progressive movements fought for our cause. From Europe to Tokyo and Latin America and this gives more hope that we will return to our homeland.

    Carlos Ilich Ramírez was a Venezuelan activist who, from an early age, was involved in the struggle of the Palestinian people. Patricio Argüello, Nicaraguan, who became a martyr when he hijacked a plane. We also have militants and comrades in Japan. They went on a military operation in occupied Palestine and were killed there. There are many internationalists who fought with us and this is not the only way to support them. We attended training courses in several countries of the world: China, USSR, socialist countries. And we also received a university education through university scholarships from these countries. So we are surrounded by friends in the world and we see these relations now with what is happening in Gaza, with the whole world expressing solidarity with the Palestinian people, including the United States and Europe.

    And at the same time it reveals the real reason for the conflict. It demonstrated the terrorist face of Israel. This is what gives us strength and motivation to continue working.

    How important is revolutionary and theoretical training for a militant and militancy for a theoretician?

    Knowledge has its effect on men and women. We live in the age of telecommunications, so communication is easier through technology. We communicate more easily and this helps us to see that victory is closer. Therefore, the more knowledge we have, the easier our process of liberation will be.

    We used to read books, today everything is on the internet, on Google. This makes it easier for activists to learn more through communication. We used to see each other at international forums and conferences. Nowadays there are many applications that help not only with video conferencing, but also with training. Getting information or accessing training is easier.

    The Palestinian people suffered the Nakba in 1948 and left Palestine. The context of the Palestinian people forced Palestinians to confront Zionism through university education. and this facilitated the entry of men and women to universities. We only have 8% illiteracy, because we help everyone to be educated and to be students. Compared to other Arab countries, Palestinians have the highest university education and this increases the number of intellectuals.

    For this reason, many of our students and young people will study political science, philosophy and culture to help spread and publicize the culture of resistance.

    What are the main challenges for you as a woman in the armed struggle? Is there a different context within this gender?

    I grew up in a political family. I’ve never had a problem with this with my family, but the family is always afraid and worried. But this wasn’t an underlying problem for me. Other women had difficulty joining activism because of their families. And there came a time when many fathers forced women to stay at home, not to leave the house.

    With the evolution and development of militancy work, this helped women to get involved in militancy, especially from 1987 onwards. This was the first Intifada and this gave women the opportunity to enter into direct confrontation with Zionism. Thus, the face of the first intifada was that women were on the front lines defending their children. Many women have been arrested and are still being arrested. The enemy did not imagine that Palestinian women would participate in the Intifada. When women engage in this work of organizing and revolutionary activism, they are defending their family. Women in this context of Palestinian struggle suffer a double oppression: from society, because society is sexist and patriarchal, and also from the Israeli occupation. There are currently many Palestinian women in Israeli prisons.

    For women, there are two paths in this scenario: surrender or fight. A woman will always choose to defend her family and take on this role. She will not raise a white flag. That is why I did not experience oppression or challenges in this issue, but it is something that is above the diaspora, all these problems we suffer in a different way.

    How do Palestinian popular movements discuss the particular issues of the life of each group?

    We have people’s unions, the Palestinian women’s union, and this group adopts the program of resistance. Workers, peasants, doctors, journalists, each sector has a union. And this gives popular support and when Israel attacks the people join the revolution to defend them. Today we are witnessing a genocide against our people. And the world is studying this genocide.

    Israeli attacks have a direct impact on land use. How is the dispute over land in Palestine?

    Our problem is that settlers are occupying the land with the support of the Tel Aviv group. There is a decision by the Court of The Hague that says that the colonies are not legal and now they say that there could be genocide, but unfortunately that is not said. We saw this problem in the 1990s, because the Intifada was resisting and the Palestinian leadership signed the Oslo Accords and this affected the Palestinian revolutionary movement.

    You have already been to Brazil and had contact with leftist movements in the country. How do you see the political organization of Brazilian popular movements that struggle to transform the relationship between the State, population and land?

    Brazil is huge and has had many dictatorships that changed the system of government. Therefore, geography plays an important role. In Brazil, the MST has an important role in liberating land and handing it over to the people. In the previous administration, Lula helped to some extent in this process in one way or another. During Lula’s government, the MST played a very important role and began to have a broader social base because these lands were appropriated to the feudals.

    And the MST managed to promote a law that determines that whoever does not make productive use of the land should not have possession of it. But the Brazilian oligarchies killed MST leaders and carried out acts of violence against militants. Many of the leaders of the Movement were assassinated by imperialism through terrorist and fascist groups in Brazil. But the MST continues today. Today the MST is a giant organization because it plays an important role for the people. Because when you give the poor something to live on and give them work, the social base expands.

    We studied the experience of the MST, but this cannot be applied to Palestine. The majority of the Palestinian people are outside Palestine. In some countries it’s called land reform, but what you did wasn’t just the struggle for land reform, people now have a better future and homes. And all this was done by workers and peasants, men and women. We saw this with our own eyes.

    By Lorenzo Santiago, Brasil de Fato / Resumen Latinoamericano, December 5, 2024.

    abolitionmedia.noblogs.org/?p=

    #armedStruggle #brazil #LeilaKhaled #mst #palestine #pflp #southAmerica #venezuela #westAsia #women

  14. #CivilResistance scholarship recommends #SocialMovements adopt a #nonviolent (NV) strategy for #SocialChange. The #violence analyzed is usually #ArmedStruggle, but it recommends NV in all tactics (thus excluding property destruction, #rioting, confrontation w/ #police). Benjamin Case's excellent "Street Rebellion" shows movements involving rioting are more likely to be successful, largely b/c riots lead to wider #CivilSociety participation in movements. Well-researched book!

    #AKPress #Reading

  15. #CivilResistance scholarship recommends #SocialMovements adopt a #nonviolent (NV) strategy for #SocialChange. The #violence analyzed is usually #ArmedStruggle, but it recommends NV in all tactics (thus excluding property destruction, #rioting, confrontation w/ #police). Benjamin Case's excellent "Street Rebellion" shows movements involving rioting are more likely to be successful, largely b/c riots lead to wider #CivilSociety participation in movements. Well-researched book!

    #AKPress #Reading

  16. International Call for a Day of Action in Memory of Anarchist Comrade Kyriakos Ximitiris

    Athens, Greece.

    We call on comrades around the world for an international day of action in memory of the death of anarchist warrior and beloved comrade Kyriakos Ximitiris (November 16).

    We invite comrades from abroad to send messages that they would like us to read at the political rally in memory of comrade Kyriakos, which will take place on the same day in Athens.

    [email protected]

    October 31 forever engraved in the heart of every warrior.

    With rage and determination we stand by our comrades.

    On 31/10/204, after a device exploded in an apartment in Ampelokipoi, our anarchist comrade Kyriakos Xymitiris fell in the battle for social and class liberation, while our anarchist comrade Marianna M., who was also in the apartment, ended up with multiple injuries and is so far being treated and guarded at the Evangelismos Hospital. At the same time, two more people were arrested and taken for investigation, comrade Dimitris and anarchist comrade Dimitra were arrested.

    Comrade Marianna M. is detained and guarded in Evangelismos, with all the repressive apparatus and the anti-terrorism agency with the aim of extracting statements from the comrade. We have not forgotten the cases of torture of comrades who were captured and guarded in health institutions and suffered physical abuse through medical practices, being exploited in their physical, emotional and mental state. Such impositions of state power are clearly torture.

    It should not cross their minds that the police continue to exert pressure or continue the process of (pre)investigation on the seriously injured comrade Marianna, while she is hospitalized and trying to manage the emotional, spiritual and political burden after the explosion. Their interrogation is torture and all kinds of participants in it are torturers of state power.

    The administration and staff of Evangelismos have the primary responsibility for anything that happens to our comrade. Any member of the medical community who consents to or simply remains silent in such a process will be complicit in the intentional state violence and attempted torture of comrade Marianna. State violence has been perpetrated against our comrade with the anti-terrorist bastards taking her fingerprints, while she was under the care of medical personnel, without having left danger and without her consent, since she was unconscious.

    The cannibalism on the faces and bodies of the comrades has begun with all kinds of methods of the entire state apparatus under the guidance of the anti-terrorist agency and the Ministry for Citizen Protection Chrysochoidis. Their slanders on television channels and the front pages of the well-known media thugs is another part of the media’s emetic role of state and capitalist propaganda. The detailed reporting and the release of photos and videos of the scene of the incident punish the dead comrade and capture the brutality faced by his family and loved ones. At the same time, with the depoliticization of the action of our comrades, they are being presented as amoral terrorists who destroy the homes of citizens, with the aim of isolating them socially to expose them to repression.

    The state, its ideological mechanisms and its capital are once again trying to strike at the lines of the movement, to annul its political contents, its options for struggle and its decades of revolutionary tradition. Before comrade Marianna recovers her strength and speaks as she wants and as the dead comrade would wish, they have furiously unleashed state propaganda against them, against the whole world of the Struggle and its options. The derision and slander of the revolutionary struggle are equal to the spear of counter-revolutionary propaganda. We firmly oppose it, defending the revolutionary cause, but also the will of the people who are in the framework of repression.

    The events of 31/10 and the political choices of the struggle that led to them will not be commented on by the thugs of the state machinery and capital. The comrade who suffered and paid a high price and the comrades who are persecuted for it will speak first, when they wish.

    The movement will speak, all of us who walked together with comrade Kyriakos and comrade Marianna, who were inspired and continue to be inspired by their clear vision and their unwavering commitment. We, who recognize their presence in all fields of struggle, and realize that comrades are the embodiment of open dialogue within the movement. The comrades have dedicated their lives to the struggle against oppression, to build a world of equality and freedom, taking responsibility and the decisions that led to Kyriakos’ death and Marianna to be imprisoned and receive multiple injuries. With their attitude and their presence they have given themselves body, soul and thought to the revolutionary Cause and on this path they are in the vanguard of society in struggle.

    Marianna and Kyriakos for years have been continuously present in solidarity projects with prisoners, in the internationalist movement against the war, in the struggle for Palestinian resistance, in the actions of defense of the Exarchia neighborhood, in the struggles within the universities, in the defense of liberated spaces, of occupations and in all social and class struggles. Dedicated to these struggles, always ready to discover together their most rebellious extensions. Not only have they theoretically defended the multifaceted struggle for social liberation, but they are its most faithful incarnation. They have taken a position of struggle, by all means, against the world of power, the State, capital, racism, patriarchy, on the side of the oppressed and the rebels, always with the vision of a better world, a world of solidarity, equality and freedom.

    Against a world that marginalizes anyone who does not fit into its normality, that naturalizes the exploitation and oppression of those from below, the anarchist-anti-authoritarian movement fights by all means. It is the multiform action that will lead to radicalization and the fullness of our responses and to our attack on what exists. The options of revolutionary counterviolence and armed struggle, as an integral part of the multifaceted struggle, exceed the limits of bourgeois legitimacy and challenge the state monopoly of violence. It is these options of struggle that keep the thread of the rebellion alive from that November of 1973 until today. Such choices are an integral part of a historical insurrectionary continuum, which keeps the vision of social revolution alive in our hearts and minds.

    The operation to undermine the revolutionary discourse and the subsequent repression shows that the bastards of the agencies of state terror fear people who do not compromise with injustice, inequality, exploitation. Against the propaganda and intimidation operation of the State and the bosses, as well as against the attempt to depoliticize the improved options, we first respond politically and regardless of the specific case. We owe it, apart from everyone else, to all those who gave their lives, to those who were imprisoned, to those who fought during so many years of social and class war. Armed struggle is an integral part of the radical movement, of the multifaceted social and class struggle, deeply rooted in our militant tradition, and we defend it without compromise.

    Against the world of individuation and fatalism, we raise the struggle by all means. We strengthen each other, we defend our comrades. Undoubtedly, comrades and friends, no one will be left alone against the repressive campaign of the state and capital. In the face of the anti-terrorist tactics and cannibalism of the media, may our solidarity be a bulwark for our captive comrades and any other prosecution. Repression does not scare us and we will support each other without hesitation.

    TO NOT LAY DOWN ARMS FOR COMRADE MARIANNA

    KYRIAKOS XIMOTIRIS, ONE OF US, ALWAYS WITH US IN THE WAYS OF FIRE

    FREEDOM FOR COMRADE DIMITRIS AND ANARCHIST COMRADE DIMITRA

    Assembly in solidarity with the imprisoned, fugitive, and persecuted warriors.

    Source: La Zarzamora

    #anarchist #armedStruggle #callToAction #europe #greece #internationalist #KyriakosXymitiris

  17. We affirm that Saraya Al-Quds in the West Bank are fighting the zionist enemy with full strength and resilience, alongside the forces of the resistance, armed with Allah’s support and the duty of combat and confrontation left by the martyrs, prisoners, and wounded as a trust upon the shoulders of every free and honorable person. We will not compromise nor break.

    Saraya Al-Quds in the West Bank and its camps are operating in complete unity with all resistance forces in the battle of “Horror of the Camps,” just as the fieldwork is conducted in Gaza in the battle of Al-Aqsa Flood, believing in the importance of merging into a unifying crucible against zionist arrogance and fascism.

    The martyrdom of Commander Mohammed Jaber “Abu Shujaa” and his brothers will further ignite the battlefields, and with each martyrdom, our determination increases, and with each martyr, more join the resistance, and the chances of taking revenge on the Nazi zionist enemy increase.

    A few days ago, we reached the heart of “Tel Aviv” alongside our brothers in Al-Qassam Brigades in a heroic joint martyrdom operation. This is an important message that everyone should grasp, especially as it will not be the last, Allah willing.

    We say to Netanyahu and the enemy’s leaders that it is too late to thwart the resistance project in the West Bank. Cells spread across all cities and camps are now operating, thanks to Allah, within the formations of Saraya Al-Quds and various resistance factions. We will see what happens in the coming days to the soldiers and armored vehicles that have infiltrated the cities of Jenin, Tubas, and Tulkarem, Allah willing.

    Today, the blood of Saraya Al-Quds fighters in the West Bank, Gaza, Damascus, and Lebanon is mingled to confirm that the battlefield is one. Victory and martyrdom are our choices, which we will neither change nor abandon. Our jihad will continue, and our weapons will remain raised in all arenas on the path to the freedom of Al-Quds and Palestine.

    https://abolitionmedia.noblogs.org/post/2024/08/31/saraya-al-quds-commander-in-the-west-bank-details-current-struggle/

    #alAqsaFlood #armedStruggle #guerrilla #palestine #resistance #sarayaAlQuds #westAsia #westBank

  18. As pro-Palestinian sentiment rises across the so-called collective West, so too does a patronising pacifist take that condemns Palestinian resistance and ignores the necessity of armed struggle. This perspective is at best rooted in a lack of education on the nature of this conflict and other similar struggles against settler colonialism and apartheid.

    The mainstream view accepted across the collective West today glorifies the likes of Martin Luther King Jr, Nelson Mandela and Mahatma Gandhi. On the face of things, this alone would infer some kind of general solidarity among Westerns against the horrors of racism, colonialism and segregation. Yet, the ideas circulated about these individuals and their struggles are often completely incorrect representations, ultimately rooting the “good guys” of history into a pacifist and peaceful set of individuals who were willing to forgive and collaborate with their oppressors.

    This idea, that subjugated indigenous and Global South populations, or more generally, people of color, should take a liberal pacifist approach to resisting their oppressors is therefore embedded in Western collective consciousness, predicated on such concepts that are attributed to the above mentioned people. As this philosophical moral context underpins the limits of Western support for liberation struggles and imbeds itself in the minds of those currently appalled at the ongoing genocide in Gaza, it is important to undo this rather pernicious whitewashing of history and understand the damage it can do to grass-roots organising against racist projects.

    Pacifying Change

    While the three noted historical figures are complex individuals, covering their ideas in their entirety is far too large of a task for a single article. Yet, the misconceptions deliberately spread about Gandhi, MLK, and Mandela must be addressed for the purpose of undoing the relevant propaganda.

    Beginning with Mahatma Gandhi, the idea surrounding his actions that present him as the king of peace are wholly inaccurate to say the least. Although he is known for his philosophy on nonviolence, his tactics were actually by their nature designed to invite violence and rely on the violent tendencies of the oppressor. If we are to be accurate, the Gandhi tactic is to endure the violence of the oppressor and to even have peaceful demonstrators die, or be seriously injured in considerable numbers, in order to demonstrate the inequality and injustice that a group is experiencing. In many ways it is a suicidal philosophy on some levels, with the goal being to appeal to the good will of the masses, who will ideally witness the violence of the oppressor and force through change.

    MLK was nothing like Gandhi, despite the attempts to portray him as such. Martin Luther King Jr also did not count out the use of force as a means of self-defense. Common portrayals of MLK have him pitted as the “turn the other cheek” figure, opposed to Malcolm X’s “by any means necessary”, yet this is a simplistic and rather inaccurate comparison that doesn’t carry through. Yes, MLK was indeed an advocate for non-violent forms of struggle and is known best for his speeches calling for equality, but he was not against the use of force under all circumstances. People often forget that the US government played a role in his assassination.

    Then we have Nelson Mandela, who is depicted as the man of compromise that overlooked the horrors of Apartheid and made peace with his oppressors. To begin with, people often forget that Nelson Mandela was labeled by the US and UK as a terrorist, which was based upon his involvement with the armed wing of the African National Congress (ANC). He was an early proponent of armed struggle against the Apartheid government in South Africa and the only reason he wasn’t further involved in violent resistance is due to his arrest, which occurred during the first few years that the ANC’s armed wing had been formed. In the course of the battle to end Apartheid, the ANC launched bombing attacks, received training and weapons from nations/groups throughout the Global South, including from the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).

    Although there is a lot more to be said about these central historical figures, in addition to the battle for civil rights in the United States, opposing British colonialism and abolishing Apartheid in South Africa, it is important to understand that violent resistance existed in all these struggles and is consistently undermined or entirely ignored. In some cases, more than others, armed struggle is more central, yet it is consistently a contributing factor. As Franz Fanon said Concerning Violence:

    “The native knows all this, and laughs to himself every time he spots an allusion to the animal world in the other’s words. For he knows that he is not an animal; and it is precisely at the moment he realizes his humanity that he begins to sharpen the weapons with which he will secure its victory.

    As soon as the native begins to pull on his moorings, and to cause anxiety to the settler, he is handed over to well-meaning souls who in cultural congresses point out to him the specificity and wealth of Western values. But every time Western values are mentioned they produce in the native a sort of stiffening or muscular lockjaw.”

    Condemning Hamas In Palestine And Bowing To The Oppressors Double-Standards

    Since the beginning of the current war in Gaza, which began with the Hamas-led operation Al-Aqsa Flood on October 7, the pro-Israeli Western corporate media have sought to begin every conversation on the issue with a ritual condemnation of the Palestinian resistance.

    For Israeli, or pro-Israeli guests on Western broadcast television, such a question is never posed to them. If they are challenged, it is always done within specifically engineered confines, conceptual borders of what the acceptable conversation should look like. Therefore, they are asked about the Israeli military “going too far”, “committing mistakes” or not holding itself to the relevant “standards”. Why is this the case? Because the point of entry into the discussion dictates how the issue is framed, which is that Palestinian resistance is terrorism and Zionist regime violence is acceptable at some level or another, the real question being the degree to which the Israelis have “the right” to use violence.

    The events of October 7, which constituted a well-prepared military raid that managed to paralyze the Israeli Southern Command and in the process inflicted a total of 1139 deaths, around 400 of them against Israeli military and security personnel. The Zionist military also clearly inflicted a considerable amount of deaths on its own settler population that day, while Palestinians killed a large number too.

    The number of non-combatants killed by Palestinians is not settled, nor has any report, published by the UN or any independent human rights group, managed to decipher which armed group or individual Palestinians that crossed the Gaza perimeter that day killed any specific number of the Israeli non-combatants. The Zionist entity will not let any independent investigation into the events that day be carried out and has taken care to ensure that the evidence is within its hands solely also. Why? Because the truth would shatter their narrative.

    A narrative concocted to serve the interests of justifying genocide was spread far and wide. The US President, Joe Biden, has spoken about an ancient desire from Hamas fighters to kill Jewish people, while also spreading the Israeli claims about beheaded babies and a range of other ridiculous propaganda hoaxes. This is to present the Palestinians and their resistance fighters as savages, to turn them into monsters who are born different from the rest of humanity and are therefore deserving of a different method of examination.

    To understand October 7, you have two ways of approaching it. The first is to assume that Palestinians are “ethnically predisposed to killing and violence, that they are barbarians from birth, or at a cultural level, and that their society is a lesser one to those of the collective West”, which includes the Israelis. The second is to view Operation Al-Aqsa Flood as a reaction to decades of violence, ethnic cleansing and Apartheid, using the historical context to explain a very human reaction to a regime which aims to destroy all aspirations for Palestinian Statehood and basic rights.

    Once you have established your interpretation, the next step is to look at the situation strategically. Why? Because this enables us to analyze the methods with which the Palestinian people can actually attain their freedom. The whole reason that much of the world is even having a debate on the idea of Palestinian rights and Statehood is because of both Operation Al-Aqsa Flood and the Israeli genocidal reaction to it.

    Prior to October 7, the Palestine question was not even a consideration in international politics, now it is the primary moral issue of this era. Meaning that the Hamas-led military campaign succeeded in not only inflicted the desired blow on the Israeli military and the seizure captives to exchange with what are now 21,000 Palestinian captives, but also at reviving the cause for Palestinian rights and Statehood.

    The follow up question to this is often “but why don’t Hamas just lay down their weapons?” To begin with, the Israeli regime has expressed its intent to commit genocide and are currently carrying it out in Gaza and even in the event that a prisoner exchange deal is signed, the Israelis express their willingness to continue the war, not just until the “defeat of Hamas”, but until they can secure a situation under which Gaza will not be ruled by Palestinians.

    On top of this, we have a historical example of what happens when the Palestinian resistance give up their weapons and flee. This exact scenario happened at the end of the 1982 war in Lebanon – during which around 20,000 Palestinians and Lebanese were murdered – when the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) agreed to evacuate from Lebanon and put down their weapons. When the Palestinian resistance left, the Zionist regime occupied Southern Lebanon, there was nobody there to defend the Palestinian refugee camps, which led to some of the worst civilian massacres in the history of the entire conflict, most notably the Sabra and Shatila massacre which murdered 3,500 innocent people.

    Knowing this, there are some Westerners who adhere to principles of the Left, who understand much of the context and still condemn Hamas, attacking them as a “right wing group”. This analysis is born of complete ignorance to Palestinian society, politics, culture and the nature of resistance movements historically. It is also often rooted in an uneducated or subconsciously orientalist approach to Islamic resistance groups. The dominant strand of resistance groups began emerging in the late 1970’s as Secular Arab Nationalist and Marxist groups had failed to achieve liberation, at this time there was also the birth of Islamic Republic of Iran. In the case of Iran, as a side note, much of the revolutionaries were actually Islamic Socialists and figures such as Ali Shariati had a great impact on their ideological approach, which is often written out of the history books.

    The natural evolution of the resistance gave way to the Islamic groups which we all know today, while secular Arab nationalists and Marxists still continue to exist as part of the resistance bloc. For instance, the PFLP and DFLP for example are both Left wing Palestinian parties, whose armed wings are currently fighting alongside Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) and other Islamic groups. While the range of Palestinian parties that exist may vehemently disagree on social, political and economic issues, they all stand with each other in the Gaza Strip and fight under a unified ‘Joint Room’ of resistance that was formed by Hamas. The weapons in the hands of the Leftist groups in Palestine are supplied by Islamic parties, while the groups coexist in their shared struggle for national liberation. This reality of coexisting parties with diverging views existed throughout various resistance movements historically also.

    If the idea that Islamic values are so abhorrent and parties which adhere to them are to be considered right wing undesirables, then apply this to Nat Turner or MLK’s Christian ideologies also, on which modern Western Leftists would vehemently disagree with when it comes to various issues. Not everyone, or every group, in a liberation movement has to be a perfect representation of your own values and there is always room for growth. There is a reason why the majority of Palestinians and the Arab World support the armed resistance of Hamas. This isn’t an election for local candidates in a Western nation, this is a national liberation struggle and the difference between being ethnically cleansed/exterminated or attaining freedom.

    To conclude, if you genuinely want Palestinians to attain their rights and a State, violence is not a hypothetical, it is an everyday reality and even under the Fourth Geneva convention they have the right to violently resist. When scores of civilians are being slaughtered every single day, armed resistance is not a choice. Hamas happens to be the strongest group that leads the resistance, so when you are asked to condemn them, you are being asked to condemn Palestinian resistance and the question actually has nothing to do with Hamas and its political stances.

    Most of those asking this question in the first place couldn’t tell you the most basic facts about Hamas. There is never an actual discussion about their ideology, just a caricature of the “stereotypical savage” that they use to portray the Palestinian people.

    source: Al Mayadeen

    https://abolitionmedia.noblogs.org/post/2024/07/10/what-westerners-must-understand-about-the-necessity-of-palestinian-armed-struggle/

    #alAqsaFlood #armedStruggle #gaza #hamas #palestine #resistance #westAsia

  19. Today’s people’s war in India is recognized as one of the most advanced revolutionary struggles in the world. Dubbed India’s biggest internal security threat by the Indian state, the Communist Party of India (Maoist) is a leading force combating the privatization of natural resources, exploitation of labor, and the promotion of Modi’s Hindutva agenda.

    In an exclusive interview, we spoke with the party spokesperson Amrut, Central Committee Member and Head of International Affairs of the Communist Party of India (Maoist) about the unique conditions in India, the efforts to build a new society within guerrilla zones, and their perspectives on pressing questions facing the global left, including the character of China and the rise of new imperialist powers.

    How long has the CPI (Maoist) been engaged in the people’s war in India, and what stage is this conflict currently at?

    This is the fundamental question of the Indian revolution. To answer this, allow me to go back five decades in history. The history of people’s war in India is deeply rooted in the resounding period of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (GPCR) of the ’60s, which was well known as a turbulent decade. It was the time when the two outstanding and front-ranking leaders of our streams—Comrades Charu Mazumdar and Kanhai Chatterjee —emerged on the scene in the course of applying Marxism-Leninism-Maoism (MLM) to the concrete conditions of India and by fighting, exposing, and breaking from the age-old revisionism of the Communist Party of India (CPI) and the neo-revisionism of the CPI (Marxist) brand.

    The great Naxalbari revolt led by Comrade Charu Mazumdar in May 1967, was at the time hailed as the “Spring Thunder over India” by the Communist Party of China (CPC), proved to be the clarion call for revolutionaries. Under the revolutionary leadership of comrades Charu Mazumdar and Kanhai Chatterjee, thousands of cadres broke away from the neo-revisionist CPI (M) and joined hands with them. Comrade Charu Mazumdar formed the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist), and Comrade Kanhai Chatterjee formed the Maoist Communist Centre (MCC). These two great Marxist teachers conducted a class analysis of Indian society and laid down the political strategy for the Indian New Democratic Revolution.

    The political strategy of our party is armed agrarian revolution and the seizure of area-wide political power. The military strategy of our party is protracted people’s war (PPW). According to this strategy, we make the countryside our base areas, where the enemy is relatively weak, and then gradually encircle and capture the cities, which are the bastions of the enemy forces.

    According to comrade Mao’s theory of PPW, there are three stages to capturing state power. At present, the Indian revolution is in the stage of “Strategic Defensive.”

    The Indian state has been attempting to eliminate the CPI (Maoist) for decades, particularly through Operation Green Hunt. What is the current status of this military operation?

    We must recognize that before the commencement of Operation Green Hunt, the Indian revolutionary movement had already faced severe repression and suppression campaigns in past decades. Our erstwhile parties, CPI(ML)(PW) and MCCI, faced fascist repression by the reactionary Indian state since the outbreak of the Great Naxalbari Armed Peasant Uprising. The first counterinsurgency campaign, “Operation Steeplechase,” began in the 1970s, and various repression campaigns were carried out by central and state governments in the ’80s and ’90s. With the merger of two revolutionary streams, our new Party, CPI (Maoist), was formed in 2004. Since then, the Indian State has declared it the single biggest internal security threat. From that time, the Indian State has been undertaking protracted counterinsurgency campaigns such as Salwa Judum, Sendra, Operation Green Hunt, Operation SAMADHAN, and in the beginning of 2024, the Indian State began a new military offensive campaign named “Operation Kagaar” (Final War), which is part of the reactionary Surajkund strategic counter-offensive operation plan. All these campaigns are part and parcel of the Low-Intensity Conflict, which is the strategy of US imperialists to crush worldwide people’s movements. More than 15,000 comrades of all ranks and files of our party and the People’s Liberation Guerrilla Army (PLGA), including revolutionary mass organizations and revolutionary people, have laid down their lives until now in the incessant killings by the police and in retaliating against fascist repression campaigns.

    In the multi-polar world order, social-imperialist China is putting in immense effort to replace the dominant imperialist financial systems like the World Trade Organization and International Monetary Fund, with its own financial institutions.

    Amrut – CPI(Maoist) Spokesperson

    Operation Green Hunt is a continuation of these repressive campaigns. To cite a few examples from recent decades, there were Salwa Judum in Chhattisgarh, Sendra in Jharkhand, and the Peace March in Odisha in the first decade of the 21st century. These are all white terror campaigns organized by the Indian State and funded by big corporations. The Party, PLGA, revolutionary mass organizations, and Revolutionary People’s Committees, together with the revolutionary people, defeated these campaigns with their heroic resistance and enormous sacrifices. For the first time, the Indian state came out openly with an all-out counterinsurgency campaign throughout the country in the name of OGH in September 2009. The Indian State never acknowledged the commencement of any such campaign.

    Operation Green Hunt continued for 10 long years and was reviewed after the Minpa ambush, in which a significant number of Central Armed Police personnel were annihilated. Then, a new operation named SAMADHAN began in May 2017. The Indian state announced SAMADHAN with a stipulated time period of five years to eliminate Maoists in the country. It reviewed SAMADHAN in October 2022 and introduced the reactionary Surajkund strategic offensive operation military plan (as we named it).

    Currently, Forward Operational Bases (FOBs) are being established, and security is being intensified throughout the areas of the revolutionary movement. The deployment of armed forces, including the Indian Army under the guise of state forces, is on the rise. At present, there are about 700,000 government armed forces, including paramilitary, commando, state, and district forces, in the areas of the revolutionary movement. A police informer network is being built by the central paramilitary and state forces. To lend a humane face to its repression, Civic Action Programs (which are fake social service agencies) are being conducted by the police personnel. Additionally, there is the psychological war in the form of negative propaganda against the Party, PLGA, and revolutionary people’s committees, aimed at demoralizing and delegitimizing the Indian revolutionary movement.

    The state has introduced several draconian laws such as the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities Act (TADA), Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA), and the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), which was amended in 2018 by the Brahminical Hindutva fascist power in the Center, making the act even more draconian. It is being foisted on all those who express dissent against fascist rule. Political prisoners are repeatedly denied bail. Intelligence agencies have been significantly strengthened to crush the revolutionary movement. In recent years, the National Investigation Agency (NIA), which is a department under the central government, was given more powers under the guise of fighting terrorism. It is now being used against civil rights activists, artists, writers, students, teachers, and democratic and progressive forces under allegations of sedition. While Brahminic Hindutva Fascism is spreading its tentacles into all spheres of people’s lives, the exploited, oppressed, and harassed classes and sections are raising their voices and building movements against the fascist regime.

    In an attempt to crush all these struggles and suppress those dissenting voices, the Indian state introduced a new term “urban Maoist” and then “pen-wielding Maoist,” in the name of which it is pursuing these forces. The NIA prepares a database of “terrorist activities.” A National Forensic Science University was established to create fake evidence of fake crimes. This has become the norm of the rule of law. From the second term of Narendra Modi’s government at the Center, aerial attacks are increasing on people in the struggle areas. Roads and communications are being laid on a large scale to facilitate the movement of police forces into the guerrilla bases. As already said, a new counterinsurgency campaign has been started by the Indian State in the name of Operation Kagaar to wipe out the leadership of the Maoist movement in the coming three years. For this purpose, thousands of additional forces are being deployed in the Maad region of Bastar, in the state of Chhattisgarh.

    How does the Narendra Modi government differ from previous administrations? How have the CPI (Maoist) and PLGA experienced the changes under Modi’s leadership?

    Yes! The current regime, which is under the leadership of Narendra Modi, is different from previous ones. Our Party recognizes that Indian feudalism is caste-based feudalism and Brahmanism is its ideology. All earlier governments were the representatives of the Indian ruling classes which comprise feudalists and the comprador bourgeoisie whose ideology is nothing but Brahmanism. But the current form of the Indian State, as per our Party’s understanding, is Brahmanic Hindutva Fascism. It is under the leadership of the RSS and BJP. At present, Narendra Modi is the key leader of Hindutva Fascism, and he has been the prime minister of India for a decade. The current BJP government wants to convert India into a Hindu-Rashtra (Nation) in the name of “New India,” which is nothing but comprador bourgeoisie-feudal fascism. The BJP government is not even allowing the functioning of “formal democracy,” and is gradually intensifying its attacks with each passing day.

    The previous governments, which were under the leadership of Congress and the Congress-led alliance United Progressive Alliance, also implemented anti-people policies and ruthlessly crushed mass movements. All the Indian ruling class governments incurred enormous benefits to the ruling classes and their imperialist bosses. The Modi regime is implementing pro-imperialist policies more aggressively than earlier governments. At the same time, it is aggressively implementing the divisive Hindutva agenda.

    After the BJP came to power in 2014, it intensified counter-insurgency programs against our party, the PLGA, the United Front, and the revolutionary masses. To eradicate our party and the revolutionary movement, the BJP government is carrying out suppressive policies throughout the country, particularly in our struggle areas. Their corporatization and militarization have become a new norm in an unprecedented way. Drone attacks and aerial bombings on revolutionary struggle areas and on tribal villages are the new norms under the BJP regime. Several abhorrent acts are being committed by security personnel with state impunity.

    So, the Party, PLGA, and the United Front, the three “magic weapons” of revolution, are taking up several tactical programs to resist the Brahmanic Hindutva Fascism. Several mass movements under the guidance and leadership of our Party are building up in the revolutionary struggle areas against the policies of the Brahmanic Hindutva BJP government. Several heroic military actions were successfully carried out by our PLGA red fighters even after the BJP came to power in the Center. Recently, on January 16, 2024, our PLGA comrades, along with the involvement of hundreds of revolutionary masses, carried out a heroic raid on the Dharmavaram camp in the Bijapur district of Chhattisgarh as a response to the newly started Operation Kagaar by the Indian State. In this raid, 35 security personnel were eliminated and around 40 of them were seriously injured. While the repression and encirclements are escalating, resistance against it is also increasing.

    India under Modi has a history of oppressing religious and ethnic minorities both physically and rhetorically. What is your party’s stance on this issue?

    It is not Indian chauvinism but Hindu chauvinism. Yes. You are absolutely correct that the Modi government is demeaning religious and ethnic minorities and polarizing society. Our party understands that religious minorities, particularly Muslim communities, tribes, Dalit people, and women, are living as secondary citizens and need to unite against the Hindu chauvinism practiced by the Modi government for their emancipation. Our Party aims to organize them in the ongoing people’s war for their emancipation. The present government combines its Hindutva politics of casteism and communalism with corporatization in the interest of imperialists, the comprador bureaucratic bourgeoisie, and landlords. The BJP is utilizing religion as a powerful tool to stay in power and to create schisms in society. Using this religious tool, the BJP is diverting the masses from the real issues. The consecration of the Ram Temple in Ayodhya on January 22, 2024, is the perfect example of how the masses are being distracted from the severe political, social, and economic crises facing our country.

    Our party stands with the principle of secularism, the right to religious freedom, freedom of speech, and hails the diversity of cultures and languages, food habits, etc. Whereas, Hindutva fascism is against all these democratic values.

    Although it is a long way to success in the fight against patriarchy, the revolutionary movement and the revolutionary women’s movement have brought considerable changes in the situation of women in the guerrilla base areas.

    Amrut – CPI(Maoist) Spokesperson

    During the Naxalbari uprising of the 1960s, peasants killed large landowners and seized their lands. What role do peasants play in the CPI (Maoist) and the current struggle?

    You have brought up the past practices of our party which upheld the left adventurist line of annihilation of the class enemy as the only path to success in the Indian agrarian revolution. We have already rectified that wrong practice. We uphold the Marxist principle of worker-peasant unity. Let us come to your question. India is an agriculture-based country. Peasants constitute the majority of the country’s population. Peasants also constitute the majority in the Party, PLGA, revolutionary mass organizations, and revolutionary people’s committees. In that sense, peasants are part of the social, political, military, and economic aspects of the ongoing people’s war. All the heads of the party committees, militias, and the organs of people’s state power at the local level are peasants. Currently, the majority in the PLGA are tribal peasant comrades and are leading platoons, companies, and battalions.

    Peasants are involved in every activity of the agrarian revolutionary program, such as the distribution of land to the tiller. Under the leadership of our party, the revolutionary people’s committees are working for the people’s welfare by undertaking programs such as land leveling, construction of embankments, laying of ponds and bridges, and developing village connectivity to improve productivity. We are giving special importance to practicing collective cooperative methods of work. Our PLGA guerrillas and party cadres unite with the masses in all their production activities.

    In the areas controlled by CPI (Maoist), how is society organized and what does your party do differently from the government?

    As per the above-mentioned strategy followed by our party for making revolution, we start from the interior tribal areas, extend to the plain areas forming organs of people’s state power, and finally seize power in cities of the enemy’s stronghold. The tribal society is feudal, where the head of the village has the say. With the changes brought through the revolutionary movement, the village heads no longer have power. The local party committee, comprised of poor and middle-class peasants, leads the village. In the plain areas, the society is mainly Brahmanic Hindutva with a minority of other religions.

    The ruling exploitive government speaks a lot about people’s welfare but does nothing. The peasants lack minimum requirements for farming such as irrigation, seeds, and agricultural implements. The revolutionary people’s committees look after the needs of the peasants and focus on raising the yield. The exploitive government is not in the least bothered to run schools and hospitals for tribal people. The revolutionary people’s committees are running local schools. Every local government has a medical department and a doctor. The concerned party committee has a budget for schools run by the revolutionary people’s committees. The doctors from PLGA impart training to the revolutionary people’s committee doctors. The cottage industry department is yet to become active so as to help the people in selling the forest produce and purchasing daily needs in the market.

    We are working against a semi-colonial, semi-feudal, strong state that is backed by imperialists. As per our strategy, we build revolutionary people’s committees wherever we succeed in bringing down the exploitive government. We thus build area-wide organs of state power, gradually extending and strengthening them. The guerrilla bases are enduring even amidst a lot of massacres, killings of leaders and activists of party committees, militias, revolutionary people’s committees, and sexual atrocities on women. We now hold power on a very small level. So, there are limitations to the development activities that we take up.

    What is the influence of the caste system in the areas you’ve liberated? How is the party challenging feudal structures and societal attitudes?

    There are as such no liberated areas until now. There are base areas in special guerrilla zones that we seek to unite and liberate. The caste system is one particular feature of Indian society, and communalism is another that is linked to it. It is part of Brahmanic Hindutva’s Chaturvarnya system and is rooted both in the base and superstructure of the present society and is dialectically entwined in both spheres. Caste is meant to divide the people to facilitate exploitation and oppression of the working classes. It is not an easy task to eliminate it. It is linked with the success of the New Democratic Revolution and construction of the socialist state. The fight to eliminate caste is part of the agenda of the party and the revolutionary mass organizations. We fight both in the base and the superstructure to eliminate caste. Coming to the guerrilla zones, caste does not exist in tribal society where we are based, per our strategy. However, it is reflected in the form of differences in the status of different tribes. Whether it is in the tribal, plain, or urban areas, uniting people is the main activity. We work to unite all the toiling castes to isolate the enemy classes.

    How is your party combatting patriarchy?

    Although it is a long way to success in the fight against patriarchy, the revolutionary movement and the revolutionary women’s movement have brought considerable changes in the situation of women in the guerrilla base areas. Patriarchy in tribal society manifests in various forms such as forced marriage, bigamy, polygamy, and wife-beating. The party and the women’s organizations have educated the society that all these patriarchal attitudes are negative not only to women, but they also hinder social development as a whole. Women are part of party committees, the three forces of PLGA namely the main, secondary, and base forces (meaning militia), and the revolutionary people’s committees and revolutionary mass organizations. Women are working in all spheres of activity in the movement such as party building, military offensives, people’s welfare, communications, and manufacturing arms.

    Has the Modi government changed the socioeconomic conditions in India? Some suggest that India is now an imperialist power.

    The Modi government only worsened the socioeconomic conditions of the people of the country. Peasants are losing farmland and tribal people are being displaced from their forests for corporations. Food crisis, unemployment, and displacement are growing at an alarming rate. Agriculture, industry, and manufacturing sectors have been privatized. People are being deprived of their fundamental needs of life. Health care is almost nil for the poor classes. Pandemics are taking the lives of poor people in large numbers. The majority of the people are in a state of misery. The people’s struggles in the country reveal the actual situation.

    Modi has been using religion as a way to distract people from the conditions the vast majority is living in. In doing so, he has been diluting the diversity of our country in the name of Hindutva. To saffronize the country, he is attacking the Indian constitution, which promised the Indian people a secular government. Modi’s government is bulldozing the houses of Muslim communities. In the name of “cow protection,” it is lynching Muslims, Dalits, and Adivasis in broad daylight. Hate speech is being aired through government-supported mainstream media channels.

    All the talk about India becoming the “third biggest economy” is a big sham. The country is experiencing growth in unemployment. In fact, the parameters with which the government claims “progress” in the economy are not accepted even by bourgeois economists. For example, the growth in the GDP of the country. The criticism is that it is not correct to include the investments of foreign corporations to measure GDP. The government is helping members of the comprador bureaucratic bourgeoisie such as Adani and Ambani. Indian society is witnessing a deep breach in social harmony with the deliberate deeds of Brahmanic Hindutva on the basis of religion and caste, in its bid to serve the domestic comprador class and its master, the imperialists. The heavy technological development benefits the crony capitalists who serve the imperialists while more than half of the population lives below the poverty line. India is dependent on imperialist capital, import of technology, and capital goods. It has no characters of imperialism and cannot be labelled “imperialist.” India is still a semi-colonial, semi-feudal country.

    India is a member of the Shanghai Cooperation. How do you evaluate this cooperation, which includes Russia, China, Brazil, and South Africa?

    In 2006, it was estimated that the total value of bilateral trade was of the order of $20 billion. As China developed new forms of political relations with its central Asian neighbors, bilateral meetings on border and trade issues were found to be inadequate to deal with the rapidly changing geopolitical environment. Political Islam became more and more influential in Afghanistan and Tajikistan, and the new governments of Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan considered it a serious threat to their authority. All of the regional powers perceived that despite great differences between them, they had a common interest in combating this new force which they all saw as a threat to the stability of the region.

    The first meeting of what was to become a major regional grouping took place in Shanghai in 1996 when the foreign ministers of China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan met to discuss common concerns. An agenda was constructed around the issues of border security and how to combat insurgent Islamic forces. The group, which planned to meet on a regular basis, was first known as the Shanghai Five but was later renamed the Shanghai Cooperation Organization in June 2001 when Uzbekistan was admitted. The new name was sufficiently flexible to allow for the admission of other members. Pakistan, the only other state being seriously considered for membership, was not permitted to join.

    Since the British left India, the ruling classes of India have been trying to be close to all the imperialist countries. It continued to serve Britain and later developed close ties with the US. When the Soviet Union was strong, India was close to it. It is now close to China and its alliance, the Shanghai Cooperation. It is also part of BRICS, led by China and Russia. India has enormous natural and human resources and a large market due to a huge population that attracts capitalists from all over the world. India is characteristically governed by the comprador bureaucratic bourgeoisie and Big Landlords. Therefore, its membership in the alliance is part of a foreign policy in line with its comprador interests. The expansionist attitude of the Indian ruling class is also one reason for it joining the alliances. In 2017, India became a member of the rising imperialist alliance, BRICS. Today, in the multi-polar world order, social-imperialist China is putting in immense effort to replace the dominant imperialist financial systems like the World Trade Organization and International Monetary Fund, with its own financial institutions. India is nothing but a poster-boy of US imperialism in BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.

    I want to emphasize that US imperialism remains the primary enemy of the oppressed people and nations. But that in no way means that social-imperialist China and other imperialist countries should not be fully opposed. The ruling class of China has kept busy with the propaganda of “socialism with Chinese characteristics,” which is nothing but imperialism with Chinese characteristics.

    India’s expansionism can be seen in Sri Lanka where it helped the ruling class crush the national liberation movement; in Nepal where the Indian comprador bureaucratic bourgeoisie has invested in the tourism industry; in Myanmar where it helps the ruling class crush the Rohingya Muslim organizations; and similar activities in other neighboring countries.

    India is nothing but a poster-boy of US imperialism in BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.

    Amrut – CPI(Maoist) Spokesperson

    What is your opinion on the concept of “socialist China” and “socialism with Chinese characteristics,” as propagated by the Chinese government, activists, parties, and journalists?

    China ceased to be a socialist country since the late 1970s. Our party considers that China became a social-imperialist country around 2014. “Socialism with Chinese characteristics” is nothing but a false claim of the present imperialist ruling class of China. A few comrades are not clear about the imperialist characteristics that China attained in the process since the restoration of capitalism. In 2017, our party released a document titled China, a New Social-Imperialist Power: It is integral to the world capitalist-imperialist system explaining our analysis of China. Leaving aside facts and figures, the economic, political, social, and cultural policies of the ruling class of China are clearly imperialist.

    China is therefore neither a socialist nor communist country. It is a social-imperialist country. The facts that shows this are that monopoly capitalism and financial oligarchy are on the rise. Capital is accumulated in a big way. Finance capital rules. China is investing capital in almost all parts of the world. It is contending with the US for world hegemony. It is leading alliances such as the Shanghai Cooperation and BRICS, together with Russia, in its attempt to redivide the world to exploit raw materials and markets.

    How does today’s China differ from China during Mao’s time?

    Mao led the Communist Party of China and continued waging socialist revolution even under the proletarian dictatorship through the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (GPCR). GPCR is a great contribution of Mao. This was a theoretical political struggle and a great upsurge of the revolutionary masses. The objective of GPCR was to continue the revolution in all the fields of the superstructure in order to advance the socialist economic system towards the construction of a communist society. It’s goal was to absolutely eliminate the possibilities of the restoration of the classes overthrown in the New Democratic Revolution (the big landlord and comprador bureaucratic bourgeois classes serving imperialism) and to continue the dictatorship of the proletariat by thwarting the attempts of the enemy classes to reinstate capitalism.

    The GPCR also had the immediate aim to end revisionism, employ the mass strength in a struggle based on mass line to remove the capitalist roaders settled in the party leadership and party organization. This was a tortuous class struggle against the capitalist roaders and the continuation in China of the worldwide struggle against modern revisionism. It could contain restoration of capitalism for 10 years. Due to a lot of mainly internal and a few external factors, capitalism was restored later. Today, China is a social-imperialist country.

    Some describe the current moment as a critical juncture for the global left. What are your thoughts on this?

    The revolutionary forces were never at a crossroads, whether it was in the period after Stalin’s death in the Soviet Union, or Mao’s death in China, or when it was influenced by Soviet revisionism and Deng’s revisionism. When Khrushchev and his revisionist clique took over power in the Bolshevik party and the Soviet government in the mid-1950s, it was for capitalist restoration. China was then in the construction of socialism. The Communist Party of China (CPC) under the leadership of Comrade Mao Zedong took up a theoretical struggle against the modern revisionism of Khrushchev, that came to be known as the “Great Debate” in the International Communist Movement.

    Eastern European countries such as Yugoslavia took to Khrushchev’s revisionism and left the path of socialist construction. Mao also gave an analysis as to why the Soviet Union failed to go forth in socialist construction. Mao took lessons from the Soviet Union and applied them in China. The CPC under his guidance called for the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, which contested capitalist restoration for a decade. Later, when Deng took over the reins of the CPC and the People’s Government of China, he led a counter-revolution to restore capitalism. Since then, there has been no socialist base in the world.

    Capitalism was restored in both countries because the contradiction between capitalism and socialism was not resolved. This is the process of struggle in which society progresses, from feudalism to capitalism and then to socialism, and finally to communism. All countries of the world need to take these lessons to make a successful revolution. The proletarian parties that bear this understanding are working to accomplish revolution in the concrete conditions of their respective countries.

    Is there anything else you’d like to add?

    Lastly, I wish to express solidarity from our party to the ongoing people’s wars, national liberation movements, and anti-imperialist struggles of the world. I wish to appeal to all these forces to come together in revolutionary activity to root out imperialism from the earth and establish socialism and then communism all over the world. The time is ripening. Let us act bravely. Let us achieve victory. Workers of all countries, unite!

    red.

    https://abolitionmedia.noblogs.org/post/2024/07/07/on-the-frontlines-of-revolution-interview-with-the-communist-party-of-india-maoist/

    #armedStruggle #communist #guerrilla #india #maoist #naxalite

  20. On July 4, 1964, 60 years ago, the first guerrilla march of what is now the National Liberation Army of Colombia (ELN) began.

    At the end of the 1950s, several young rebels and social leaders began processes of armed uprising, which ended in mistakes and failures that cost valuable rebel lives.

    Then, at the beginning of the ’60s, came the reflection and the resumption of a new path, with its own efforts and thought, born of the social struggles and of its own leaders. It would be on the basis of an ideology independent of the ruling classes and collecting the experiences of the nascent Cuban Revolution and other latitudes.

    Much has been said and speculated about how the ELN was born in one way or another, but in particular it is the only Revolutionary Organization born in the ’60s, which remains unscathed both in Colombia and in the continent.

    Of course, a more in-depth study will be required to allow analysts to understand the reasons for its existence, since it is no coincidence that all the other guerrillas have demobilized and only the ELN has remained up in arms, uninterruptedly, throughout these 60 years.

    The ideological and political nature of the ELN was always different from the other organizations that were in arms, and that today are functional to the establishment after having demobilized and disarmed.

    It turns out that the current times prove the ELN’s vision and actions in the last decade right. While the Exfarc were demobilizing, the country was convulsed by social outbursts, looking for paths of change long awaited by the majority of the population, massive mobilizations that needed the accompaniment of the armed insurgency, since the paths of peaceful mobilization or through parliamentary means have been a failure.

    That period of social outbursts that gave birth to the possibility of change and the electoral triumph of the Historical Pact, which even in the midst of the mobilizations was called to suspend them, to take the reforms to parliament without being able to materialize them in that way. Despite this negative result, the majorities supported. Today, the reforms agitated in the campaign have had limitations to be implemented through institutional means.

    Without a doubt, more paths open up by struggle and mobilization than the promises made by governments in processes of social negotiation or social and armed conflict.

    The same is true in the world, where the armed uprising of the peoples is the only guarantee that their rights are recognized; that is why the National Liberation Movement is becoming more valid, as demonstrated before the world by the armed uprising waged by Palestine with the support of the Axis of Resistance; the same is happening with the successful struggle of half a dozen countries of the African Sahel against French colonialism. It is the reaffirmation of the flowering of a libertarian hope through the armed uprising and the massive struggles of the peoples, and therefore a good indicator of the strategic justice of the ELN to continue to rise up in arms, and reaffirming the validity of the commitment to serve the people and always be with them, in the struggle for national liberation and for a new society.

    The recent culmination of the Sixth Congress confirms the political unity of the ELN and its unity of command, which continues to update its policies and its actions in correspondence with the new realities of the country and the world.

    Honor and glory to the heroes and martyrs. We embrace and recognize the resistance struggle of our political prisoners, the courage and dedication to the struggle of all our commanders and combatants. In this way we will be a people that resists and perseveres to the end and therefore we will achieve victory.

    Colombia… for the workers!

    Not one step back… Freedom or death!

    Central Command

    National Liberation Army

    Mountains of Colombia.

    July 4, 2024

    https://abolitionmedia.noblogs.org/post/2024/07/02/eln-60-years-in-revolutionary-armed-uprising/

    #armedStruggle #colombia #eln #guerrilla #southAmerica

  21. On March 26, 1993, in the Victoria neighborhood, the 27-year-old combatant Norma Vergara was seriously wounded in an ambush perpetrated by members of DIPOLCAR, after they detected a meeting of members of the Lautaro Rebel and Popular Forces (FRPL), an armed organization of which she was a member and which fought the dictatorship and continued to operate in democracy. As a result of the police bullets, the comrade died at the central post, after not receiving timely assistance.

    Today, 31 years after her death, some anarchic individuals remember her with a small gesture of propaganda. For us, memory is a permanent exercise, we will not let the streets where comrades met their death go unnoticed by anyone.

    WE MOVE FORWARD WITH OUR DEAD IN THE WAR AGAINST POWER!

    NORMA VERGARA PRESENTE!

    MARCH 29 TO THE STREETS!

    Norma Vergara, “eyes of the moon”, we remember you above all for your combative dedication and also remembering the accomplices of the cowardly murders of the popular fighters to reestablish the neoliberal order of poverty and inequality that governs to this day.

    The “socialist” party is part of the coalition of “left” forces, puppets of capital, who, after denouncing and annihilating subversion, live well-off, enjoying the privileges afforded them by their bourgeois political positions, living at the expense of the working people.

    They also carry on their backs the death of Marco Ariel Antoniolletti [member of Movimiento Juvenil Lautaro (MJL) who was assassinated in 1990].

    Excerpted from Buskando la Kalle and Grupo La Ruptura.

    Source: Informativo Anarquista

    https://abolitionmedia.noblogs.org/post/2024/03/31/chile-agitation-31-years-after-the-assassination-of-lautaro-fighter-norma-vergara-caceres/

    #anarchist #armedStruggle #chile #LautaroRebelAndPopularForces #martyrs #southAmerica

  22. Japan's most-wanted fugitive, Satoshi Kirishima, was on the run for decades. A hospital death might have unveiled his secret

    Excerpts: "Police arrested eight members of the East Asia Anti-Japan Armed Front in 1975.
    One member, Ayako Daidoji, is understood to be overseas. Satoshi Kirishima held the record for being on Japan's Most Wanted list the longest.

    He was taken to hospital earlier this month after a resident found him collapsed outside his workplace. He revealed his identity so his death certificate would have his correct name, according to local media."

    "Some 100,000 people "disappear" in Japan every year. It's such a common occurrence that there's a word for it, Johatsu, which means "vanished people". Often, it's people escaping bad debts or shame, rather than a life of crime. There's even a book called The Complete Manual of Disappearance, which spells out the steps needed to disappear in Japan."

    #SatoshiKirishima #RestInPower #EastAsiaAntiJapanArmedFront
    #ArmedStruggle #Japan

    abc.net.au/news/2024-02-02/how

  23. With Palestine in the headlines, the question of occupation, resistance, and freedom is back in the spotlight. Watch how, in 1963, the Black revolutionary Malcolm X shattered the illusion of a peaceful path to freedom in just 24 seconds. "Anyone who is depriving you of freedom isn't deserving of a peaceful approach," Malcolm explained.

    #BlackHistory #GazaResistance #ArmedStruggle

  24. archive.org/details/desire-arm

    Desire Armed! A Basic Guide to Armed Resistance and Revolution by N.; D.; S.

    Topics
    #armedstruggle, #revolutionaryarmedstruggle, #guns, #firearms, #gunsafety, #firearmtraining, #revolutionaryviolence

    "This guide hopes to act as a starting point for anybody who has ever considered armed revolution. The subject matter contained in here is deadly serious."

  25. [May-August 2023] Revolt in Manipur, India

    https://euphoria.noblogs.org/post/2023/08/07/revolt-in-manipur/

    Compilation of different articles published on some maoist website, which has done compilations and summaries of press articles on the ongoing struggle in Manipur (a northeast state of India) since the beginning of the month of May 2023. The first article contains a detailed summary of the context around the revolt a few months after it began, while the following are presented in the chronological order of the events.

    Version Française

    India: on the current struggle in Manipur – July 2, 2023

    The 3rd of May started many clashes in the State of Manipur, which are still going strong nowadays. We have reported on that. This day, the All Tribal Students Union of Manipur (ATSUM) conveyed a mobilization in protest for the inclusion of the Meitei in the list of Scheduled Tribes, what make Meiteis able to legally expel the peasantry of their lands.

    Currently, the death toll is 138 people killed, and since now, there are around 60.000 peasants expelled, most of them from The Hills area, of the Kuki tribal group. But the struggle started pretty much before. In February, there were new expels of peasants by the State of Manipur in the district of Churachandpur, and after that, in the month of March there were mobilizations, repressed with violence by the Indian police. Also there was a general strike in the month of April, conveyed by the Indigenous Tribal Leaders’ Forum (ITLF), at the same time of a visit of Prime Minister of Manipur, N Biren Singh. After that, started the first riots. The big landlords class and the bureaucratic capitalist class class want to expel the peasants for continuing the concentration of lands, and also because the oil, gas and other minerals in the area.

    Regarding the sides involved in the struggle, mainly are two:

    On the one hand, there is the bureaucratic capitalist class and the big landlords, interested in take of the lands of the peasantry. They belong to the tribe Meitei and they are mainly Hindu. They have the resources of the Indian State, and they always ruled the State of Manipur, no matter with which political party, and for this, they are able to make big deployments of police forces in order to expel the peasants from their lands, as happened in the 20th of February in one of the facts who triggered the current revolts. They are mainly located in the fertile valleys of Imphal, the capital. Currently, the interests of the dominant classes are represented by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Manipur. Besides the State repressive forces, these dominant classes also have made their own militias and groups of thugs, and they are using these ones as a head of spear against the peasantry which want to expel from their lands.

    On the other hand,there is the peasantry, who is defending itself against the attempts of expel and the aggression of the bourgeoisie and the big landlords. The peasantry is mainly gathered in two tribal groups, the Kuki and the Naga, and they are mainly Christians. They live mainly in the hills. They have their own unitary organizations as ATSUM or ITLF, but, at the same time, they have their own regional peasant organizations. In the case of Kuki, they recently suffered many grievances and attacks by the bourgeoisie and the big landlords belonging to the Meitei group, and the government of Manipur: they criminalized the Kukis, stating this group are illegal immigrants from Myanmar, and due to this, their settlements in many of their lands are illegal; also they stated that the Kuki are not obeying the environmental protection rules because they live in protected and reserved forests, and should be expelled from them; even they accuse the Kuki of being drug-dealers or “narco-terrorists” due to the fact that the peasantry of this region plant poppies in the hills. All of these are reasons for the ruler classes to expel in a “justified” or legal way this peasantry from their lands.

    For all of these years, the Indian State has firmly defensed the interests of the bureaucratic capitalist class and the big landlords of the region. The Indian State has S) has multiplied for ten its members during the last years and there are other militias of the local reaction gathered under the Meitei tribe, that are beinge, the paramilitary organization Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) has multiplied for ten its members during the last years and there are other militias of the local reaction gathered under the Meitei tribe, that are being financed and protected.

    Regarding the security force of the Indian State, there is information about that they are letting act these militias, even when they are looting gun-shops, police stations, etc. Also has been denounced by some witnesses that some members of Assam Rifles [Author’s note: troops of the Ministry of Interior] would be actively participating in attacks against peasantry.

    Regarding the Indian State, has shown its incapacity to deal with rebellion of peasant masses and its resistance in Manipur. Has been unable to recover the stability in the area, despite a large military, paramilitary and police deployments (until 40.000 troops deployed by the Indian State and the authorities of Manipur). Despite all its efforts, Indian State has seen how its anti-popular policies has triggered a revolt of peasantry, and this has showed in a explicit way the weakness of the bureaucratic capitalism and of the semi-colonial and semi-feudal State itself, that is being overcome by a revolt in a peripheral State. This has sharpened multiple contradictions inside the Indian bureaucratic capitalist class and inside the representative parties of this one, as the BJP.

    In these months the struggle of the masses has shown that it has a great potential. The blockades at the roads has shown being effective and provoking deep crisis of supplies. There have been carried out multiple actions against representatives of the Indian State and of the BJP and the curfews has been constantly challenged with spontaneous mobilizations. Even some military convoys has been blocked by the masses of the countryside.

    We can see a main contradiction in this struggle, and is the contradiction between peasantry and feudality. The mass media are explaining this struggle as a simple tribal or religious conflict, and the State states that all the situation is returning to normalcy, and the riots has being made by troublemakers. But all of this is unmask the reality because the key of these facts is the struggle for the land, the contradiction between peasantry and bureaucratic capitalist class and big landlords. The peasant masses are struggling and resisting the attacks from the Indian State and the ruling classes, and they are confronting directly with them.

    Manipur Revolts – May 8, 2023

    On March 3rd there began a new stage of revolts in Manipur, after being known that the Meitei tribal group would be recognized as scheduled tribe in India. The Meitei are the majority of the population in the state of Manipur. The Indian State characterize the population according to the tribal groups, and thus establish limits for access to jobs, buying and selling of properties, and owning business. But the main point of the conflict in Manipur, is the eviction of the peasants from their own lands in order to concentrate this in a few hands of big landlords and big mining companies. On the other hand, local media often analyzes that main problem is between tribal groups or religions. The thing with the Meitei group is that local bosses who identify with this tribal group, will have economical privileges, and for example, will can acquire easily lands from the peasantry that are scheduled as Kuki or Naga, something that earlier was forbidden.

    Then, the 3rd of March there was a big mobilization in Manipur. This mobilization was called for by a student organization, the All Tribal Students Union of Manipur [ATSUM]. Besides this one, also the Indigenous Tribal Leaders Forum [ITLF] call for bandh in order to make sure that lot of people attend the mobilization. The ITLF is an organization that serves to gather all the representatives of the minority tribes of Manipur, and same is the case with the ATSUM, that gather students from these tribes.

    Then, the police and the Army were overwhelmed and established a curfew on the 4th of April, suspended the access to Internet and also deployed much more troops, anti-riots police, etc. After this, the Indian State also gave a clear directive to their repressive troops: shoot-at-sight when they detect a demonstrator. This is tightly linked with the militarization of the streets in Manipur. The updated numbers of troops in the region are: “Near of 10,000 soldiers of the Army and Assam Rifles [a paramilitary force controlled by the central government, with the task of counter-insurgency and controlling the borders of northeast India] have been deployed in the state.”. On the other hand, the Indian Army have been stating since days ago that the situation in Manipur is under control.

    The revolts have exploded during this week, but the conflict was intensifying since long time ago. Since March there has been several clashes in the area, led by indigenous organizations. Also this ITLF called for a bandh on Friday 24th of April, and stated that “they would continue non-cooperation against the government until it nullifies the 1966 government order that declared tribal areas as protected/reserved forests”. This government order allow the eviction of the peasantry of many areas declared as protected, something that big mining companies and big landlords asked for and used to take these lands later.

    During today there has been reports of back to normalcy in Imphal (Manipur’s capital). The official numbers just admit 30 dead people. However, local media reports an updated death toll: 55 dead people until today.

    India: the struggle continues in Manipur – May 15, 2023

    The conflict continues in Manipur, even with gunfights. After the state of emergency, the curfews and the militarization of the federal state of Manipur, the Indian Armed Forces claim that the situation was controlled at Friday 5th May. We already published an article about the origin of the conflict and its beginnings.

    But, after this statements, the people of Manipur continues struggling against the Indian State, against its police, troops and paramilitary, as the Assam Rifles [Author’s note: paramilitary organization to control the borders of Northeast India, and also for do tasks of counterinsurgency]. The Wednesday 10th May, unidentified people opened fire against Assam Rifles personnel, being injured one soldier. On the other hand, the Thursday 11th May, happened a more serious incident: a police officer of Manipur was killed, and another two were injured in a gunfight, on Bishnupur district, on the South of Manipur. The facts happened as follows: “According to the sources, the commandos were there around 8.30 am Thursday, to follow up on inputs received about the movement of some insurgents in the area. It has not yet been ascertained which group is behind the incident, but sources said the police commando succumbed to injuries caused by an “AK-47 bullet”.”. Regarding the same fact, the Security Advisor of the state of Manipur, states the Friday 12th May, that the number of injured commandos was six.

    Also, local media report about a block on the roads that stopped a big convoy: “Meanwhile, around 180 Imphal-bound goods-laden trucks were forced to return from Kangpokpi district towards Senapati district after a large number of people blocked the Kangpokpi stretch of National Highway-2. Kangpokpi, about 43 km away from Manipur’s capital Imphal, is a Kuki-dominated district. The irate mobs at Kangpokpi town also burnt down a car along the highway, an official report said. Following the blockade, the convoy of trucks retreated to Senapati district (Naga-dominated district).”

    Besides this, other incidents have happened on Friday: a soldier of Assam Rifles was injured when was trying to diffuse an Improvised Explosive Device [IED], on the Saiton village, Bishnupur district. Meanwhile, the Indian Armed Forces announced the deployment of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles [UAV’s] and helicopters in order to have a bigger control of the area.

    Despite all of these facts, the Security Advisor of Manipur, Kuldeep Singh claimed Friday that the death toll was 71 dead people in Manipur, but the situation would be improve a lot after the curfew and the State intervention.

    India: situation in Manipur overwhelmed the government – May 22, 2023

    The conflict continues in Manipur three weeks after the beginning of the revolt after the student’s demonstration of 3rd May. Wednesday 17th May, official sources of police said the situation has improved. However the same day was reported the death of one jawan [Author’s note: police officer] who was injured in a previous ambush, with the official death toll went up to 74 dead people. We have already written about this ambush and another similar facts. In this article we already quoted police and military declarations claiming the situation was controlled since the first week of the revolts.

    On Thursday 18th May , according to local media, a patrol of military troops found a considerable amount of explosives in one of their expeditions through delicate areas of the federal state of Manipur. Local media describes the amount: “Three kilograms of TNT, 15 electric detonators, four circuits, and remote firing devices have also been found”. Besides these materials, according to sources of Manipur would be more than 1.000 weapons and 10.000 bullets looted from several police and military facilities. Would been recovered less than a half of these weapons by the government.

    On the other hand, the situation also would be critical for the entrance of some materials in Manipur, due to the blockades in highways initiated few weeks ago in the via, NH37, which is fundamental for the transit in the federal state. This blockades are still active and worrying the authorities of the Indian State and of federal state of Manipur. The State is trying to coordinate police, paramilitary and military forces to break this blockade, establishing surveillance for the convoys that are going inside Manipur. Regarding the effects of this blockade in the essential goods, local media explains that “the state of essential supplies began to dwindle and reach critical levels”.

    After this fact, Indian State began a new plan of action in Manipur: “The army has listed out a four-point plan to ensure peace in Manipur. This includes day and night area domination, surveillance over designated ash-points, engagement with civil society organizations of all communities across Manipur and deployment of quad-copters, tracker dogs and UAVs [Author’s note: Unmanned Aerial Vehicles/drones].”. Besides the military measures, the ban for access to internet has been protracted two times: the first of them was since the 17th May until 22th May. State home department said that the first extension of the ban was needed “based on reports of continued incidents like fighting amongst volunteers/youths of major communities residing in the state’’. The second time that the ban is being protracted is since 22th May until 26th May. This extension of the ban is due to “reports of arson and attacks”.

    With these measures, the government is trying to fix the situation in Manipur, and official sources states the following: “Our aim at the moment is to make the situation such that there are no reports of incidents or rumors generally”. Not just the government of Indian State it’s reinforcing its presence and surveillance in Manipur. Also the bureaucratic bourgeoisie belonging to the Meitei group, asked on the 20th May for a immediate intervention in the conflict in Manipur from Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, with “to use whatever means and resources at his disposal”.

    India: Increase of the resistance, the State perpetrates a massacre in Manipur – May 29, 2023

    Wednesday 24th May have been reported new clashes in Manipur, and the authorities have decided to reestablish all the curfew measures in the East Imphal, West Imphal and Bishnupur districts. At the same day one dead, two injured and presence of armed groups in several villages of Bishnupur district have been accounted. Also more torched houses have been reported. Meanwhile, the central government of the Indian State claims the situation is “returning to normal”. Despite this, during the week local media reports on more cases of shootings, therefore the Indian State has increased the police, military and paramilitary deployment in at least 38 places of the federal state of Manipur. At the same time, the authorities of Manipur keep on claiming that the number of dead people is around 60. But other sources, hospitals and media, are counting at least 74 dead people, according to the data of 17th May. We have already written about this uncontrolled situation in Manipur.

    On the other hand, journalist associations denounce that the troops of Indian State are trying to silence those who are reporting about the riots in Manipur. For example, Monday 22th May, soldiers beat three journalists, Soram Inaoba, Nongthombam Johson and Brahmacharimayum Dayananda, who wanted to report about a new torching in the federal state. Regarding the repressive actions of the State, this is not an isolated fact: local media also reports that on Thursday 25th May, three paramilitary personnel of Rapid Action Force [RAF] set a meat shop on fire in Imphal, capital of Manipur.

    Despite the increasing repression in Manipur, the people continue protesting actively against the actions of the government of federal state of Manipur and of the Indian State. Wednesday 24th May, the masses attacked the house of the Minister of Youth and Sports of the Federal state of Manipur, Konthoujam Govindas. Local media describes the action: “However, the minister and his family members were not present at the house when around 100 agitated people, mostly women, ransacked the house in Ningthoukhong Bazar area of Bishnupur district and damaged the gate, windows, a few furniture, electronic gadgets and vehicles parked at his residence.”

    Another similar action was attempted to carry out on the Friday 26th against the house of the Minister of External Affairs and Education of the federal state of Manipur, Rajkumar Ranjan Singh, in the capital, Imphal. Thousands of people ignored the curfew and gathered in front of the house of the Minister in order to protest for the bad situation in Manipur. After these incidents, the minister has escaped from Manipur, traveling to New Delhi.

    Regarding the control over the highways, the 15th May the reestablishment of the control in the highways and roads in Manipur was announced by the State. Despite this, during this week, it was reported that the blockades are still active and there is an uncontrolled increase of prices due to the low reserves and lack of import of them from outside of the federal state. Some basic products would cost the double of that before of the beginning of the conflict.

    The Indian State is carrying on a brutal answer against all of these problems: since Saturday 27th May it is launching military operations dedicated to “check sporadic violence”. These operations have resulted in a big massacre of activists of the region: media reports about 33 people murdered by the troops and paramilitaries. Local sources add the following: “Sources said the number of casualties could be more as the combing operation was still on, particularly in the hill districts such as Kangpokpi, Churachandpur and Bishnupur, inhabited mostly by the Kukis.”

    India: more clashes in Manipur – June 8, 2023

    The struggles in Manipur is as intensive as the past weeks. The death toll of the clashes, reached 98 dead and 310 injured people on Friday 2nd of June. Saturday 3rd of June, Kuldiep Singh, security advisor of the government of the federal State of Manipur, claimed that: “Peace is returning to the State and normalcy is being restored. There has not been an incident of firing and arson in Manipur in the last 24 hours.” However, on the next day, militants belonging to armed groups struggling against the State, would burn around a hundred of houses, including the house of a member of the federal congress of Manipur. On the same day, Home Minister, Amit Shah, insisted in demanding that the groups who are blocking the NH2 Highway end the blockade. The highway is very important for the communications between the Indian State and Manipur.

    Three gunfights have been reported in Manipur: the 5th of June there was a gunfight between armed groups of the Kangchup area, in the West Imphal district, resulting in three dead and four injured people. The 6th of June there was an attack against the military and police force of the Indian State, with one BSF soldier killed [Border Security Forces] and two members of the paramilitary group, the Assam Rifles, injured. At the same time there was another gunfight, but this time without casualties for any side. Meanwhile, the government decided to protract the ban for access to Internet until 10th of June. The ban has been ongoing since 4th of May and has been extended multiple times.

    India: New Casualties of the Indian State in Manipur – June 23, 2023

    There are also reports of numerous actions and new casualties of the Indian State in Manipur. We have reported on this struggle before. In Manipur, there were several simultaneous gunfights on the 20th of June, made with automatic weapons. After these gunfights, other arson and several incidents during the week, the Internet ban was extended until 25th of June. The ban has been ongoing since 4th of May and has been extended multiple times.

    On the afternoon of Wednesday, 21st of June, there was an explosion of an IED in the district of Bishnupur, with two injured policemen. There was another action on the early morning of Thursday, 22nd of June: there was a gunfight in the Imphal West district, and another two policemen were reported injured. This action against the police, was carried out with one rifle and a machine gun INSAS, Indian weapons looted in the previous weeks. Then, during yesterday there were reportedly marches and gunshots of armed groups in the districts of Imphal East and Kangpokpi. The Indian Army have been mobilized and sent to these places.

    Manipur: Struggle of the People against Indian State keeps intensifying – July 27, 2023

    The struggle of the people continues in Manipur. During the last weeks the people of Manipur has intensified the number of actions, and specially their intensity. We have reported on this struggle before. There are actions of the masses in many different districts, what shows that it is not a problem in isolated areas of Manipur, but a general intensification of the struggle in the whole State.

    On Monday, 17th of July, in the district of Imphal West, a crowd of people attacked the convoy of a General Inspector of the Police, setting his car ablaze. Hence, an intervention of a group of anti-riot police to disperse the people with tear gas was needed. After the first investigations, dozens of alleged “people involved” in the incident were detained. Due to these detentions, hundreds of women took the streets on Saturday, 22nd of July, and blocked a highway in the same district with barricades of burning tires, demanding the release of the detainees.

    On Thursday, 20th of July, a video appeared on social media showing several woman of The Hills being harassed and went viral. Later it became known that one of the woman was also raped. This video was recorded in May, after the beginning of the rebellion in Manipur. After the crime became public, the anger of the masses ran out of controll. The Indian State and the State of Manipur called to calm down and promised immediate measures, and the police investigated several accused people. But it is clear that the people don’t trust anymore in the State, even less do the women, which decided to execute justice by themselves. One day before the appearance of the video, a large group of women burned down the house of one of the rapists. The next day, it was known that another rapist was free, and another group of women attacked his home and set it ablaze.

    On the night of the Saturday, 22nd to the 23rd of July, there was a fierce military clash in Torbung, district of Bishnupur. The battle involved rebel guerrillas on one side, and different forces of the Indian State on the other. Specifically the Indian State sent many reinforcements: Assam Rifles (troops of the Ministry of Interior), State police, Border Security Forces (BSF) and common troops of the Indian Army. The guerrillas used many kinds of armament against the repressive forces and even destroyed a heavy armored vehicle of the Assam Rifles. The guerrillas used explosives, mortars, RPGs, shotguns, etc.

    Between the 25th and the 26th of July there were new incidents in several districts. On Tuesday 25th masses of Manipur attacked again the Indian State, burning buses used by the BSF to transport troops in the district of Kangpokpi. On Wednesday 26th, masses started riots, burning abandoned houses and shops in the town of Moreh, district of Tengnoupal, and after this they engaged in a shoot-out with soldiers of the Assam Rifles.

    While the situation is developing in Manipur, it is becoming more uncontrollable for the Indian State, which despite the huge number of troops deployed and resources used, is unable to stop the attacks of the people. It is clear that masses have decided to apply their own justice, but also attack directly the State and its troops.

    Manipur: The Indian State is still Unable to Control the Masses – August 8, 2023

    In the last week the Indian State had serious problems in Manipur. The State have been stating since long time ago that the situation is under control, but there has constantly appeared news of new armed clashes and protests of the masses. We have previously reported on this.

    On Saturday the 5th of August three people were killed in Bishnupur district. After the murder there was a large demonstration of women demanding the end of the violence. Following the assassination it was reported that paramilitaries, pro-Government militias and State troops were missing. On the same day in West Imphal, two policemen were killed, several checkpoints of the repressive forces were attacked, and the government’s stockpiles of arms and ammunition were looted. The government of Manipur and the Indian State reacted with large repression, attacking with riot police and firing tear gas against a peaceful funeral of several Kuki peasants. More than 25 people were injured in this attack.

    Also on Saturday 5th of August following the attacks in Bishnupur and West Imphal, there was a big clash in Bishnupur between groups armed with mortars, grenades and various guns. After the clashes, a total of six people were killed and 16 wounded. It was reported that armed forces abandoned several barracks near this place, and there were more patrols and shootings carried out by armed groups in other districts of Manipur.

    There were also a lot of protests in several parts of Manipur this weekend: on Saturday 5th of August a general strike was called in the Imphal Valley, causing the closure of the vast majority of establishments, shops and businesses; blockings of roads and paths were also reported in the area by those who supported the strike, with burning tires and other forms of blockade. On the other hand, on Sunday 6th of August a crowd of people burned 15 houses and shot one person, and the people were dispersed later by the riot police. This also shows what the Indian State can do nowadays in Manipur: it can somehow react to the events, but it cannot prevent the action of the masses, nor can it solve the problems and establish order.

    Faced with this total loss of control, the Indian State has decided to act in the only way it knows: by increasing its repressive efforts. It has decided to send more troops to Manipur, a total of ten other companies of border troops, paramilitary and police. The authorities of Manipur maintain the curfew in Imphal East and Imphal West, after having planned a possible reduction in security measures in these areas.

    #2023 #armed-struggle #direct-action #india #indigenous-struggles #manipur #revolt

  26. Fidel Castro on Armed Struggle

    youtube.com/watch?v=oc19Q2_Tz3.

    Today, 70 years ago, the first bullet of the Cuban Revolution was fired in the assault on the Moncada Barracks led by Fidel Castro against the US-backed Fulgencio Batista dictatorship.

    #revolution #armedstruggle #tactics #strategy #freedom

  27. archive.org/details/chitepo-re

    Report of the Special International Commission on the Assassination of Herbert Wiltshire Chitepo by Commission on the Assassination of Herbert Chitepo

    Topics
    #HerbertChitepo, #assassination, #assassinations, #ZANU, #ZimbabweAfricanNationalUnion, #powerstruggles, #powerstruggle, #organizationalconflicts, #politicsofZimbabwe, #Zimbabweanpolitics, #Africannationalism, #Africannationalists, #NhariRebellion, #corruption, #nationalliberation, #classstratification, #exilepolitics, #armedstruggle

    "On the 31st March, 1975, His Excellency the President Dr Kenneth Kaunda, addressing the Nation on both radio and television, announced the decision of the Zambian Government to establish a Special Commission of Inquiry to study the events and circumstances leading to Chitepo's death."

  28. archive.org/details/chitepo-re

    Report of the Special International Commission on the Assassination of Herbert Wiltshire Chitepo by Commission on the Assassination of Herbert Chitepo

    Topics
    #HerbertChitepo, #assassination, #assassinations, #ZANU, #ZimbabweAfricanNationalUnion, #powerstruggles, #powerstruggle, #organizationalconflicts, #politicsofZimbabwe, #Zimbabweanpolitics, #Africannationalism, #Africannationalists, #NhariRebellion, #corruption, #nationalliberation, #classstratification, #exilepolitics, #armedstruggle

    "On the 31st March, 1975, His Excellency the President Dr Kenneth Kaunda, addressing the Nation on both radio and television, announced the decision of the Zambian Government to establish a Special Commission of Inquiry to study the events and circumstances leading to Chitepo's death."

  29. archive.org/details/kamerunian

    Objectives, Significance and Repercussions of the Kamerunian Revolution on the Continent of Africa by Union des Populations du Cameroun

    Topics
    #PartyProgramme, #UPC, #UniondesPopulationsduCameroun, #Kamerun, #Cameroon, #Cameroun, #Revolution, #BritishImperialism, #AmericanImperialism, #FrenchImperialism, #AntiImperialism, #AntiColonialism, #PanAfricanism, #ArmedStruggle, #PeoplesWar, #RevolutionaryNationalism, #Revolutionarysocialism, #NewDemocracy, #NewDemocraticRevolution, #Maoism, #NationalLiberationMovements

    "From 1959-60, in the context of the Cold War, during the establishment of the neocolonial bourgeoisie and in the face of France's obstinacy in refusing the UPC its rightful place in Kamerun, asking if the UPC was communist could only have one revolutionary answer: Yes it was, since its leaders were already talking explicitly about socialism as the end goal of the UPC's struggle. Read:

    “The UPC follows the example of China and Indochina, and seeks to build a socialist society modeled on that of People's China.”

    This is what the highest official of the UPC [Moumié] said, addressing a young executive and designating without ambiguity the socialist horizon as the objective to be achieved in Kamerun.

  30. [December 2022, Wallmapu] News from the Mapuche struggle against the Chilean State

    Here's a collection of different actions claimed by radical Mapuche groups in Wallmapu, against the Chilean state in the month of December 2022.

    Last month of the year! Marked notably by many attacks in solidarity with the Mapuche political prisoners of the CAM that continued their hunger strike for the entire month.

    euphoria.noblogs.org/post/2023

    #2022 #anticolonialism #armedstruggle #cam #chile #directaction #hungerstrike #lnm #mapuche #ort #politicalprisoners #prison #rml #rmm #rmp #wallmapu #wam

  31. [November-December 2022, Wallmapu] Hunger strike of Mapuche Political Prisoners of the CAM

    Via Werken Noticias: Mapuche Political Prisoners of the CAM incarcerated in Valdivia begin a hunger strike / Nine Mapuche Political Prisoners begin a hunger strike due to irregular practices in Gabriel Boric's government.

    "FREEDOM TO THE MAPUCHE POLITICAL PRISONERS!!!!
    DEMILITARIZATION OF THE WALLMAPU!!!!
    FOR TERRITORY AND AUTONOMY FOR THE MAPUCHE NATION !!!!
    WITH ALEX LEMUN, MATIAS CATRILEO AND TOÑO MARCHANT IN OUR MEMORY, OUR STRUGGLE CONTINUES!!!!
    AMULEPE TAIÑ WEICHAN!!!
    WEUWAIÑ -MARRICHIWEU!!!!"

    euphoria.noblogs.org/post/2022

    #communiqués #english #2022 #anticolonialism #armedstruggle #cam #chile #hungerstrike #mapuche #politicalprisoners #prison #wallmapu