Autonomy
Rioting breaks out in Osaka, Japan
Riots erupted this weekend (13-15 June 2008) in Kamagasaki, Osaka as a result of a day labourer being arrested, after an argument over food he paid for and did not receive. When he was taken into custody he was tied to a chair and subjected to brutal beatings by 4 police. When he was released on Friday 13th he told people what had happened, and a demo was held outside the police station where he was held. The demands of demonstrators were very simple, for the chief of police to come out and apologise and for the officers responsible for the beating to be fired. These demands were not heard and rioting broke out, with 7 arrests.
The area in which this happened is an area with a long history of working class struggle and solidarity. In 1990 a riot erupted there that lasted 4 days and later in the 90's there was more rioting. However people say that this is the first militant struggle of this nature against police and state repression here since the mid 90's......(More)
Berlin - In Chaos!
A personal report from last week's action days for autonomous spaces in Berlin. This report reflects the thoughts and opinions of the authors, not of any campaign, although these opinions may be shared by others.
(Report from) Action Days for Autonomous Space May 27 to June 1
"If we do not wish to find ourselves in a world where no one really lives, where no one really knows anyone else, where everyone has become a mere cog in a machine meshing with other cogs but remaining truly alone, then we must have the strength to attack alienation in every way we can."
"We believe for a space to be truly autonomous it must first be liberated. Liberated in our sense doesn't just mean taking something out of the hands of capitalists (the mere re-appropriation of a building) but rather taking space and finding ways to use it as a weapon against the State and Capital."
Last week, anarchists set their own dates for a confrontation with the State and Capital. Not prepared to be crushed by increasing repression against the spaces in which we live, plot and fight from, the Action Days for Autonomous Spaces put Berlin in chaos.....(More)
RIOT 2010? RIOT NOW! Attacking the Olympics and it's project: Canada, Greece and Italy
The Olympics is not just a worldwide event, it is a project used to accelerate what the bosses are already doing, expanding capitalism, colonization, social control and industrial/technological civilization. The project is the subjugation of our lives to the plans of the bosses, the hyper-expansion of security forces and the exploitation of the earth, destroying our possibilities to live free. The Olympic project is the encouragement of false nationalism, attempting to unify people the world over within borders and behind state power undermining true indigenous nations. Vancouver, British Columbia is host to the 2010 Winter Olympics. Here the Olympic project is in the frenzy of developers tearing up Vancouver to reconstruct a wealthier urban dream. We see it in the expansion of ski-resorts and promotion of tourism and land exploitation, like the opening up of the province of British Colombia (BC) to uranium mining. To protect their investments the bosses hire more police, form and expand private security companies to patrol Vancouver and pump money into the treaty process, trying to buy BC from the indigenous people because BC knows it is unceeded native land, never treatied, never surrendered.....(More)
"Canada", Ottawa, Attack on police station and fire set...
The morning of Thursday April 10th, a black bloc was called together to "shut down" CANSEC (secrity and weapons fair) and attack the system it expands. From the begining of the demonstration an overwhelming police presence was mobilized to intimidate our small bloc.
This repression characterizes the continuing crackdown on subversion taking place accross "Canada." Allies everywhere are facing exagerated sentences for blockades (at Tyendinaga), land reclamations (at Six Nations), or even for the fabrications alleged by our exploiters (in the case against John "boy" Graham). Here in "Ottawa" it was no different, they kidnapped one comrade after our bloc smashed up a military recruiting centre. Odds against us, greatly outnumbered and repressed, our determined bloc moved on....(More)
Indonesian anarchists occupy and burn university
Here's an update from our Anti-Authoritarian Network.
Several comrades from Medan, North Sumatera, last year were being dropoutted from their university --HKBP NOMMENSEN-- for Boycotting the reclamation of student orientation by the university bureaucrats. They held occupation for months but nothing happened and the university bureaucrats refused to release their transfer permission. So their 'career' as student is dead.
These students who were being kicked out from university are active students who through the years have been protesting the military violence on North Sumatera, and the Rectorat of the university is a high military official. So there are other conclusions about this...(More)
Notes from the UK Squatters' Meeting 9/10 February 2008
This, the first attempt to coordinate a national meeting for some time, was held in a beautiful old nursing home with extensive grounds at Headingley in Leeds. There was a good mixed turn out with squatters represented from many of the major towns in the uk, some protest sites and some travellers attending. All in all perhaps 30-40 people.
Overall the meeting was constructive and positive with a lot of things discussed with a good party on Sunday night, of which the local residents were very accomodating once we explained it was a one off. It was a different matter with the local constabulary who were miffed to say the least, but unable to act because of a secure building and the number of people present. (apart, that is, from a bit of harrassment, including an isolated piece of brutality/assault). They finally got their vindictive revenge by confiscating the van taking the rig away on monday by claiming that the driver was not allowed to use a german driving license in this country!! We managed to save the rig though: Ha!
What follows is the basic agenda, followed by rough notes from each meeting highlighting points raised, ideas and criticisms put forward and general information concerning the different aspects of squatting around the uk...(More)
On a few old topical questions concerning anarchists, and not only
I am certainly not a non-violent. All the same I can understand those who hate violence to the point of wanting to banish it from their life; would never kill, would never use force to make themselves felt; those who, because of their own character and aptitude, prefer not to have recourse to it. But I can only understand that if it is a question of individual choice. When non-violence is presented as a method of struggle, a road to be followed, when individual ethics become a moral and a collective project, it seems to me absolute nonsense, only useful as a justification for lack of action and an obstacle against those who rebel, an absolute value to impose on the weak to allow the strong to forget them more comfortably. On the edge of the abyss, with the earth that is becoming more and more slippery and under the fire of the enemy, the invitation to only use good manners can only look like that. Do what you like but don’t preach to me....(More)
Toward the Anti-G8 Struggle 2008 in Toya Lake, Hokkaido, Japan
The next G8 2008 will take place from July 7th to 9th in Hokkaido Japan, near the lake called Toya-ko.
---- Please come join us! ---- Please check our website for up-to-date information! ----
Call for the Anti-G8 Action July 2008 By NO! G8 Japan
In July 2008, heads of the states that monopolize two thirds of earth's wealth will gather at Toya Lake in Hokkaido Japan. Although the so-called Group of Eight does not have any legitimate right for deciding planetary affairs, they have self-appointed themselves world ruler. Thus the G8 has driven neo-liberal globalization at the same time as spreading poverty, violence, hatred, segregation, and environmental destruction...(More)
Letter to the Comrades of the Informal Anarchist Federation From Gabriel Pombo da Silva
This letter was written in response to a meeting of F.A.I Groups which took place in December 2006.
“Dear reunited comrades of "Paperopoli" in the house of "Paperino" : your letters arrived to me, (from the Grabada assembly) which I read with extreme attention for I am interested in the content of your reflections, and in addition I get along with and I identify so much with the project of the F.A.I. (obvious informal) like with all and each one of the actions that you have carried out. The reason for writing these letters is not of course "advice" of some type, for this world is full of "advisors", "theoreticians" and "celebrities" of all color and condition... No, I only want to send from this camp of extermination words of subversive tenderness, revolutionary spirit and rebellious complicity; words as much from my companion Jose as my own...(More)
Office occupation of BAE Systems, Filton, UK
On Thursday 26th April 5 activists succeeded in occupying offices at BAE systems in Filton for one and a half hours, as part of a DIY Serious Fraud Office (SFO) and crimes of genocide investigation. The action caused significant disruption to the workings of the death dealing company. Although from the inside the offices look like any other offices, this really is the belly of the beast: BAE systems is the U.K.'s largest weapons manufacturer, the government's arms dealer of choice and purveyor of heavy weaponry to ruthless regimes across the globe. The company is corrupt to the core, currently undergoing investigations by the SFO into dodgy deals with South Africa, Romania, Tanzania, the Czech Republic, Chile and Qatar and is responsible for tens of thousands of deaths and endless suffering, all part financed with millions from U.K. taxpayers. Their business is in fanning the flames of war and genocide to keep the world in constant conflict, which means a nice little earner! Thursday's occupation made sure it was not going to be just another day at the office...(More)
Declaration made by the Lecce anarchists in court (Italy)
Update Nottetempo : The hearing held on November 23 finished much earlier than expected. The judge was very disappointed that the public prosecutor failed to bring his final witnesses to court, so he postponed the hearing to January 18.
A request for permission to work presented by Salvatore's lawyer was rejected. The comrade, however, read a declaration, which was also signed by some other co-defendants.
The defendants are charged with 'subversive association'/conspiracy and a number of other crimes, which include attacks against banks, attacks against targets connected with CPT's (immigrant detention centres), actions in solidarity with Mapuche people in Chile and against the Iraq war..(More)
For the spread of the riots: Manifesto in favour of violent direct action
This report was prepared by social activists from Madrid (Spain), Basque Country and Argentina in 2003. It appeared in issue#1 of 325 (paper version), and we present it here because it is still relevant.
From relevant groups within the Anti-globalisation movement, the usage of violent direct action on behalf of diverse collectives, which take part in these actions, has been ruled out, and even condemned. By means of these lines, we mind to supply simple issues as part of a debate, which might help to respect political tendencies combining both pacifist and self-defence strategies. We do not intend to place violent direct action neither ahead of union labour, neighbourhood or faculty work. The previous issue is main, fundamental; this lays the foundations of every struggle ever meant to be for the people's sake. But there are several questions to be studied fearlessly, avoiding the pressure inherent to the ruling classes deceptive speech
Is direct clash against anti-riot police and capitalist symbols positive? Is the usage of violent direct action advisable?
Around Seattle, Prague or Gothenburg events, world leaders seemed rather agitated, something never seen since the disappearance of the USSR: Standstill summits, delegations being moved out and leaders being evacuated through the backdoor....(More)
Rigaer94 - Fighting the Landlord in Berlin
In the 1980's a huge squatting scene spread across West Berlin. Hundreds of buildings were occupied and used as houses, bars, concert spaces, libraries, schools, infoshops, cafes... When the Wall fell in 1989 the scene spread into former East Berlin. Amongst the hundreds of houses that were squatted in Friederichshain (the centre of the squatting scene in East Berlin) was the Rigaer Strasse 94 (R94)...(More)
Technopolis - Welcome to the Machine
“The machine is all around us, omnipresent and omniscient. It’s the camera on the street corner, the chip in your debit card and the number allotted to your child at birth. The machine is without and within.
It’s in the way we have been trained and domesticated since birth to fit into a mechanical world dictated by capital and the tick, tick, tick of its clock.”
– From a Technopolis Flyer.
In a squatted nursery school in Leeds in the North of England, the eviction of the previous tenants the result of a frenzy of gentrification in the city, around 50 people gathered for a weekend in June 2005 to discuss the latest wave of enclosure by capital – new technologies of control. Despite criticisms that the gathering was (merely) an ‘academic conference for anarcho-primitivists’, it was attended by a very diverse range of people – from researchers at the Etc Group, to europunks on their way to the G8 Summit in Gleneagles.......(More)
Into the Maelstrom
Subtitled ‘Prisons Without Bars’, Maelstrom was originally conceived as a two week squat project focusing on the ‘panopticon’ society. It transformed into a six month long experimentation in collective and individual experience of, and experimentation with occupied public/private space, orientating itself in confrontation to attitudes, individuals and institutions that we loosely described as making up the ‘control society’.
The venue was an empty Post Office building close, but not too close, to Leeds City Centre......(More)
To Those Who 'Sleep Outside'
We are some disobedients who participated in the defense of the
autonomous community at Utsubo park. Utsubo was attacked by over
600 administration officials, guardsmen, police officers and riot
squad in order to clear the park for the city’s upcoming ‘Roses
festival’. The eviction Utsubo comes in the context of a wider
attack on the most exploited in the Kansai region, with the aim of
their institutionalization and control. If the city achieves its
aims and determines the eviction to be within a margin of
acceptable loss, the communities that have cropped up on streets
and parks all around Japan will come under even harsher attack.
This is the perspective under which the park was defended
(involving over 150 people from all over the region, country and
included some internationals).....(More)
We Are Much Too Young To Wait
The revolt that exploded with determination and persistence in the French banlieues (with flare-ups in Belgium, Berlin and Athens) is animated by the lively rage of young casseurs, human beings who, like so many around the world, suffer endless condemnation to a daily life that is nothing bu dissatisfaction, misery, humiliation and exploitation. The acts of these wild youths, which the “right-thinking”, priggish bourgeoisie simplistically write off with contempt as violence for its own sake, reveal a much more subtle meaning, laying bare the violence of an economic-social system that imposes increasingly dehumanizing obligations in its own interests and in the interest of the few who benefit from it: a useless and harmful job in exchange for a wage to pay back to the masters for homes, goods or “free” time. ......(More)
Communiqué of Gabriel Pombo da Silva
Dear comrades,
given that the trial of Aachen has passed by far the limits of our patience and that the farce got a spectacular and “circus-like” dimension, I see myself obliged to bring forth a brief summary of what we all lived through till this day... Of course the comrades present here will cover all this in more detail and depth in a Dossier.....(More)
A Lesson To Be Learnt
It is necessary to clarify a few points in order to understand the current situation in Iraq and give a different view to those who claim the withdrawal of all troops from Iraq. In the aftermath of the war that the western Coalition waged on Iraq in 1991 and that caused thousands of dead, a social uprising broke out in the country against famine and the regime of Saddam Hussein. Thousands of Iraqi soldiers deserted but kept the weapons, which they eventually used up against a system that had considered them as cannon-fodder. The uprising soon infected all the exploited and spread in a great number of towns, where self-organised structures, the shoras (committees), were created.......(More)
Kamikaze dreams: Black Bloc in Stirling during the G8 summit 2005
This is a personal account of some events that I was a part of during the morning of Wednesday the 6th of July in 2005 during the G8 summit in Scotland. Because of the intensity of the events described here, numbers and time could be pretty wrong, but I hope that my recollection of the spectacle as a whole will prove useful.
My affinity group arrived for the G8 summit a few days before any events. Our first experience was the whitewash known as the ‘Make Poverty History’ march, a spectacle that really was a complete hijacking of even the most reformist of anti-globalisation protests. This completely pacifying experience was followed by the ‘Carnival/kettle of full enjoyment’ on the Monday, a day of action that many thought would be confrontational, but actually ended up being badly co-ordinated and frustrating......(More)
Czechtek 2005
The vibrancy of the culture and the beauty of the country have had party-heads coming to CzechTek since 1994. The culture and music festival has grown from small beginnings; two years ago at the largest CzechTek so far there were around 30-40,000 participants including dozens of sound systems.
From the first the travelling circus of sound systems and artists connected with local youth after a time of revolution and the re-drawing of physical and mental maps across Europe. Teknivals occur as an extension of the age-old festivals and markets where people meet up for days and even weeks for a host of reasons: from sharing ideas and having fun to making money and thickening plots. At their best, teknivals are a powerful expression of common creative impulses. When a teknival ends and people go their separate ways, ideas and action can spread in many directions.
CzechTek 2004 had been broken up by police on the monday in a heavy-handed way. Would this repression of underground culture be stepped up in 2005?....(More)
Social repression in the anti-terrorist age
Squatting stories from Portugal
C.O.S.A is an occupied social centre in Setubal since October 2001, where, in an anti-authoritarian and self-organised way, people develop alternative activities like workshops, video sessions, debates, non-commercial parties, concerts, vegetarian dinners and more. Last year in the Bela Vista neighbourhood a policeman shot a young man to death. The squatters worked on solidarity actions with the people denoucing police brutality and impunity. For that they had the banners on the roof of the squat with sentences against police repression......(More)