Posts Tagged ‘Red Army Faction (RAF)’
A statement in support of the US prison mobilization by CCF-FAI/FRI Urban Guerrilla Cell (Greece)
Sunday, October 30th, 2016
Soledad Brothers (from left to right): John Clutchette, George L. Jackson (September 23, 1941 — August 21, 1971) and Fleeta Drumgo
“Gentlemen, the Dragon Will Fly Out”
In Support of September 9th Mobilization in US Prisons
“Gentlemen, the dragon will fly out” is a saying attributed to prisoner George Jackson. On August 21st 1971, holding a pistol, he opened all the cells in an adjustment unit, taking jailers hostage. George Jackson was killed in his attempt to escape…
Since September 9th, prisoners in the United States have called for action against slavery.
A multitude of “invisible” slaves (there are about 2.5 million prisoners in the United States) are condemned to forced labor, or as jailers of their own selves (internal work in prisons, cleaning, repairs, technical operations), or as cheap meat in the service of corporate behemoths (Honda, McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Victoria’s Secret, Starbucks, and many others). Besides, the 13th amendment to the US constitution clearly states: “neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, EXCEPT as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted…” To put it simply, detainees are considered slaves as part of their punishment.
Prisons in America—and not just there–aren’t only bars, walls, surveillance cameras or lockdowns. They’re also an enormous lucrative business. Prisons are a dirty dealing for continuously supplied shackled labor force without name and without voice. They represent a modern slave trade, making billion-dollar profit, that not only supplies the companies-caretakers but also the industry of lawyers, judges, cops, corrections officers, private prisons. (more…)
Tags: Attica (Prison Uprising), Conspiracy of Cells of Fire, Fleeta Drumgo, George Jackson, Greece, Informal Anarchist Federation (FAI), International Revolutionary Front, International Solidarity, John Clutchette, Korydallos Prison, Letter, Michael Kimble, Prima Linea, Prison Industrial Complex, Prison Labour, Prison Labour Strike, Racism, Red Army Faction (RAF), USA, Weather Underground
Posted in Prison Struggle
An Interview with Ulrike Meinhof’s Sister Wienke (Germany)
Thursday, May 12th, 2016
EN: Interview with Ulrike Meinhof’s sister Wienke
FR: Un entretien avec Wienke, la soeur d’Ulrike Meinhof
IT: Incontro con Wienke, sorella di Ulrike Meinhof
Tags: Germany, Red Army Faction (RAF), Ulrike Meinhof
Posted in Interviews
Interview with Helmut Pohl and Rolf Clemens Wagner of the Red Army Faction (Germany)
Tuesday, September 16th, 2014
The interview was conducted by Rüdiger Göbel, Peter Rau, Wera Tichter, and Gerd Schumann of jungle Welt, left newspaper in Germany, 2007. Long live the combative memory of Helmut Pohl and Rolf Clemens Wagner of the RAF. Never forget, never forgive.
junge Welt: The media has squeezed everything possible out of the 2007 anniversary of the “German Autumn.” The events of 1977 came to a bitter end. The way it is being depicted on TV, on the radio, and in the print media constitutes a sort of hysterical coming to terms with the Red Army Faction (RAF): The Stammheim Night (Spiegel), a series; The Terror Years (Die Zeit), a special issue; The Bourgeois Children’s War, a primetime ARD documentary. How do you feel about the way in which the RAF’s history is being handled, given that this history is an important, if not the essential, component of your personal biographies?
Helmut Pohl: It’s unpleasant. To be smashed over the head with this sort of campaign of defamation, caricature, and debasement is somewhat infuriating. It has concrete consequences for Christian[2], as well. Beyond that, it seems to me that the principal component of the campaign, the two-part Aust[3] documentary on ARD, bombed. It’s already been done to death. People don’t want to hear about it anymore.
jW: You’re talking about the fuss surrounding Christian Klar during the first three months of 2007. In the case of a prisoner who has been behind bars for 24 years, relaxed conditions with the possibility of a pardon and release seems appropriate. His admittedly partisan, but essentially analytical contribution to the junge Welt Rosa Luxemburg Conference in January,[4] which in no way encouraged violence, unleashed an anti-RAF and anti-Klar onslaught from politicians and the bourgeois media. What this made clear was that a prisoner’s right to express himself does not apply to Klar. In fact, it was turned into an exceptional case for the German justice system.
Rolf Clemens Wagner: In fact, this year, we’re experiencing two approaches to dealing with the RAF. One concerns Christian. Suddenly, the question of remorse for the victims of the RAF is central. A discussion about helping to “clarify” the actions has begun. Why now? I was pardoned a few years ago, and no one asked this of me. I did not have to show any remorse. There was no discussion of me having to help “clarify” the actions. (more…)
Tags: Germany, Helmut Pohl, Red Army Faction (RAF), Rolf Clemens Wagner
Posted in Interviews
Rolf Clemens Wagner, a Life of Resistance (Germany)
Monday, September 15th, 2014
Former Red Army Faction member Rolf Clemens Wagner died on February 11, 2014.
Wagner had first become involved in underground armed politics in the aftermath of the RAF’s 1972 May Offensive in West Germany. Dozens of guerillas had been captured, and were being held in strict solitary confinement (in some cases, entire prison wings were emptied to isolate the political prisoners) and subjected to various forms of abuse. In the years following 1972, opposing the torture of solitary confinement would become a priority for a section of the revolutionary left, and when RAF prisoner Holger Meins died in a hunger strike in 1974, freeing prisoners by any means necessary was clearly on the agenda. As Wagner would later explain,
“In the period before 1977, freeing the comrades who were at risk was an absolute priority. They were being held in dead wings, and the first murders had already occurred: Holger Meins, Siegfried Hausner, and Ulrike Meinhof. The situation was extremely urgent. It was clear to us that freeing the prisoners was our most important and pressing objective. On the one hand, they faced a threat to their very existence, and on the other hand, we wanted them out.”
This is the context in which Wagner first went underground, joining a small group that had been established by Klaus Dorff, Waltraud Liewald, and Peter-Jürgen Boock, with plans to break RAF founder Andreas Baader out of prison. (more…)
Tags: Germany, Red Army Faction (RAF), Rolf Clemens Wagner
Posted in Uncategorized
Helmut Pohl, comrade of the Red Army Faction passes away (Germany)
Thursday, August 21st, 2014
International solidarity is our weapon
I can still see myself sitting there with Gudrun and Andreas, in front of us a long report on Vietcong attacks in the US military’s hinterland in South Vietnam.
Guerrilla units had attacked US military headquarters right in enemy territory. One single attack already conveyed the entire strategy. Attacks in the hinterland of imperialism by small armed guerrilla units. In international terms the hinterland was here, in the metropoles.
Years earlier, the chairman of North Vietnam’s communist party, Le Duan, in a
global-strategic speech, had spoken of the vision of armed struggles in the
capitalist centers. Now we were on our way.
What a certainty we had.
And what a smile on our faces.
– Helmut on the beginnings of the RAF
We mourn for Helmut Pohl
His comrades and friends
–
Helmut Pohl
14 Sept 1943 – 12 Aug 2014
Long live the new internationalist struggle and the next generation urban guerrilla. Let 1000 flowers bloom. 1000 armed urban guerrilla groups. Each combative memory and dignified life burns as a star in the night sky. Never forget, never forgive… Respect.
“Μπορώ ακόμα να αναπολώ τον εαυτό μου να κάθεται εκεί με την Γκούντρουν και τον Αντρέα, μπροστά μας υπήρχε μια μεγάλη αναφορά επιθέσεων των Βιετκονγκ στον στρατό των Η.Π.Α. στην ενδοχώρα του Νότιου Βιετνάμ. Tα αντάρτικα κομάντο είχαν επιτεθεί στο στρατιωτικό αρχηγείο των Η.Π.Α. σε εχθρική περιοχή. Σε μια μονάχα επίθεση αντιπροσωπευόταν ολόκληρη η στρατηγική. Επιθέσεις στην ενδοχώρα του ιμπεριαλισμού από μικρές ένοπλες αντάρτικες μονάδες. Με μια διεθνή οπτική η ενδοχώρα εδώ ήταν οι μητροπόλεις. Χρόνια πριν από αυτό ο πρόεδρος του CP του Βορείου Βιετνάμ, Λε Ντουάν, είχε μιλήσει για το όραμα του ένοπλου αγώνα στα καπιταλιστικά κέντρα σε έναν λόγο παγκόσμιας στρατηγικής. Τώρα ξεκινήσαμε.
Τι σιγουριά είχαμε. Και τι χαμόγελο.”
Ο Χέλμουτ για το ξεκίνημα της RAF.
Θρηνούμε για τον θάνατο του Χέλμουτ Πολ
Οι σύντροφοι/ισσες και φίλοι/ες του
Tags: Germany, Helmut Pohl, Red Army Faction (RAF)
Posted in Uncategorized
"Antagonistic violence: Approaches to the armed struggle in urban environments from an anarchist perspective" by Gustavo Rodriguez (Mexico)
Saturday, December 1st, 2012
Newly translated text from comrade Gustavo Rodriguez, which was an introductory text for a debate in Mexico about antagonistic violence, that happened in October 2011.
From Flying Theory.
Tags: 1st of May Group, 2nd June Movement, Abraham Guillén, Angry Brigade, Antagonistic violence, Azione Rivoluzionaria, Carlos Marighella, Centre of Anarchist Information (CEDIA), Flying Theory, Gustavo Rodriguez, Iberian Anarchist Federation (FAI), Insurrection, International Revolutionary Solidarity Movement (MSRI), Internationalist Groups of Revolutionary Action (GARI), Mexico, Mexico City, Movimiento Iberico de Liberacion (MIL), Red Army Faction (RAF), Red Brigades, Repression, Revolutionary Cells (RZ), Weather Underground
Posted in Library
Christa Eckes – Honour Her Memory! (Germany)
Saturday, June 23rd, 2012
From Sketchy Thoughts:
The first time Christa Eckes made the news was back in 1970, when as a teenager growing up in the West German city of Hamburg she was expelled from high school for starting a political action group. The “Basisgruppe LS-Schülerinnen” (LS Students Grassroots Group) was said to have distributed leaflets, organized resistance to the school board, the school administration and the parents’ advisory board, organized a questionnaire about sexual problems without informing the school administration and also to have disrupted a Christmas party.
Her mother hired Kurt Groenewold, a renowned left-wing lawyer, to oblige the school to readmit her daughter – an effort which proved successful. The decision to hire Groenewold was perhaps a fateful one; within a few years he would be known throughout West Germany as one of the attorneys for prisoners from the Red Army Faction, an anti-imperialist guerilla organization. By this time Eckes would be working as his legal assistant, and as such would be part of the defense team for Margrit Schiller, a prisoner from the RAF held in Hamburg. (more…)
Tags: Christa Eckes, Germany, Red Army Faction (RAF)
Posted in Uncategorized
Solidarity with Sonja and Christian of the Revolutionary Cells (Germany)
Tuesday, January 3rd, 2012
Solidarity with Sonja and Christian!
After 33 years in French exile, Sonja Suder, 79, and Christian Gauger, 70, were extradited to Germany on September 14, 2011. Christian was transported across the border in an ambulance! Sonja was jailed in Frankfurt-Preungesheim; Christian in a prison hospital. Christian, who suffered cardiac arrest in October of 1997 and has since been under constant medical and personal care, wasn’t released from detention until one month after his extradition; he now is forced to report to the cops twice per week. Sonja, who continues to be detained in Preungesheim, is likely the oldest woman in Europe awaiting trial in jail. Prosecutors brought charges in November and are planning to bring the cases to trial in 2012.
A Long Tradition of Resistance
As part of the political left, the Revolutionaere Zellen (Revolutionary Cells, RZ) started tackling the revolutionary perspective in the BRD in 1973, striving to identify novel formats of militancy and starting points for resistance. It formed a third urban guerilla group, next to RAF and Bewegung 2. Juni (2nd June Movement); however, RZ opted against a vanguard position, choosing to act from within the legal left movement instead. In the mid-1970s, RZ spawned a feminist organization, Rote Zora. RZ and Rote Zora ceased action in the early 1990s. (more…)
Tags: 2nd June Movement, Christian Gauger, France, Germany, Red Army Faction (RAF), Repression, Revolutionary Cells (RZ), Rote Zora, Sonja Suder
Posted in Prison Struggle