Sur la bataille pour la reprise de la Place Oscar Grant, Oakland (USA)

Publié sur Bay of Rage

Images et article sur le blocage du port d’Oakland, et des autres perturbations du 2 Novembre – Grève générale d’Oakland

Ce mardi 24 Octobre, la deuxième semaine d’Occupy Oakland eut passé, et le charisme de la marche de Samedi dernier s’estompa alors qu’un raid policier était imminent. Au-delà de la spéculation répandue que la ville et la police planifiaient la destruction de la Place Oscar Grant, il y avait quelques indices laissant croire que ce lundi serait leur moment choisi. Il y a que la ville avait issu des lettres à des commerces sélects autour de la place sous-entendant de l’activité policière au cours de la journée à venir. En plus, la ville semble avoir forcé les pompiers à saisir les réservoirs à propane (nous empêchant donc de cuisiner sur place).

Avant les balles de plastique et les grenades chimiques, la centaine d’arrestations et les nuages de foule enragée paralysant le centre-vile d’Oakland, on se barricadait dans la joie et l’impatience. Ce fut la nuit des vidanges. Les rues déjà désolées entourant la Place Oscar Grant furent rapidement nettoyées de quelconque débris pouvant agir pour repousser la police. Près d’une centaine de barricades,sous verrou près de l’Hôtel de Ville, furent libérées et placées stratégiquement autour du camp. Des infos arrivèrent lentement : plusieurs unités de police, de plusieurs agences jusqu’à Vacaville, se mobilisaient en direction de la Place en moto ou par le BART (métro). Des querelles éclatèrent à l’occupation – certaines appelant à une stratégie unifiée de déjense alors que d’autres continuèrent de barricader, faire des graffitis et faire des projectiles avec le pavé. Éventuellement, autour de 4h du matin, les sirènes entendues au loin se révélèrent celles de plusieurs dizaines d’unités de police en formation, donnant des ordres de dispersion avant d’attaquer notre camp.

Il y avait de l’espoir mais peu de certitudes que les gens de la place et leurs barricaes purent repousser la police, ou seulement défendre le camp. Quand les phares des hélicos de police balayèrent la place, les gens déjà nerveux furent pris de panique. Il ne fallut qu’un momemt pour réaliser que rester sur la place était désespéré. Ceux qui prirent position pour rester cloués à terre furent la cible de projectiles, matraques et arrestations. Ce fut une scène de panique, d’oppression et de défaite. Pour l’instant, la lutte pour la place était perdue et la plupart des occupants se dispersèrent.

Loin des barrages de police, plusieurs cherchèrent à se rassembler, d’autres arrivèrent en répondant aux SMS d’urgence et appels téléphoniques – ils se retrouvèrent tous-tes coin 14ième et Franklin, à une rue à l’est de la place. Pour la police c’était clair que cette foule grandissante ne serait pas réduite à l’état de spectateurs impuissants. Laissant le trottoir pour prendre la rue dans le trafic matinal, la foule remplit l’intersection de slogans haineux à l’égard de la police. L’impatience et la soif de vengeance étaient ahurissantes. Ç’eut grandit à presque 200 personnes lorsque qu’une unité de police à moto intervint pour intimider et disperser la foule. Changeant leurs habits et retournant des bacs de vidange, le group fit cap dans la direction opposée. Cris d’excitation, insultes et un orchestre de vacarme et de chocs envahirent les rues. La police s’était préparé à une attaque sur la place, mais pas à ses conséquences. De 5 à 6 heures du matin les rue à l’est de la place résonnèrent avec familiarité pour certains et comme une émotions inattendue pour d’autres.

Une décision offensive pas la ville et ses alliés a donné l’opportunité à ceux exposés à son autorité de plus en plus insensée. Mardi matin, la ville se mit à activement décourager les gens à travailler dans le centre-ville. Malgré cette recommandation officielle, on pouvait entrevoir les gardes de sécurité, voirie et autre employés de service se déclarer absents au travail de leur propre initiative. Quelqu’un initia une campagne pour destituer la maire Jean Quan. Des Tweets et SMS explosèrent avec l’annonce de se rassembler à la Bibliothèque d’Oakland à 16h. Le Conseil des travailleurs du Comté d’Alameda dénoncèrent comme d’autres syndicats les actions de la police et de la ville.

Ce qui suivrait serait soit un spectacle ou une véritable rébellion. Oakland, une fois de plus, s’ouvrit aux libertés trouvées dans le champ des possibles…

Bibliothèque. Émeute. La suite
Mardi, de 16h à minuit
12 heures plus tard, le plan de contingentement approuvé par l’assemblée générale en cas d’un raid est mis en place. À 16h, près de 1000 personnes s’assemblent à la bibliothèque centrale d’Oakland pour entendre des discours inspirants et des condamnations envers la police. Nul ne pouvait ignorer le sentiment général d’animosité envers ceux responsables de l’expulsion de la veille. Quelque chose de spectaculaire était pour arriver ce soir.

Après les élocutions, les gens ont marché à la prison du centre-ville en support aux arrêtés-es la nuit précédente. Le long de la route, la marche a croisé deux lignes de police séprées, mais à le troisième, alors que la marche était rendue à une rue de la prison, la police a tenté de la repousser. Les policiers ont saisi deux personnes du devant de la marche et les a jetées au sol. Voyant la scène, la foule a immédiatement entouré les flics, hurlant contre eux, essayant de saisir leurs camarades et de les libérer. Les manifestants ont poussé et ont projeté de la peinture. Pendant que la tension continuait à monter, la police a vu qu’elle livrait une bataille perdue d’avance, or ils ont amené les renforts avec du gaz irritant et des flashbangs pour disperser la foule. Au milieu du chaos, ceux arrêtés ont été menottés par les porcs et chargés dans un fourgon. Un des arrêtés a été abusé, et en en prison fut appelé par des insultes racistes et physiquement harcelé. Et après cela, comment est-ce possible de ne pas détester la police ?

À travers toutes les arrestations des résistants Occupy Oakland, nous démontrons la solidarité avec les otages de l’État dans une multitude de manières, émotionellement et physiquement. La marche a regroupé et a procédé en longeant la prison en faisant le bruit pour rendre ceux à l’intérieur -chacun d’entre eux- conscients du fait que la marche était pour eux, dans la pleine solidarité. Un camarade arrêté la nuit précédente a dit, une fois libéré de prison, que c’était une des choses les plus belles et les plus puissantes qu’il ait jamais vu. D’entendre et de voir 1000 personnes faire du bruit en dehors, montrant leur solidarité avec ceux sur l’intérieur. Solidarity means « attack »!
La marche est revenue à la Place Oscar Grant, où le groupe a tenté de reprendre la place. Après 20 minutes de confrontration avec la police, coin 14ième et Broadway, des coups de gaz irritants et des flashbangs ont été employés de nouveau (on a compté environ sept cas de recours à ces moyens par la police afin d’essayer de disperser la foule. La foule n’a pas pour autant détérioré , ni cette fois ni à tout autre moment).
C’était seulement le début…
Ce premier gazage majeur fut également l’incident où un vétéran a été frappé à la tête avec un capsule métallique de gaz irritant et l’a soit assommé ou mis en état de choc nerveux; il reposait au sol face à la police avec ses yeux grand ouverts, figé et ne répondant pas à quoique ce soit. Les gens ont immédiatement couru à lui pour le mettre à l’écart, alors que la police a jeté un autre flashbang directement sur lui et ceux qui sont allé à son aide (et où était la très sainte Croix Rouge?). Ça vaut la peine de le répéter : la police a jeté une grenade flash directement sur quelqu’un qui reposait immobile au sol, dispersant la foule qui essayait de le prendre hors de danger. Le manifestant blessé a été par la suite emmené à l’hôpital avec une fracture du crâne et est actuellement un état critique, sur le point de subir une chirurgie. Beaucoup d’autres ont été blessés. Pas tous ont rapporté leurs blessures pour des raisons évidentes.
À ce point, la marche avait doublé à plus de 2000 personnes. Le groupe a marché sur Snow Park pour s’y regrouper, mais peu de temps passa avant que la foule retourne sur la place Oscar Grant. Dans ce qui devint une norme de la nuit, la marche a confronté la zone maintenant militarisée faisant face à une pluie  de flashbangs et de gaz CS faisant tomber des gens et causant des vomissements. Mais ç’a pas arrêté personne; ça a au contraire seulement galvanisé la foule encore plus et a incité beaucoup à lsortir de chez eux pour se diriger le centre ville et joindre la résistance.

La marche commença à 17h et dura jusqu’à tard dans la nuit avec plus de 6 heures de marches en serpent des confrontations presque constantes avec la police partout dans le centre ville.
Vers la fin de la nuit, les gens ont commencé à craindre d’être coincés par la police, alors certainsse sont chargé d’installer des barricades autour des intersections environnantes. Cela donnerait le temps aux personnes de réair avant d’être pris, la latitude suffisante pour soit contre-attaquer ou battre en retraite. Les barricades comprenaient les propres barricades de la ville qui avaient été installées dans tout le secteur, les bacs à déchets (certains de ces derniers ont été enflammés pour contrer les effets prolongés des gaz CS présents dans tout le centre ville et pour causer plus de problème pour la police si elles osaient intimider ou assaillir la foule).
Alors que la nuit continuait, le groupe s’est lentement dispercé de lui-même, confiant que ce combat n’était pas près d’être terminé.

Reprise de la Place Oscar Grant

Mercredi, de 18h à minuit
La nuit précédente, il était évident pour tous que les gens allaient reprendre la Place Oscar Grant. À cette heure, la police était nulle part autour de la place. La seule chose restant de l’expulsion, une barrière en métal érigée autour du lieu de l’occupation. Mais ça ne dura qu’un bref moment. Avant que l’Assemblée générale ait même démarré, les gens ont spontanément commencé à démolir la barrière. Au début, une certaine « police de la paix », tentant de les forcer à arrêter en vomissant quelque chose au sujet de la non-violence; ce qui fut naturellement vain alors que la clôture était promptement démolie.
L’assemblée générale qui se déroula au cours de cette nuit fut la plus grande à ce jour pour #OccupyOakland, avec plus de 2000 participants-es. Vu la largeur de l’AG, tout a pris plus de temps, mais il y a eu une proposition qui a eu la valeur de toutes les autres. Après des annonces que plusieurs occupations à travers les États-Unis participaient à des marches de solidarité, et que les gens au Caire étaient pour marcher sur la placeTahrir ce vendredi en disant que « le Caire et Oakland sont comme les doigts d’une main » la proposition de déclarer une grève ce Mercredi 2 novembre a été passée avec une majorité écrasante (97%).

À la suite de l’AG, des gens ont annoncé que OccupySF était à son tour menacé d’expulsion. Un appel a été fait pour que des personnes se rendent à San Francisco et concrétisent leur solidarité. Mais ça ne put se produire, car avant que les gens se rendent seulement au BART, la station fut fermée. Frustrés, le petit groupe de support a pris les rues d’Oakland, où le reste de l’AG, encore dans les environs, s’est joint. La marche a immédiatement pris la direction de la prison pour montrer de la solidarité avec ceux encore à l’intérieur. Tout le monde pouvait apercevoir les mains des incarcérés et les lumières clignotantes de leurs cellules, signalant qu’ils recevaient notre message.

Durant les heures qui suivirent, le groupe marcha parmi le centre-ville d’Oakland avec aucune interférence policière. Il y avait des rumeurs que la police se positionnait pas loin, mais ils ne se sont jamais fait plus visibles que par quelques voitures à l’avant ou l’arrière. Probable qu’à lumière de la nuit dernière, ils ont réalisé comment ils ont raté leur coup. Cette nuit-ci, c’est nous qui avons pris le contrôle de la rue. Ça c’est finalement terminé à la Place Oscar Grant, avec plein de gens célébrant et s’assoyant en plein milieu du coin de la 14ième et Broadway (la principale intersection du centre-ville), avec aucune tentative de dispersion de la part des flics.

À seulement une semaine de la grève générale sur laquelle nous nous sommes entendus, il y a beaucoup de travail à faire et beaucoup de contacts à établir ou renforcir. Des gens ont commencé à rebâtir le camp sur la place occupée, alors que d’autres profitent du moment pour se reposer, et se regrouper pour ce qui reste à venir…

Soyez prêts, Oakland, ça va brasser….

Traduit par Anabraxas

UPDATE: Oakland, all downtown banks shut down in face of protests!

(Sur les occupations en cours à travers l’Europe:)

Occupy Oakland: « It definitely went down »

On Tuesday July 19th, hundreds of people took to the streets of San Francisco in order to demonstrate their rage against the recent murders of Charles Hill and Kenneth Harding in the city by BART police and SFPD respectively. We marched behind a banner reading “they can’t shoot us all; fuck the police” as an expression of our intention that police murder will be met with resistance and retaliation every time they rear their ugly heads in our city.

Notes Concerning Recent Actions against the Police

The march began at Dolores Park where nearly 200 of us departed and began moving towards the Castro. The route followed MUNI rail lines, obstructing the functioning of the rail system as it proceeded. Upon reaching the Castro MUNI station, all hell broke loose. While approaching the intersection (home to the underground MUNI station as well as the crossing of several MUNI rail lines) a significant portion of the march had donned masks and hoods. What had now become a mob moved effortlessly past the bewildered cops and descended into the station. Down below on the mezzanine level, trash was set alight and thrown down onto the tracks below, followed by advertisements and signs. The ticket machines, the fare checkpoints and the agent booth were all smashed with hammers and flags – totally ruined. Smokebombs and fireworks were thrown throughout the station, adding to the chaos as the group resurfaced. The march then moved back through the Castro, hurling bricks over the heads of riot police and through the windows of Bank of America before heading into the Mission.

Those at the front of the march, made the spontaneous decision to continue onwards to the Mission police station on Valencia street. As the march approached, the pigs moved into formation to protect their sty. This didn’t stop us from throwing flares, a paint bomb, and a hammer at the façade of the building and at its defenders. The crowd, now swelled to almost 300, stayed in front of the police station for a while, screaming in the faces of the scum that patrols our streets and kills and imprisons the people we love. After making it abundantly clear that we wanted them the fuck out of our neighborhood, we continued through the Mission . At this point, the march dwindled slightly but continued down Mission St. Things escalated again when CBS news began harassing the crowd. People grabbed the big ass camera and smashed it on the ground. Police moved to make an arrest, but were repelled by the stick-wielding crowd.

After leaving the Mission, the crowd took Market St. and began moving through downtown toward Civic Center Station (the site of Charles Hill’s murder) and then onto Powell Station. At this point the number swelled again to more than they had been at any point, as countless onlookers joined the anti-cop demonstration. The crowd was big enough to block both sides of Market (a rare occurrence). The police began issuing dispersal orders from their sound truck tailing the march. Not giving a fuck, however, hundreds of us drowned out their orders screaming “SHUT THE FUCK UP” over and over. As the march turned up Powell (where we had intended to disperse) riot cops were able to surround and kettle about 30 people. As they filled in to enforce their kettle, hundreds of people pushed against them, hurling projectiles and screaming at them to let them go (and die). Skirmishes broke out as a handful of friends were unarrested and several more attempts were made to free those trapped inside police lines.

When it became clear that it would be impossible to free the 30 or so friends caught by the police, the strategy shifted to outright fighting. As the police began moving the vans containing the arrested, our crews and others did everything we could to stop them. The vans were chased and blockades attempted. The police and their vehicles were pelted with rocks, bottles, D-batteries and whatever else could be thrown against them. All-out brawls broke out leading to police injuries and a handful of arrests. Several police motorcycles were knocked over and stomped on. The night ended with a tense standoff against police. At this point, hundreds of people from the surrounding area had flooded the scene, screaming at the police or just looking on in awe. More shit got thrown at them and eventually people left, as we had word that several of the arrested were already being released.

It is the humble opinion of these participants that this last round of events was marked by some of the most wild physical fights with police at a demo in a long time. By the end of the night, all but one of the arrested had been released with misdemeanors (for disobeying orders and/or battery). One person remains in jail, being charged with Felony Assault with a Deadly Weapon and Felony Vandalism. (Updates soon)

RESISTANCE IS SPREADING:

Yesterday’s attacks come in the context of a growing campaign of diffuse attacks against the MUNI system in retaliation for the murder of Kenneth Harding. On Saturday, within moments of his murder, people on scene began attacking the police with bottles and trying to disrupt the T-train. In the subsequent days various crews of people in and around Bayview have spontaneously and diffusely taken up a campaign against the MUNI system: blocking tracks, breaking the windows on trains and busses, attacking agents, fighting with the police. Most of this resistance, of course, has gone unreported by the scum media. At a press-conference held in Bayview on Monday, many family-members of police victims and other angry people gathered to denounce the most recent murders, share stories about how much they fucking hate the pigs, and articulate a strategy of resistance.

The message at the conference and in people’s actions is clear: “We want pigs off the MUNI system and we want the system to be free, or there will not be a system at all.” People vowed to continue their attacks and blockades against the trains and buses operated by MUNI until they are fare-free and cop-free. As austerity takes its toll on poor people in the Bay Area, it is becoming increasingly clear that the only solution is attack, and that these attacks are the clearest way to demonstrate our solidarity.

It is in following the lead of those struggling for freedom in Bayview that we decided to trash the MUNI station in the Castro. This is only one contribution in what is mounting up to be a wave of chaos against a system that values a 2$ fare over our lives.

SYSTEMIC DISRUPTION AND SABOTAGE:

Last week, over 100 of us disrupted the BART system by blockading trains and vandalizing stations. This activity resulted in 3 hours of solid obstruction and delays through the BART system caused by several station closures. This was called for in response to the killing of Charles Hill on the Civic Center platform by BART police. Once again, we disrupted the transit system in an act of vengeance against the slaughter at the hands of the armed enforcers of fares. Last night, in addition to putting the Castro MUNI station out of commission, we blocked tracks, buses, and trains. Police went on to close at least three BART stations for fear of the destruction at the Castro station being brought on other stations throughout the system. Through our actions and the response of the police, we brought the transit system in the heart of the financial capitol of the West Coast to a grinding halt for the second time in as many weeks.

It should be noted that obstructing these systems and destroying their apparatuses takes very little effort. System disruption is a valuable tool, and should be considered for use as a response every time the pigs murder someone in our towns. The economic damage and the disruption to networks of control caused by these actions is deeper and wider than a brick through a window (however lovely the act may be).

WE DON’T CARE ABOUT THE PIG LIES:

Fearing full on rebellion, SFPD and their servants in the media have gone into full spin mode. Each day they make new justifications for their killings. They say Charles Hill had a knife. They say Kenneth Harding shot at them. They talk about Harding’s previous convictions and allude to his connection to the murder of a pregnant woman in Washington State. In each of these cases, it is important for the enemies of the police to not be tricked by these diversions.

The issue has never been the character of Kenneth Harding or what type of weapons the victims of police violence may or may not have been carrying. The issue is that the armed enforcers of Capital and the State have enforced a death sentence on the poor in this city; made themselves the judge, jury and executioner of anyone who cannot afford a fare, is homeless, or breaks their meaningless laws in order to survive. We don’t care if Kenneth Harding had a gun. In fact, we wish he had shot the men who went on to shoot him ten times in the back and throat. Any justification for his murder misses the point that the situation should never have happened in the first place. We shouldn’t have to pay for their trains and the cops shouldn’t exist to enforce fares (or anything at all). To blame Kenneth Harding or Charles Hill or any victim of police violence for the atrocities enacted upon them by the police is to side with the State, always. Kenneth Harding is dead for one reason: because officers shot him ten times in the back and throat and watched as he bled to death on the street.

It is also worth noting that the mythology of black male violence against women is consistently used by the police and other armed white people as a pretense for racist murder, whether at the hands of a lynch mob or by the bullets of a cop’s gun. To counter this narrative, and the entirely false idea that police exist to protect women, a feminist contingent within the march prepared a statement and distributed it, denouncing the police.

IN CONCLUSION:

When the police kill in our cities, we need to respond immediately and to continue and escalate that resistance. This has been the case so far in the response to the recent murders in San Francisco. People throughout the city – victims, family members, angry kids, anarchists, communists, hooligans – didn’t wait for the Left or any Non-Profit groups to begin. We acted without hesitation and constraint, in doing so setting the narrative of the struggle against the police. It is important that we not fall into the traps set out by the State. The struggle cannot be limited to one neighborhood or one “Legitimate” series of concerns or any one part of the population. We need to fight against SFPD throughout the city, against BART Police throughout the Bay, and against policing on a global scale. This weeks events have already demonstrated that angry people are willing to act against the police and the system they enforce in their neighborhoods, and to join the struggles of others and act in solidarity through attack. The struggle that began with the Oscar Grant rebellion is just beginning to emerge from hibernation. People here are just beginning – collectively and diffusely – to resist police terror in our streets. This is just a taste.

In sadness and in rage.

SAN FRANCISCO, CA
JULY 20, 2011

Indonesia: Freedom to the farmer Tukijo and the Yogyakarta three rebels

From Contrainfo

On October 7th, 2011, at 2 am Bank Rakyat Indonesia (BRI) ATM in Sleman, Yogyakarta, was set on fire. The fire caused an explosion in the unit which destroyed the premises. The sabotage was just one more instance of resistance in a country that is destroying trees, mountains and coastlines for profit whilst oppressing its people.

Now three people are arrested. They are all accused of being involved in damaging the bank. We are not interested in finding out if the prisoners are ‘guilty’ or not, nor of the extent of their ‘crime’. We will leave such speculation to the inquisitors and their servants in the Press. We don’t need to know the details of the entire situation to know that as long as the State and the banks get rich from exploitation, there will always be those who will go against their power and refuse to collaborate. It is enough that these people are imprisoned, to wish that not just their prison, but every prison ceases to exist. ‘Crime’ is no food on the table and the bosses taking the lion’s share. ‘Crime’ is clear-cut forests and mining companies that beat and kill who they like with the help of the police. Freedom is fighting back and reclaiming your life from oppression.

What we know is that Indonesia is a regime which is propped up by Western capitalists and militarists. It is a nation which tortures and massacres its opposition, like every State that can get away with it where it can.

Kulon Progo is a farming area near Yogyakarta, and in 2005 PT Jogja Magasa Mining and IndoMines metal industries wanted to take the land for their industry. The farmers there didn’t give their land to the industrial company because they didn’t want nature to be destroyed. Many times the farmers tried to solve this without any riots, but it’s not working. Now they are ready to defend their lives.

It started when the company paid 300 people to destroy the houses of farmers and all the plants there. It made all the farmers get angry and also lots of other people besides them. Human dignity and nature are just colonized by money, and there will never be any help to let the farmers survive. The police just covered up the people who were attacking the farmers because the company paid off the police; a typical story.

Tukijo was a farmer who was arrested (by Kulon Progo police) and imprisoned just because he was vocal in the demonstrations against this situation. The people in Indonesia have made many activities around this matter: demonstrations, articles, movies, graffiti and property damage against the profiteering companies.

The farmers and the people of Kulon Progo, Pandang Raya, West Papua, Bima and elsewhere are appealing for international solidarity and complicity in their struggle, alongside the anarchists and anti-capitalists who are all against the violent terror of the Indonesian bosses, their paid murderers and corporate backers. Don’t let them fight alone!

In accordance with the wishes of the farmers, we demand the land is given back to the farmers and freedom for our friends who are in prison because of this.

The State-corporations-military-police are the terrorists!
Freedom for Tukijo and those accused of attacking the BRI ATM!

On the issue of occupying under a Police State…

Taken from « LIEBIG 14 EVICTED – Some notes on the eviction of a former squatted house from Berlin », also in 325, issue #9

his article comes from the Italian anarchist monthly “Invece” (“Instead of”) of March 2011. Some months after the eviction of the Liebig 14, the house is still empty and the attempts done by the landlord to restructure it have been combated by several acts of sabotage, keeping the house still a wreck.

“When everyday monotony gets shaken…” – that was the title of one of the leaflets which was distributed in Berlin right after the eviction of a former squatted house in the German capital, the Liebig 14, sited in the eastern district of Friedrichshain. And honestly speaking, one cannot really contradict the anonymous authors, since the first week of February offered some images and situations to Berlin’s inhabitants to reflect about. Thanks to their radicalism, they succeeded in breaking for some moments in time, the daily grind of a life based on the pursuit of profit and the respect for the rules dictated by a Capitalism system which renders us more and more indifferent to what happens around us. After all, we are constantly told that what remains important is to not get involved and to defend the pettiness of our miserable daily life. But let’s proceed with order.

Since a few years ago Berlin’s housing situation changed quite a lot. The city began to attract speculators of a different nature because of the low building costs – causing the creation of different temples of Capital : posh houses for those who can afford them, which is not the majority of the population of a city which sees an unemployment rate of 14%. At the same time, the rents – which have been historically low – began to rise together with the growing international prestige of the city, making it almost impossible to find a flat in the inner city, since it became trendy nowadays, inviting a younger, flexible ‘yuppie’ demographic which has fanciful artistic ambitions and is dedicated to the futile inhabitance of some neighborhoods which in the past have been characterised by a mix of second and third generation immigrants, comrades and proletarians. Such a mix gave rise also to some interesting conflicts during the past years. After all, the housing struggle has here a long tradition which knew its last big flame after the fall of the Berlin wall, when hundreds of houses have been squatted in the eastern part of the town. Due to a zero-tolerance policy called the “Berlin line” (eviction within 24 hours), the squatting movement has been divided between those who chose legalization and those who refused it – the last squatted house has been evicted back in 1997 (I am not talking here about apartments squatted “silently”, a phenomena which still persists). Any attempt to occupy gets brought down after a few hours from hundreds of robocops, generating frustration in the ones who, during the years, tried to open up new spaces taking them away from the logic of legality and speculation. A militant defence of the spaces became impracticable especially after the historical eviction of the houses in the Mainzerstrasse back in 1990, where hundreds fought 3000 cops with the sound of molotov cocktails for several days. Therefore, if one excludes a successful occupation in 2005 – which took place following another eviction and which was legalised a few years later – it becomes clear how, because of the difficulty of expropriating new space, the defence of the old ones gained a central and symbolical role within the framework of the city’s struggles.

Their defence inscribed themselves within a larger contest of struggle against speculation and urban development – the so-called “gentrification” – creating interconnections among different subjects in struggle and enlarging the view of many, who, as it often happens, did not want to narrow their view, or limit their prospective to the mere conservation of a miserable status-quo – in this case, the defence of a few self-organised structures, with all the limits of which we all know very well. Within recent times there has been a blossoming of self-organised initiatives, by comrades and also by tenants, which tried to become sand inside urban development’s cogs through different forms and moments of protest, which made it unavoidable for all the others to not take a stand on such developments: indeed, all the city is forced to talk about it. And this happened mostly due to the continuous work of anonymous lovers of direct action, who attacked construction sites of luxury apartments, offices of architects and speculators, symbols of Capital, government structures and inflamed the nights with hundreds of burning cars, either expensive ones or those belonging to different companies which exploit the situation. This has been a phenomenon which put the police and the city on their knees during the last couple of years. That is why the eviction of a simple self-organised house became the fuse which massively exploded the dissatisfaction felt by many. It was simply a catalyst, since the disappearing of a house surely did not trouble the dreams of all those who took the streets during those days.

 

As one can read in the different claims which appeared on the internet, one never forgets to underline how the actions have been undertaken within the larger context of the struggle against State and Capital, “against the theft of our lives, the attack against everything which does not allow us to fully enjoy them”, that is what “some friends of the uncontrolled extension of the fire” will write afterward. On the 10th of January 2011, the Liebig 14 receives an eviction note for the 2nd of February 2011. After years of trials and several procrastinations, it seems as if the landlord (who owns different houses in the neighborhood, like another houseproject, the Rigaer 94, which underwent several evictions during the previous years) managed to get what he wanted. Now the interesting novelty of this eviction has been the choice of not wanting to play on the terrain where the cops are stronger and have no problems – i.e. the one of the classic gathering in front of the house on the eviction’s morning. “To say what the enemy does not expect and to be where he does not wait for us. That is the new poetry” – this has been written a few years ago, and the actuality of such a consideration has been experimented again in Berlin. After all, one cannot really joke with 2500 cops and special forces units called especially for the occasion, as one learned in the past, and the confrontation on such a level can only be lost by us (or at least within the local context here). Therefore one opted for decentralised actions on the full city terrain, following the motto “every eviction will have its price”. And the price of this eviction has been over a million of euros, only for what concerns the property damages created by the enrages, as reported by an informal note of the police chief. A twitter-ticker was set up in order to coordinate the different actions, where one was able to send action reports in real time and to see where it “burns” and help is needed. Also this instrument proved to be quite important for coordinating movements of different nature. On the 29th of January one gets a first taste. A demonstration of over 4000 comrades moves from Kreuzberg towards Friedrichshain. Some scuffles accompany the march, which ends up spontaneously in front of the Liebig 14, where for half an hour the cops are taken by surprise and attacked on two fronts with cobblestones while barricades are erected. An interesting episode is the use of laser devices in order to confuse the police. The police appeared extremely unhappy by this move. On the day of the eviction, the classic prowling helicopter won’t fly over before night comes, exactly because of a possible use of laser against the pilot, say the police on some newspapers. During the days preceding the eviction there are several attacks undertaken against symbols of Capital. Among others, the bailiff’s office was attacked with stones and paint.

But the real showdown will come on the 2nd of February. The tactic of decentralizing works well. From the morning there are dozens of claimed actions. One of the positive things which strikes out is the variety of the targets chosen. One begins from those who make theirs the logic of the blockade and chose to hit the transport infrastructure – through the sabotage of several traffic lights in knotpoints of the city, the classical barricades in flames on high-traffic streets to the nowadays “normal” sabotage of railway lines (a tactical method which is well spread, for example, in order to block the transport of the Neo-Nazis whenever they have their demonstrations or against the nuclear-waste trains) by the arson of cables and signals. Also savage mobs which attack in large numbers banks or luxury apartments during the day, and also attack government building or those of political parties, or to even to destroy the tickets machines of the underground, supermarket outlets and much more, all in different parts of town. This is finished by those who will concentrate in Friedrichshain blocking the traffic and attacking the police and posh cars, giving life to spontaneous demonstrations of several hundred people. Different squatting actions will also contribute to keep the police busy on different fronts. Meanwhile the police will spend several hours before managing to evict Liebig 14, since the barricades are quite strong and some surprises will make the operation quite difficult for them. In the end, they will be forced to destroy some walls to gain access to the different floors. The actions will keep up during all afternoon with a demonstration in the district of Neukölln, attended by 800 people taking the streets of a district which struggles between the conservation of its popular character and the growing urban development.

At night, several thousands people meet up in Friedrichshain to smash the plan of the police: the latter, present in huge numbers, also with water cannons, will try to stop the demonstrators shortly after the march began. But the people are enraged and they take a different path from the official one, creating a shortcircuit among the cops. The police are attacked with stones and bottles, and also with fire extinguishers, some banks are demolished and the police attempt to bring the demonstration to a halt before it takes the streets of Kreuzberg will reveal itself as an own goal: hundreds of people will keep on moving, taking again an unexpected route and attacking some targets which until that very moment were known as “untouchable”, such as the O2-arena, a gigantic commercial concert room built two years ago and a symbol of urban development in the neighborhood, and also a police station is attacked, an important shopping mall and a couple of others. In a different part of the district, groups undertake their direct actions and are not intimidated by columns of dozens of riot vans who do not know where to head to, since chaos reigns all around. So much that meanwhile another group will decide to attack another police station in the district of Treptow and another one attacks a consumer street which is a temple of shopping in the neighborhood of Steglitz, in the south part of Berlin, just to contribute a bit more to the ongoing decentralization.

The actions endure through the following days and nights : even two days after, while a few hundred people gather again in Friedrichshain for a non-authorised rally – some fifty unpredictable individuals will go to one of Berlin’s main shopping streets to destroy some thirty luxury shops within a few minutes, leaving the police with open mouth and without any arrests in their pockets. People remain in movement. At the same time, dozens of German towns respond to the call (but also on an international level): from big cities like Hamburg to small unknown villages, everywhere there will be some people in solidarity who will take to the streets releasing their discontent and attacking police and symbols of Capital, no matter if with 20 or 500 people. In Hamburg, where the historical occupied self-organised building “Rote Flora” is at risk of an eviction again, during three days two spontaneous demonstrations consisting of several hundred take back the streets, succeeding in ravaging the posh city center, which remained “untouched” in almost twenty years and showing how if you want, you can. And this seems to be one of the legacies of these days. Showing how, if one trusts his/her own creativity, refuses to be fixed on dusty traditional plans, and remains in movement, decided and determined, even a well organised army such the thousands of German robocops can be taken by surprise, so that we – and only we – can decide how and where to give life to moments of subversive force. Now all this it is not a novelty, neither on a theoretical nor on a practical level, since it has been shown more than once during the history of uprisings, revolts, insurrections and scuffles undertaken by discontent people everywhere. But sometimes one needs to learn again to remember which ones might be our possibilities. In Germany as elsewhere.

– One of the many

For a full list of actions around the eviction and more check the website directactionde.ucrony.net

About the case of Silvia, Billy & Costa

Call for a for heightened campaign against genetic manipulation and the new technologies of control

Taken from 325 #9 (an awesome read!)

On Friday, July 22, anarchists Costas Ragusa, Luca ‘Billy’ Bernasconi, and Silvia Guerini were sentenced at the Federal Criminal Court in Bellinzona, Switzerland, on charges of “conspiracy to commit arson” and “illegal trafficking of explosives” stemming from a thwarted attack on an IBM nanotechnology lab in Rüschlikon, near Zürich.

Ragusa, 34 and a founder of the Italian anarchist group ‘Il Silvestre’, which produces the anti-civilisation magazine ‘Terra Selvaggia’, was sentenced to three years and eight months in prison. He was accused of masterminding the lab attack. Bernasconi, 26 and a resident of Italy, was sentenced to three years and six months in prison, plus 22 days from a prior sentence.

Guerini, 29, was sentenced to three years and four months in prison.

Each of the three sentences will be reduced by one year and three months, which is the amount of time our comrades have spent in pretrial detention. After a trial which was characterised by police-militarisation and repression, the struggle against power in all its forms is not diminished, only strengthened.

A year ago, the beginning of the enormous catastrophe BP-Deep Water-Horizon [in the gulf of Mexico] confirms the principle of techno-industrial society that its technological remedy to the technological disaster will always be worse than the disease that it claims to cure, adding instead to one destruction another greater destruction. In this case, the chemical agent of secret nanotech composition with unknown consequences experimentally sprayed in huge quantities in the marine environment. A secret chemical composition released at high pressure along with sand and water deep underground, thanks to new technologies, gas drilling or oil shale extraction, which is to say, not more of the natural gas in large bubble on the way to depletion, but more of the gas content in a myriad of bubbles contained in the clay-like shale layers. With easily-imagined disastrous consequences such as earthquakes and further chemical pollution in surface water and groundwater. Emblematic is the proliferation of corporate advertising in the media for gas as a green energy that with Fukushima have replaced those for nuclear energy as clean energy…

And images of northern Japan have entered our homes and our cells with all of the impressive force of an unimaginable event.

The indomitability of the natural element lays bare in its entirety the anthropocentric presumption of technological-scientific progress and, along with the lives of thousands of people, swept away in one

afternoon all of the certainties of urban society.

Everywhere around us, science, business and governments have shaped the existent, placing us all in suspension on an artificial self-regulating scaffold that is anything but solid: namely, industrial-technological society.

Over thousands of years of civilization, it is now condensing into its most total and global expression which is multinational capitalism, to whose harmful effects and illusions we are all forced to entrust our lives. With the stupid arrogance that throughout history has marked every dominant power, it cannot afford any questioning of itself and the present into which we are forced. Open to alterations, albeit always false solutions, only if they can reinforce its legitimacy, but that can not continue to reproduce in a continuous spiral whose circles are increasingly asphyxiating shrinking around us. Where the internal bio- and nano-technologies of this spiral that is detrimental to the system itself, are not simple and additional technological developments among many, but are the key technologies with which the whole edifice on which we are deported far away from our natural world is restoring and, inside of the techno-industrial spiral, representing the ring of the chain that goes to close the steel circle of dominion over our life and everything that exists.

Where the profitability-concern of the owners and of the multinational corporations is not so much that the masses mustbecome dominated by material progress, but about the “limits” of this world. Then comes the need to obtain new materials, new materials and substances with new properties, new forms of energy production, new and ‘improved’ plant and animal species, new food applications, industrial and medical applications obtained by the manipulation of life and of matter. Innovations that, as with all the key innovations of civilization, are born out of military needs for imperialist war to the outside and inside the  of conquest, control and exploitation.

War, now more than ever, transcends the military field and has expanded its front, in fact, to every expression of the living and the material from the macro to the nano and even beyond the planet itself.

Thus every productive sector is invested in these technologies, but no longer content with the narrowness of the research labs is transforming–even after it transformed along with space into one deadly and sickening landfill–the entire planet into a laboratory, a new living world–or rather a dying, engineered one.

Not–as the great “greenwashing” campaigns of media terrorism and State want us to believe–to solve social and environ- mental disasters arising from the system, but always and ever to reproduce this system of domination and exploitation with the end of completing once and for all the techno-industrial complex enclosure.

Through this initiative we want to convey a specific revolutionary anarchist environmentalist sentiment, which leads us to confront with interventionist priority biotechnology, nanotechnology and nuclear research as harmful pillars on which the system goes on recomposing itself.

Also and above all, that is why we take this opportunity to call for a renewed fight against genetic engineering and in particular to its continued diffusion, as articulated by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) in Parma as a required step in stopping the spread of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) in Europe, which are supported by multinational chemical and agro-food corporations, for the purpose of introducing GM crops.

This too is part–a critical part–of the attempt to extend total and absolute control and domination in all biological processes (such as the social and economic through nanotechnology information technology), reducing the living being to a mere aggregate of genes to shape to the convenience of production.

Struggle that does not pass by delegating to always-complicit experts or politicians, but by organizing initiatives and acting widely to stop this necrology. …

Silvia Guerini

Bezirksgefängnis Zürich

Postfach 1266, CH-8026 Zürich

Switzerland

Luca Bernasconi

Regionalgefängnis Thun

Allmendstr. 34

3600 Thun, Switzerland

Costantino Ragusa

PF 3143

8105 Regensdorf

Switzerland

More info – many languages:

http://www.silviabillycostaliberi.tk

From Switzerland, a contribution to the

hunger strike of May 1-28, 2011.

« Pourquoi j’ai refusé de me soumettre au prélèvement ADN »

La semaine dernière, Georgios, un anarchiste grec de 31 ans vivant en France, est condamné par le tribunal correctionnel de Montpellier à un mois de prison avec sursis (non portée au casier judiciaire) pour refus de prélèvement ADN. En octobre 2010, il avait été interpellé lors des manifestations contre la réforme des retraites mais a obtenu un non-lieu pour les dégradations dont il était accusé. Comme il avait été arrêté avec un petit couteau dans sa poche, la police lui avait également demandé son ADN, ce qu’il a refusé.

Une semaine après sa condamnation, Georgios explique pourquoi il n’a pas souhaité obtempérer et fournir son ADN aux policiers qui l’ont arrêté…

1. J’ai refusé de donner mon ADN parce que je considère que c’est une atteinte à ma vie privée. La seule idée de donner une partie de mon corps aux services judiciaires et policiers m’effraie encore.

2. J’ai refusé de donner mon ADN car je m’oppose à la conception du monde selon laquelle ce qui est inné prédomine sur ce qui est acquis. Un seul exemple : en mars 2007, l’actuel président de la République avait déclaré :

« Il y a 1200 ou 1300 jeunes qui se suicident en France chaque année, ce n’est pas parce que leurs parents s’en sont mal occupés. Mais parce que génétiquement ils avaient une fragilité, une douleur préalable. »

Le fichage ADN ouvre la porte à une politique sécuritaire basé sur le caractère génétique : connaître l’ADN de l’ensemble de la population permettrait d’identifier les futurs suicidés ou les futurs criminels. Dans ce sens, le fichage généralisé de la population est un outil pour ceux et celles qui sont au pouvoir et qui se sentent libres de déterminer qui correspond aux normes et qui est déviant-e. Je n’accepte pas que notre identité soit réduite à ces informations génétiques, que ce bout de tissu biologique prédomine sur mon histoire, mon éducation, le contexte affectif, social et économique dans lequel j’ai grandi et dans lequel je vis.

3. J’ai refusé de donner mon ADN car je résiste au fichage de la population. Depuis des années l’État multiplie les fichiers qui comptent actuellement des millions des personnes ou plutôt des millions de codes : à titre d’exemple (et selon la CNIL) je mentionne :
– le fichier FNAEG (Fichier national automatisé des empreintes génétiques, 1,3 millions de fiches début 2010)
– le fichier STIC (Système de Traitement des Infractions Constatées, 5 millions de « suspects » et 28 millions de victimes répertoriées)
– le fichier Base élèves
Parmi les promoteurs du fichage, nombreux sont qui ne cachent pas leur projet : le député UDF Jean-Christophe Lagarde, a souhaité que « le gouvernement réfléchisse à un fichier qui concerne l’ensemble de la population ». Sous prétexte de lutte contre l’insécurité et au nom d’un intérêt général qui n’existe pas, les gouvernement successifs ont multiplié les fichiers. Le fichage de la population entre dans le cadre de politiques de contrôle social, de surveillance continue et de répression. Depuis quinze ans, plus de 50 textes de lois ont affaire avec la sécurité. Mais peut-on croire que des mesures répressives et de fichage vont résoudre les problèmes sociaux ? Même si les mesures de contrôle se multiplient (vidéosurveillance, bornes biométriques dans les écoles, prélèvements ADN), elles ne sont pas parvenues à donner un sentiment de sécurité à la population.

4. J’ai refusé de donner mon ADN car je n’accepte pas le fichage de militant-e-s sociaux-les et politiques. Depuis la Loi sur la sécurité intérieure de 2003, le fichage ADN concerne la quasi totalité de des crimes et des délits (sauf crime financier…). Il n’est pas un hasard, selon moi, que le fichage ADN vise également les militant-e-s politiques et sociaux-les. Dans une société de plus en plus inégalitaire, où les riches deviennent plus riches et les pauvres se voient même criminalisé-e-s, dans une société où prédomine le dogme du « chacun pour soi », le fichage ADN est un outil de pression contre les personnes qui s’opposent aux injustices sociales.

5. J’ai refusé de donner mon ADN car je proteste contre les énormes intérêts financiers des industriels qui se cachent derrière ces politiques de la peur. Le marché de la “sécurité” représente plusieurs milliards d’euros, très souvent payés par les impôts de la population. Le cas du fichage ADN illustre bien la façon dont collaborent les patron-ne-s et les actionnaires des grandes entreprises investissant de l’argent pour notre « sécurité » et les défenseurs politiques du dogme « ordre et sécurité ». Je lutte contre ces politiques sécuritaires qui veulent faire de notre société un champ de surveillance, d’isolement des individus, de punition. Avec mes compagnes et compagnons, nous luttons pour que la peur soit remplacée par la solidarité, la soumission par la résistance, la résignation par l’auto-organisation.

6. J’ai refusé de donner mon ADN car c’est juridiquement absurde. En donnant aux enquêteurs le pouvoir de faire des prélèvements d’ADN et de les conserver, même sans condamnation ultérieure, le principe de présomption d’innocence est bafoué, remplacé par une présomption de culpabilité.

Courrier des lecteurs – Les Inrocks, 30 septembre 2011.

L’empreinte génétique renseigne aussi sur l’appartenance ethnique

Source: Juralib