We are forced once again to talk about things which should be obvious, hoping and wanting this to be the last time we do so. We refer to two texts published on Monday night, January 20th, on ‘Inter Arma’, one by Gerasimos Tsakalos and another by people in solidarity with the CCF; both texts insinuated heavy accusations against us. Of course, the fact that we position ourselves on both texts in one open letter does not mean in any way that we blame one person for what was said by the others, or vice versa.

First off, the update about the disciplinary sanctions imposed on the CCF mentioned that, according to the prosecutor, those were based on testimonies of prison staff and the first informative text we released, as we wrote that the CCF ambushed our comrade. After that, first thing we did was to go to the prison prosecutor herself, who was told not to sow discord but, instead, to assume her own responsibilities and better watch what she says, to which she replied that the disciplinary punishment was not based on our text but rather solely on the incident itself, which happened openly out of the 1st wing. Of course, we are not so naive to believe that she never said the disciplinary sanctions were based also on our text, but her unreliability is shown in her very words, which are so contradictory, and her very role, which is so inherently hostile toward anarchists. Therefore, no anarchist should ever chew the sayings of a prosecutor; specifically in an attempt to support such heavy accusations.

Thus, in our initial update, we mentioned the CCF without naming anyone of them in particular (precisely because we needed to ensure that our text could not be used as incriminating element against them), and we did so because the incident took place with their faces uncovered in the presence of prison guards (hence their testimonies and obstruction charge), but also under surveillance cameras that were recording. In short, we exposed a fact that was already more than exposed in the controlled environment of the prison, so should the administration decide to call the CCF to appear before a disciplinary board, they’d easily rely on information they already obtained, and it’d be completely irrelevant to them whether or not we wrote the text.

Judging from the above, and most of all because we thought that the beating after ambush had an enormous political gravity, we decided to mention this fact and particularly the CCF, to not allow it to be buried within the confines of the prison (which of course, whether we spoke out or not, could not eventually happen) but also to attribute to the subjects that were involved their political identity, so that everyone was able to judge.

Besides, when Gerasimos Tsakalos wrote that some of us prepared fake identity cards for him, in order to help him in case he was released from pretrial detention, we never even bothered to express this kind of rationale, nor did we ever preoccupy ourselves with whether or not he lists information usable by the enemy, since he believed that politically or even operationally it was worth referring to the matter. Two of us [Yannis Michailidis and Dimitris Politis] replied to him with a political text showing respect, and not caring if we’ll be convicted five times each for participation in the CCF exactly for the same reason. Now, in response to another phrase of Gerasimos Tsakalos, who claims that in our last common letter we bring up facts and situations that provide information accessible to all sorts of enemies, we have to say that we wrote a political text, which we published on a political medium, and we made reference to ONE AND SINGLE UNEQUIVOCAL AND SELF-EVIDENT FACT, the beating. We do not deny that we described rationales (always based on the same fact, the beating) which expose the organization POLITICALLY. This was one of the objectives of our political criticism, anyway. Rereading our text, one sees that there is not a single point where we expose any other situation or any other fact. We neither, of course, understand how the slanders made in the mass media demonstrate that we gave out information to the enemy. He also accuses us that our latest text contributed to the media propaganda. The fact that the media isolate/distort phrases from our text to support their propaganda—mandated to promote special conditions of detention—is something that infuriates us, too, but it’s also an inevitable consequence of the beating that they themselves committed, which in itself contributes more to the media propaganda. Therefore, when you defy the possibility of smear against anarchist struggle and choose to carry out a political act you call self-redress, triggering a circle of dirt on the part of these vultures, apart from bearing responsibility for the calumny following your act, you should also expect the corresponding criticism as a tool of political expression and, ultimately, its exploitation by the mainstream media that aim to defame and slander us all, as always was and always will be.

Simple examples: the beating alone, on which the mass media commented using words like ‘internal war’ while the Golden Dawn said it was done because of the money from the robberies; or, the text of Gerasimos Tsakalos concerning the hunger strike of anarchist Kostas Sakkas, based on which the fascists were trying to prove the relations of anarchists with the Syriza opposition party, and that the hunger strikes conducted by anarchists are fake.

In reference to the last example, we make a little digression to point out some things that should have been said long time ago, with the aim of finally stopping a goebbelist effort to continuously repeat a lie or even a ‘subjective truth’ in order to construct a false and confused reality. From the first moment of his hunger strike, we stood beside Kostas [Sakkas] as his comrades, and we are capable of confirming what should be obvious; that is, his struggle was real, authentic and honest. We will not bother to explain medical facts in detail, or analyze the strategies (relative to quick or slow deterioration of one’s health condition) that one hunger striker may follow to maximize the pressure towards Power. We only care to mention that, if Kostas would not have been released the day he was released from prison, he would also start a thirst strike, a choice which combined with his already overburdened health condition would substantially leave him only a few more days of life. Therefore, Kostas was determined to die for his freedom and that’s exactly why he won his freedom, achieving at the same time to put a significant obstacle in the way of attempted judicial coups, which would target other comrades in the future.

Returning and putting an end to the main issue here, let’s not forget that this whole terror-frenzy delirium was made in the mass media not because of the beating against Yannis [Naxakis] or one of our texts but, instead, under the pretense of ‘revelations’ (which are neither our concern, nor do we know if they add up or not) in connection with the recent escape of Christodoulos Xiros. Quite simply, Power would not leave such an opportunity—to display ‘internal’ conflicts—untapped.

Nevertheless, we feel we have to focus on what, in our opinion, is the most crucial tipping point, which has to do with the attack organized by the state apparatus against “dangerous” prisoners (anarchists or not).

So, there are acknowledgments that can be made public, without harming the struggle, and there is a latent introversion that can only cause splits, fragmentation and disorientation away from the goal and the struggle itself, something which, as mentioned before, the media vultures and their instructors will naturally rush to take advantage of.

It is indeed a fact that our paths do not cross, our perceptions and our strategy are distant from each other, and our values codes conflict with one another (and these are some of the acknowledgments that can be made public), but this does not mean that the enemy (our common enemy in the present case) will distinguish us and attack us in a different manner. Whatever actions the State will choose to take in the framework of its repressive policy, which is ‘launched’ through the media, these will be implemented both against ourselves and the CCF, or at least that’s how we see it.

We need to stop feeding the media vultures. We can look for excuses and reasons to exacerbate a conflict that mainly helps the state apparatus, or we can put an end to introversion, so that everyone on their own path can set the strategy of conflict in order to preserve our achievements so far and intensify war on the state apparatus.

Babis Tsilianidis
Yannis Michailidis
Dimitris Politis
Tasos Theofilou
Argyris Ntalios
Fivos Harisis
Giorgos Karagiannidis
Grigoris Sarafoudis
Alexandros Mitroussias
Andreas-Dimitris Bourzoukos

source: asirmatista