Submitted by anarchist black cross -gent:

Short history of the struggle against the FIES

by the Anarchist Black Cross – Gent

Short history of the prison struggle in Spain

At the end of the sixties and the beginning of the seventies there was a revival of social and revolutionary struggles in the whole of Europe, also in Spain. Strikes, occupations of factories and the formation of independent workers’ councils (“asambleas”) rose together with the renewed armed struggle, like the one of the MIL and the Autonomous Groups. The transition of the fascist dictatorship to a “democratic state” in the middle of the seventies made no difference at least on this point: the repression was severe, and the prisons were overpopulated. The struggle for the liberation of political prisoners altered quickly toward a struggle for the liberation of all prisoners and the abolition of the prison system.

In January 1977, with the ‘Manifesto of the prisoners of Carabanchel’, the regular prisoners interfered in the struggle. A rebellion in prisons all over the country broke out, with 35 mutinies and an amount of protest actions. The prisoners organised the struggle in general meetings in the prisons and in February 1977 the COPEL (coordination of prisoners in struggle) is a fact. After a hundred young people were beaten severely in a correctional institution and 3 detainees were stabbed, a bloody uprising started; 26 prisoners cut their stomach open the moment the police arrived, others swallowed several objects, one prisoner who was transported to the hospital, managed to escape. In the hallways of the prison, a wounded prisoner writes the word COPEL on the walls… The day after 98 detainees are transferred to several prisons and 40 mutilators disappear in a penitentiary cell. From that moment till 1979, uprisings, hunger strikes, working strikes,… follow each other all over the country without an end. The demands of the COPEL contain an amelioration of the prison conditions, amnesty for all ‘social prisoners’, and the end of all laws and structures inherited from the Franco era.

The answer of the state was, like always, double; on the one hand negotiations, on the other hand brutal repression. The COPEL was infiltrated and the most active members were eliminated. Many of them were locked up in the new build special prison of Herrera de la Mancha. Herrera de la Mancha is the first of a series of prisons specially constructed to observe, divide and isolate the prisoners, where physical and psychological terror is practised systematically, and where we already find characteristics of a prison in a prison, or what will be the FIES later on. In these prisons, in the words of the general director of the prisons Carlos Garcia Vald(r)s, the ‘unadjusted’ are locked up, or those considered as the “most dangerous” detainees. The management of these prisons was also assured by the Guardia Civil, not by regular guards. Once arrived in Herrera de la Mancha, the prisoner is put in observation first degree (total isolation). If he hasn’t made any infringement, he goes over to second degree, where the differences in treatment are minimal (a little bit longer ‘airing’, with a couple other prisoners). When the prisoner went through all the different degrees without infringements, he gets transferred to another prison.
In spite of the very repressive conditionss, uprisings also break out in these prisons. For example in Meco (Madrid), in the beginning of the eighties, where the prisoners set up the APRE (Asociacion de Presos en Regimen Especial, Association of Prisoners in Special Regime). The struggle is ruthless, the prisoners refuse every form of dialogue, and a radical minority wants only one thing: to kill the guards and policemen, grab the arms and fight till death. The repression that follows, and the fact that in the eighties the revolutionary (c)lan ebbed away, made that there was almost no struggle in prisons for nearly a decade.

In the beginning of the nineties there is a little revival of the collective prison struggle. On the 27th of June 1989 there is a mutiny in Puerto de Santa Maria; the insurgents are transferred to Herrera de la Mancha and put into isolation. In the same year the political prisoners of the GRAPO also start a hunger strike that will last 435 days and will bring a lot of commotion. On the 14th of February 1990 the prisoners take the guards as hostages in Alcala-Meco. They demand the release of Juan Redondo Fernandez and of the prisoners of Herrera de la Mancha. In March, uprisings follow in Daroca, Nanclares de la Oca, Caceres II, Alcala-Meco and Fontcalent. In October of that year the APRE(r) (APRE reconstituida) is established. On the 18th of March 1991 there is again a new revolt in Herrera de la Mancha, as a support of APRE(r), followed by another one on the 11th of July 1991.

As a reaction to these revolts the state installs the FIES. The most active members of the APRE are locked up under the FIES regime; and a lot of those who now have started the fight again, are already in their 10th, 15th or 20th year in the darkest dungeons of the Spanish prison system.

F.I.E.S.

The FIES was introduced through a simple circular under the management of the General Director of the prisons Antonio Asuncion, now leader of the Socialist Party of Alicante. Although the Constitutional Court temporarily put an end to the FIES regime in 1994, after a complaint of 2 prisoners, it still exists until this day. The new penitentiary regulations, under article 93, provides a regime that consists of:

-ISOLATION: airing in an individual cage during max. 3 hours with max. one other person.

-UNLIMITED IN TIME: normally the statute gets revised every 3 months, but in reality it gets prolonged every time so that the isolation can last years, even decades.

-LIVING CONDITIONS: totally handed over to the whims of the penitentiary centre. They can introduce censorship and limit correspondences, refuse visits, only airing in a cage, complete search with arbitrarily use of X-rays, continuous physical and psychological torture,…

F.I.E.S. en lucha

Struggle against the FIES has always been there, by individuals or small groups, but just recently a number of FIES detainees have realised the necessity of coordination, and through letters to other prisoners and support groups they started to organise the struggle. Their first action consisted of ‘txapeos’ (refusing to leave the cells for a walk), but they saw quickly that if their struggle didn’t expand to other prisoners and if there wasn’t enough radical support from outside, the consequence of their action would only be a sharpened repression. Through the actions, letters, communiqu(c)s the struggle expanded to other prisoners and groups outside the walls, like the AFAPP (Association of Friends and Family of Political Prisoners, linked to the GRAPO), the Mothers against drugs, Association against Torture, etc., and after a while there existed an agreement on 3 basic demands:

1) Abolition of the FIES regime and every form of isolation

2) Against the dispersion of prisoners (towards prisons far from the place of residence, family and friends; spreading of prisoners over different prisons, and in the prison itself)

3) immediate release of all incurable sick prisoners

With these demands a collective hunger strike started from the 16th to the 19th of March 2000. In spite of all the difficulties about 400 prisoners participated in 21 different prisons. It was a symbolic action (4 days like the 4 walls of a cell), a sounding out of the balances of power, after the unexpected growth of the movement as well in as out of the prison cells during the previous weeks, in Spain and beyond the borders.

In Barcelona the creation of the AAPPEL (Asamblea de Apoyo a las Personas Presas en Lucha, Assembly for the Support of the Emprisoned Persons in Struggle) contributed a lot to the cause; information was spread through conferences, radios, manifestations, and several actions. Also in the Basque country and Galicia the information was spread and actions were done. In Madrid a FIES dossier was put together and, in spite of the many frictions between the support groups, there were demonstrations and actions carried out. Also in France, Belgium and Italy support groups are set up, and information is spread accompanied with actions. Here prisoners also join through solidarity statements, or, especially in Italy, by turning to actions themselves.

The following months the actions in and outside the prison walls continue. The reaction of the state doesn’t stay out of course. On the one hand there is hard repression: massive transportations, censorship, beatings, torture,… the communiqu(c)s of the prisoners are alarming, there are even a couple of deaths. On the other hand there is a media campaign full of lies: the prisoners in struggle are represented as dangerous criminals, they claim that they are led by the ETA,…

On the 24th of April 2000 a bomb letter is sent to the ‘journalist’ J.M. Zuloaga of the paper ‘La Razon’, very active in the spreading of deceitful articles about the struggle. The assault was later claimed by ‘Los Anarquistas’. After this claim several prisoners in Villanubla turn to a walk strike in solidarity with those who sent the bomb. In the period from May to July several letters to fascist newspapers follow yet. None of these bombs explode effectively. On the 9th of November, 2 anarchists, Eduardo Garcia Macias and Estefania Maurete Diaz, are arrested; they are charged with the involvement in the letter campaign. Also in several cities houses are searched. The media do their best to send the police stories into the world: Eduardo and Estefania would have formed an armed group with prisoners (in isolation!??) and would have organised the assaults. Estefania gets released, without the charges against her be dropped. She is the friend of Santiago Cobos, one of the most active prisoners, and probably they wanted to break him by arresting her. Eduardo gets released conditionally, but on the 17th of November, after serious pressure from the government, he is arrested again and locked up in Soto. He’s a member of the Anarchist Black Cross and that could be handy for the police, zealously looking for a nonexistent ‘international conspiracy’ or an ‘international criminal organisation’, to put up a construction to arrest and convict a lot of individuals on that basis, a common practise.

In the mean time, in the prisons, the call for an unlimited hunger strike is getting louder and louder. A couple of prisoners already started this, like Laudelino Iglesias and Gabriel Bea Sampedro. On the 1st of December (2000), a collective unlimited hunger strike starts. This strike will end after a month, 50 prisoners participated while 150 others carry out support actions. It seems that the repression and the total black out in the media led to some demoralisation. But the evaluation is not all negative, a more sober and realistic assessment of the situation is made now.

A “communiqu(c) from the resistance fighters in the La Moraleja prison”, issued in January 2001, reads as follows:

“Greetings comrades,

Our evaluation of the hungerstrike of December latest is rather positive in relation to the Movement of Prisoners in Struggle and the solidarity in the street. That we make a positive estimation, doesn’t mean that we are not aware of the fact that our mobilisation force in prison and our possibilities to put “pressure” via the street are still very limited… Let’s try to be objective. But remind that this a reflection at a certain moment in the development of our movement of struggle and that as a movement we only have made our first steps, laid the foundation to move forward in a coherent and effective way, and that if we can pursue this line of organized resistance we will broaden little by little our action radius and will gain a greater strength as well inside as outside. There is no other way if we want to move in the right direction; from the perspective to make of our struggle a continuous activity against the capitalist system, we take the struggle against the prison apparatus as point of departure.

For the first time since the time of the COPEL one has taken a stand against the criminal policy of the State in the prisons, in a collective and organized manner, with clear objectives on the short, middle and long term, and this movement persists and appropriates itself the methods of struggle to win.

In our opinion it is crucial to lend continuity to our struggle and to secure a basis that would make it possible to held on to the objectives we have set ourselves.
Further, it is a fact that our struggle has brought about a dynamic with as a consequence that a solidarity movement in the streets has been born which expanded every day and delivered the proof of citizenship. Because of the great diversity there are within this movement many contradictions; these came to the fore especially in the weeks before the hungerstrike of december, but nevertheless, it was demonstrated that with our “mobilisation” these contradictions can be tempered and that unity in action prevailed.
This solidarity movement in its turn is made up of different sections of the Resistance Movement, which broadens even more the small marges from which we depart; anarchist unions, associations of family members and friends of political prisoners (AFAPP), unemployed committees, anti-imperialist comittees, neighbourhood committees (as Amaitu), etc. actually did support our struggle. And then, include those from beyond our borders. As we strenghten our bonds with them and join their struggle, our drum will meet more response, will be more difficult to silence, to isolate, to suppress…

The combination of these two aspects, this of the inside and this of the outside of the prisons, has given an important surplus value to this strike. We are sure that a lot more people than only our comrades can appreciate or observe this. The State for sure can’t let all this happen, and tries to break the movement with all means at its disposal. That’s the origin of the political frame up against the anarchist comrades in Madrid, the house searches in Barcelona and other places to insert fear, the ruthless criminalisation campaign meant to desactivate and curb the support for the strike, the absolute information stop during the strike, etc.; without speaking about the repression in the prisons itself. Of course there are other cocks who crow now, as the humanists, the christians and all those reformists who before short monopolized the “struggle” in the prisons and thereby used those who run and control the stable. Now they can’t do anything against us anymore and finally can’t infect us neither because of their means nor because of their influence, we have to fight them too. As we said already in a former comminiqu(c), they are part of the social mechanism of the State/Capital and with our struggle we have come in direct confrontation with them.
If the enemy starts to “worry” so much about our little world, that is only because of one thing: we are on the right way. It is always distressfull not to be rewarded despite the hard labor, as was the case during the hungerstrike of december. But we don’t even think about it to put “opportunistically” our immediate objectives before our ultimate objectives, because we are aware that our hard struggle has been transformed in a real inspiring and binding force for a whole range of diverse concerns which begin to unite in the struggle against the yoke of oppression and capitalist exploitation which began somewhere between these damned walls… and which might in time grow into a “material force”.

From the spark comes the flame.
Unity and struggle gives power!
Resistance inside and outside!”

It is thus clear that the struggle will be long and harsh, and that such a prolonged struggle will ask determination and a whole range of action methods that leaves room for individual and local initiatives, according to the circumstances (f.e. many prisoners are seriously ill and most of them cannot participate in long term hungerstrikes). All prisoners can take action, talk about their own situation and put their own demands forward, but they will always connect with the movement by adding the principle revendications: end of FIES, end of dispersions, release of all incurable sick prisoners. In the beginning of 2001, also a 4th demand is agreed upon: the release of all prisoners who have completed 20 years of imprisonment (which should be, according to the Spanish law itself, the maximum time), and a call is made to go on fasting every month. Besides that, at the outside, the AAPPEL is transformed into the ACOP’S (Assembleas Contra les Prisons), building a network to support the prisoners in struggle, “to break the isolation and silence and to go beyond the concrete demands (which we consider necessary) and to denounce the Penitentiary System as a tool of the groups in power to maintain their hegemony and the existing situation of social injustice”.

The unity and continuity of the movement are thus secured by the four basic demands, punctual collective actions (as the monthly chapeos and hungerstrikes), broadening and strenghtening of the coordinations inside and outside, debates about the prison struggle and its place in the social and political struggles going on.

The whole next year, and this till today, one can see a steady stream of letters, communiquees, testimonies, … of prisoners in struggle, talking about the daily horrors and repression they have to endure and about the resistance and struggles going on inside (chapeo’s, hungerstrikes, workstrikes, letter campaigns, sabotages, …). Also in the streets a whole range of actions take place all over Spain – demonstrations, info-meetings, conferences, direct actions, …

Internationaly, the prisoners connect with prisoners and support groups in France,Italy, Greece, Portugal, Belgium, Great-Britain, the U.S., where prisoners join by writing solidarity statements and/or by participating in the monthly hungerstrikes. Many also participate in the solidarity actions with the prisoners in struggle against the introduction of the F-type prisons in Turkey. The struggle in Turkey (with the ongoing deathfasts, the brutal military assault on the prisoners on the 19th of December 1999, the struggle of the families), as well as the struggles of prisoners in the U.S., such as a collective hungerstrike in the isolation units of Texas in September 2001, make clear that the struggle against isolation units really is worldwide.

In March 2002 another collective hungerstrike takes place in 38 prisons in which close to 500 prisoners participate. Besides the success in numbers of prisoners participating, important is also the mobilisation of women prisoners (in Alcala f.e.). The silence of the press, imposed by the ministry of Interiors, is deafening…

On the 28th of May 2002, a huge uprising takes place in the Quatre Camines prison in Catalunya. Following another senseless beating of two young inmates by the guards, more than 250 prisoners decide to start a work strike. A strike committee is formed which formulates 12 demands and asks to speak to the Director of the Penitentiary Institutions, also the presence is asked of the counceler of the Justice department of Catalunya and of the Red Cross. Negociations start, but it is clear that the direction doesn’t want to give an inch. The next day the Mossos (Catalan anti-riot police) storm the prison and the rebellion is crushed with brutal force. The media this time couldn’t ignore the actions and the problems in the prisons. But, as always, they just did repeat the official, state sanctioned version of the facts. It would be about a “group of dangerous prisoners” who rebeled because they didn’t want to work and which was “contained” by the police and the prison authorities. Not a word about what the prisoners themselves are saying for almost three years. One prefers to look the other way if the prisoners talk themselves and one beliefs what one wants to believe: that there is no violence and torture in the prisons, no isolation regimes, no exploitation of their labour, no transfers long from their families and friends, no inhuman incarceration of people who are deadly ill, no prisoners who are held for decades, ….

Till now, except for some small armed attacks on the outside (such as those carried out by ‘International Solidarity’), all actions have been non-violent. The answer of the State though is nothing but violence. Inside, the repression continues unabated, with constant transfers, censorship, denial of visits, humiliations, abuses, beatings, torture, death. And although Eduardo was liberated on bail (in November 2001), many others got arrested and enjailed; overall the repression in the streets is growing. On the 15th of October 2002, 4 anarchists active in the squatters’ movement are arrested in Valencia. They are charged with “disturbance of the public order” and “property damage” (related to an anti-fascist demonstration a week before) and later, after interference of the chief of the Information Brigade of the Spanish Police, with “terrorist association” … They risk 10 to 15 years of imprisonment. The evidence seems, again, to be based on the contacts the 4 had with some prisoners. It is clear that the State once more tries to frame some comrades, and to intimidate all those working in support of prisoners and the prisoners’ struggles.

_____

With the appearance on the European continent of the socalled “anti-globalisation” movement (Prague, Göteburg, Genua, Brussels, Barcelona, …), the second Intifada and the brutal military assaults by the Israelian army (which moved and mobilized also the Arab and Muslim communities in Europe), the popular revolts in Latin-America, September 11 in the States, … , it seems that the party of the ruling classes of the world is over, and that they seriously start to worry ànd to prepare themselves for a next reactionary assault. The new laws against “terrorism” mean undoubtedly a fascisation of the whole state and society, and it is no coincidence that it were Spain and Italy (and Turkey) who eagerly followed the United States and urged the European Union to accept the laws – as such they can now legitimize and intensify a “dirty war” which is in fact going on since years. The last half year we have witnessed a wave of arrests; dozens of members, ex-members or alleged members of the armed groups (GRAPO/PCE®, ETA, RB, N17, DHKP-C, …) have been arrested and imprisoned. The last year we have seen more and more also the support groups becoming a target of the repression machine, with the outlawing of course of all political groups related with the ETA, but also members of the AFAPP, the Socorro Rojo, the Cruz Negra Anarquista are subjected to surveilllances, arrests and imprisonment because of their involvement with “terrorist groups” …

These are of course developments which we should carefully follow, analyse and discuss. And then organize to defend ourselves and fight back.

“If they come for us in the morning, …”

(December 2002)