As a contribution to the anarchist struggle we publish ‘The Sun Still Rises’ by the Imprisoned Members Cell of the Conspiracy of Cells of Fire in an English-language version with an expanded introduction.
Here we attempt to provide a chronology of the projects of the CCF, and the intersection and collectivization of diverse insurrectionary projectualities around the world (increasingly expressed as the Informal Anarchist Federation / International Revolutionary Front), to give those who are unfamiliar a more contextualised understanding of the Conspiracy of Cells of Fire and the developing struggle. We believe ‘The Sun Still Rises’ is an incisive text of the new rebellious anarchist guerilla war and this pamphlet is intended for decentralised DIY printing and mass distribution.
Direct solidarity to the imprisoned comrades of the Conspiracy of Cells of Fire!
– Dark Matter Publications
FROM THE INTRODUCTION:
The facts of the anarchist urban guerrilla group Conspiracy of Cells of Fire’s operational record were culled from police and media reports, as well as libertarian websites. This pamphlet was originally published in Greece and a chronology of actions claimed by the anarchist group was put together by comrades in solidarity to go alongside the text by the imprisoned members of the Conspiracy of Cells of Fire (CCF). Here we replicate this chronology to give those who are unfamiliar a more contextualised understanding of the Conspiracy of Cells of Fire, their actions and their trajectory.
In Greece, anarchists have constituted themselves as a social force through their continued aggression against domination, with a practice of carrying out attacks that has forged strong revolutionary individuals, agile affinity-based groups and a combative presence. Unlike many parts of the world, Greek comrades have thrived not on liberal and leftist activism, or subcultural identity politics and academic navel-gazing, but on continual conflict with the State and Capitalism, creating a genuine anarchist movement. The decision to go on the attack against domination is not what is unique about the Conspiracy of Cells of Fire and the new nihilist urban guerrillas. Unlike most Greek anarchists, the comrades of Synomosia Pyrinon tis Fotias (Conspiracy of Cells of Fire), claimed actions under the same group name, with the aim of creating a consistency of action and discourse as well as organisational continuity. Whilst bearing in mind the differences in perspective, they were similar to other Greek anarchist armed groups like Epanastatikos Agonas (Revolutionary Struggle) and Secta ton Epanastaton (Sect of Revolutionaries) in this aspect, in that they each created a distinct visible revolutionary entity.
The CCF promote urban guerrilla warfare and revolutionary terror against the oppressors, and view themselves as part of a third pole in Greek anarchism – anti-social, individualist and nihilistic – rather than either leftist or social insurrectionist. In this they are among many of the new generation of revolutionary Greek youth, the generation of the December uprising of 2008.
A huge storm of revolt raged through the streets of Greece in December 2008. After the 15 year-old Alexis Grigoropoulos was murdered in cold blood by a cop, riots spread throughout the whole country for several weeks. Hundreds of corporate and government targets were attacked, plundered and set on fire. Although it was anarchists and anti-authoritarians who took the lead in this storm during the first week after the murder, it spread itself fast and many people got involved in this revolt against miserable living conditions, against the authorities and against the hopelessness offered by this world to the exploited and oppressed. But the revolt didn’t cease at the end of 2008, neither did it start on the day of the murder. The attacks against the structures of State and Capital went on and spread to several smaller towns in Greece.
Between September 2009 and March 2011 numerous individuals from the anarchist movement in Greece were arrested in connection with the campaign of insurrectionary attacks carried out by the CCF against the dominator system. Nine individuals amongst the arrested have taken responsibility for being members of the Conspiracy of Cells of Fire and continue to form an active group in struggle inside prison: Gerasimos Tsakalos, Panayiotis Argyrou, Haris Hatzimichelakis, Michalis Nikolopoulos, Giorgos Nikolopoulos, Olga Economidou, Damiano Bolano, Christos Tsakalos, and Giorgos Polydoras.
In May 2011 the imprisoned members of the Conspiracy of Cells of Fire released ‘The Sun Still Rises’ which outlines their trajectory and their active proposal for a revolutionary war, a violent flux of insurrectionary transformation in which the individual can permanently break out of Society’s suffocating passivity, an existential struggle in which the revolutionary minority creates new values in the ashes of present mediocrity. Writing from prison, following his arrest on 1 November (2011), Gerasimos Tsakalos said of the general population: “Of this total mass, we must through our speech and our action strike at the characteristics of submission that dominate it, so as to create the minorities that will deny the values of the dominant culture through Revolutionary Conscience and Ethics. Only through dignity, pride and honour can we reach the theoretical rigour in choices of action. Self-organisation, solidarity and rage arm our desires. The practical theory of the destruction of the existent in all its forms, should become the means that will unite minority subgroups towards a Revolutionary perspective. […] we do not seek the diffusion of our words and our actions using as a spearhead only the ugliness of the economic situation, something that could be simply a transitional phase of capitalism itself, but we emphasize the ongoing existential poverty, which is a permanent consequence of this world. We promote a transition to a more total critique and attack on the poverty of communication, artificial feelings, the lack of dignity, the small and big expressions of dominating social relations, the lack of desire to risk seeking and the fear of rupture for a freer life. […] Regardless of whether or not there is a prospect of direct mass conflict within the system, we live and act for now. For the satisfaction of our Ego and for the individual materialisation of our desires that are collectivised through the infrastructures of diffused revolutionary guerrilla war.”
The Conspiracy of Cells of Fire, inside and out of prison, used the State’s trials as flash points from which to renew and launch a world-wide insurrectionary project – the Informal Anarchist Federation / International Revolutionary Front. Numerous individuals around the world responded to the CCF’s call and fire signals went up from Mexico to Italy, Russia to the UK, Chile to Indonesia. A new international of anarchist action “becomes flesh by bleeding and drawing blood”, as the FAI cell ‘Sisters in Arms of the Mauricio Morales Nucleus’ put it in a March 2011 communique for the letter bomb which seriously injured Lieutenant colonel Alessandro Albamonte, chief of general staff of the Ruspoli barracks (Livorno, Italy) of the Parachutist Brigade Commando (which serves in Afghanistan). Amongst the many actions which gave flesh to this new black international were the following: a parcel bomb to the Greek Embassy in Rome, Italy, by a FAI cell, which was defused on 27 December (2010); the 30 December bombing of the Greek Embassy in Buenos Aires, Argentina; an arson barrage between 12 and 13 January (2011) in Thessaloniki, Greece, by ‘Informal Anarchist Federation – Cell of Revolutionary Solidarity’ targeting a politician’s office, offices of the union of retired police, two cop cars and a car of the diplomatic corps; the 15 and 16 January arson barrage in Athens of a bank, local PASOK (Greek political party) offices, security vehicles, a cops personal motorbike by ‘Wolves of Solidarity’; the arson by ‘International Revolutionary Network – Deviant Behaviors for the Spread of Revolutionary Terrorism – Cell of Anarchic Action’ of vehicles of the National Electricity Company, UPS delivery company, police and a military equipment firm; the arson of construction vehicles and equipment by the Earth Liberation Front in Coacalco and the bombing of a HSBC bank in Ecatepec, 15 January, Mexico; the arson of a security vehicle in Bristol, UK on 15 January; the petrol bomb attack on a power company offices by ‘Informal Cells of Insurrection’ and an attack with fireworks on the facade of a shopping centre by ‘Öfke’ (Anger), on 16 January, in Instanbul, Turkey; the arson attack on a Barclays Bank in London and the arson of two vehicles of British Telecom in Bristol, on 17 January; the arson of the Federal Criminal Court in Bellinzona, Switzerland on 17 January; graffiti on the KB Bank in Slask, Poland, on 17 January; the pair of explosive letters to the Chilean embassy in Mexico City from the ‘Autonomous Cells of the Immediate Revolution – Praxedis G. Guererro’ that led to its evacuation on 23 January; the arson of an armoured money transfer vehicle in Hania, Crete, on 23 January; the attack with stun bombs on the prefecture of the military police in Puerto Montt, Chile, on 29 January; the bombing with a device made from butane gas canisters and petrol of a police station in Coacalco, Mexico, on 5 February by ‘Earth Liberation Front – Informal Anarchist Federation/Global Network’; the bombings of the BBVA, BCI and BancoEstado banks in Chile on 11 February by ‘December 8 Commando, Supporters of the Informal Anarchist Federation’s call for International Coordination’; the arson of bulldozers in Khimki Forest, Russia on 19 February; the arson of the skyscraper of Rabobank in Ultrecht, Netherlands, by the ‘Conspiracy Cells of Fire : Dutch Cell’.
As expected, the State’s judicial puppetry sentenced the proud young members of the Conspiracy of Cells of Fire to many decades in prison. The struggle, of course, was far from over. On the evening of 12 December, 2011 five members of the CCF and imprisoned underground figure P. Vlastos attempted to escape from Korydallos prison. The jail break failed but the comrades took several guards hostage and used the opportunity to make a statement (which Giorgos Nikolopoulos read out over telephone to the media in a live broadcast) that declared they would not negotiate with the police, but wanted to publicize the horrible conditions in Korydallos prison. In a statement they released later, the imprisoned members of the Conspiracy of Cells of Fire declared: “If the work of jailers and judges is to lock the prisons’ doors, ours is to unlock and violate them. Even though we failed to release our bodies, we released our existence even for a few moments, occupying a space in prison. This sense is unique, and we do not regret anything.”
The fight goes on.
FULL TEXT OF ‘The Sun Still Rises’ ONLINE AT 325.
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