from liberaciontotal, transl waronsociety:
Note from LT: On August 7th, after the verdict made against Tortuga allowed him to leave the prison, which they reaffirmed on August 15th when he was sentenced to 6 years of “supervised freedom.” Now he is on total house arrest. From this space we greet the comrade and his tremendous conviction to continue to fight.
When the Fire of Anarchy Nourishes Our Hearts
When Borders, Languages, and Prisons Cannot Separate Us
September 10, 2012
I write with a bit of hunger, with an empty stomach but a satisfied heart, although of course I would never compare my hunger with what other compañerxs must be going through. Today, Monday September 10th, 2012, on house arrest, I declare a 48-hour solidarity fast (September 10 and 11); I believe it necessary to explain the reason why I chose two days to take this measure and of course also why I choose the fast as an instrument of struggle on this occasion.
In part, I chose to fast for the simple reason that it is a good time to write reflections that have been running through my head in respect to some of the repressive operations anarchists and anti-authoritarians all over the world have been living through, as well as seizing the opportunity to express solidarity with the compañerxs on hunger strike from Operation Ardire.*
I consider it a vile thing to express opinions and reflections in regards to themes that do not affect us in a major way, this is why I decided to share, if only for a few little hours, in the hunger of the compañerxs enduring repression, making them feel that I am with them in every moment, that their hunger strike reverberates in my timid heart and due to the good luck of finding my self in house arrest, I have been very well informed about how things have been going on those sides. You have to know that during these days I agitate, albeit in a small way, for you all, that I share in your hunger and above all, in your longing for freedom.
I chose 2 days to fast because the 10th of Sept. was precisely the last day of a hunger strike carried out by compas Marco Camenisch (imprisoned in Switzerland), Sergio Maria Stefani, Stefano Gabriel Fosco and Elisa di Bernardo (imprisoned in Italy), the truth is I am unaware if there will be more compañerxs on hunger strike, my greetings to them as well, but as I said, all of these people are compxs enduring repression in the tragic hunt for anarchists absurdly named Operation Ardire,* I should mention that 7 other compas are being prosecuted in this new raid, that basically pretends to strike the locas, but clearly strikes self-chosen anarchists who have begun to become a annoying cancer to the system and its logic in the territory that is dominated by the Italian, Swiss, and German states. It seems important to me to mention that in Italy their is a significant anarchist/ anti-authoritarian movement, and I am not talking solely quantitatively but qualitatively as well, as in Germany and Switzerland where there are two known compañerxs whom after years of isolation have been supported in struggle within and outside of prison, this is important to show to me because if it is true, according to my observation, Operation Ardire was a blow to the locas and was not in any case blind, it does not seek out those responsible for the attacks carried out but the FAI (Informal Anarchist Federation) but seeks those who fit the ideological profile (in the eyes of authority) and this to me merits if not a debate then at the least a little bit of analysis on the part of the compxs, not only those directly effected by the repression, but by all, by every person who comprises this anarchist/ anti-authoritarian movement, for as diffuse and contradictory as this movement can seem, it is international as well. Leaving the small differences that we can have in many of our own positions, it is of the utmost importance to understand that the soiled phrase “it could happen to anyone” really is true, but here I want to stop myself a bit, because it is also true that when I say it can happen to anyone I refer specifically to anyone who has a political life confrontational to the system and its values, independent of the methods utilized to confront these things, a contra information blog or a letter bomb sent to an embassy, the social war grows with everything, because we can not pretend to demolish the system at gunpoint, illegal actions are good (always and when carried out with the minimum revolutionary requirements), but they should be necessarily complemented by other instants, moments to reflection, to share between compañerxs , to love ourselves, to put ourselves in tension with the everyday and mark differences, evaluations, and critiques, in order to in this way further the growth of the individual and the collective.
All of this I say after the memory of the hunt initiated against 4 compas that effectively coincided with the profile of those sought by authorities after an assault on a bank on the 18 of October, 2007 came to me immediately. During the attack a cop was killed outright and another left wounded in the central streets of Santiago, Chile. To me it is no coincidence that they intend to associate Juan Aliste Vega with the person who fired the shots at the henchmen who hoped to detain the assailants, for its well known that Juan was previously a prisoner for a crime against a cop in the 90s. Coincidence? Never! The political apparatus seeks submission if not through fear and inaction (manifested legally or illegally), then through the prevention of movement by incarceration in prison, the same thing occurred with Freddy Fuentevilla, Carlos Gutiérrez and Marcelo Villarroel, known compas with anticapitalist political lives, therefore it seems fitting to ask: Why are the compas prosecuted in Italy, Switzerland, and Germany? Because they fit a profile? And if this is it what position should we take in light of these events?
Another similar case is Operation Salamandra where squats and autonomous spaces were raided and closed, where many compas were beaten violently, where they were prosecuted for “illicit terrorist association”, for the placement of more than a score of bombings in different parts of the capital of Chile, for the financing of the practice of terrorism 14 anarchist and anti-authoritarian compañerxs were cowardly marked, beaten, imprisoned, and submitted to an absurd and nefarious process which attempted to not only take away said compañerxs from the struggle, but also leave a thick trail of fear and panic in opening/supporting a space against that which domination imposes, to initiate relationships with people known and documented by the state or even worse, to reproduce the enemy’s discourse by justifying repression, therefore, for me at this point the wave of repression makes it easy to read between the lines. They do not seek to imprison those behind the bombings, nor the assailants of banks, nor the compas who carried out the attacks claimed by the FAI, this practice is only the propagandist and violent reflection of a life rebelling against authority, they seek to castigate and exemplify that by choosing a determined way of life you will find yourself in the sights of the police, the press, the citizens in the service of power, but if you choose a normal way of life, you may walk in peace. Peacefully? What is peacefully? To crush yourself into a day to day routine of shit that will exhaust your spirit into abandoning a life that means anything? Yes if for the others this is to live peacefully, well then I prefer to live a libertarian life wildly. Operation Salamandra, Operation Ardire and the accusations against the prisoners and fugitive of the Security Caseare not different at all except in the methods of the enemy’s actions, that in some cases mark those who live/frequent certain spaces, others who communicate from inside of prison and give their support through letters and communiques, or others who carry the weight of their subversive past, in each of these cases their is a common factor which is the urgent need to fight, this unwavering energy that springs up against injustice and this will I have already talked about, which is felt by many people, many many people, therefore it is necessary to understand that yesterday it was some squats and compañerxs with combative histories in Chile, today it is some blogs and individuals known to be at war against authority in Italy, Switzerland, and Germany, but tomorrow it could be whomever in whichever part of the world, as we are seeing in Bolivia with the compañerxs accused of terrorism Henry Zegarrundo y Mayron Gutiérrez who find themselves imprisoned for the insane collaboration of being infamous, as we are seeing in Greece in the case of Tasos Theofilou who was detained for being an anarchist, this is his crime, as we are seeing paradoxically and again and again in Italy where over 4 operations against social dissidence are being carried out, well my compañerxs I believe in the urgent necessity of taking lessons from all of this- Where does the enemy truly aim?
Personally I believe they aim to create terror because if you give life to an occupied space repression will reign down on top of you, if you respond to letters from inside a prison you will be marked as the leader of a terrorist group, if you maintain a counter information web page you will become the ideologue of an armed group, if you talk about how bad the world is at this point, the police collaborators will turn you in on silver platter to the authorities, if you express solidarity with whichever person they will talk of networks of conspiracy, for in the face of fear they try to paralyze us.
Perhaps many have been thinking about these reflections, but I have seen, felt the smell of fear of the others little by little in the incarceration of various people during the Bombs Case, where compxs who were perfectly able to come to these conclusions preferred to have discussions or activities in the park or in one of the few autonomous spaces left, reasons to self organize will always remain, the truth is at least in Chile power succeeded (up to a point) in its commitment to strike on the 14th of August, and I think that to reproduce what power desires if not betrayal, is at the least cowardly. Do we want to isolate ourselves? I respond clearly: Fuck that! I will write to the prisoners as I please, You don’t want spaces of rebellion in your monotonous cities? Let’s open more squats, You want to repress counter information blogs? We will hack the entire internet if need be, this thinking should be the response before the repressive blows, aligning ourselves with the oppressed and sending our cries for freedom to the four winds. I think it is important to share these reflections of our own assessments of repressive blows we are living through on an international level, to in this way give more that an emotional impulse, effective and with spirit to the IRF (International Revolutionary Front), an analytical capacity to the reality that repression, with its various dimensions and points of view, evidently stalks us. We do not get anything out of thinking/sharing certain reflections or analysis if we do not internalize it ourselves, it is necessary to make a practice out of our discourse, I think rebellious, I am rebellious!
Fortunately in these parts they have little managed to recover the security to go into a Squatted/Autonomous Social Center in order to strike up conversations with people who the police have files on, or to start some project antagonistic to power, but even though I believe that we still have a ways to go, it seems strange to me that the idea of opening a Library in a public space would seem almost insanity, or that people would still absurdly believe that if they have relationships with determined persons then repression will come down on them, even going so far as to finally point at the people they charge with the stigma of being guilty of future arrests.
I also decided on September 11th to start fasting because I believe it is important to agitate for a strong memory, to not forget, not forgive, and not negotiate, since 39 years ago on a September 11th one of the crudest dictatorial eras in Latin America began, with the inquisitor Augusto Pinochet at the head of a merciless military machinery at the service of the rich; we must not forget all those who died at the hands of the dictatorship, we must not forget the arrested who were disappeared (under any regime, call it dictatorship or democracy), we must not forget that it is these episodes that make some people raise our voices again. I chose this date because I cannot fail to mention that it was also on a September 11th in 1998 when the anarchist compañera Claudia López was killed from behind at the hands of a valiant uniformed figure of the Chilean Carabineros in the neighborhood of La Pincoya; Claudita would perhaps now be with us, she would be one of the compañeras with much to contribute and with an abundance of experience in minoritarian struggles and struggles in the streets, since we remember that she participated in the clashes between encapuchadxs and police in the so-called “Cordón Macul,” that was Claudia, a compañera who threw herself into the dance and the barricade, and those fucking bastards at the service of power took her forever from our side, therefore, due to the frustration of not being able to have shared with her because of a waged wretch killed her, on September 11th I will be fasting. I chose September 11th because on this day the judicial process will begin against a wounded anarchist in Mexico, against a compañero of praxis whose incendiary bomb exploded on him before it was supposed it, an accident similar to mine, Mario López, brother, I am with you, be Strong!
These words go with special dedication to all those I mentioned, to the comrades repressed in Italy/Switzerland/Germany by Operation Ardire, Operation Mangiafuoco, Operation Ixodidae and Operation Thor, all the compañerxs repressed in Italy, the compañerxs incriminated in Operation Salamandra and the compañeros accused in the Security Case in Chile and with much affection to the anarchist compañero Mario López imprisoned in Mexico.
With dedication to the memory of every one of the combatants fallen in the anti-dictatorial struggle against the Pinochet regime and its democratic following, especially in honor to Claudia López.
I also take advantage of this instance to thank everyone who has accompanied me in this hard and difficult period of my life, whether physically or not it is the same, you know what I am referring to, but in truth I am very grateful to you.
Because for me the struggle continues outside and inside of the prisons!
Not a minute of Silence!
A whole life of Combat!
Black September!
Luciano Pitronello Sch.
Insurrectionalist Ex- Political Prisoner.
_______________________
Translator’s Note:
* Ardire is an Italian word for boldness/daring, which is why Luciano calls it absurd for the state’s cowardly operation to call itself by this name. This operation, launched in the summer of 2012, as well as the repressive operations called Mangiafuoco, Ixodidae, and Thor all target anarchists in Italy. For more information, see: 1, 2, 3, 4 or search on the counter-information sites for the particular names of the operations..
