from culmine, translated by war on society:
A salute to the indomitable beasts of the Conspiracy of Cells of Fire
by Sin Banderas Ni Fronteras
By means of this brief text we wish to give a greeting of solidarity to the prisoners of the Conspiracy of Cells of Fire, especially to those who tried to escape from the Korydallos prison in Greece. We also want to reflect on some themes and remind about other beautiful escapes.
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The lawyer or the escape? An individual decision that we should respect.
In spite of the impositions of the powerful, life continues to be a terrain of action in which we can choose the means to liberate ourselves, whether in the streets or behind bars. Whether to choose a lawyer in order to get out of the clutches of the State or to seek other means to do it is a choice that each comrade can evaluate and decide individually.
We begin from the basis that the struggle against power exceeds all legality and, as such, we are enemies of all laws, these being impositions of authority, an attempt against our individual self-determination. Nevertheless, we believe that a comrade who chooses the “legal way” of a lawyer does not become a reformist nor sells herself to the enemy. Neither does the comrade who goes to the market to buy a pair of shoes, even though consumption and money are one of the pillars of capitalism. It is a complex theme, but it is necessary to understand that we live in a society that we yearn to destroy but that we interact with it in different aspects of our life every moment. With respect to the incarceration of comrades, we believe that they have the ability to decide how they want to get out of prison, as long as they don’t betray other comrades nor become servants of the enemy, it is always better for comrades to be fighting in the street and not be kept under lock and key.
In the same manner, the choice of other comrades who decide to not make deals with legality merits our deepest respect and solidarity, refusing to testify before the judges or trying to escape from the enemy’s cages. Their choice is also valid, though tremendously difficult to carry out.
Therefore we especially value the courage of the comrades who by means of cunning or force try to escape from prison or have escaped from the clutches of the enemy. It is for this reason that today we salute the Greek prisoners belonging to the Revolutionary Organization Conspiracy of Cells of Fire, especially the brothers Mihalis and Giorgos Nikolopolus, Hristos Tsakalos and Giorgios Polydoros who tried to escape from prison on December 12th with the prisoner Panagiotis Vlastos during visiting hours. We also value the attitude of the family members who visited their other prisoners who refused to speak against the comrades.
This time they did not escape, but their indomitable attitude and their anarchist ideas are what familiarize us in spite of the bars, the distance and the language, and are what call us to not stay silent. They have acted in solidarity with the anti-authoritarian offensive in Chile and also with prisoners in other countries. And since anarchist solidarity is mutual aid and reciprocity, we do not leave them alone either.
Against forgetting and silencing: some escapes to remember.
Each empty cell is reason for joy, above all if it is the cell that caged a revolutionary. Here in Chile, December 30 marks 15 years since the spectacular escape of four prisoners of the Marxist-Leninist urban guerrilla organization Manuel Rodríguez Patriotic Front, who helped by some comrades escaped in 1996 in a helicopter that fired barrages of bullets at the gendarmes of the High Security Prison, the most secure prison in Chile built during the democracy in order to cage subversive prisoners. One of them, Mauricio Hernández Norambuena, known as “Comandante Ramiro,” continued to fight after his escape and is currently held in Brazil after kidnapping in 2002 a businessman with an “Internationalist Command,” an action in which, among other combatants, Karino Germano, known as “la Galle” was captured; she is today prisoner of the Argentine State as consequence of that action. Of course, we do not share their Marxist-Leninist ideas, but we respect them for being combatants consistent with their conception of revolution.
Ten years after the helicopter escape in Chile, but in Greece, the anarchist prisoner Vassilis Paleokostas escaped in June 2006 by means of a helicopter, helped by comrades. Vassilis Paleokostas and his brother Nikkos are two rebels with a great career in Greece, who since the 1980’s have carried out successful expropriations of banks and numerous escapes from danger, making a fool of the enemy on numerous occasions. Captured in 2008, Vassilis escaped again in February 2009 once again by helicopter, mocking the security of the same prison that he had escaped in 2006.
Finally, we also want to remember the successful escape from the Punta Carretas prison in Uruguay, when in March of 1931, the comrades Miguel Arcángel Roscigna, Gino Gatti, Andrés Vázquez Paredes, José Manuel Paz, and Fernando Malvicini (comrade of Severino Di Giovanni) carried out the final phase of the escape that had been thought up to liberate the comrade Vicente Moretti and three Catalan anarchists (Jaime Tadeo Peña, Agustín Garcia Capdevilla, Pedro Boadas Rivas, accused of being responsible for more than 100 bombing attempts in Barcelona). In August of 1929 the comrades set up a coal yard in front of the prison in order to justify the tools they used and the earth they extracted to create a tunnel into the prison. Along the tunnel, the comrades who excavated it had also left a placard which read “Solidarity between anarchists is not a mere written word.” The imprisoned comrades and five “common” prisoners managed to escape through that tunnel. Decades later, in 1971, that same tunnel allowed more than one hundred Uruguayan Leninist guerrillas of the Tupamaros National Liberation Army to escape from the same prison, in what apparently has been the most numerous escape recorded up to the present.
A salute to those who have flown away…
To conclude, we salute all the comrades around the world who are evading the clutches of power, leaving behind empty cells and unrealized trials. We especially send a strong embrace to the comrade Diego Ríos and to the comrade Gabriela Curilem, who have made public their decision to go underground as a consequence of the arrest orders leveled against them. They are warriors, and in spite of whether have met them or not, the ideas they have expressed in their communiques made us comrades and call us not to abandon them, to make them feel present in the struggle that unites us.
Greetings to all the comrades who fight in the street, in the prison or out of the shadows. Against isolation, forgetting and silence.
Active and international solidarity with the comrades imprisoned and persecuted by power.
Sin Banderas Ni Fronteras
No Flags No Borders
anti-authoritarian cell of written agitation and propaganda.
Chile, December 2011
sinbanderasnifronteras(at)yahoo(dot)com
