Letter from Mike almost four years after the accidental death of Zoé in France

from liberaciontotal, transl waronsociety:

Note from LT: Our path as a propaganda project is still marked by the moment when we found the information in French that a compañera had died and a compañero had been wounded, this accident happened when the two armed an explosive device during the early hours of May 1st, 2009. But we found this information and translated it more than a month after this painful accident happened, and also the information was always equally scarce. We have never managed to understand why there was such silence, if there was even a review published in France titled “Peste Noire” (Black Plague) in honor of the compañero Mauri, in which texts were translated from Spanish to French and the editors did a lot of work to copy communiques and reflections. We often asked why they couldn’t find similar texts to the ones we could find for Mauri after his accidental death, except with Zoe’s name, but the responses were always that this was how her close compañerxs wanted it. Which we never shared.

It turns the stomach now to read the words from the compañero Mike; when this email came to us and we read the name we soon knew who it was about, we could never forget his name just as we will never forget Zoe’s. Unlike the compas from Ediciones Entropía (who sent the translation of this letter, which we likewise corrected from the original French text), we do not believe that the revolutionary space has buried Mike and Zoe’s story in forgetting, there were even attempts like ours to facilitate information in Spanish and on the other hand anonymous persons vindicated her memory on numerous occasions. We believe that the fraternal critique should be focused on those who could have spread her trajectory, her thoughts and practices, with the intention that she not be forgotten for her contributions to the struggle. As well as to have expressed solidarity internationally with Mike for his legal situation and now his incarceration.

Honor forever for the warrior Zoé!

May historical memory bury those who condemn
going on the offensive against domination!

International solidarity with the compañero Mike!

Note from Entropía: The following text is part of a compilation already in the works that will be titled “Bound by the Flash.” More than morbidity, what moves us to share stories and experiences of compañerxs who have died or been wounded during planning, preparing or executing clandestine attacks. We all know that Mauri died (physically speaking) on his way to the Prison Guards School, or that Tortuga was headed to a bank… but who remembers Camille Decoux? Has anyone been interested in breaking the linguistic barrier and researching the development of the situation of the compañero Michaël Dupanloup, wounded in France and forgotten in the rest of the world? (Does anyone even know who Michaël Dupanloup is?)

Now then, the reason for publishing the following account ahead of time has to do, more than anything else, with the almost nonexistent information circulated on the internet about Zoé’s case. It is so we do not forget her life, compañerxs, so that her niche is not kept being covered up. It is not not forget… and also to remember.
_______________________

XI Detonation

Around midnight of April 30th to May 1st, 2009, a homemade bomb exploded, made of sodium chlorate and sugar compressed in a small fire extinguisher, in a factory abandoned since May 2003, located between Hyères and RD 1006 in the Cognin neighborhood of Chambéry, France.

After the explosion, a couple of neighbors headed to the factory, who were alerted by the shockwave shaking their house, thinking that there had been a gas explosion.

They went through the place for 20 minutes, lantern in hand, until they started to hear a man’s screams. Finding him, they looked on a Dantesque scene: a man sitting on the floor, with his face bloodied and his arms partially torn off, he had managed, with superhuman strength, to leave the factory and ask for help. His name was Michaël Dupanloup, 25 years old and from Geneva, Switzerland. In spite of his physical state, he managed to get a few words across. “We made a mistake… my girlfriend is inside.” But his girlfriend Zoé Aveilla, from Ardèche, France, 23 years old, had died.

Michaël, who was severely burned, was left with partial loss of vision and seriously damaged hands; he was immediately transferred by helicopter to the Lyon hospital, where he spent several days in a coma and with permanent police custody. He was accused in the hospital bed of “criminal association for the preparation of a terrorist group” and for “fabrication and possession of explosives.” Also there they took his first interrogation in which he said that he was always alone with Zoe.

Zoé and Michaël actively participated in libertarian groups, lived half a year in a squat in Cognin until its eviction and for a year frequented the Les Pilots squat (occupied since September 2008) which, after the explosion, was raided by 130 police officers, including anti-terrorist units, with the order of “finding every kind of evidence.” The 11 peope who were found in the place were interrogated. Three people were arrested: Raphaël Serres, 24, Joris Alibert, 23, and William Bonnet, 21, accused of “destruction of evidence” during the raid and charged with terrorist conduct.

Simultaneously, the police raided Zoé’s house in Biolay, bringing out plastic bags with gardening products.

In Chambery, a support group called for a solidarity demonstration which was attended by 200 people in solidarity.

During the allegations, the compañeros’ defense lawyer was emphatic in indicating the lack of a terrorist character, since the accident happened in an abandoned factory uninhabited for years, without even causing material losses; moreover, the accusation of Raphael, Joris and William was basically created on all of them having friendly relations with Zoé. In July 2010, the judge of the anti-terrorist division of Paris returned the case to the criminal court of Chambéry, snarling the case for almost two years, until on May 25, 2012 the trial resumed this time without the terrorist character. The charges against Michaël were “unauthorized fabrication of explosives,” while against the rest they only brought the charge of “destruction of documents.” The Prosecutor asked for 1 year of prison for Michaël, and for the rest only a half a year with the possibility of release on bail with the payment of 5,000 Euro.

On January 7th, 2013, Michaël began to serve the sentence dictated by the judges. Up to now, we did not know about Michaël’s ideas, but once in prison, like Tortuga, he wrote his first communique:

The heart in a cage, the rage in the heart….

Some news from the Chambéry jail

Since January 7th, I have been serving a 4 month sentence for manufacturing an explosive device in 2009 which resulted in an accidental explosion in which my companion Zoé died and I was seriously injured.

I don’t want you to pity my fate. I am not an innocent victim facing an imbalance of justice but an individual among others who has not wanted to enter into the sad reality that society reserves for him and who the state locks up in order to increase its control and try to maintain its authority.

I am not an revolutionary vanguard setting an example to follow or seeking to suffer in order to stir up some comrades’ revolt, I am no more than an individual who seeks collective liberation through a destruction of social structures and norms benefiting the state and capital. While having revolutionary desires, I refuse the separation between “social” and “political” prisoners and consider myself “political prisoner” as much as all other imprisoned people.

I am a human being with a thirst for freedom who tries to live and struggle by his anti-authoritarian ethics in a society built on oppression and domination and who logically suffers the consequences of his choice.

If my situation provokes anger, everyone is free to cultivate that anger and give it the form he or she wants.

That the rage is not wiped out by fear, that the revolts live!!!
Break the jail and this concrete world of shit, freedom for all!!!

mike

P.S.

During this few months of imprisonment, here is the address where I can be written:

Michaël Dupanloup . numéro d’écrou 23 007. M.A de Chambéry, 151 rue Belledonne, 73011 Chambéry. France

For those who never know what to write to prisoners, you can also participate in the great postcard contest without risk of ridicule.