Today's Topics:
1. Greece, ESE: ANTI-RACIST DEMONSTRATION:
SATURDAY 29/5, 13:00
VICTORIA SQUARE, May 25, 2021 ESE Athens
VICTORIA SQUARE, May 25, 2021 ESE Athens
[machine translation]
(a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
(a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
2. UK, AFED, organise magazine: COMMICATION
FROM COLOMBIA'S
ULET (AIT) | STATEMENT (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
ULET (AIT) | STATEMENT (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
3. ait russia: Cali: an autonomous zone at the heart of the
Colombian resistance [machine translation]
Colombian resistance [machine translation]
(a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
4. CNT nº 426 - Crossroads to happiness By Elena Martínez
(Sierra Norte) (ca, de, it, pt)[machine translation]
(a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
(Sierra Norte) (ca, de, it, pt)[machine translation]
(a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
5. France, UCL AL #316 - Spotlight, Anarcho-terrorism: indicted
on December 8: a new Tarnac ? (ca, de, it, fr, pt)[machine
translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Message: 1
ESE Athens participates in the anti-racist demonstration on Saturday 29/5, 13:00
Victoria Square. We will not stop until we eliminate every detention camp-hell!
No more immigrants dead - We want to live together
antiracist demonstration on 29 May, 13:00, starting from Victoria Square
No more dead migrants-we want to live together
https://ese.espiv.net/2021/05/25/01-31/
------------------------------
Message: 2
Today, different anarchist groups, collectives and organizations, publicly
manifest ourselves against the tax reform's hikes on essential subsistence goods.
But not only because we consider the reform as an organized robbery to the
pockets of the working class, peasants, service workers, self-employed and
freelancers. But also, we make evident the failure that constitutes this Uribist
government of Iván Duque and the disaster that is the whole state apparatus of
this country. Which has tried to hide with public works, laws, decrees, media
propaganda and cheap nationalism, the organized robbery that it really is over
the totality of the people of this region of the continent.
The taxes that Duque -falsely- talked about reducing, regardless of the president
in office, were, are and will be the same a general theft from the people, since
they have guaranteed, through the clientelist mafia, the access to power to no
more than 20 families throughout the country. 20 families who have corruptly
enriched themselves and continue to exercise power in the territories -many
times- through the use of arms, whether legal or illegal. And also benefiting
from legal and black market rents, -understood as- drug trafficking, smuggling,
human trafficking, land fattening, dispossession of land from peasants and
illegal mining.
How can they expect the people to continue to believe in the state, if the same
government that controls it, acts systematically against them?
The handling of the pandemic is disastrous, not only the duquismo made the covax
option fall apart when it could have ensured the supply of vaccines for Colombia.
But they also dare to do business with the health care of the people, at the
expense of the taxes that they steal from the workers. The pressure on health
workers, the overexploitation they suffer day by day, is not exclusive. The
teachers have also been deeply affected, not to mention all the people, who with
their sweat, tears and effort sustain a state that takes more than it really
gives back to them.
The war, which is maintained in the territories, has been continued because of
political decisions against the people. The same people who continue to pay its
toll in deaths, and continue to suffer the abuse of the state, the repression of
the security forces that only serve to maintain the privileges of those who
control the political and/or economic power. From the unfulfilled promises that
have led to the beginning of a new cycle of violence, the betrayal of agreements
that sowed hope in the population of Colombia . At the end, they decided to
harvest a fire fueled with gasoline.
For all this, and much more, is that we, the anarchists, express ourselves in
resounding opposition to the simple actions, which is to make a parade along the
Séptima Avenue. Instead, we call for an indefinite General Strike, that leads to
move the status quo for the benefit of the people: from its local oligarchs and
bourgeois minorities, to the wide, long, broad and diverse peoples that make up
the majority of the population in of the population in the Colombian region.
Recovering the municipal autonomies, the collectivization of the territory among
those who inhabit it ancestrally or traditionally, and the ancestral or
traditional inhabitants (not among those who, by usurpation, dispossession and
displacement, obtained it), exercising assembly, communalism and horizontality,
all decisions collectively, an open, participatory, diverse and permanent
assembly, rejecting any authority, caudillism, gamonalism, patronalism and
patriarchy. It is not necessary for the state controlled by the elite to decree
the AGRARIAN REFORM, its the communities, towns and municipalities themselves,
who can do it without intermediaries, they only need to agree to an assembly and
start it.
¡!!Abolish the relations of subordination to the narco-oligarchic state!!!!
¡!!!End of passive activity, it is time to go out to the streets!!!
¡!!!!Obstruct the exercise of repression!!!!!
¡!!Build autonomous neighborhood and municipal assemblies!!!!
Abolish the relations of male-dominated and patriarchal oppression: diverse
participation and gender equality, agreements of renouncing the war, ¡¡¡¡unarmed
civil disobedience!!!!
Avoid the tax reform, avoid pension reform, avoid labor reform.
Abolish the state.
¡!!Constitute the Assemblies!!!!
Signed:
Colectix Kaos Kreador Antifacista - Banderas Negras - ULET-AIT ?
ULET is the a syndicalist collective locatied in Bogotá, who'reseeking to build
an open union with an anarchist base. They are a member of the IWA-AIT.
https://organisemagazine.org.uk/2021/05/06/commication-from-colombias-ulet-ait-statement/
------------------------------
Message: 3
Cali, Colombia. Several hundred young women walk into Puerto Resistencia (Port of
Resistance), the heart of the Cali protest, with fists raised in a gesture of
opposition to the state, which has been killing them in the streets for weeks.
They are greeted with glee by dozens of people from the "primera línea", the
front line of the demonstrators defending the square, young men in makeshift
combat clothes and homemade shields, who have repulsed numerous police attacks on
the autonomous zone. The zone they had conquered at the cost of sweat, tears and
blood. ---- They dance in the streets. They hug each other. They are proud,
joyful and daring. They celebrate the fact that this autonomous zone in a poor
area of Cali, which has suffered such brutal violence in recent weeks, is today
firmly in the hands of a community that has taken its destiny and its security
into its own hands.
It seems as though none of those in Puerto Resistencia who speak to me have a
last name. I doubt that the names they call are real. The atmosphere is steeped
in fear of persecution, murder or simply disappearance at the hands of the forces
of the Colombian state.
As I scan the Autonomous Zone, a man in a United Nations vest asks a young
frontline young man passing by who is in charge. "We have no leaders," the young
man replies. "Our leaders were killed by Colombia. You can talk to the community."
Even before thousands of protesters took to the streets in this South American
country and the police began killing dozens of them, the killing of leading
social activists in Colombia was a pervasive problem. The countrywide strike in
Colombia was prompted not only by the tax reform plan that attracted so much
analyst attention in the movement's early days, but also by growing violence amid
what critics see as unfulfilled promises from the Duque administration regarding
a peace deal with insurgents, rising poverty and inequality, and assassination.
310 social leaders, human rights defenders and activists in 2020 (another 57
people died in 2021, according to Indepaz).
This community is now on its own. These people have lost confidence in the
institutions that were supposedly created to protect them. As a powerful symbol
of their motives, a banner with the inscription "Less police, more libraries"
stretched across the square.
They had more allies a few weeks ago. Minga, a local Indian protest movement
representing various communities in the neighboring Cauca department, has joined
the protesters in an amazing united front of rural and urban opposition forces.
But the Indian movement left the city after 8 of them were injured in an attack
by civilians armed with firearms. The soul of resistance now remains those who
brought it to life with fire and blood - the youth of Kali. And Puerto
Resistencia is the living, beating heart of this movement. And for those who
stand on the barricades in Cali, it is deadly work.
A revolution forged in blood
Indepaz, a nonprofit that monitors state violence and the implementation of the
peace process, has identified 41 people killed since the start of the protests.
27 of these deaths, or 65%, occurred on the streets of Cali, despite less than 5%
of Colombia's population living in this city of 2.28 million.
Puerto Resistencia, officially known as Puerto Reljena, rose to prominence
following nationwide strikes in 2019. But if during the previous protests
centered in the capital Bogota, Kali played a supporting role, then this time
there is no doubt that now the youth of Cali are the protagonists of the story of
drama and fire that unfolds across the country.
The streets of Kali are fertile ground for the growth of a youth-led revolution.
In the city, the unemployment rate exceeds 20% (if you include all people who
work informally, "in black" or in street microbusiness, which makes up almost
half of the city's workforce). The city has only one public university, which is
surprising for the third largest city in Colombia, and the region itself is a
hotbed of crime and a base of operations for various groups involved in drug
trafficking. Some of these groups are accused of having links with the Colombian
government.
Juan Diego stands with a sign from the construction site in the center of the
plaza, looking at a bunker of scrap materials that serves as a supply depot. It
is equipped with water bottles, stones and various first aid supplies. The face
of the standing person is covered by a red shirt, which he wears wrapped around
his face. "This government is corrupt. They're thieves," he says. ...
For a young man like Juan Diego, who grew up here at Comuna 16, there is little
hope that he will ever be able to escape from life in extreme poverty. Colombia
has the second highest inequality in America. Social mobility is very low. Of the
11 million people between the ages of 14 and 28, 3 million (27%) do not work or
study. These young people, who have nothing to lose and who have long felt
abandoned by the state, are well represented in the current protests. And in
Puerto Resistencia, they are the ones who build barricades, makeshift bunkers and
roadblocks to hold back the police.
Security measures in Puerto Resistencia are strict. Police have been barred from
entering the scene, as have the Colombian media, which the community believes has
distorted information about the protesters since April 28, when countrywide
strikes began. At every checkpoint that I have to cross to get into the
territory, the demonstrators from the "first line" try my teeth. They want to
know who I work for, what I do, and they want to remind me that it is strictly
forbidden to photograph anyone's face without permission. They relax when I tell
them that I am from the international press, although some people do not like
that I am a "gringo". Many of them believe that one of the reasons the police are
so brutal here lies in decades of US funding. which allowed politicians and
elites to create a military police state with a very horrific history of human
rights violations. It doesn't make matters any easier that the chemical munitions
they were poisoned with in the streets, and even some of the bullets with which
they were killed, were kindly provided by Uncle Sam.
They call other demonstrators in the square who have cell phones. They look at my
page on the Internet, in English, and scroll through it to find out why I am here
- to lie or to hear. They want the world to understand what they are doing here,
but they were betrayed by some of the journalists who were allowed in and
plainclothes police leaked to them. In the end, they let me pass.
The mini police station in Puerto Resistencia has been converted into a public
library and is decorated with art and murals by artists supporting the movement.
Nearby, an elderly woman prepares a huge pot of stew, which she gives out to
everyone who walks in. She refuses to give her name. "For many of these children,
this is the only food they get all day," she says.
The Autonomous Zone is dotted with murals, artwork and slogans. "The police don't
care about me," it says on one of the pieces. "My friends do." I play football
for a few minutes with a ten-year-old boy in the middle of the square. He is
totally captivated by this scene. Government officials and their media tell me
that these people are terrorists, vandals and armed insurgents. In my eyes, it's
just a community of people. Of course, one that economic neglect and state
violence pushed to extreme measures. But which, obviously, cares about its
people. I don't see any terrorists here.
There is no other option
Hugo Ormoudes is a community organizer in Siloe, another impoverished community
that has been severely affected by police violence since the protests began.
"These children have no access to education," he says of the youth at the
forefront of the protest. "The government has left them to their fate. with wages
above the minimum. They know that under the current system, they will remain in
the first layer all their lives. "
Colombian neighborhoods are layered - a digital system for determining tax rates
based on neighborhood economic prospects. The scale ranges from 1, which means
extreme poverty, to 6, the level of the rich, who live in gated communities and
skyscrapers.
Ormoudes further explains that thanks to these protests, many young people from
low-income communities have found understanding and respect from their
communities, many for the first time in their lives. "This is a powerful thing,"
he says. "This is the first time these young people are connecting with the
communities in which they live."
Andrea Bernal, a Cali activist, agrees with Ormoudes' assessment. "It's really
good to see," she says. "A lot of these kids were so marginalized that they
turned to crime in order to survive. I mean, they were malandros, you know?" She
says with a laugh. "But now they pride themselves on being primera línea. They
pride themselves on being part of a community, uniting against a government that
they feel has never cared for them. "
She shows me pictures of some of the children on the barricades from social
networks. They post pictures of themselves with Colombian flags, chants and
protest slogans, and vow to keep fighting until justice is achieved. It is a
prime example of how the collective action of a population that never had any
hope can give it a sense of meaning and purpose. A population that was largely
left to fend for itself and exploited by a ruling class that never showed concern
for its future or its welfare. For the kids in Cali, these protests have never
been about tax reform. Rather, it is about survival itself.
Celebration like a tank
At night, Puerto Resistencia often turns into a huge neighborhood party. The
people of Cali are known for their love of good party and salsa. Many people who
have endured sporadic lockdowns and curfews for over a year seem to express their
support for the ongoing strikes by doing what Kali does best - rumba.
But parties are not only about bringing the community together and raising the
spirits of those on the streets for weeks, they are also a strategy of defense.
"Of course, Kali loves to party," one of the protesters tells me as thousands of
people jump and dance around us. "But that's not all. Music is a tank against the
police. When we dance, the police cannot tell that there is an uprising." ...
Critics have called what is happening on the streets of Puerto Resistencia
anarchy. They say that young people destroying public property do not understand
what it means to own a business or a home, and they write off the movement as
unconcentrated chaos. Those who say this mistake the symptoms of these social
problems for the cause. However, they are half right. Most of these children will
never own property. They will never have access to the education they need to
start a real career, and for them the idea of owning a business that is more than
a street cart is just a pipe dream.
This is precisely the problem. And the youth of Kali are fed up
It is not yet clear where the protests in Puerto Resistencia will lead. At some
point, the international press will move on, UN investigators will leave, and the
attention that residents say drove the police to stop overt killings will disappear.
But the hope is that the united community will be able to take concrete reform
measures before that happens.
Joshua Collins
https://schwarzerpfeil.de/2021/05/20/puerto-resistencia-die-autonome-zone-im-herzen-der-kolumbianischen-proteste/
------------------------------
Message: 4
To this day no Revolution has been reasoned, and for this reason none has
completed the triumph either. All the great movements were, without exception,
almost unconscious acts of the crowd, moved by instinct or drawn by interested
parties and the advantages obtained have really been only for the directors of
the movement. Revolutions will no longer be made at random, because evolutions
are becoming more conscious and thoughtful every day. ---- Eliseo Reclús ---- I
do not know what is happening to me. While I long for the after coronavirus, I
can't stop thinking about past times, clinging to memories, and curiously, my
anarchist grandfather comes to mind all the time, for whom surely and to a great
extent, I am a member of the CNT since 1977.
Aragonese and railway. Affiliated with the National Confederation of Labor from a
very young age, he was an idealist, a dreamer. While he was station chief in
Alcalá de Henares, he was arrested in May 1939. They put him in prison and
subjected him to a Council of War for refusing to derail a train of civilians
coming from Madrid.
It accompanied me during my childhood. He took me to school, to the park, we were
companions of games and life. In the many times we spent together, he would tell
me stories. Stories, he said, but over the years I discovered that his stories
were lived experiences and deep ideals.
So eloquence and so much passion he put into her, that she always listened to him
spellbound. He taught me that happiness is in simple things, in affections and
not in material things.
My grandfather used to say that "in those happy times, we didn't need anything,
because we had everything." He always spoke of happiness as a collective feeling.
How can you be happy if the people around you are not?
There is no doubt that happiness can only be achieved when basic needs such as
health, housing, food and education are covered. And if you allow me, and as
Lorca said, I would add culture. "Give me a bread and a book."
I am fully convinced that we are at a crossroads where our steps can change the
course of things. If the Covid has taught us anything, it is that life is at
risk. Patriarchy, globalization, the climate crisis, the loss of biodiversity,
the extinction of species, the deepening inequalities, everything that surrounds
us looks more and more like the fall of the Roman Empire. If before the Covid,
this outdated and predatory system of capitalism towards waters everywhere, after
this pandemic, the crisis that we already have above, shows that only a systemic
analysis can show us a different path through which to travel.
Making neighborhood and town from the local and from an anarcho-feminist
perspective is essential. Because essential are affection, care, life. Produce to
live.
It is clear that growth is not green, unlimited, or equitable. And it is also
clear that no form of power or government will go beyond the dictates of large
corporations and a system based on money. And this, it is a fantasy. A system
built on billions of euros, backed by nothing. For more and more debt.
Kropotkin also said it in The Conquest of Bread: «Well-being for everyone is not
a dream. As the capacity to produce develops, the number of vagrants and
middlemen increases at a frightening rate. But this problem cannot be resolved
through legislation. Neither the current governments, nor those that may arise,
would be able to solve it.
Going from the big to the small, from the global to the local, the experiences of
horizontal communities, of which we have numerous examples, would be a mirror to
look at. The construction of food sovereignty, of agroecology, is a fundamental
axis. The feminist movement is another of the essential ingredients, not only for
reasons of equity, but because it values care, affection, what is really important.
Everywhere there are local initiatives, barter markets, time banks, communal
gardens. There is no doubt that local production is more ecological, as is local
commerce. Transportation is reduced, oligopolies and intermediaries are
eliminated, jobs are created and community is built in our neighborhoods and towns.
Although there is a false belief that there are no alternatives for change to the
globalized capitalist economic system, this is not the case. In the CSA Vega del
Jarama, in our mountains, and in which comrades from CNT Sierra Norte
participate, food sovereignty, horizontal organization, ecological production,
and the community, are a reality that has lasted for more than four years. and it
does not stop growing and consolidating. Torremocha del Jarama, with a population
of barely 1,000 inhabitants, hosts this project, in which 200 families
participate in this three-hectare communal garden. It employs three families and
the entire community is involved, on a rotating basis, pampering the rights of
those who work for it and collaborating in all tasks.
In the CSA Vega del Jarama, in our mountains, and in which comrades from CNT
Sierra Norte participate, food sovereignty, horizontal organization, organic
production, and the community, are a reality that has lasted for more than four
years. and it does not stop growing and consolidating.
Now there is a lot of talk about the economics of happiness. Since 2008, the
kingdom of Bhutan, a small hidden place in the Himalayan mountains, guides its
economy not by GDP, but by Gross Inner Happiness (FIB), which measures
psychological well-being, time use, vitality of the community, a sustainable and
equitable socioeconomic development, health, education and culture, among others.
Curiously, its main economic activity is agriculture.
As Durruti said, the path, that new world, is in the hearts. Social justice is
built with the social economy and evolution with revolution, as Eliseo Reclus so
aptly writes. "Until today no Revolution has been reasoned, and for this reason
none has completed the triumph either. All the great movements were, without
exception, almost unconscious acts of the crowd, moved by instinct or drawn by
interested parties and the advantages obtained have really been only for the
directors of the movement. The revolutions will no longer be made at random,
because the evolutions are every day more conscious and reflected.
Making neighborhood and town from the local and from an anarcho-feminist
perspective is essential. Because essential are affection, care, life. Produce to
live, not to fatten the pockets of that richest 1% who accumulate 82% of global
wealth. We have to stop at this crossroads of a time upset and directed by dark
interests, to add and add and add again. Because we are many more. And choose
once and for all the path of life. It is no longer an illusion, it is the only
adventure where we feel safe and happy. Tomorrow is our partner!
Elena Martínez - CNT Sierra Norte
https://sierranorte.cnt.es/encrucijada-a-la-felicidad/
------------------------------
Message: 5
The Tarnac affair, the great fiasco of French anti-terrorism instrumentalised for
political ends, could well recur with the indictment of 7 people suspected of
association with a view to an attack. ---- On December 8, 2020, seven people were
arrested in Toulouse, Rennes, Dordogne and Val-de-Marne, suspected of preparing
attacks. Today, five are still detained, officially for "criminal association of
a terrorist nature" , in a file which begins to recall the best failures of
French anti-terrorism. In the wake of the arrests, many articles take up, without
bothering with details, the vocabulary of the State which speaks of an
"ultra-left" group. Over the months, the profile of the accused refined, and the
thinness of the case became more apparent. F., designated as "leader" by the
instruction, would have as main fault to have gone to fight Daesh within the
Kurdish militias YPG.
In a forum, the Collective of French-speaking combatants and combatants of Rojava
(CCFR) gives him its support and is astonished: "On returning home, we did not
expect to receive the Legion of Honor[...]but we could not imagine that we would
be singled out as enemies from within and treated as equal to the jihadists we
had fought. » F. is probably the only common point between several other accused,
geographically distant, and not knowing each other for the most part.
The only common basis for their arrests therefore seems to be their
relationships, their reading and their political ideas, several defendants having
been questioned on this point during their police custody. One of them, an
artificer at Eurodisney, will be questioned about the evocation of explosives
during telephone conversations, another sign of the amateurism of instruction, or
even its purely political construction.
Who is terrorizing whom ?
Indeed, while the government raises the specter of "separatism" while keeping its
eyes low on the far right, the lack of incarnation of a "threat of the
ultra-left" began to be felt. All these characteristics are reminiscent of the
Tarnac affair, which ended in a general acquittal after twelve years of
proceedings. After the first police custody, five people are still detained in
Île-de-France as part of this investigation.
Treated under the regime of particularly signaled detainees (DPS), because of the
"anti-terrorism" nature of the investigation, they first experienced three to
four weeks of total isolation, without mail or telephone, and their lawyer as the
only contact. with the exterior. In recent months, forums of support have started
to multiply.
Relatives of the "accused of December 8" have created support committees, notably
in Rennes, Toulouse and Paris. They seek to publicize the case and to create
solidarity, in particular through a solidarity fund to allow defendants to pay
their legal fees and canteen. Their site opens on this question which seems to
have all its relevance in the face of the reality of this affair: who is
terrorizing whom?
N. Bartosek (UCL Haute-Savoie)
See the support site for the accused:
"https://soutienauxinculpeesdu8decembre.noblogs.org/"
https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?Anarcho-terrorisme-inculpe-es-du-8-decembre-un-nouveau-Tarnac
------------------------------
on December 8: a new Tarnac ? (ca, de, it, fr, pt)[machine
translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Message: 1
ESE Athens participates in the anti-racist demonstration on Saturday 29/5, 13:00
Victoria Square. We will not stop until we eliminate every detention camp-hell!
No more immigrants dead - We want to live together
antiracist demonstration on 29 May, 13:00, starting from Victoria Square
No more dead migrants-we want to live together
https://ese.espiv.net/2021/05/25/01-31/
------------------------------
Message: 2
Today, different anarchist groups, collectives and organizations, publicly
manifest ourselves against the tax reform's hikes on essential subsistence goods.
But not only because we consider the reform as an organized robbery to the
pockets of the working class, peasants, service workers, self-employed and
freelancers. But also, we make evident the failure that constitutes this Uribist
government of Iván Duque and the disaster that is the whole state apparatus of
this country. Which has tried to hide with public works, laws, decrees, media
propaganda and cheap nationalism, the organized robbery that it really is over
the totality of the people of this region of the continent.
The taxes that Duque -falsely- talked about reducing, regardless of the president
in office, were, are and will be the same a general theft from the people, since
they have guaranteed, through the clientelist mafia, the access to power to no
more than 20 families throughout the country. 20 families who have corruptly
enriched themselves and continue to exercise power in the territories -many
times- through the use of arms, whether legal or illegal. And also benefiting
from legal and black market rents, -understood as- drug trafficking, smuggling,
human trafficking, land fattening, dispossession of land from peasants and
illegal mining.
How can they expect the people to continue to believe in the state, if the same
government that controls it, acts systematically against them?
The handling of the pandemic is disastrous, not only the duquismo made the covax
option fall apart when it could have ensured the supply of vaccines for Colombia.
But they also dare to do business with the health care of the people, at the
expense of the taxes that they steal from the workers. The pressure on health
workers, the overexploitation they suffer day by day, is not exclusive. The
teachers have also been deeply affected, not to mention all the people, who with
their sweat, tears and effort sustain a state that takes more than it really
gives back to them.
The war, which is maintained in the territories, has been continued because of
political decisions against the people. The same people who continue to pay its
toll in deaths, and continue to suffer the abuse of the state, the repression of
the security forces that only serve to maintain the privileges of those who
control the political and/or economic power. From the unfulfilled promises that
have led to the beginning of a new cycle of violence, the betrayal of agreements
that sowed hope in the population of Colombia . At the end, they decided to
harvest a fire fueled with gasoline.
For all this, and much more, is that we, the anarchists, express ourselves in
resounding opposition to the simple actions, which is to make a parade along the
Séptima Avenue. Instead, we call for an indefinite General Strike, that leads to
move the status quo for the benefit of the people: from its local oligarchs and
bourgeois minorities, to the wide, long, broad and diverse peoples that make up
the majority of the population in of the population in the Colombian region.
Recovering the municipal autonomies, the collectivization of the territory among
those who inhabit it ancestrally or traditionally, and the ancestral or
traditional inhabitants (not among those who, by usurpation, dispossession and
displacement, obtained it), exercising assembly, communalism and horizontality,
all decisions collectively, an open, participatory, diverse and permanent
assembly, rejecting any authority, caudillism, gamonalism, patronalism and
patriarchy. It is not necessary for the state controlled by the elite to decree
the AGRARIAN REFORM, its the communities, towns and municipalities themselves,
who can do it without intermediaries, they only need to agree to an assembly and
start it.
¡!!Abolish the relations of subordination to the narco-oligarchic state!!!!
¡!!!End of passive activity, it is time to go out to the streets!!!
¡!!!!Obstruct the exercise of repression!!!!!
¡!!Build autonomous neighborhood and municipal assemblies!!!!
Abolish the relations of male-dominated and patriarchal oppression: diverse
participation and gender equality, agreements of renouncing the war, ¡¡¡¡unarmed
civil disobedience!!!!
Avoid the tax reform, avoid pension reform, avoid labor reform.
Abolish the state.
¡!!Constitute the Assemblies!!!!
Signed:
Colectix Kaos Kreador Antifacista - Banderas Negras - ULET-AIT ?
ULET is the a syndicalist collective locatied in Bogotá, who'reseeking to build
an open union with an anarchist base. They are a member of the IWA-AIT.
https://organisemagazine.org.uk/2021/05/06/commication-from-colombias-ulet-ait-statement/
------------------------------
Message: 3
Cali, Colombia. Several hundred young women walk into Puerto Resistencia (Port of
Resistance), the heart of the Cali protest, with fists raised in a gesture of
opposition to the state, which has been killing them in the streets for weeks.
They are greeted with glee by dozens of people from the "primera línea", the
front line of the demonstrators defending the square, young men in makeshift
combat clothes and homemade shields, who have repulsed numerous police attacks on
the autonomous zone. The zone they had conquered at the cost of sweat, tears and
blood. ---- They dance in the streets. They hug each other. They are proud,
joyful and daring. They celebrate the fact that this autonomous zone in a poor
area of Cali, which has suffered such brutal violence in recent weeks, is today
firmly in the hands of a community that has taken its destiny and its security
into its own hands.
It seems as though none of those in Puerto Resistencia who speak to me have a
last name. I doubt that the names they call are real. The atmosphere is steeped
in fear of persecution, murder or simply disappearance at the hands of the forces
of the Colombian state.
As I scan the Autonomous Zone, a man in a United Nations vest asks a young
frontline young man passing by who is in charge. "We have no leaders," the young
man replies. "Our leaders were killed by Colombia. You can talk to the community."
Even before thousands of protesters took to the streets in this South American
country and the police began killing dozens of them, the killing of leading
social activists in Colombia was a pervasive problem. The countrywide strike in
Colombia was prompted not only by the tax reform plan that attracted so much
analyst attention in the movement's early days, but also by growing violence amid
what critics see as unfulfilled promises from the Duque administration regarding
a peace deal with insurgents, rising poverty and inequality, and assassination.
310 social leaders, human rights defenders and activists in 2020 (another 57
people died in 2021, according to Indepaz).
This community is now on its own. These people have lost confidence in the
institutions that were supposedly created to protect them. As a powerful symbol
of their motives, a banner with the inscription "Less police, more libraries"
stretched across the square.
They had more allies a few weeks ago. Minga, a local Indian protest movement
representing various communities in the neighboring Cauca department, has joined
the protesters in an amazing united front of rural and urban opposition forces.
But the Indian movement left the city after 8 of them were injured in an attack
by civilians armed with firearms. The soul of resistance now remains those who
brought it to life with fire and blood - the youth of Kali. And Puerto
Resistencia is the living, beating heart of this movement. And for those who
stand on the barricades in Cali, it is deadly work.
A revolution forged in blood
Indepaz, a nonprofit that monitors state violence and the implementation of the
peace process, has identified 41 people killed since the start of the protests.
27 of these deaths, or 65%, occurred on the streets of Cali, despite less than 5%
of Colombia's population living in this city of 2.28 million.
Puerto Resistencia, officially known as Puerto Reljena, rose to prominence
following nationwide strikes in 2019. But if during the previous protests
centered in the capital Bogota, Kali played a supporting role, then this time
there is no doubt that now the youth of Cali are the protagonists of the story of
drama and fire that unfolds across the country.
The streets of Kali are fertile ground for the growth of a youth-led revolution.
In the city, the unemployment rate exceeds 20% (if you include all people who
work informally, "in black" or in street microbusiness, which makes up almost
half of the city's workforce). The city has only one public university, which is
surprising for the third largest city in Colombia, and the region itself is a
hotbed of crime and a base of operations for various groups involved in drug
trafficking. Some of these groups are accused of having links with the Colombian
government.
Juan Diego stands with a sign from the construction site in the center of the
plaza, looking at a bunker of scrap materials that serves as a supply depot. It
is equipped with water bottles, stones and various first aid supplies. The face
of the standing person is covered by a red shirt, which he wears wrapped around
his face. "This government is corrupt. They're thieves," he says. ...
For a young man like Juan Diego, who grew up here at Comuna 16, there is little
hope that he will ever be able to escape from life in extreme poverty. Colombia
has the second highest inequality in America. Social mobility is very low. Of the
11 million people between the ages of 14 and 28, 3 million (27%) do not work or
study. These young people, who have nothing to lose and who have long felt
abandoned by the state, are well represented in the current protests. And in
Puerto Resistencia, they are the ones who build barricades, makeshift bunkers and
roadblocks to hold back the police.
Security measures in Puerto Resistencia are strict. Police have been barred from
entering the scene, as have the Colombian media, which the community believes has
distorted information about the protesters since April 28, when countrywide
strikes began. At every checkpoint that I have to cross to get into the
territory, the demonstrators from the "first line" try my teeth. They want to
know who I work for, what I do, and they want to remind me that it is strictly
forbidden to photograph anyone's face without permission. They relax when I tell
them that I am from the international press, although some people do not like
that I am a "gringo". Many of them believe that one of the reasons the police are
so brutal here lies in decades of US funding. which allowed politicians and
elites to create a military police state with a very horrific history of human
rights violations. It doesn't make matters any easier that the chemical munitions
they were poisoned with in the streets, and even some of the bullets with which
they were killed, were kindly provided by Uncle Sam.
They call other demonstrators in the square who have cell phones. They look at my
page on the Internet, in English, and scroll through it to find out why I am here
- to lie or to hear. They want the world to understand what they are doing here,
but they were betrayed by some of the journalists who were allowed in and
plainclothes police leaked to them. In the end, they let me pass.
The mini police station in Puerto Resistencia has been converted into a public
library and is decorated with art and murals by artists supporting the movement.
Nearby, an elderly woman prepares a huge pot of stew, which she gives out to
everyone who walks in. She refuses to give her name. "For many of these children,
this is the only food they get all day," she says.
The Autonomous Zone is dotted with murals, artwork and slogans. "The police don't
care about me," it says on one of the pieces. "My friends do." I play football
for a few minutes with a ten-year-old boy in the middle of the square. He is
totally captivated by this scene. Government officials and their media tell me
that these people are terrorists, vandals and armed insurgents. In my eyes, it's
just a community of people. Of course, one that economic neglect and state
violence pushed to extreme measures. But which, obviously, cares about its
people. I don't see any terrorists here.
There is no other option
Hugo Ormoudes is a community organizer in Siloe, another impoverished community
that has been severely affected by police violence since the protests began.
"These children have no access to education," he says of the youth at the
forefront of the protest. "The government has left them to their fate. with wages
above the minimum. They know that under the current system, they will remain in
the first layer all their lives. "
Colombian neighborhoods are layered - a digital system for determining tax rates
based on neighborhood economic prospects. The scale ranges from 1, which means
extreme poverty, to 6, the level of the rich, who live in gated communities and
skyscrapers.
Ormoudes further explains that thanks to these protests, many young people from
low-income communities have found understanding and respect from their
communities, many for the first time in their lives. "This is a powerful thing,"
he says. "This is the first time these young people are connecting with the
communities in which they live."
Andrea Bernal, a Cali activist, agrees with Ormoudes' assessment. "It's really
good to see," she says. "A lot of these kids were so marginalized that they
turned to crime in order to survive. I mean, they were malandros, you know?" She
says with a laugh. "But now they pride themselves on being primera línea. They
pride themselves on being part of a community, uniting against a government that
they feel has never cared for them. "
She shows me pictures of some of the children on the barricades from social
networks. They post pictures of themselves with Colombian flags, chants and
protest slogans, and vow to keep fighting until justice is achieved. It is a
prime example of how the collective action of a population that never had any
hope can give it a sense of meaning and purpose. A population that was largely
left to fend for itself and exploited by a ruling class that never showed concern
for its future or its welfare. For the kids in Cali, these protests have never
been about tax reform. Rather, it is about survival itself.
Celebration like a tank
At night, Puerto Resistencia often turns into a huge neighborhood party. The
people of Cali are known for their love of good party and salsa. Many people who
have endured sporadic lockdowns and curfews for over a year seem to express their
support for the ongoing strikes by doing what Kali does best - rumba.
But parties are not only about bringing the community together and raising the
spirits of those on the streets for weeks, they are also a strategy of defense.
"Of course, Kali loves to party," one of the protesters tells me as thousands of
people jump and dance around us. "But that's not all. Music is a tank against the
police. When we dance, the police cannot tell that there is an uprising." ...
Critics have called what is happening on the streets of Puerto Resistencia
anarchy. They say that young people destroying public property do not understand
what it means to own a business or a home, and they write off the movement as
unconcentrated chaos. Those who say this mistake the symptoms of these social
problems for the cause. However, they are half right. Most of these children will
never own property. They will never have access to the education they need to
start a real career, and for them the idea of owning a business that is more than
a street cart is just a pipe dream.
This is precisely the problem. And the youth of Kali are fed up
It is not yet clear where the protests in Puerto Resistencia will lead. At some
point, the international press will move on, UN investigators will leave, and the
attention that residents say drove the police to stop overt killings will disappear.
But the hope is that the united community will be able to take concrete reform
measures before that happens.
Joshua Collins
https://schwarzerpfeil.de/2021/05/20/puerto-resistencia-die-autonome-zone-im-herzen-der-kolumbianischen-proteste/
------------------------------
Message: 4
To this day no Revolution has been reasoned, and for this reason none has
completed the triumph either. All the great movements were, without exception,
almost unconscious acts of the crowd, moved by instinct or drawn by interested
parties and the advantages obtained have really been only for the directors of
the movement. Revolutions will no longer be made at random, because evolutions
are becoming more conscious and thoughtful every day. ---- Eliseo Reclús ---- I
do not know what is happening to me. While I long for the after coronavirus, I
can't stop thinking about past times, clinging to memories, and curiously, my
anarchist grandfather comes to mind all the time, for whom surely and to a great
extent, I am a member of the CNT since 1977.
Aragonese and railway. Affiliated with the National Confederation of Labor from a
very young age, he was an idealist, a dreamer. While he was station chief in
Alcalá de Henares, he was arrested in May 1939. They put him in prison and
subjected him to a Council of War for refusing to derail a train of civilians
coming from Madrid.
It accompanied me during my childhood. He took me to school, to the park, we were
companions of games and life. In the many times we spent together, he would tell
me stories. Stories, he said, but over the years I discovered that his stories
were lived experiences and deep ideals.
So eloquence and so much passion he put into her, that she always listened to him
spellbound. He taught me that happiness is in simple things, in affections and
not in material things.
My grandfather used to say that "in those happy times, we didn't need anything,
because we had everything." He always spoke of happiness as a collective feeling.
How can you be happy if the people around you are not?
There is no doubt that happiness can only be achieved when basic needs such as
health, housing, food and education are covered. And if you allow me, and as
Lorca said, I would add culture. "Give me a bread and a book."
I am fully convinced that we are at a crossroads where our steps can change the
course of things. If the Covid has taught us anything, it is that life is at
risk. Patriarchy, globalization, the climate crisis, the loss of biodiversity,
the extinction of species, the deepening inequalities, everything that surrounds
us looks more and more like the fall of the Roman Empire. If before the Covid,
this outdated and predatory system of capitalism towards waters everywhere, after
this pandemic, the crisis that we already have above, shows that only a systemic
analysis can show us a different path through which to travel.
Making neighborhood and town from the local and from an anarcho-feminist
perspective is essential. Because essential are affection, care, life. Produce to
live.
It is clear that growth is not green, unlimited, or equitable. And it is also
clear that no form of power or government will go beyond the dictates of large
corporations and a system based on money. And this, it is a fantasy. A system
built on billions of euros, backed by nothing. For more and more debt.
Kropotkin also said it in The Conquest of Bread: «Well-being for everyone is not
a dream. As the capacity to produce develops, the number of vagrants and
middlemen increases at a frightening rate. But this problem cannot be resolved
through legislation. Neither the current governments, nor those that may arise,
would be able to solve it.
Going from the big to the small, from the global to the local, the experiences of
horizontal communities, of which we have numerous examples, would be a mirror to
look at. The construction of food sovereignty, of agroecology, is a fundamental
axis. The feminist movement is another of the essential ingredients, not only for
reasons of equity, but because it values care, affection, what is really important.
Everywhere there are local initiatives, barter markets, time banks, communal
gardens. There is no doubt that local production is more ecological, as is local
commerce. Transportation is reduced, oligopolies and intermediaries are
eliminated, jobs are created and community is built in our neighborhoods and towns.
Although there is a false belief that there are no alternatives for change to the
globalized capitalist economic system, this is not the case. In the CSA Vega del
Jarama, in our mountains, and in which comrades from CNT Sierra Norte
participate, food sovereignty, horizontal organization, ecological production,
and the community, are a reality that has lasted for more than four years. and it
does not stop growing and consolidating. Torremocha del Jarama, with a population
of barely 1,000 inhabitants, hosts this project, in which 200 families
participate in this three-hectare communal garden. It employs three families and
the entire community is involved, on a rotating basis, pampering the rights of
those who work for it and collaborating in all tasks.
In the CSA Vega del Jarama, in our mountains, and in which comrades from CNT
Sierra Norte participate, food sovereignty, horizontal organization, organic
production, and the community, are a reality that has lasted for more than four
years. and it does not stop growing and consolidating.
Now there is a lot of talk about the economics of happiness. Since 2008, the
kingdom of Bhutan, a small hidden place in the Himalayan mountains, guides its
economy not by GDP, but by Gross Inner Happiness (FIB), which measures
psychological well-being, time use, vitality of the community, a sustainable and
equitable socioeconomic development, health, education and culture, among others.
Curiously, its main economic activity is agriculture.
As Durruti said, the path, that new world, is in the hearts. Social justice is
built with the social economy and evolution with revolution, as Eliseo Reclus so
aptly writes. "Until today no Revolution has been reasoned, and for this reason
none has completed the triumph either. All the great movements were, without
exception, almost unconscious acts of the crowd, moved by instinct or drawn by
interested parties and the advantages obtained have really been only for the
directors of the movement. The revolutions will no longer be made at random,
because the evolutions are every day more conscious and reflected.
Making neighborhood and town from the local and from an anarcho-feminist
perspective is essential. Because essential are affection, care, life. Produce to
live, not to fatten the pockets of that richest 1% who accumulate 82% of global
wealth. We have to stop at this crossroads of a time upset and directed by dark
interests, to add and add and add again. Because we are many more. And choose
once and for all the path of life. It is no longer an illusion, it is the only
adventure where we feel safe and happy. Tomorrow is our partner!
Elena Martínez - CNT Sierra Norte
https://sierranorte.cnt.es/encrucijada-a-la-felicidad/
------------------------------
Message: 5
The Tarnac affair, the great fiasco of French anti-terrorism instrumentalised for
political ends, could well recur with the indictment of 7 people suspected of
association with a view to an attack. ---- On December 8, 2020, seven people were
arrested in Toulouse, Rennes, Dordogne and Val-de-Marne, suspected of preparing
attacks. Today, five are still detained, officially for "criminal association of
a terrorist nature" , in a file which begins to recall the best failures of
French anti-terrorism. In the wake of the arrests, many articles take up, without
bothering with details, the vocabulary of the State which speaks of an
"ultra-left" group. Over the months, the profile of the accused refined, and the
thinness of the case became more apparent. F., designated as "leader" by the
instruction, would have as main fault to have gone to fight Daesh within the
Kurdish militias YPG.
In a forum, the Collective of French-speaking combatants and combatants of Rojava
(CCFR) gives him its support and is astonished: "On returning home, we did not
expect to receive the Legion of Honor[...]but we could not imagine that we would
be singled out as enemies from within and treated as equal to the jihadists we
had fought. » F. is probably the only common point between several other accused,
geographically distant, and not knowing each other for the most part.
The only common basis for their arrests therefore seems to be their
relationships, their reading and their political ideas, several defendants having
been questioned on this point during their police custody. One of them, an
artificer at Eurodisney, will be questioned about the evocation of explosives
during telephone conversations, another sign of the amateurism of instruction, or
even its purely political construction.
Who is terrorizing whom ?
Indeed, while the government raises the specter of "separatism" while keeping its
eyes low on the far right, the lack of incarnation of a "threat of the
ultra-left" began to be felt. All these characteristics are reminiscent of the
Tarnac affair, which ended in a general acquittal after twelve years of
proceedings. After the first police custody, five people are still detained in
Île-de-France as part of this investigation.
Treated under the regime of particularly signaled detainees (DPS), because of the
"anti-terrorism" nature of the investigation, they first experienced three to
four weeks of total isolation, without mail or telephone, and their lawyer as the
only contact. with the exterior. In recent months, forums of support have started
to multiply.
Relatives of the "accused of December 8" have created support committees, notably
in Rennes, Toulouse and Paris. They seek to publicize the case and to create
solidarity, in particular through a solidarity fund to allow defendants to pay
their legal fees and canteen. Their site opens on this question which seems to
have all its relevance in the face of the reality of this affair: who is
terrorizing whom?
N. Bartosek (UCL Haute-Savoie)
See the support site for the accused:
"https://soutienauxinculpeesdu8decembre.noblogs.org/"
https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?Anarcho-terrorisme-inculpe-es-du-8-decembre-un-nouveau-Tarnac
------------------------------
Geen opmerkingen:
Een reactie posten