Almost 2 years after the collapse of Operation Solidarity and the
formation of the Solidarity Collectives, we decided to take a closer
look at the story of the disappearance of the money and put a stop to
this conversation. The reason for writing this article was the repeated
discussions of the members of our collective about this story and the
lack of a full description of the situation in the network for those who
did not follow the organization at the time of its split.
For reference: Operation Solidarity was a collective of anarchists and
anti-fascists engaged in organizing solidarity with Ukrainian anarchists
and anti-authoritarians after the beginning of Russia's full-scale
invasion of Ukraine. Lasted until May-June 2022. Re-formed into the
organization "Solidarity Collectives".
To create this text, we spoke to several comrades in and outside of
Ukraine, including some comrades from Belarus, who were involved in
solidarity organizing in the first months after the start of the
full-scale invasion of Ukraine. We cannot provide the identity of our
sources for security reasons, but after several conversations with
different activists we have no doubt about the facts confirmed by
different sources.
We have come across the well-known activist Salem several times over
these two years on the internet and understand his position on the
situation, so we did not feel it necessary to further question him or
his associates on the situation. In addition, as far as we know, Salem
and his circles have written a text in several languages, in which they
express their understanding of what happened in detail
(https://telegra.ph/Publichnyj-otvet-Operation-Solidarity-07-26).
What happened?
After several months of active work, Operation Solidarity collapsed.
From the old collective a new organization "Solidarity Collectives" was
formed, which has been engaged since summer - autumn 2022 in organizing
support for comrades at war and humanitarian aid (the organization has
several other directions).
Given the extremely difficult work situation of the activists of
Operation Solidarity, including the constant threat of death and
violence from the occupying forces, we can understand the conflicts that
arise in the collectives. The creation of new collectives in a war
atmosphere is extremely difficult, and in some situations impossible.
During the formation of the collective, one of its members, Salem, took
the initiative to create the financial and media infrastructure. Once
everything was in place, access to the infrastructure was not shared
with the rest of the collective. Several months later, when the
collective members asked to share responsibilities, Salem and several
others refused to transfer access and blocked further use of the
collective funds.
As a result, for more than a month, access to the collective's accounts
was inaccessible to the collective itself, media resources were blocked,
and Salem refused to hand over the collective money back to the general
treasury. Salem cited several reasons for this approach, none of which
justify such behavior.
The conflict from Operation Solidarity spilled out of Ukraine rather
quickly. It was abroad that Salem tried to find "allies" to fight the
majority of the collective. As far as we know, Salem and his friends
were not able to find such people initially, so the blocking of the
money continued.
Depending on the week of the conflict, Salem offered to "return" from
50% to 80% of the total cash and keep the rest of the money for his
projects. Alternatively, the Operation Solidarity collective offered
Salem to write a formal proposal of what he planned to use the money for
and the total budget for it, plus transfer access to media resources to
a third party, which salem refused.
After almost a month and a half of conflict and frozen collective
resources, the comrades organized in the already collapsing
anti-authoritarian platoon met with Salem in person and were able to
negotiate the return of most of the collective resources. At the same
time, Salem himself was left with a substantial amount of money in the
amount of about 20,000 euros. The money was handed over without any
agreement on the media resources that remained in Salem's hands or any
accountability for the use of the money. This compromise led to the
re-establishment of Operation Solidarity, but the collective decided to
close the group and form the Solidarity Collectives as a separate
initiative, unrelated to Salem and his associates.
After receiving the amount, Salem and his friends indicated in a
statement on July 26 that they had received 1/4 of the cash register as
per their offer. The former activists themselves do not deny that their
offer was not accepted (as the same statement says that just a few days
after the "sharing" of the money, current members of the Solidarity
Collectives issued them an ultimatum demanding that they return all the
funds and transfer access to media resources to third parties).
It is difficult to say where the 20,000 euros allocated to Salem were
used, but at least part of the money was used for household needs
directly by Salem and his friends. Salem and his friends do not keep any
open records on the money they have misappropriated (at least we could
not find any)
In his statement, Salem points to the fact that the organization's
resources have been misused and diverted by people from the current
Solidarity Collective. We have not been able to find anyone to
corroborate this statement. Since the formation of the Solidarity
Collectives, no one else has made this type of accusation against the
collective.
Conclusions:
After analyzing everything that has happened, we believe that:
Being in a privileged situation, Salem and his friends purposefully
appropriated[1]collective resources to develop their own projects
outside the collective to which these resources were originally entrusted.
Salem and his friends actively blocked the solidarity structure from
working in their personal interests to develop abstract projects.
Salem and his friends appropriated the media resources of Operation
Solidarity to publish factual misinformation.
We therefore recommend that organized anarchist groups avoid any
collaboration with Salem and others in his circle who participated in
the theft of collective resources. Two years later, we have not found
any evidence of remorse and acceptance of responsibility by Salem and
his circle for the crisis. Moreover, Salem continues to try to use
social media and general communication channels to discredit Solidarity
Collectives and spread deliberately false information.
We understand the reputational risks that publishing this analysis and
conclusions may bring us, but we believe it is necessary to introduce
accountability within the anarchist movement for misconduct. Especially
on this scale.
We realize that the facts in this text may be used by government
agencies to prosecute Salem and his friends, but we do not believe it is
necessary to protect the interests of such individuals given that they
continue to attempt to damage the anarchist movement.
For additional comments and questions, feel free to email us at
pramen@riseup.net
Anarchists from the Pramen
1: Some anarchists accuse Salem of stealing collective resources, while
Salem and his friends deny theft. According to the legal definition,
there really was no theft - theft is covert stealing, while they took
the money in open.
https://pramen.io/en/2024/05/was-any-money-stolen-from-operation-solidarity/
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
formation of the Solidarity Collectives, we decided to take a closer
look at the story of the disappearance of the money and put a stop to
this conversation. The reason for writing this article was the repeated
discussions of the members of our collective about this story and the
lack of a full description of the situation in the network for those who
did not follow the organization at the time of its split.
For reference: Operation Solidarity was a collective of anarchists and
anti-fascists engaged in organizing solidarity with Ukrainian anarchists
and anti-authoritarians after the beginning of Russia's full-scale
invasion of Ukraine. Lasted until May-June 2022. Re-formed into the
organization "Solidarity Collectives".
To create this text, we spoke to several comrades in and outside of
Ukraine, including some comrades from Belarus, who were involved in
solidarity organizing in the first months after the start of the
full-scale invasion of Ukraine. We cannot provide the identity of our
sources for security reasons, but after several conversations with
different activists we have no doubt about the facts confirmed by
different sources.
We have come across the well-known activist Salem several times over
these two years on the internet and understand his position on the
situation, so we did not feel it necessary to further question him or
his associates on the situation. In addition, as far as we know, Salem
and his circles have written a text in several languages, in which they
express their understanding of what happened in detail
(https://telegra.ph/Publichnyj-otvet-Operation-Solidarity-07-26).
What happened?
After several months of active work, Operation Solidarity collapsed.
From the old collective a new organization "Solidarity Collectives" was
formed, which has been engaged since summer - autumn 2022 in organizing
support for comrades at war and humanitarian aid (the organization has
several other directions).
Given the extremely difficult work situation of the activists of
Operation Solidarity, including the constant threat of death and
violence from the occupying forces, we can understand the conflicts that
arise in the collectives. The creation of new collectives in a war
atmosphere is extremely difficult, and in some situations impossible.
During the formation of the collective, one of its members, Salem, took
the initiative to create the financial and media infrastructure. Once
everything was in place, access to the infrastructure was not shared
with the rest of the collective. Several months later, when the
collective members asked to share responsibilities, Salem and several
others refused to transfer access and blocked further use of the
collective funds.
As a result, for more than a month, access to the collective's accounts
was inaccessible to the collective itself, media resources were blocked,
and Salem refused to hand over the collective money back to the general
treasury. Salem cited several reasons for this approach, none of which
justify such behavior.
The conflict from Operation Solidarity spilled out of Ukraine rather
quickly. It was abroad that Salem tried to find "allies" to fight the
majority of the collective. As far as we know, Salem and his friends
were not able to find such people initially, so the blocking of the
money continued.
Depending on the week of the conflict, Salem offered to "return" from
50% to 80% of the total cash and keep the rest of the money for his
projects. Alternatively, the Operation Solidarity collective offered
Salem to write a formal proposal of what he planned to use the money for
and the total budget for it, plus transfer access to media resources to
a third party, which salem refused.
After almost a month and a half of conflict and frozen collective
resources, the comrades organized in the already collapsing
anti-authoritarian platoon met with Salem in person and were able to
negotiate the return of most of the collective resources. At the same
time, Salem himself was left with a substantial amount of money in the
amount of about 20,000 euros. The money was handed over without any
agreement on the media resources that remained in Salem's hands or any
accountability for the use of the money. This compromise led to the
re-establishment of Operation Solidarity, but the collective decided to
close the group and form the Solidarity Collectives as a separate
initiative, unrelated to Salem and his associates.
After receiving the amount, Salem and his friends indicated in a
statement on July 26 that they had received 1/4 of the cash register as
per their offer. The former activists themselves do not deny that their
offer was not accepted (as the same statement says that just a few days
after the "sharing" of the money, current members of the Solidarity
Collectives issued them an ultimatum demanding that they return all the
funds and transfer access to media resources to third parties).
It is difficult to say where the 20,000 euros allocated to Salem were
used, but at least part of the money was used for household needs
directly by Salem and his friends. Salem and his friends do not keep any
open records on the money they have misappropriated (at least we could
not find any)
In his statement, Salem points to the fact that the organization's
resources have been misused and diverted by people from the current
Solidarity Collective. We have not been able to find anyone to
corroborate this statement. Since the formation of the Solidarity
Collectives, no one else has made this type of accusation against the
collective.
Conclusions:
After analyzing everything that has happened, we believe that:
Being in a privileged situation, Salem and his friends purposefully
appropriated[1]collective resources to develop their own projects
outside the collective to which these resources were originally entrusted.
Salem and his friends actively blocked the solidarity structure from
working in their personal interests to develop abstract projects.
Salem and his friends appropriated the media resources of Operation
Solidarity to publish factual misinformation.
We therefore recommend that organized anarchist groups avoid any
collaboration with Salem and others in his circle who participated in
the theft of collective resources. Two years later, we have not found
any evidence of remorse and acceptance of responsibility by Salem and
his circle for the crisis. Moreover, Salem continues to try to use
social media and general communication channels to discredit Solidarity
Collectives and spread deliberately false information.
We understand the reputational risks that publishing this analysis and
conclusions may bring us, but we believe it is necessary to introduce
accountability within the anarchist movement for misconduct. Especially
on this scale.
We realize that the facts in this text may be used by government
agencies to prosecute Salem and his friends, but we do not believe it is
necessary to protect the interests of such individuals given that they
continue to attempt to damage the anarchist movement.
For additional comments and questions, feel free to email us at
pramen@riseup.net
Anarchists from the Pramen
1: Some anarchists accuse Salem of stealing collective resources, while
Salem and his friends deny theft. According to the legal definition,
there really was no theft - theft is covert stealing, while they took
the money in open.
https://pramen.io/en/2024/05/was-any-money-stolen-from-operation-solidarity/
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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