I'm not sure what it is I want you to do with this. I just thought getting into the minds of these Greek anarchist bank "robbers" would be interesting. No one on the US left much wants to ever even talk about things like this, some because they don't want to feel the pious wrath of fundamentalist pacifists, some because they think the police will show up at their door. I don't care about the first, but would prefer the police stay away from my door.
Let's be clear, I am NOT ADVOCATING anyone go out and rob a bank. However, some people do believe there are plenty of justification for such things and I think people need to understand their motivation, their aims, and their reasoning.
Another reason I do this is because I know what it is like to be charged with a violent political crime and watch many people suddenly move ever so slightly further away from you.
I also, fortunately, know what it feels like to have still others, some total strangers, some old friends, some family be there for you.
And with that personal note I present to you from Occupied London/From the Greek Streets...
PS: This post comes with its own background.
Text by the 4 arrested anarchists concerning the double robbery in Velvento, Kozani
Our days pass, our nights don’t
We run toward our escape, whilst around us a full-out manhunt is playing out. Behind us lies a life that is predetermined, carved from the hands of the sovereign, with the aim for us to internalise submission as an objective condition, to morally legitimise systems of law and rules, to equalise the individual with a statistical logic of numbers. Ahead of us, the world of our “utopian” fantasies that is conquered with violence alone. One life, one chance and determined choices.
Gaze at the gap in-between the clouds and jump, because the fall was never a more certain choice.
On Friday, 01.02, along with a group of comrades, we conducted a double robbery, of the Agricultural Bank and the Post Office in Velvento, Kozani. In our opinion it is of some importance to analyse, to an extent, the operational part of the robbery. This, primarily in order to highlight all the elements of the case, the choices that we made, the mistakes we conducted and the reasons that lead us to these:
And so, on that Friday morning, we attacked the two targets split in two teams. Our aim from the upstart was to take the money from both safes, as it did indeed happen. During our escape, a series of unfortunate events and mistaken handling of these lead to the exposure both of our vehicle as well as our direction to the police.
Due to the police grip that was automatically formed, the comrade driving the van that was externally transformed to look like an ambulance, sought exit routes for the team conducting the robberies. In this attempt of his, he made the mistake of driving three times in front of a vehicle of the cops, which resulted in him being considered suspect. A chase followed and then, due to non-familiarity with the area that he ended up in, he reached four dead ends in the mud-roads of the pits, which resulted in him being surrounded in the last one – and having no other actual space to escape. And so, once he set the van alight, he was arrested. Following these developments and while our comrade with the escape vehicle was already in the hands of the cops, our available options were significantly narrowed down.
We therefore decided to stop the first passing vehicle, since this would guarantee a more safe escape for us and our comrades. The main issue in this condition was for the cops not to learn about the new escape vehicle of our comrades – and so we decided to keep its driver in the van with us, until we would find a way for us to escape too. This is approximately when we crossed paths with a police car, which gradually turned into an intense chase until the city of Veroia, with most of the police forces available in the area, behind us. We obviously did not for a moment consider using the hostage in person as a human shield (we would not have a problem, for example, should we have had the manager of a bank) – after all, the police did not know of his existence. In the end, he acted as a human shield for the cops, without their knowledge – since he comprised the reason for which we did not use our weapons in order to escape. Because our consciousness and our moral code do not allow us to risk the life of a random person who found themselves with us against their will.
At this point we would like to make clear that we did not have the weapons just for the purpose of scaring off, but as a weapon in the off-chance of a clash between us and the cops. Therefore, the reason why we did not act in the corresponding way, in order to escape, was a condition in which we found ourselves due to a mistaken handling.
The only option for an escape by this point was speed – and our attempt to gain ground with our vehicle from the cops who were chasing us. Of course, the city of Veroia does not offer itself for something like this, and so we were soon trapped in a narrow street, resulting in our arrest. During our arrest, the only thing that we stated was that the person that we had with us had nothing to do neither with the robbery, nor with us. Despite this, the cops continued beating him too, at least for as long as we had eye-contact with him.
The above narration is not conducted as part of some boosting or self-promotion, but in order to invert the legacy of the arrests without a fight that the conditions lead us to.
* * * * *
The narration ends at the police headquarters in Veroia, where an hours-long torturing of three of us by the pigs of the police took place. The tactics are well-known and expected: hood, tying with handcuffs behind our backs and beatings.
We consider a given that there is a clear separating line behind us and the system, which marks the war between two worlds. The world of sovereignty, repression and submission and the world of freedom, which we create and keep alive through the restless struggle against authority.
In this war, the pigs of the police comprise a permanent target of the anarchist guerrillas as a front-line and repressive branch of the mechanisms of sovereignty. For this reason, we considered the stance of the cops against us a given. If the state did not fight us, then we would have a good reason to be worried. Torturing, as a method, were, are and will be a weapon in the arsenal of any given authority. Us, of course, as anarchists, refuse to use methods of torturing against our enemies and promote the dignified practice of political “executions”, since we do not want to reproduce the rottenness of their world, but to eliminate it.
The opinion that sees people in struggle are pray in the hands of mechanisms of repression internalises the idea of defeat amidst subversive circles. It is the acceptance of a conceptualisation of curtailing the war against the enemies of freedom, as part of the acceptance of the bourgeois social morality and legality. And in order for us to be clear, the cue above concerns statements of the like of those by ANTARSYA or by A.K. [Anti-authoritarian Movement]. Which contribute more to reformism than to radicalisation. It is unnecessary for us to refer to journalists, SYRIZA and other parts of the system which address us with “friendly” statements in order to attempt to re-approach those consciousnesses that begin to divert from the norm, serving, in this way, the stabilisation of the regime.
Now, concerning facing the practices of torture, our own response lies in polymorphic action. The highlighting of particular events through actions of counter-information such as communiques, posters, gatherings, demonstrations etc. is definitely necessary, in order for an ever-increasing number of people to reach a conclusion. A conclusion that leaves no space for “isolated incidents” or “revanchist behaviours” but leads to the understanding that physical violence was always a means of repression and control by society. It comprises part of the war between sovereignty and revolt.
Of course, this message must spread equally with a message of terror for those natural torturers, the cops. In order for cops not to beat up, the intra-systemic denunciations and legal procedures have no meaning – while they also imply concessions and an informal acceptance of the juridical or journalistic authority. It takes resistance – and resistance must have violent form, too. Because an attack against the cops –– not only those of Veroia – either with stones, either with molotovs, ether with guns, leads them undoubtedly to a reassessment of their choices, counting their wounds before they lay hand again. Because as it has been very correctly been pointed out, the enemies have names and addresses.
* * * * *
We shall not refer in detail to the role of banks – in any case, at the time that we live in this is well-known to everybody. They existence is a continued robbery. For us, as anarchists, they comprise a target for attacks of all kinds: arsonist, bombing, robbing. Of course, there was much of a discussion about our case and there is undoubtedly a need for us to inverse these impressions. To strike against the continuous attempt of designification of our choice, and to highlight the rottenness of the sociological approach and the pseudo-humanitarian background, which they wanted to assign to us, due to [our] age.
“Next door kids and they attack a bank. Why?”
Because robbery is a consciously political act. It does not comprise the next level of a restless adolescent period, aspirations for personal wealth, nor of course is it a result of our supposed laziness. Yet it includes the desire not to bind our lives to the brutal exploitation of waged labour. Our refusal to become gears for financial interests. Our resistance against the charging ahead of mental and value bankruptcy of their world.
It is clear for us that we do not negate creativity within our communities. After all, putting together a robbery requires mental and physical labour. Yet we refuse to enslave our creativity to the world of production and reproduction of labour. Of course, for us the negation of waged slavery would hold little meaning if we did not at the same time act toward its destruction. We are remorseless anarchists and we do not seek sympathy, compassion or understanding because we acted “wrong” in a “wrong” world. We seek the spread of our values and practices and we will fight for this until our last word, until our last bullet.
* * * * *
Each aggressive act of ours is also a moment of the total revolutionary war playing out at all levels. The money from this robbery was not destined for the artificial consumer paradise. It is simply the tool in order to move all forms of struggle. From the printing of communiques to the purchase of weapons and explosives, for the funding of illegal structures of defense and attack. From the rental of our illegal houses to the supply of explosives in order to blow up their social peace.
Our aim is the spread of direct action against the generalised condition of slavery that we experience. Whether in a guerrilla formation, or openly, face-to-face, with any way each of us appreciates to be more fertile and effective, in any way fancied by each individual and group that contribute to the struggle. Always, the aim of each move of ours, of every guerrilla attack, is the spread of revolutionary consciousness. In order to stand consciously against the world of universal enslavement, against an ever-transforming enemy that sweeps everything in their path. Against this condition, the struggle for freedom and the attempt to assign combative elements to every aspect of anarchist struggle is fertile and necessary.
Because anarchy can never become a pleasant idea amidst the world of universal submission; rather, it finds itself in a never-ending clash with it. It cannot limit itself neither to harmless and democratically acceptable expressions, nor to fetishisms of the mediums –– but it comprises, rather, an undivided totality of all forms of struggle. Each individual or group, according with the desires, the intentions and their reasoning, contributes by any means possible, to the continuation of the struggle. Anarchy is our way to organise, to live and to struggle. It is the organisation without any restrictions, it is the incessant struggle. It is the extreme camaraderie that we experience in the revolted communities, against the rotten social fabric.
In closing, we would like to greet all the comrades who acted. Pasting posters, shouting slogans, organising gatherings, issuing solidarity statements (from inside and outside prison).To those who, at this moment, prepare their attacks.
PS. 1. We also want to send our solidarity to the hunger striker Spyros Dravilas, who gives a painful and tough struggle for a breath of freedom. Much strength.
PS. 2. A short while ago, comrade Ryo from Indonesia was killed in a random fray. Ryo was anarchist who promoted international solidarity through his action. Now, even when he is absent from the hostilities that we cause against the existent, we are convinced that we always look toward the same star, the star of continuous anarchist revolt. Honour to comrade RYO.
The anarchists:
Nikos Romanos
Dimitris Politis
Andreas-Dimitris Mpourzoukos
Giannis Michailidis
Dimitris Politis
Andreas-Dimitris Mpourzoukos
Giannis Michailidis
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