RESPONSIBILITY CLAIM FOR THE ATTACK ON THE AGET FACTORY
“The exploited people have nothing to manage themselves beyond the denial of their status as such. Only in this way will their bosses, their leaders, their variously adorned apologists be eliminated with them. In this ‘massive task of urgent demolition’, we must quickly seek, joy.”
ACTION REPLACES TEARS
Much was said, even more was concealed and little was done. On July 14, 2020, our eyes tear up at the news of the death of comrade Vassilis Maggos, tears that will become rage, rage that thirsts for revenge. Evamer, as he was known and remains in our hearts, was a rare blend of selfless fighter and rebellious youth. A friend – a comrade in every sense of the word, who, with a permanent smile on his face, was always willing to help his neighbour, to discuss and above all to ACT against the state’s power and social subordination. A person who more than once had faced the arbitrariness of power and the bullies of the cops as he struggled with his demons from a young age, growing up in the streets of denial and questioning. Much can be said and perhaps has already been said about comrade Vassilis, but little has been done. We pledge that this condition will change. His beating and subsequent torture by the garbage of the police after the demonstration on June 13, 2020, may not be directly responsible for his death, but everyone can understand the magnitude of the mental burden that was inflicted on him and led to his death. His indirect state murder was a predestined repressive move against the movement forces of Volos, of which Vassilis was a part, and which have been under an ill-conceived and crude industry of persecution for 13 years. It was a direct continuation of the repressive pogrom of those days, with beatings, chemicals, home invasions, filing cases against demonstrators and state terrorism. Moreover, his targeting was constant and continued after his death, with the cops taunting him with forensic procedures, not returning his cell phone to his family and charging him posthumously at the same time that the results of the fake investigation (and the names of his torturers) were kept secret. We have no illusion that justice will be done through the very institutions responsible for perpetuating social and class injustice. We know that the lengthy and covert judicial procedures are intended to cover up and launder the cops, as is the case in all cases of state arbitrariness. But what we can say is that nothing will go unanswered. We respect his family’s choice to take legal action, but for us this is not enough. It is everyone’s bet, therefore, to seek justice for Vassilis’ death and the events of last summer. It is a matter of putting a brake on police arbitrariness, and this cannot be done with comments on Facebook. Those who choose to take our comrade in their mouths would be well advised to turn their words into actions, those who shout about him in the marches should already be planning revenge actions, those who call him out by doing nothing just have a corpse in their mouths, and that is disgraceful, they had better shut up. Let each and every one of them take responsibility! That’s what he wanted and that’s what he did. Just like when he alone went and smashed the offices of the Neo-Nazis of Golden Dawn. The rest is just empty talk to justify their political non-existence and their superficial (if not hobbyist) involvement in the anti-authoritarian struggle. The road to a future world without power, exploitation and oppression is not flowered with rose petals and Vassilis Maggos will always remind us of this!
We, on the one-year anniversary of his death, could not have done otherwise, so we decided to pay our own tribute. A tribute and a reminder that the issue of the incineration of garbage by AGET will not be forgotten, no matter how many media outlets they bribe, no matter how many donations they make, no matter how many cops they use as security guards, no matter how many local and non-local MPs and mayors they use as decoys. As long as the plant is in place, it will be a target and we will only calm down when we see its ashes and wreckage. Those who cover up and silence its presence should consider that the health of their children is more important than the health of their pockets. The presence of such a polluting plant next to the urban fabric is a challenge that goes beyond the local context. The plundering of nature and the environment and treating a city to cancer on the altar of profit brings to the surface the true essence of capitalism. In particular, in recent years when the state has been attempting a literal sweep of natura areas by granting permits for wind turbines, mining etc. and passing one anti-environmental bill after another citing the most modern fairy tale. The fairy tale of ‘green growth’ is just a paper in the hands of the global bosses that creates new areas of profitability (e.g. pollutant exchange). On the other hand, it gives them a false sense of sensitivity at the same time as mountain tops are being flattened, millions of acres of forest and non-forest land are being burned, seas and air are being polluted, vast areas of land in third world countries are being turned into the garbage dumps of the developed western world. As economic resources, they are being trampled on for the triumph of modern super-industries and super-weapons , wind farms, oil production, combustion and mining. The capitalist monster is growing and green growth is spewing its profit on us and suffocating us. A monster that exists, lives and harvests alongside social consensus and the ‘rightful’ abuse of natural resources and human potential. On the altar of profit and its exponential preservation by the local and universal power, in a socio-political system dependent on many but made for few, everything that opposes is killed, everything that does not benefit is annihilated. Whatever delays the modern “silk roads” hastens the effort to bring it down, always promoted so as to appear “just” by the mass seduction media, which sustain the willful critical thinking of the peoples.
The onslaught of modern totalitarianism has been baptised development, a doctrine promoted in recent decades by the capitalist system and its driving force. The profitable assault on nature and animals and its destructive exploitation maintains the dichotomy of the well-being of those above through the struggle for survival of those below. Their arrogance of their human footprint on the carcasses of the natural environment is consistent with the fragmentation of human dignity and the exploitation of human by human.
But the planet has long since shown its limits, it is a matter of societies showing them as well, as the culture of pollution is not reformed, only overturned. We cannot talk about a different way of approaching environmental issues (pollution reduction, renewable energy sources, waste incineration, electrification, nuclear energy, etc.) unless we presuppose the abolition of a system that constantly plunders nature and man. We cannot talk about improving the environment while Western civilisation, immersed in over-consumption and ephemeral pleasures, is constantly plundering the planet’s natural resources to the detriment of local populations, often leading them to wars (natural or economic). Attention, we do not speak in terms of primitivism, we consider that the resources of the planet are more than enough to cover a basic level of needs of all people under the condition of equality. The development of technology can contribute to this instead of giving profits to the bosses. The creation of alternative forms of social organisation and production, decentralisation, communitisation and the collective redefinition of energy needs do not mean the denial of the various technological and scientific achievements, but their fair distribution and use for the benefit of the many. But all this presupposes the abolition of profit, the state and capital, and in short the modern power model. We do not believe that the defence of the environment can only be achieved through the minimisation of the environmental footprint, as governments are trying to convince us with the wisecracking argument of ‘individual responsibility’. No matter how much we save on electricity in our homes, it will not equal the wastefulness that takes place in developed countries and in sectors of the economy that are irrelevant to the basic needs of billions of people. This is why it is important to strengthen, connect and diversify the environmental struggles both in Greece and abroad, in the light of the challenge to the capitalist model of development. From the No Tav movement in Italy, to the struggles for water and the defence of the Amazon forests in South America, to Volos, Stagiates, Skouries, Acheloos and Agrafa, it is obvious that collectivity, consistency, imagination, perseverance and direct action are the only ones that can counteract the huge economic interests. The struggle for Earth and Freedom goes through acts of sabotage, attacks on key figures of environmental plunder, mass mobilizations, clashes, road blockades, destruction of infrastructure and much more. As long as there is imagination and the will to fight and live.
Wake up, I say at last, we are living the beginning of the end.
We are living through a period of significant changes in power practices and an unprecedented attack on rights, freedoms locally and globally. The state is attacking every marginalized social group, the poor and struggling individuals, our sisters, the rebellions, nature. The coming economic crisis is approaching at breakneck speed due to the over-accumulation of profit in the hands of a few and the slowing down of their rates of profitability, since the accumulated capital is not being redistributed to the same extent. Even before the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, bourgeois economists were talking about a crisis similar to the one of ’29 as the financial system is at its limits, global financial debt is sky high and many states are unable to meet the demands of the IMF and other usury institutions. The previous financial crisis that started in America due to the management of mortgages and the aftermath of which was imposed by the memoranda in Greece is an infinitesimal picture of what is to come. In a global environment of insecurity, volatility and the emergence of new geopolitical powers, the Western states, fronted by NATO, are rallying to confront the growing Asian bourgeoisie. To achieve this, in addition to military preparations, they are imposing measures and laws that make their economies more attractive to investment. The pandemic treaty has been the best vehicle for accelerating the attack on the conquests, freedoms and rights of the peoples of the Western world. An attack that was predestined beforehand and which has now been accelerated hopelessly in favour of the rulers and without reaction. Besides, the management of the pandemic has made it clear to the most ignorant that the capitalists are only interested in their own pockets. The absurd, incomprehensible and unrelated to health measures taken were and are intended to reinforce state repression, fear, the fragmentation of the social fabric and the change in the production model. Indicative of this is the selective sensitivity of state aid to the private health sector, while public hospitals are straining under shortages of resources, machinery and manpower. We do not intend to dwell on the pandemic, the management of which, after all, has only resulted in thousands of deaths, fines and a lot of beatings by the sheriffs of Chrysochodis. Except that sometimes the roles are reversed and the perpetrators may well turn into victims as long as we give way to the rage! New Smyrna reminds us of this.
Masters and bosses, big or small, feel invulnerable. The normality that has been carved out takes for granted the condition of ruler-ruler and the automatic acceptance of the manipulations of the vertical hierarchical structure in all levels of the social strata. Obedience, becomes a way of life. The narrative is on their side, they think they are right with them.
As resisters to any authority we can recognize, remember and remind us that behind the ranks that protect them, under the helmets and the departments that nest them, their bones, like ours, are breaking. And the right of the struggling is a right real and different from theirs. Without needing reward and recognition, it is not “advantageous” it is necessary, it is not taught it is a feeling. It can begin and end in blood or laughter, the price is uncontrollable and the security is utopian. Lest we forget that nights can exult our smallest and biggest dreams and that cops like moving garbage, stinking and stinking to exist, can run anxiously behind the explosions we create. That every spilled blood, though futile, is so painful that in the need to heal we can kill whatever is killing us. Through collective insurrectionary life and solidarity we can break free from relations of exploitation, seize life and the needs of the here and now, fortifying the acquisitions of values and resources for the next struggles.
On the road to smash repression.
It is well known that states have always invested in repression and population control, but the qualitative and quantitative leap that has taken place in the last year and a half in these areas can only be compared to the most obscurantist periods of history and the most authoritarian regimes. On the other hand, it is these areas that show that the state has continuity, as the fight against the internal enemy and the maintenance of social peace are the highest priority for maintaining the current socio-economic situation. A preservation that is also shown by the thousands of prosecutions, the tons of files, the excessive sentences and the dozens of political prisoners of the last few years alone. A preservation that is partly based on the ignorance and silence of parts of the wider subversive movement. For our part, we declare that anyone who forgets the prisoners of the social war will soon forget the war itself if they have not already done so.
We are determined to die in order to live.
The creation of class levees and the promotion of popular self-defence is more necessary than ever. It is imperative that the political and organisational upgrading of the revolutionary-proletarian forces be carried out. It is imperative to put up barriers to state terrorism and the capitalist onslaught. We appeal to all fighting comrades for organisation and unity in action. To strengthen the mound of direct action, to promote a culture of anti-violence so that a bit of fear can return to the skins of our dreams. We have much to say, but for now we have much more to do. Sabotage, expropriation, destruction for creation and vice versa, to continue the struggle with the status quo and its supporters. For they are not invulnerable or intact, they are the pawns of profit and that is where we will strike them.
We welcome the initiatives of the last few months to create a nationwide front of counter-attack and direct action, although our action has moved in a completely autonomous context.
At dawn on Sunday 18 July 2021, using imagination, organisation, stubbornness and patience, exploiting information and security gaps, we managed to infiltrate the AGET plant and deliver a part of the plant’s electricity substation to the flames. While we could have destroyed the entire substation, we chose to act symbolically, due to the presence of the Goritsa forest near the target, so as not to create an uncontrolled fire. Next time we won’t be so lenient and let the LaFarge apologists (local media, company communications officers and sold-out unionists) scream about the plant’s history in the city and the volunteer positions it provides.
The only history we recognise is that of social and class struggles and in the city of Volos this history is rich and varied. Let us all remember this. One year after the death of our comrade we declare that no state crime will be forgotten and nothing will be left unanswered. The struggle continues.
“No tears are shed by eyes accustomed to seeing fires. The fighters do not bow their heads, they hold up the star…with pride…You will be ashes, world old man. Thou art destined for the world of crushing and canst not bend us by killing our brothers in battle, and know this we shall come out victorious, though our sacrifices be heavy.”
TO RELEASE TO THE PUBLIC THE NAMES OF THE COPS-TORTURERS OF OUR COMRADE VASSILIS MAGGOS
NO TO BURNING GARBAGE
“LET ACTION REPLACE TEARS – AND EVEN IF WE NEVER WIN, WE WILL ALWAYS FIGHT.
Direct Action Cell “Vassilis Maggos”
Source: Athens IMC