LET FEAR CHANGE SIDES
The Direct Action Cells undertook the incendiary attacks on the homes of the Secretary General of the Greek Police Officers’ Union Evangelos Mantziorou on June 2 in Peristeri and the SKAI journalist Aris Portosalte on June 14 in Vrilissia. Our attacks were carried out in the context of our strategy expressed through the slogan “Fear must change sides”. For the last 1.5 years we have been trying with all our forces to target people who, from their position, staff the Greek capitalist formation. High-ranking police officers, big journalists, government officials, technocrats who plan government policy, judges, have been targeted. At the same time we have carried out incendiary actions against financial and political targets. Our action is aimed at sending a clear message to these puppet masters. Those who from their position participate in the savage attack that capitalism has unleashed on all aspects of our lives are in the crosshairs of the Direct Action Cells.
Their apologetic statements, the terror with which they jump out of bed when they hear the explosions of the devices we place in their homes, the condemnatory statements of the parties and the media, show that we are on the right track. The encouraging comments from our people, our class people, are our strength to carry on. Through our actions we are trying to keep alive the tradition and practice of direct action. To make it clear that our enemies have names and addresses. To prove that our momentum is greater when we become unpredictable and to call on other militants to follow our example.
The choice of the far-right neoliberal university student and his targeting was not the result of a victimhood and a source of disgust caused by his public presence. Aris Portosalte as a persona encapsulates the most extreme aspects of neoliberal discourse in the country and with his shrill voice he challenges and seduces the sympathetic ears of the neoliberal audience. His daily rants are not the opinion of a journalist, as he and those who deplored the attack on his house want to peddle, but the outgrowth of the political footprint of New Democracy in Greece at the cutting edge of its thought and speech production, the media. Like another harlequin, he has taken a leading role in the forefront of far-right propaganda and is doing the dirty work that the ruling party’s political cadres often avoid.
It expresses in the clearest and sharpest way the ideological and political cesspool of the neoliberal right in Greece without the petty political evasions of the party’s co-conspirators. It does so in the arms of the Alafouzos information group, with SKAI being the basic crutch of neoliberal conservatism in Greece and a willing pool of Siloam* for all those business interests that sail in harmony with either the company or the government. Portosalte himself admitted this, claiming that the SKAI group follows the Anglo-Saxon model, i.e. choosing the political party of New Democracy to represent the interests of the shipowner who owns SKAI. This very statement confirms what we said when we took responsibility for the action at the Kampourakis house.
“Freedom of speech when it comes to journalists working for the big TV groups is the biggest fraud and everyone knows it. Freedom of speech in the media is the defence of the economic and political interests of their owners.”
Portosalte and his sympathisers can strut all they want. For any person who understands that violence is not a monopoly of the state, the morning after the attack on his home was accompanied by a pleasant grin. Arrogance offers an illusion of sovereignty and power that cannot be tampered with. Guys like Portosalte have a great excess of it. From the position that his platform affords him, he extends his vulgar hand daily as an aid to the government and its friendly economic interests, and with the other he wags his finger in every direction that has the audacity not to comply. But he doesn’t just stay there because his arrogance won’t let him. He desecrates the memory of the dead, denigrates social and labour struggles with vile words, lies pathetically and without any shame in defence of the ruthless class bleeding of the poorest social strata and their terrorisation by his uniformed peers.
The right-wing whining about the incendiary attack on his house once again spoke of terrorism on free speech. We respond to them: Yes, this attack brought fear into their side, if only for a short time. To a hated member of the multi-layered edifice they have built on our backs so that we cannot stand up to them. We also respond to them that this action was just and it was enacted.
The attack on Portosalte’s house is dedicated to the memory of the unfortunate distributor two years ago in Thessaloniki, whom this clown dared to catch in his mouth.
It is dedicated to the memory of Zac Kostopoulos, whom Portosalte himself, as another telecommunications prosecutor, tried and condemned from the very first moment of his murder.
It is dedicated to all the victims of the fires of last summer in Northern Evia and Attica. So that he would not again dare to play on the pain of those who have been tested by the government’s criminal and murderous management of the fires and wag his finger at them in a derogatory way. We hope he has insured his home because the risks of his profession remain real.
This attack was a message for him to learn to bite his tongue when referring ironically to the struggles of teachers and every other fighting force. The battles that have been fought and are being fought by the labour – anti-capitalist movements to demand the obvious are not appropriate for his filthy mouth. The attack on Portosalte was fair so that he would understand that the violence of poverty and destitution experienced by those who get by on 500 euros and who, according to him, need neither a car nor petrol, can only be answered in this way. We belong to them and we declare to him that, despite the increase in petrol prices, the one he bought to put it in the engine and then in his house was worth every penny. Let him take that as a lesson. Nothing goes unanswered.
In response to his protests that he no longer enjoyed police protection as the shifts of the police officers did not go out, but also to the pleas of the other party university students for police protection for him and other journalists of the SKAI group because of our attacks, we submit our own proposal. Be consistent in your neoliberal ideology and hire private security companies. Since your answers to all social issues are more privatization and government spending cuts than social policies for the poorer social strata, we urge you not to put your hands on taxpayers’ money for your own individual needs but ask for a small raise from Alafuzos who pays you to privately cover your security costs.
Our attack on the home of the general secretary of the Officers’ Union and the burning of his vehicle is an act of retaliation against state terrorism and repression. It is our policy choice to target at every opportunity senior police officers and police unionists with a public platform who are either still on the force or have retired and are known for their achievements. It is the minimum response to the repressive policy implemented by the New Democracy government on a number of issues of public concern. It is our response to their intention to implement the University Police Act. It is our response to the murder of Nikos Sampanis by the cops. It is our response to the implementation of the despicable law banning demonstrations. As for this “trade unionist”, and those we have targeted in the past, we need not repeat ourselves as we have reported extensively on their despicable role in our previous writings. What we would like to emphasize is that police “unionists”, like this particular scum, play a specific role in the edifice described as the police complex. Their job is, through their institutional role, and the visibility they enjoy from the media, to call for the implementation of even harsher measures, even more repressive legislation, even greater impunity for police bodies.
So the reason why they are in our crosshairs with such frequency is precisely this. It is because they are the prominent members of the police apparatus who are calling, in short, for the transformation of society into a police colony where everything is determined, everything is controlled and managed by themselves and their leadership. Where for all issues the answer will be repression, control, police state. Where they will practice their immoral profession without a shred of restraint, accountable to nothing and no one. The answer we choose to give by targeting them, apart from transferring fear to their own side, even if only momentarily, is also part of an overall radical political concept. In a conception that places the struggle against state repression within the more general struggle for the destruction of its very matrix, namely the capitalist system. The struggle for more breathing space in the suffocating capitalist environment will either be radical and aimed at overthrowing the system or it will give alibi to the fairy tale of capitalism with a human face. A fairy tale which, while once it could ‘seduce’ the ignorant, nowadays seems a distant and dangerous utopia.
In the days that we have carried out our actions, a hard and painful struggle is underway by the anarchist hunger striker Giannis Michailidis. Michailidis has been on hunger strike since 23 May in order to obtain his release. A release that he has been entitled to for 6 months, after 8.5 years of incarceration in “correctional” institutions. It is a struggle that puts the exemption status of political prisoners in the crosshairs. A regime that is extended to all undisciplined prisoners through the reasoning that they are suspected of committing new offences in the indefinite future. We aim to lift the regime of silence surrounding Michailidis’ hunger strike, which aims to eliminate him without the development of social reactions to prevent it. The hunger striker’s body is a barricade and we are fighting together with him for the satisfaction of his demand. We demand his immediate release to end his torture before irreparable damage is done to his health. We oppose the judicial coups and state machinations that keep hunger-striking political prisoners in jail while releasing and summarily covering up unrepentant cop killers and rapists of high society.
Solidarity with the member of the Anarchist Action Organization Thanos Xatziangelou and the anarchist Georgia Voulgari who have been on a week-long hunger strike in solidarity with comrade Giannis Michailidis. Immediate release of Panos Kalaitzis who is in prison because of his social relations.
Solidarity with the political prisoners Vaggelis Stathopoulos and Dimitris Hatzivassiliadis who are on trial in the Athens Court of Appeal for the case of the organization of Revolutionary Self-Defense. We fight for the release of Vaggelis from the frame-up set up by the anti-terrorist police and we support the defence of the revolutionary struggle in the courtroom.
Solidarity with Fotis D. and Iasona R. who are in custody, accused of the attack on the Piraeus Traffic Police.
Solidarity to Revolutionary Struggle member Pola Roupa who is denied the regular leave she is entitled to because of her contribution to revolutionary theory through the publication of books.
Solidarity to all political prisoners with long sentences around the world.
Direct Action Cells
Source: athens.indymedia
DN Note
*Siloam’s pool is famous as the place where Jesus, walking with his disciples, noticed a man who was born blind. He then decided, out of mercy and compassion, to make the man whole even though the person was not asking to be healed.