The following statement will be included in a soon-to-be-released Greek pamphlet entitled Inside Outside. The statement itself was written a short while ago and initially published on Indymedia Athens on December 31, 2011.

1. The “Innocence” of the Victim and the “Guilt” of the “Hunter”

The second trial directed by the state against the Fire Cells Conspiracy anarchist revolutionary organization is scheduled to begin on December 14. The trial will cover three separate Fire Cells Conspiracy attacks carried out with explosive devices (on the home of Interior Vice-Minister Hinofotis, the Ministry of Macedonia-Thrace, and the apartment of politician Louka Katseli), as well as the possession of another explosive device.

The first trial covering the same incidents ended in the summer of 2010. Two Fire Cells Conspiracy members—H. Hatzimichelakis and P. Argyrou—were sentenced to 37 years each, while lengthy prison sentences were also inflicted on other defendants who had nothing to do with our organization. Now, four Fire Cells Conspiracy members will be tried (D. Bolano, G. Nikolopoulos, M. Nikolopoulos, and C. Tsakalos) who were at large during the first trial.

This trial is the next episode in a series of trials to be directed against us—trials that form a Gordian knot tied around us by the prosecutor’s office.

Our opinion of justice is already well-known. We have it written beneath the soles of our oldest shoes. We proudly declare our “guilt” before their system.

We are enemies of laws, power, police, courts, prisons, borders, exploitation, and—in general—this civilization of submission and compromise. For us, the innocent don’t exist. Only choices exist.

Insurgent or conformist, guerrilla or subordinate, human being or slave. In this life, we have chosen to be wolves, not prey. We therefore relinquish the “innocence” of prey and hold fast to the “guilt” of the hunter.

With this idea, we want to invert the rules of the trials they have created. Whether through our scornful absence from some or our completely hostile presence at others, our objective is to cause a number of small and large short-circuits within the judicial machine. In devising our strategy, we have designated the trial for the 14 incendiary packages our organization sent to international embassies and police and judicial organizations as the centerpiece, as it is to that trial that all nine Fire Cells Conspiracy comrades who have admitted their membership have been summoned.

Nevertheless, we feel that the trial beginning on December 14 also has its own unique importance and stature.

2. A New Anarchy Within Anarchy

The “Halandri Case,” as it’s been dubbed by the mass media, represents a decisive point in the trajectory of the new urban guerrilla war.

To illustrate its importance, it’s worth referring back to the state and conditions in which the anarchist current and urban guerrilla warfare found themselves at the time.

About two years had passed since the appearance of the Fire Cells Conspiracy and—more generally—the new anarchist urban guerrilla warfare. Quite a few groups in Athens and Thessaloniki were taking uncontrollable action, setting the night on fire and destroying the structures of power. The fabric of diffuse incendiary guerrilla war was also expanding to provincial cities like Kavala, Chania, Heraklion, etc. Of course, anarchist groups engaged in propaganda by the deed were collaborating with one another in some cases, coordinating arson rampages on a national level. In many of the texts/communiqués accompanying those attacks, a new perception was being documented, settling the crosshairs of its critique on social inertia, people’s passivity, and the complicit silence that allowed power to define our lives.

In parallel, and for the first time in Greece, words and concepts like anarcho-individualism, nihilism, and antisocial anarchy were escaping the immobility of theoretical texts and seeking their place within the communiqués of practice.

The fact is that a new anarchy was being born within anarchy, and it was reflected in posters, pamphlets, stickers, street slogans, and friends.

Meanwhile, the Fire Cells Conspiracy shifted from arsons to the strategy of placing explosive devices in churches, politicians’ homes, and ministries.

At the same time, the method of political executions once again appeared on the stage of revolutionary practice, as undertaken by the Sect of Revolutionaries in their actions, beginning with the execution of a pig from the Antiterrorist Unit.

All of this was naturally taking place upon the foundation laid by the revolt of December 2008. The marks from that revolt, even if they were scarring over after the sparkling repairs made to damaged shopping mall display windows, were still deeply inscribed on the consciences and hearts of dozens of young comrades who chose the riots as their home address. It was at that precise moment when the possibility of gradually creating and organizing more and more autonomous anarchist action groups became a primary commitment for many comrades in the new urban guerrilla war.

3. Antiterrorist Operation “Halandri”

The state and its police chose that period to strike. It was at the end of September 2009 when the Antiterrorist Unit operation involving the raid on our comrade’s home in Halandri was carried out—an operation that had already been “advertised” since the summer of that year in a number of lengthy television reports and newspaper articles, which subsequently began to talk about “striking at the heart of neoterrorism.”

What followed was a police gala—a fashion show of balaclava-wearing EKAM and Antiterrorist Unit agents parading in front of the television cameras, leading handcuffed comrades to the courthouses alongside other people who had nothing to do with us, yet who had unluckily kept up social relations with some of the arrestees.

Concurrently, the persecuting authorities issued arrest warrants for a few more people (five of whom are Fire Cells Conspiracy members) while police chiefs and political leaders congratulated one another on their “success.”

The arrests and warrants further reinforced the security dogma that was then playing an investment role during the pre-electoral campaigning of the period, with elections just around the corner.

Likewise, the police considered the issuing of arrest warrants—for people who thus automatically found themselves on the most-wanted list, connected to the ploy arrests of others who had simply visited the Halandri apartment—to be a guarantee that would curb the activity of the remaining Fire Cells Conspiracy cells as well as the new urban guerrilla war in general.

The police and the state hoped that the propaganda of fear and the creation of an intense climate of distrust and suspicion would be successful and bear the desired fruit. Their aspiration was for their walkie-talkies to fall silent, putting an end not just to the Fire Cells Conspiracy, but to the entire phenomenon of diffuse anarchist guerrilla warfare.

4. Rekindling the Fire from the Ashes

But laws were made to be broken, and plans were made to be foiled.

Ten days after the Halandri antiterrorist operation, the Fire Cells Conspiracy showed that those who were rushing to celebrate their funeral were quite mistaken.

Fire Cells Conspiracy comrades stealthily infiltrated a pre-election rally of tens of thousands of sheep voters awaiting a speech by prime minister C. Karamanlis and placed an explosive device 50 meters from the main rostrum. The device exploded, causing as much material damage as as moral injury to the propaganda then being tossed around about the dismantling of “neoterrorism.” The prime minister’s speech was somewhat delayed, and the Fire Cells Conspiracy had issued a provocation from within the new fabric taking shape.

The Fire Cells Conspiracy was the first organization in Greece to not suspend its actions for even a single moment after taking a repressive blow and while most of its members were either underground or in custody. Instead, it stuck to its foundations and even advanced its practice by beginning to use high-powered explosive devices.

The rest of the story is already known. Subsequent Fire Cells Conspiracy attacks were met with still more arrests—retaliation taken against people who had nothing to do with the organization (Antigone H., Nikos B., Nikos M., etc.).

The Antiterrorist Unit’s vindictiveness was so brazen, especially at the beginning, that in its bewilderment it made a number of blatant legal mistakes, even for itself. It’s no coincidence that some of the people arrested on suspicion of belonging to the Fire Cells Conspiracy were never even summoned to court, since it was objectively understood that they were unconnected to the organization. Also typical were the arrests of a number of AEK fans in the Kallithea neighborhood of Athens—including the mother of one of them—and their initial presentation as another Antiterrorist Unit success, with the arrestees being labeled Fire Cells Conspiracy members. The ridiculousness of those arrests was confirmed very quickly, and the people were released.

5. Memory Brings Perspective

Nevertheless, to call things by their name, without timidity but also without defeatism, the truth is that most groups and comrades within the new urban guerrilla war haven’t shown themselves to be capable of working the situation out and devising an offensive strategy.

Naturally, with the exception of a certain minority of TRUE COMRADES, just the opposite has occurred: lots of people have withdrawn and allowed the fear of repression to define them. As a result, many groups have disappeared from the arena of the endless insurrectionary night they had proclaimed in their communiqués.

In any case, what remains is certainly an important wealth of experience: practical experience, known mistakes, self-critique, memory, and therefore also perspective.

What began four years ago in Greece is now expanding on an international level. An international conspiratorial network that supports and promotes the principles and values of the INFORMAL ANARCHIST FEDERATION/INTERNATIONAL REVOLUTIONARY FRONT is spreading throughout the world’s metropolises. New Fire Cells Conspiracy cells are being assembled by anarchists of action and fire in Greece, Mexico, the Netherlands, and Russia.

After our arrests, the State wanted to put an end to the unpredictable project that began with the emergence of the new urban guerrilla warfare.

Now, the trials and sentences directed against us aspire to neatly write the official epilogue of a story that is nevertheless unwilling to end.

One thing is certain. Everything to say still hasn’t been said, and there are undoubtedly many actions still to come.

All of us, the comrades who took part in the wanderings that realized anarchy through the Fire Cells Conspiracy, have proudly stated that it is our honor to participate in the Conspiracy project. We have therefore taken political responsibility, disregarding all the consequences and years of prison that such a decision will “cost” us. Because more important things exist than a mutilated freedom that presupposes selling oneself out and regretting the choices that define our lives. In no interrogator’s office or courthouse will they get even the tiniest word of remorse out of us. What they will get will be our extreme hostility toward the system and its dignitaries.

We obviously aren’t inspired by the logic of holy martyrdom that requires “heroes” to sacrifice themselves for the revolution. Instead, we know that a free anarchist urban guerrilla is much more useful to the spread of anarchist revolution than one who is imprisoned.

Simply put, from the moment we found ourselves captives in the hands of the state, by revealing our membership and through our attitude in prison as well as in court, our objective has been to once again launch the commitment to anarchist urban guerrilla warfare into battle—a battle that never ended.

Let’s go again, from the beginning. The “Halandri Case” trial is our own return to the start, to our point of departure.

We need that point of departure in order to recommence more potently, more decisively, and more collectively.

While awaiting the days when we will confront our persecutors, we are making plans, engaging in our self-critique, discussing, thinking, and preparing new defiances in our uninterrupted war on power.

Miserable judges who hide behind your well-pressed robes,
we clearly see who you are.
Petty, inadequate, wretched little men
who vomit years of prison from your mouths.
But while you recite the charges,
our minds wander free and untamed.
They journey to secret meetings, to plans of attack,
to weapons caches, to pages from books, to laughter,
to disappointments, to pleasures and sorrows.
They travel to every corner of the Earth where
the rejection of Power blooms and anarchists of action live.
They wander, remember, and await a glance, a thought, a noise, a moment.
The moment when everything collapses because
of successive explosions and the rules are reversed.
At that moment the judges will be judged
and the guards will have to protect themselves.
Such moments, you must know, are always in the palms of our
Hands.

LONG LIVE THE FIRE CELLS CONSPIRACY. LONG LIVE THE INFORMAL ANARCHIST FEDERATION/INTERNATIONAL REVOLUTIONARY FRONT.

—Imprisoned Fire Cells Conspiracy members: Olga Economidou, Michalis Nikolopoulos, Giorgos Nikolopoulos, Christos Tsakalos, Gerasimos Tsakalos, Panayiotis Argyrou, Damiano Bolano, Giorgos Polydoras, Haris Hatzimichelakis

The following text is in response to a summons received by the imprisoned members of the Fire Cells Conspiracy, who all refused to show up in court as directed. The summons was related to the ongoing investigation into the so-called “complete works” of the Fire Cells Conspiracy, which seems to be gaining steam.

I am an atheist because I don’t believe in any god; I am an anarchist because I don’t believe in any government; I am a criminal because I don’t believe in any law; and (I add) I am me because I am not you or anyone else, and I cannot escape from my “self.” . . .

Walk slow or fast;
but walk.
Think quiet or loud;
but think.
Life is short
and whoever doesn’t self-determine,
neither sows,
nor reaps,
nor enjoys,
nor savors existence.
Walk!
Think!

—Extracted from our brother Gabriel Pombo da Silva’s book Diary and Ideology of a Criminal, which the Fire Cells Conspiracy is currently translating for future release by the Black International publishing initiative

Today, January 4, we are being summoned to personally appear at the Supreme Court for something related to the charges being leveled at us.

To begin with, all of us who take part in the Fire Cells Conspiracy Revolutionary Organization declare that we do not simply consider ourselves prisoners, but prisoners of war—a war we have declared on Power and the State, a war whose objective is to destroy them.

The dozens of charges being flung at us, which have to do with our attacks on the system’s structures, constitute clear proof that we were true to that war. Imprisonment as well as trials are Power’s retaliation for our choices.

We therefore view prosecutors, judges, and magistrates as playing the role of the enemy’s courts martial, and as such our relationship to them can’t be anything other than that of a state of war. In this war, and as long as we remain prisoners, we ourselves will take full advantage of picking which battles to fight and which—by refusing to even show up—to ignore.

Thus, it’s best that they don’t wait in vain for us to make that contrived January 4 appointment, since the only thing we will be giving them is the present communiqué and our hatred.

That’s also why we once wrote that we prefer to “catch” our enemies by surprise at the least-expected moment in order to directly express our intentions regarding their justice, just like we did in the past by blowing up the Thessaloniki Courthouse and the Athens Military Court and by torching the homes of judges.

In addition, it’s best that they don’t think the story of the Fire Cells Conspiracy is over and has now been solely reduced to the act of writing communiqués.

We continue on unapologetically, and if our recent escape attempt had been successful, our persecutors could be certain that the “terms” of our dialogue would be armed and that we would be quite prepared to meet them at an appointment of our own making.

We still don’t know the meaning of the word “truce,” and we’re never going to learn it.

We support the international collaboration of action-minded anarchists known as the Informal Anarchist Federation/International Revolutionary Front.

The continuous attacks carried out by our comrades on a global scale and the appearance of new Fire Cells Conspiracies in Mexico and Russia are the best response, as well as verification that:

NOTHING IS OVER.

EVERYTHING CONTINUES.

—Imprisoned members of the Fire Cells Conspiracy/Informal Anarchist Federation, FOREVER IN BATTLE

(a critical individual’s proposal for a diffused offensive attack)

“Our lives are at stake and we will not renounce any weapon that we can use as our own.”
- Anonymous

In regards to the brief history of the Earth Liberation Front (ELF), an organization which has brought much inspiration to the North American context and drawn significant media attention, I would like to present a few points in order to critique, clarify and highlight the ways the ELF can be understood as a methodology instead of as an ideology. At the end of this piece, a proposal is drawn out for anarchists to develop their own actions separately in cells, groups or any informal structure they see fit whether or not these are aligned with the “ELF guidelines”.

Obviously this is something that is difficult, because on the one hand the ELF does exist as an organization but is also made up of many dispersed cells and individuals. So the critique will follow the ELF guidelines and not critique the individuals themselves.

An Ideology: Single issue and lobbying with dynamite.

“The gods had condemned Sisyphus to ceaselessly rolling a rock to the top of a mountain, whence the stone would fall back of its own weight. They had thought with some reason that there is no more dreadful punishment than futile and hopeless labor.”
- Albert Camus, “The Myth of Sisyphus”

The reasons that the ELF proposes for doing actions is something I would like to question. These guidelines state:

1. To cause maximum economic damage to a given entity that is profiting off the destruction of the natural environment.
2. To educate the public on the atrocities committed against the environment and life.
3. To take all necessary precautions against harming life.

The guidelines are very similar to the goals of the ELF with one major exception. The third of three guidelines states that one must take all necessary precautions against harming life. The ELF considers itself a nonviolent organization as no physical harm has come to a human as a result of the group’s actions. This is by no means a sheer coincidence but in fact a commitment to the guidelines. Individuals interested in becoming active in the ELF need to follow the above guidelines and create their own close knit anonymous cell made up of trustworthy and sincere people. Remember the ELF and each cell within it is anonymous not only to one another but also to the general public. So there is not a realistic chance of becoming active in an already existing cell. Take initiative, form your own cell and do what needs to be done to protect all life on the planet! ¹

Since they put the Earth before their decision as conscious individuals,² a psychosis, a martyrdom complex for the Earth, begins to develop. This is similar to how most of the left today functions, by feeding a psychological need for self-justification in everyday life. When for example activists put so much energy into certain types of actions (petitions, lock downs, passive sit ins, etc.), for all the right and justified reasons for doing so and not seeing the desired results, they become hopeless in their own actions. I think it is important to have a sense of individual intention and self-motivation, rather than becoming blind to reasons for acting against the world around oneself. By blind I mean not having the ability to not see beyond the ways one is making decisions upon what actions to take and see the cause and effect of those actions. This blindness constructs a martyrdom complex similar to that of Sisyphus, who rolled the rock up a mountain day after day. This tunnel vision is caused by focusing solely on the theater of political affairs while neglecting the rest of life.

Having this type of perception about one’s own reality can create something similar to what is called a “single issue campaign”. Only in this case instead of doing tree sits like Earth First!, an individual or a group is setting incendiary devices to call upon the “unjust actions” of some company. When the company itself has no interest to change the reasons that it exists, it purely becomes a moral battle between the “just” and “unjust” – speaking truth to power when power has no interest in listening. This becomes an endless pursuit for some sad form of change.

The ELF in its FAQ’s claims to not follow a leadership or central hierarchy, but an ideology. I would question the use of an ideology, instead proposing the use of a particular methodology that is anarchist in practice. Once an individual begins to believe in an ideology they put it – the ideology – above themselves, acting only in accordance with that ideology, weighing the rights and wrongs of a certain course of action. This can be seen in the mentality of leftists, Christians, Catholics, vegans and anyone who adheres to an ideology through belief or action.

There is no ethical equation toward the understanding of how “we as society need to change capitalism”, where by acting in accordance with the state and one’s morals we see how things can become equal within the sphere of exploitation. To play within the ethical debate is to place oneself in a position of making compromises with the state and capital, using ethical and moral positions. This can be seen in this quote from the ELF’s facts:

“Anyone seeking to create actual positive social and political change must reflect on past attempts throughout history to learn what worked, what didn’t, and what can be taken to aid in the current pursuit. A refusal to make this reflection is also a refusal to make an honest life commitment to the cause of justice and protection of life on this planet.”

What and where is this “justice” coming from? Is it justice we are actually seeking? Justice implies a universal morality that everyone shares. Is it instead a matter of vengeance against civilization for denying one the ability to live a life one chooses?

We return to the use of methods rather than an ideology. A method can be defined as “a procedure, technique, or way of doing something, especially in accordance with a definite plan.” Hence one does not submit to an ideology of protecting the earth, but sees ways and courses to attack what surrounds them – these being the technique or practice. Once an individual or a group can become unhinged from the trap of ideological thinking and self-justification, their desires become in accordance with the interests and aims.

A Name: Calling oneself a thing?

“We wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes, –”
- Anonymous

The ELF is referred to by the Department of Homeland Security ^3,4 as an organization, which classifies them as a thing with a name or single like-minded identity. In a time of widespread revolt or flourishing milieu it can be useful to have a name in order to communicate why an action was taken and tie it to the continued presence of a certain group or set of ideas, especially to differentiate amongst many tendencies existing within a specific context. However, by taking on a name, a group becomes an organization and becomes reified. It begins to be understood as a thing, an entity in and of itself. This further facilitates identification by authorities who begin to chart and map the movements of an organization or group in order to see where and how it moves, how it functions, what language it uses (environmental, anarchist, communist, etc). Not all investigations are carried out in this way (for example, in the Bombs Case in Chile and the Marini Trials in Italy, anarchists were framed as members of fictitious clandestine organizations), but the naming of oneself as a thing does make it easier for the state to repress the milieu as a whole. It’s easy for the state to comb through the different groups that exist or existed at a determined period of time and go through arrest documents or do outright surveillance (the surveillance and subsequent arrest of the members of Direct Action in Canada can be a perfect example of this). Inevitably they find those who are more above ground and interrogate them about those specific activities, hold them under false pretexts and send in infiltrators to groups who try to establish long-term relationships. Although they don’t know whose entirely involved these practices can eventually lead them to identify suspects.

There is no panacea to repression – it will exist as long as action is taken against the current world. It is only a matter of how deep relationships are rooted in commitment, honesty, and revolutionary courage between those who are partaking in different actions, which will directly correlate to refusal to cooperate with the state. It is worth noting that the ELF as a whole did not consider itself anarchist or revolutionary; it originally spawned from the environmental group Earth First!.

With this in mind, what if a group decided to not give itself a name? Making it harder for the cartographers of power to draw maps, where the longitude and latitude were unable to be connected, diffused and multifarious actions constituted themselves as a thing. Rather than one decisive group with a name, similar to the cellular structure proposed by the ELF, but on the basis of revolutionary activity against the current world.

Violence and Terrorism?

The ELF is critical of the use of violence and harming individuals.⁵ They state this in their FAQs⁶ section, in which they give examples of other kinds of actions individuals and groups have taken throughout history. In this point they lack a critical assessment of these different groups, their motivations, and the intentions of their actions. The Boston Tea Party, Suffragette Movement and Gandhi did what they did on the basis of a certain interest to change the existing order through illegal means in some hope for positive change. Essentially these references reinforce an interest tending toward social change, an interest in altering the existing order, not destroying it in its entirety. This position is leftist, not anarchist. Again they constantly referred to this in their referential use of abolish, rather than destroy.⁷

Violence is a necessary tool for anarchists, one that must be constantly thought about and processed, especially for revolutionary individualist anarchists taking an offensive position aimed at the destruction of the current world and its existent order. This violent methodology should not be blind to a critical eye, rather it should be honed in through various actions, inflicted directly or indirectly against an enemy. This means that one cannot just go out right and say that one “wants to ensure that all of the time life will be taken into consideration”. This statement in and of itself does not take into consideration the war we find ourselves amidst, nor does it consider the positions that others like our enemies, “the people”, etc, take in relation to our position against them. We have to consider that there will be casualties at some point, and have already been casualties. We have many enemies (the judges, lumber companies, the police, scientists, politicians, biotechnologists, the left, the right, etc.) and to not harm them would be due to our own pacification.

If and when we choose to act violently (as defined by the state), we will be called terrorists. There is not doubt about it and it is part of the state’s larger strategy of isolating groups and individuals that oppose it, to fabricate a hostility and an ‘other’. The state creates an enemy of “the people,” the community, or whatever massified term the state uses to distinguish itself and those who identify with it from others.

The Conscious Individual and Self-Motivation

“courage to never yield or submit”
- Arthur Schopenhauer

Anarchists at times fall into a very limited view of acting upon their ideas. They build an organization by constantly waiting for this or that moment, yet when its capacity to act is finally reached, what each individual wants is largely misunderstood. Federations, collectives, organizations, and any other large formations are structured in such a way that individuals give up their own agency and desires for a set of guidelines or an ideology. Anarchist individual self-motivation is the ability to consciously understand one’s own desires, intentions, and motivations for acting. Rather than under the banner of a large formation or ideology, actions are taken on one’s own or with other individuals with an informal group who know what they want and why they desire to act together during a certain time period. This requires friendships and relationships that are trusted, understood and long-lasting (the topic of security is left out here because it is such a complex subject, maybe to be visited at another time), rather than political relationships built on an assumed affinity and polite platitudes. These friendships come together and are shaped by mutually-developed histories, individual aims, and intentions. This does not mean one has to act with the same four people all the time, but that there are many relationships one can share which have the ability to come together to act.

Attacking different institutions and mechanisms of power is a leap, one that must be taken if one is interested in seeing this world destroyed. Each attack can be easily played out in one’s head and their physical capacity to act in the most immediate sense, but this leap is a constant evaluation. A question of how to do such things in each instant, a collection of experiences of acting within differing situations that help one gain confidence and courage. Again, these are specific experiences, experiments and practices such as setting fires, throwing rocks through windows, building barricades, scouting for exit and entrance routes, the location of the police, doing research on the placement of different targets within a geographical area, etc.

Opening up an illegal plane of existence

“My daughter raises the smooth
brass kaleidoscope
and watches
as coloured glass slivers
conspire together.
New worlds create themselves before her eyes.”
- Anonymous

Through all the critiques I have tried to flesh out specifically about the ELF as a loose network of cells, I would like to make an open proposal to all anarchists critical of the ways anarchists currently engage in North America who desire to see the current world of Capitalism, the State and Civilization destroyed immediately on an international level.

As anarchists, especially the individualist tendency of this milieu, conscious of our own decisions to partake in a practice of refusal and continued attack, we have every method at our disposal. We have the use of different kinds of weapons: fake ids, improvised explosives, guns, disguises, accomplices, safe houses, robberies, etc etc. (manuals for all of which are readily available online).

It is not very easy to take a step in this direction or realm of actually living in an unchained and free way, and it has not been seen in sometime in the North American context. It is a great leap, but a leap nonetheless, for which some may be ready, but others may not. This should not deter solidarity and support in the most specific ways possible towards those who choose to this path.

This proposal is to be an immediate wager on an offensive in the continual war that surrounds every one of us, individually and collectively, whether we consider ourselves anarchists or not. We are part of the existing order; a giant prison with loose and open cells surrounding us. We make conscious choices to continue amid this miserable life (work, school, family, etc) of alienation and imposed exploitation on an international scale.

This proposal is not for a “front” of the organized masses, but for a diffused and open network of cells across North America and internationally. Cells that are not fighting on a militarist front nor see themselves as the “people’s army”. This has nothing to do with the masses being on one’s side, but with the ability for conscious individuals to activate themselves on a plane of existence that is continually practiced in all its composed elements. Similar to the FAI-IRF (Informal Anarchist Federation – International Revolutionary Front), an open network that is anarchist and anti-authoritarian in nature, except without a name. Communiques only released on an as-needed basis when it is necessary to do so, with actions that speak for themselves. Choosing the most critical targets of the existing order.

From defensive to offensive: A metaphysics of refusal and attack

“As our desire to create our lives as we see fit, to realize ourselves to the fullest extent, to reappropriate the conditions of our existence, develops into a real project of revolt against all domination and oppression, we begin to encounter the world with a more penetrating eye.”
- Wolfi L.

With this in mind, we as human beings are also vessels, political vessels, conscious and always evolving in the plane of war against the existing world of capital, state and civilization. To negate the cause and effect of our surroundings is to limit oneself to a life of misery as a commodity, to the subjugation of all life, to the domination of time by a sedentary existence, to a society that needs one more human cog to speed itself up, to a civilization that imposes the domination of capital within all social relations. To say we are political vessels is to not just stroke a pen upon paper, but to acknowledge that our everyday lives are a melding of ideas with practices and practices with ideas. To put it another way, to experiment with the hypothesis and wager of what is called life.

Attacking from an offensive position means actions should be rehearsed, understood and gone through many times so that if a plan goes wrong, a group or cell would have the ability to change its movements and tactics very efficiently and quickly.

An offensive position does not wait for our enemies to make a move before attacking them. This means not waiting for someone to be killed by the police and then reacting to it, nor waiting for some crisis in capitalism to strike a group of people and then trying to push the iceberg out of the water. These situations and points do have certain social implications to act within, and provide an opportunity to generalize anarchist methods and illegal practices on a much more social scale that is not isolated to any specific group. But the offensive position is not always social; while the actions themselves may have a social resonance to a specific situation, they can come from an anti-social place of offensive attack, one that is not predetermined nor understood as such a reaction to the state or capital. An attack that is made instead by studying (through the use of different anonymous research technologies – phone books, computers, etc) of the already-existing networks of exploitation and domination in which one or a group of individuals can select a decisive point to hit. This is where the use of the ELF as a method comes in: small cells with an interest in attacking aspects of the civilized order, on the basis of a common hatred of civilization, not based on a common ideology. In its practical sense this means sabotaging railroad lines, destroying electricity infrastructure (telecommunication lines, fiber optics, electrical power lines, cell phone towers or any other unsecured electrical target left open), bombing government buildings or companies that are identified as targets by our individual research.

With this offensive position we must also have the strength and courage to carry on in our individual motivations and intentions. Even if we are carrying on alone, and desire to do so. Understanding when and where to attack our enemies (whether physical or psychological) within the places they reside. To put it another way, this is when we are able to put down the telescope and our limitations based on ideological containers, and open up our field of vision to the colorful world of the kaleidoscope, where the expansive potential of possibilities arise.

This piece is dedicated to:

Conspiracy Cells of Fire
The Informal Anarchist Federation
The International Revolutionary Front (Chile, Italy and elsewhere)
The Black International
Tortuga
Individualists Tending Toward the Wild
The eco-prisoners of the United States

Suggested Reading:
- FAQ page on the ELF press office web page
- Points of ELF pamphlet
- A few topical question concerning anarchist and others
- Call from the Conspiracy of Cells of Fire – Commando Horst Fantazzini for an International Network of Action and Solidarity – Informal Anarchist Federation
- Our lives of a Burning Vision
- Escalation #1
- Igniting a Revolution – Earth Liberation Front (2 part movie)
- Resistance (magazine about the ELF)

Notes:

1|   Below in quotes and italics is the quote that will be referenced in the first section of this piece, but the overall piece is brought up throughout. It is highly recommend that one read the entirety of the FAQs before preceding with the entirety of this critique.

2|   “Anyone seeking to create actual positive social and political change must reflect on past attempts throughout history to learn what worked, what didn’t, and what can be taken to aid in the current pursuit. A refusal to make this reflection is also a refusal to make an honest life commitment to the cause of justice and protection of life on this planet.”- ELF FAQs

3|   “ALF and its sister organization ELF are considered to be the most active, the most dangerous, and the largest domestic terrorist groups in the United States.” Eco-terrorism: Environmental and Animal-Rights Militants in the United States United States Department of Homeland Security

4|   “The organization is an environmental group but also one that realizes the true cause of murder and destruction of life.” – ELF FAQs

5|   “3) To take all necessary precautions against harming life” – ELF FAQs

6|   “The British government understood Gandhi’s tactics and knew what broadly to expect from him. The more militant sector of the movement posed a far greater threat to the government simply due to the reality of the British not knowing what to expect or what might result if the road to India’s independence was not traveled down. In fact, Gandhi himself was released from prison on at least one occasion only on the direct order from the British that he would try to calm the more militant sector of the movement. Both the nonviolence tactics employed by Gandhi and his followers and the threat of more severe tactics from the militant sector brought about India’s eventual independence.
“Most schooling systems also do not teach and educate students about the Luddites. Perhaps one of the earliest (if not the first) groups to target the Industrial Revolution and its effects was the Luddites. From 1811 to 1816, the Luddites caused extreme economic damage to the weaver industry in England. Angry at the threat to life and culture that the new machines of the industrialized revolution posed, the Luddites fought back using tactics very similar to those performed by the ELF today. Some factories were forced to shut down and others agreed to stop running the industrialized machines due to the Luddite activity and threat.
“In the abolitionist movement in the United States, there are numerous accounts of slaves sabotaging the property of their “masters” and engaging in various tactics to disrupt the flow of commerce in the slave system. Slave revolts were fairly rare, but even one would create a chilling threat that actually forced some slave owners to give up the practice.
“The suffragette movement, particularly in England, used sabotage in addition to other tactics to successfully gain rights for women. One example occurred in February 1913, when Emmeline Pankhurst, the founder of England’s suffragette movement, bombed the villa of the Chancellor of the Exchequer David Lloyd George in Surrey. Pankhurst accepted responsibility for the event and described it as “guerrilla warfare.”
“In the United States, most everyone has heard of the Boston Tea Party which consisted of bands of men boarding English ships in Boston Harbor (among others) and dumping British tea into the water. Seldom is this referred to as economic sabotage, but that is indeed an accurate description of it.” – ELF FAQs

7|   “The only way to stop the symptoms of the problem is to identify the main root cause and directly work to abolish it…
The ELF understands that this legal structure is part of the same system of government and now Westernized world domination that is causing the death of all life. It can never be trusted and ultimately needs to be abolished.” – ELF FAQs

From culmine, translated by war on society:

communique:

Ten years after the rebellion of December 20, 2001, we see how in the streets the left wing of capital and the progressive sectors continue to the use the blood of the comrades who fell in confrontation in order to promote politics, perpetuating power and achieving a comfortable seat in congress in some temple of development of the state/capital, and to thus to keep reproducing and making routine the beatings and the misery.

On December 20, 2011 at 1 am we attacked with a bomb the secluded residential triangle yards away from the Department of Security and the place where various embassies are located.

The reasons why we carried out this action abound, but will we mention three:

1. For the 10th anniversary of the insurrection of December 19 and 20 of 2001.

2. For the incarcerated comrades in the prisons of the states of Chile, Greece, Spain, Germany, Italy, Mexico (to name only a few) and we will never forget the comrades in the prisons of the Rio de Plata basin region [of Argentina/Uruguay].

3. For the advancements in repressive matters and the investment of time and money in the process of perfecting the techniques of social control that the Department of Security, as primary organ of the state, drives. The significant increase of security cameras distributed far and wide across the city of Buenos Aires and the suburbs, the system of biometric identification and the new anti-terrorist law intend to contain any step outside of the narrow path of the rule of law, order, and social peace.

Therefore we say: we are going to make life impossible for them and there will be no safe place for them to hide because we will continue destroying their cars and every one of the doors where they take refuge.

From now on, they will know that any bag of trash abandoned on their property could be a potential bomb.

Cell of Conspirators for the Spread of Chaos.

From informa-azione, translated by war on society:

12/15/2011 Frascati – Rome

“Anarchist attack” on Unicredit Agency

Action in solidarity with the Greek brothers and accused comrades, processed and imprisoned by state repression. Destroyed with a sledgehammer 6 windows and the ATM of Unicredit in Frascati.

Graffiti read:

SOLIDARITY TO THE GREEK ANARCHISTS
OF THE CONSPIRACY OF CELLS OF FIRE
WAR ON THE STATE AND CAPITAL (A)

For permanent guerrilla war!

For anti-civilization anarchy!

Note by War On Society: We present this important communique from June 2011 mainly for the exemplary analysis on a number of themes, also because the CCF responded to it in their text ‘Fire and Gunpowder‘ and because it is cited in another communique which we are presently translating.

from liberaciontotal, translated by war on society:

Communique:

I.

The qualification of attacks is necessary considering that statist logic heightens and perfects itself with the same rapidity as the technology that enables, practically, the present societies’ whole apparatus of domination and control.

Society, as the primary origin of a good part of the worst present human situations, does not only worry about positioning itself as a condition for sustaining the existence of humanity, but rather it has also charged itself with violating the consciences of individuals as much as collectivities with the idea that it (society) is necessary for the development of the full human condition–that is, for individual and collective freedom. The overvaluation of “the social” has made it so that all references to “the wild*” are by definition absurd, not only in the sense of being somewhat distant from the present reality, but also as being opposed to society itself. This is why anarchism from the insurrectionalist perspective places itself in the anti-social position.

Without a true critique of the ENTIRE existent, we cannot decide to fully exist.

The negation of the existent (i.e. society) has as its result the affirmation of our individuality, integrity and free associations, prepared for everything that one’s own conscience tells one to do and pleased to act as one’s passions impel one, without judges beyond oneself. In this sense, our consciences are what take shape in the field of practice by means of actions that negate the established, the given, the preformed, the existent… that is: society, the State, the family, salaried work, among much more. The free life is what we seek in the extremes of that same negation, as absolute counter-parties of the crushing machine of the all.

Progress, as that which gives complete unity to the whole flow of history since modernity, is the greatest myth that governs conscious individuals and collectivities. From Marxists who believe in absolute and complete truths, to anarchists who admit that the most expeditious means to achieve the revolution is the internalization of the ideas of freedom in the collective conscience–that is, the same thing that capitalism does with the idea of “competency,” but with another meaning–all accept, perhaps without realizing it, the idea of progress. Thus, one must not only to spurn the idea of progress in its most rudimentary sense–that is, the idea of material progress as in technological development–one must also spurn the idea of progress as the development of certain ideas in human conscience. Consequently, the critique also goes for the other side–that is, the notion of capitalism.

It is important to realize that capitalism and everything that it involves does not advance nor progress, since it is already completely positioned, installed and mediates all social relations which accept, implicitly or explicitly, the logic of the market, of winning or losing, of truth or falsity, of benefit or harm. In this sense, capitalism does not progress (nor does it transform into something “better”), but rather it heightens, since it is already a compulsory part of reality.

This (i.e. reality) is what, through its complexification, becomes more dispersed, polyform, and thus more difficult to detect, analyze, combat and strive against. The qualification of the attack is a necessary response to the heightening of the logic of capitalism in the field of social relations. To blow everything up is not to blow up everything that can actually be blown up, it is to blow up the complex social structures that are determined by commerce and its flow, and which in turn legitimate the same social structure. It is a vicious cycle in which one thing sustains the other. One does not understand capitalism without the people who endorse it, and one does not understand the people who legitimate it without the capitalism that determines their forms. Thus, to physically attack the institutions of capital is not to attack symbols, it is to attack the same structure of reality that determines the field of social relations, in short, it is to undermine the legitimation of capitalism.

It is wager that is not random, to let’s say attack a bank — to attack a bank is to attack the reality that it determines, and to blow up the vicious cycle in which the present social relations are based.

This scenario clearly does not leave space, at least not relevant space, for the logic of “protest” in the historical/Marxist sense of the term and practice, which claims a posture, faced with a situation, in which what is sought is the propagation of an ideological position that is pre-formed, pre-configured, and–most importantly–pre-Reasoned by the never-wrong intellectual vanguard of the organized people. In which there simply is not room for the individual conscience, nor much less for collective dissent, since this kind of a posture brings out the “true truths” of a person much more intelligent than the common individual of the poor exploited people, such victims and so stupid that they do not realize what passes before their noses. They say that someone who loves you beats you, but to treat the people as naive, unconscious and even “asleep” is to say that love is like sending someone to the psychiatrist. A condition that can be expected of people who illusorily dream of “popular uprisings” and similar messianic yammering.

II.

It’s at this point that situations are intertwined, protests become platforms, the place that subjects occupy which they believe democratically contributes to the development of their civilized society, transforming street demonstrations into mere strolls or concentrations of bodies without initiative, groups that only follow their leader in the same way as the flock follows the shepherd, condemning all action that breaks their scheme. It is these spaces/situations that many times are approved by individuals and/or subjects who choose to organize collectively, with a critical point of view, in order to attack the entities of power with everything they have on hand. While this kind of action is important, mostly in order to leave evidence that an antagonist to the system exists, we consider nevertheless that those who remain stuck in these actions only serve as another cog of the system, a system that needs its “opposition” to validate its own existence and also to criminalize those who oppose it. With this we do not seek to prophesy, nor to guide the ways of focusing discontent, but rather to identify those demonstrations that do not seek to expand themselves into everyday life, in order to critique them and not become subject to them.

It’s at this point when we see that the most ideal way to manifest our discontent is the ATTACK, not only with the mere expression in demonstrations, where one begs for reforms to the system, we do not expect even the slightest response from the system, we do not want improvements in it, we fully reject everything that it is able to offer us. It is for this reason that we see the attack, in a concrete form and not in a symbolic or rhetorical way, as an option against power and the entities that it puts at the disposition of the population, since to disable a bank, to loot a store, to burn the products that they offer us in glass cases, to attack the protectors of the interests of power and to attack power itself, these carry immediate negative consequences for the globalized society in which we are embedded.

This is the position that we have taken in the war that we are enmeshed in; we believe that the maturative process of contextual analysis gives weight to the ATTACK as the best choice before the repressive onslaught of power. That is to say, it responds to a “reading” or interpretation of the reality and its circumstances. We are fully aware that this choice has as a side effect a qualitative growth of our capacities, as much for groups as for individuals, whether they be sabotage, dissuasion, planning, etc.

It’s at this point — the same qualification of attacks, together with the evident complexification of the scientific-technological components incorporated into the commerce society’s structural functioning — that an escalation in the mode of the attack becomes necessary, whether in the targets to hit, or in the places and situations to act. That is to say that, in addition to the recurring incendiary actions in the universities campuses and populations (those that have a character of attack and not of hippie marching) and the placements of explosive devices in ATMs (which in no way do we intend to dismiss), the nature of the attacks multiplies constantly and in a versatile way, turning to new products that can be robbed at the market, useful in the production of destructive devices, and/or focusing on new targets that come with the self-same technological developments. What the wide gamut of locations reveals is that with a minimum of security and planning, there can be targets of sabotage that are safe and quick for those who attack them, and that thus do not require high exposure or risk like that needed in excessively “frequented” locations.

In order to develop this qualification of the attacks it never hurts to share, through secure and trustworthy means, experiences of this kind and to contribute to the discussion that helps generate variety and creativity in the forms of attacking domination. Thus avoiding the repetitiveness that can be anticipated by the repressive apparatuses, and likewise avoiding falling into monotony as consequence of stagnation in the comprehension of socio-political conditions, having so close at hand the proliferation of the destruction and sabotage in every corner of society.

All of the above obviously requires the proper recognition and positioning as antagonistic to the social order, we dismiss halfway postures that utilize a negative discourse but do not develop autonomous critique in practice.

III.

It is not only that technology enables the pathogenic deepening of forms of control, but rather that all of this, without a legitimacy mediated through society, is simply impossible.

With regard to recent events, in which different freely-associated individuals (individualists tending toward the wild) have attacked institutions of higher education, specifically schools involved in nanotechnology research, it becomes necessary to sharpen the knife of critique towards the giant industries that play at manipulating life.

We believe that struggle is the consequence of our positions against the forms of life that are imposed by power and legitimized by the masses, and it is in the continual return to direct action that there exists the sole possibility to take our lives as really our own. We act without limits, without regret and without remorse. One cannot destroy the existent simply with the pretensions of doing so. These pretensions are the classic positions of class struggle. The Mexican comrades made the analogy that we ourselves had in mind, namely the following:

“The enlightened or the preachers are the ‘revolutionaries,’ maintained by the faith that is the blind confidence they have that someday the ‘revolution’ will come; the disciples are the ‘potential revolutionaries;’ the crusades and missions are carrying the word to the circles of people involved in green or anarchist struggles (where they would find the ‘potential revolutionaries’); and the atheists or sects are those who do not believe in their dogmas, nor accept their ideas as coherent with reality.” (23 May 2011)

Revolutionaries are the ones who have believed this story the most. The old story that the future will be better, that we are walking toward a better tomorrow, that sooner or later it will arrive. Nothing could be further from reality. A basic question in the face of this would be: What makes you think that the future will be better? And better yet: Is there something concrete that brings you to think this? Questioning ourselves in the first place is paramount to questioning everything else. No one is more blind than the one who does not want to see. In this sense, we believe that it becomes necessary for the comrades of Conspiracy of Cells of Fire, to state in what way they call themselves “revolutionaries,” and in what sense their organization (which is completely respectable and dignified) calls itself a “revolutionary organization.” Much more concretely, what “revolution” means for them. We do not believe in the revolution, but we believe that all action should be accompanied by a strong political content, and that that political content should be solidly argued. Actions do not speak for themselves, as so many comrades everywhere have already said. And thus it is necessary, taking into account the calling to international solidarity, that the networks of information are not so segmented. Through dialogue between comrades we sharpen the critique against the entire existent, never with power, nor with the political class, nor with reformism, nor much less with the masses that condemn everything that is not consistent with the social peace.

Speaking of which, critique is dead if it is not accompanied by that sweetest of nectars: direct action. It is this that marks an essential rupture between the false critics and those conscientious insurgents who have thrown themselves into the abyss of the nothing in search of questions, not answers. Eternal dissent, whose source is the infinitude of the human condition, is nothing more than the only answer to the question: What do we want? This is the sense in which insurgents take awareness of their infinitely infamous condition that answers to nothing, that gravitates toward nothing more than one’s own I. We do not have answers to the questions that everyone wants answered, we do not know where we are going, but we are clear on where we come from, and on what and whose side we are on. ALWAYS on the side of those persons who are consistent and not repentant in their decisions, ALWAYS in the path of confrontation, and NEVER with the timid who have sought to satisfy their egos with pseudo-positionings.

The masses, the people, the citizenry, civil society, humankind, the multitude, the exploited, the sheep. All names for the same thing: “cowards.”

With all the above we do not intend to instate anything, neither a unique form of positioning, nor much less the enlightenment of consciences. But rather to simply expose the point of view of distinct individualities, and to provide nuance to the always-fertile discussions in the intensification of critique and the offensive against the established. Since we are not those who fire the most accurate shots, nor the most gutsy, nor do we pretend to be. In such manner we claim responsibility for the attack made against the branch of the Banco Estado of Central Station, located in the intersection of Alameda and Ecuador.

Afterwards, in the morning of June 1st we found out what happened to the compa Luciano… the following (not alone) words are for him:

Tortuga, you were able to draw out the most difficult conclusions that exist, you confronted the most complicated paradigms for a person, and in spite of all this you were able to live with valor the consequences of your decisions, decisions that brought you to transport that cargo on that night.

We should say that when we found out about your “accident,” a day after having illuminated the night with those ATMs, it was the most difficult awakening that we could have wanted, imagining those interminable seconds that you had to endure in that street pierced our soul; great was the blow that we received on seeing how the press feasted on your image without any consideration, apparently unconcerned about the consequences that this would have for your friends and family.

If only the timer had been delayed a little longer, we would not be in this situation, there would have been another blow against the cheats, the usurers, but it is not so, instead on the contrary your physical condition was seriously affected, likewise those close to you are arduously harassed by the (un)intelligence agents of power.

From our point of view, and open to criticism, we want you free, even if this means that you stop breathing–we do not say dead because you will never die, you will always be at our side striking at what we so hate–this is what any of us would want if we had some mishap. We do not want anyone to be the scapegoat of power, we are free and we want to die free, which is why we chose the more difficult path, the path of the war against the established. Across the darkness and the distance, we carry your impetus in our hearts.

Mauricio Morales and Lambros Foundas live in every insurgent heart.

Freedom to the prisoners of CCF in Greece and to the captive comrades of the “bombs case.”

Incendiary Antagonist Columns.

______________________________
* literally “the savage” or “savagery” – transl.

Related:
* Video of the action
* More photos
* Press report (in Spanish) with videos

On August 14th, 2010, fourteen anarchists and anti-authoritarians were arrested in a series of raids in Santiago in what became known as the `Bombs Case`. They were accused of a series of bombings against capital and the state that took place around Santiago in the previous years, as well as of “criminal conspiracy” under the Pinochet-era Anti-Terrorist Laws. Since then, following a hunger strike by the prisoners, as well as countless solidarity actions from around the world, the charges against nine of the accused have been dropped (one of these people is facing other charges in a separate trial), but charges against five comrades remain. They are: Omar Hermosilla and Carlos Riveros, accused of providing the money to finance the costs of the attacks, as well as Mónica Caballero, Felipe Guerra, Francisco Solar, accused of the placement of the explosive devices at different points in Santiago.

The trial started on November 28, 2011.

Prisoners kidnapped by the State to the street!