The following text 'From the land of the forgotten against oblivion...' by anarchist prisoner and member of CCF-FAI, Olga Ekonomidu is a contribution to the imprisoned comrades in Chile: Tamara Sol and Natalia Collado. It is also a gesture in solidarity with Evi Statiri, held hostage by the Greek state, written in the context of the call for a national solidarity day on Semptember 2nd, 2015. Translation from Greek to English by Inter Arma.
Greece: “From the land of the forgotten against oblivion…” by Olga Ekonomidou
The captivity condition in which I find myself for 4,5 years now as a vindictive and exemplary punishment has created a distance between me and outside reality, action. Besides, the purpose of imprisonment for those who fight against the existent is separation, deprivation, political isolation, moral annihilation. But there are always bars to brake either you walk in the monotonous sterile corridors of a “penitentiary” or you cross the decorated streets of consumption of prison-society. Now, within the prison cells of democracy, my need for freedom continues to give breath to my each day. It’s my moving force, to think, to imagine, to organize, to act. The decision of total conflict with the existing, the power of individual choice enriched by collective action experiences, are the ingredients that can penetrate the prison bars and high walls. Why in prison you don’t give up… you go on. You reorganize yourself and you fight. For 4,5 years I wake up in a bed in prison always a little after sunrise, although many times I liked sleeping more when I was out, I organize my every move, although outside the spontaneous often moved me, I analyze and judge the data (political and personal) of yesterday’s day alone, although outside I always shared them with comrades. For 4,5 years I wake up every morning feeling sure that I alone defined my participation in the war against any form of authority and that freedom is not given away… you conquer it yourself.
January 2015… a plan about to materialize, to turn into something with flesh and bones. One step…. a breath before freedom…. And if the goal was not achieved… it was surely worth the try!
The attempted prison escape of CCF from our probable graves, confirmed that the struggle for freedom never stops while it sounded the alarm of the state apparatus. It made the damage it would inflict to both the validity and the reliability of the state visible, whether it was successful. So an escape plan, became the occasion for a whole repressive operation with revenge for the years our tenacious attitude and non-repentance as its sole purpose. The diffusion of fear in the part of the anarchist milieu that is in solidarity with political prisoners aiming their political isolation is not enough. For the first time in Greece and with such intensity, an enlarged perspective of the previous logic was applied. After authority saw that its “legal” or “irregular” judicial and legislative arms have not affected us until now, it crawled like an insidious reptile to bite Achilles heel. This time it targeted our relatives. The criminalization of family relations showed nothing but the clear vengeful intention of the state. To blackmail and emotionally destroy those who have hurt the prestige of its structures. The pursuit of new arrests and raids in homes resulted in two detentions. Of the mother of Christos and Gerasimos Tsakalos and the wife of the latter. But as long as you give the enemy the easier he thinks will win. So the same day of these detentions began a grueling hunger strike by CCF which managed to pull the mother of the two comrades out of jail. In this hunger strike which lasted several days, anarchist Ageliki Spyropoulou who is accused for her political contribution to the escape attempt, was also involved from the start, from the cells of the counter-terrorism agency For two months she was hunted by the police dogs after choosing not to surrender, choosing the difficult but beautiful road of illegality. Until today, we share the same cell discussing, analyzing all those things that came to pass and all that will come from a common perspective, in a new perspective.
From the first days of January, CCF is under constant attack by separating four comrades from the general prison population, transferring them during the night in special isolation cells. This was followed by continuous searches in the cells of the basement, under the pretext of security or some tip. And if every time they find nothing criminally remarkable, the feeling of the dissatisfied hound in their eyes, indicates that they will soon come again. The prison visits for Christos and Gerasimos are informally cancelled since their mother’s terms of release do not allow her to leave the island she lives on, not even for medical reasons. With their their insistence they Evi (wife of Gerasimos Tsakalos) in jail for six months now.
The extension of Evi’s detention is of double significance for domination. On the one hand the strength of urban guerrillas and the tolerance of people in solidarity are tested and on the other it legitimizes the broader policy of criminalization of family relations. It is the psychological game of authority which, among other things, as a battering ram, invades consciences. It targets the minds of relatives in order to tire them, bring them down, make them frustrated and eventually objective, corrupting the trusted relationship we have with them, as they pay the cost of our own choices. And if in the path of every personal history, some comrades, friends or others remained and others left, is because it is easy to stand next to people when they succeed, but difficult to do so in hard times. But dominion hasn’t won this game. all those they’ve bet on the weakening of the emotional ties and their conversion, they have already lost. Why even six months after, our loved ones, either from within prison or from the restricted areas they are due to court orders, still give us smiles of patience and trust, maintaining their own dignity.
So the bet remains to us, every anarchist cell and individuality that promotes continuous attack and rebellion, to prove that there will be no truce with the enemy neither now nor ever. Particularly in times of repressive operations one does not step back, but instead reignites the attack outbreaks in order to become truly dangerous. To remain a threat as an internal enemy at the heart of the system. Because everything that rolls downhill, stops only when it finds an obstacle in front of it, otherwise it will continue to do so indefinitely by continuously increasing speed, carrying away anything of inferior proportions. It is a live bet, without end, but with continuity, evolution and one direction only… liberation, anarchy.
“I do not need, nor do I want your discipline. With regards to my experiences, I want to have them for myself. It is from them, and not from you, that I will draw my rules of conduct. I want to live my own life. Slaves and lackeys terrify me. I hate those who dominate, and those who let themselves be dominated sicken me. He who bends before the whip is worth no more than he who wields it. I love danger, and the unknown, the uncertain, seduces me. I’m filled with a desire for adventure, and I don’t give a damn for success. I hate your society of bureaucrats and administrators, millionaires and beggars. I don’t want to adapt to your hypocritical customs nor to your false courtesies. I want to live out my enthusiasms in the pure, fresh air of freedom. Your streets, drafted according to plan, torture my gaze, and your uniform buildings make the blood in my veins boil with impatience. And that’s enough for me. I’m going to follow my own path, according to my passions, changing myself ceaselessly, and I don’t want to be the same tomorrow as I am today. I stroll along and I don’t let my wings be clipped by the scissors of any one person. I share none of your moralism. I am going forth, eternally passionate and burning with the desire to give myself to the world, to the first real person that approaches me, to the ragged trousered traveler, but never to the grave and conceited wise-men who would regulate the length of my stride. Nor to the doctrinaire who would like to clutter my mind with formulas and rules. I am no intellectual; I am a human being — a woman who feels a great vibration within herself before the impulses of nature and amorous words. I hate every chain, every hindrance; I love to walk along, nude, letting my flesh be caressed by the rays of the voluptuous sun. And, oh, old man! I will care so very little when your society breaks into a thousand pieces and I can finally live my life.”
-“Who are you, little girl, fascinating like a mystery and savage like instinct?”
-“I am Anarchy.”
Emile Armand, French individualist anarchist
Olga Ekonomidou
member of CCF-FAI
Women’s prison of Korydallos
Insurrection News received and translated:
Leaflets that were thrown outside the Justice Center and Santiago Prison Number 1 in recent days...
Attention jailers: Do not dare touch our comrade!! On July 29 our comrade Sergio Álvarez entered Santiago Prison Number 1. He is not alone, he is one of us, as are all who struggle against any form of confinement, power or authority.
Think about this - if he comes to any harm you will face the consequences.
*****
Attention jailers: Our comrades inside prison are Juan Flores, Enrique Guzman, Javier Pino, Sergio Alvarez, Freddy Feuntevilla, Marcelo Villarroel, Juan Aliste, Carlos Gutierrez, Alejandro Astroga, Alfredo Canales, Hans Niemeyer, Natalia Collado, Nataly Casanova and Tamara Sol Farias.
Think about this - if they come to any harm you will face the consequences.
Now that the investigative period is over and we await the hearing date for Javier Pinto and Natalia Collado, as a close group of friends we wanted to inform and disclose how our comrades were accused of burning a Transantiago bus three months ago and were taken from us.
THE FACTS
In the early morning of April 7, at the corner of Ecuador and Concon, located in the community of Estación Central, the darkness was interrupted with the scene of a burning route 210 Transantiago bus that was completely consumed by fire.
Minutes later Natalia Collado (Tato) and Javier Pino were arrested in Alameda, outside USACH (University of Santiago Chile) and detained on suspicion as their appearance allegedly coincided with descriptions given to the police by the bus driver who reported the fire.
The comrades were taken to Central Police Station 21 where they were told that the bus driver recognized them as two people who boarded the bus without paying at the corner of Alameda and Cumming and left a bag in the back seat before exiting from the rear door of the bus. Tato and Javier were then transferred to the BIPE (Police Brigade of Special Investigations) where they both had DNA samples forcibly taken from them. By now relatives, close friends and comrades who had heard about the arrest began to demonstrate out the front in solidarity with both comrades. Also as usual, the press began to appear in order to caputre the faces of our comrades for the television cameras. The following morning as they were taken to court Javier yelled at the press "Down with anthropocentric patriarchal society!"
The court extended the detention of the comrades for three days so that the police could gather more evidence. At the hearing held three days later, the bus driver's statement was presented as the main piece of evidence. The prosecution also stated that the possibility of an electrical failure in the bus accelerator causing the fire had been ruled out. The judge then formalized the charge of placing an incendiary device on public transport which comes under the arms control laws. The prosecution applied for a 90 day investigative period during which the comrades would be kept in custody and the judge allowed this saying that there were no concrete reasons to reject the application.
Javier was taken to module 11 at Santiago Prison Number 1 while Tato was transferred to the women's prison of San Miguel where she remained in isolation for several days before being transferred to the public connotation module (general population).
Natalia Collado and Javier Pino
From the beginning Tato and Javier openly expressed their view of life as a daily confrontation with the system that is imposed by civilization and openly defended the feelings that emerge from the heart when you decide to break the social monotony.
They refuse to claim a position of either guilt or innocence of the charges, choosing instead to use their lives as a praxis of comtempt and deconstruction of social logic, assuming that we live in a patriarchal, antropocentric, authoritarian and speciest world that looks with scorn upon all those who believe that life is something much more than cement.
There are those with a deep love of nature who dare to build new forms of social relationships and who constantly question the moral values learned from childhood even if it results in more failures than successes. Because every decision that on the surface seems harmless such as dietary choice, empathizing with the land and the various beings that inhabit it, the daily respect for the environment, the difficult deconstruction of patriarchy from the depths of relationships, choosing not to go to a hospital, living a self-managed life, finding new ways of learning - to name just a few things, can make it practically impossible to passively coexist with the dominant social order.
This is why their hearts are still beating with the pulse of untamed nature despite being locked behind the cold prison walls. From the beginning of their ordeal they have remained steadfast but without underestimating the impact of imprisonment. It is also important to note that the comrades are in two very different prison contexts.
For Javier the food situation has been difficult as before his arrest he was eating only raw, unrefined food. In Santiago Prison Number 1 this diet cannot be obtained even if you are vegan so one is forced by necessity to eat certain foods. Javier has also kept his long hair despite constant harassment from the gendarmes. It is also important to note that Javier has been unable to access 'recreational' activities such as playing ball. He has been able to use wood carving materials however it took a long time for these materials to reach him in the module due to all of the formalities involved.
Tato has been able to access more of a variety of prepared foods. At first she was sharing a cell with the comrade Tamara Farias Sol Vergara but Tamara was transferred and she is now sharing a cell with Nataly Casanova. Prison conditions in San Miguel Women's Prison are different to Santiago Prison and she has been able to receive craft and drawing materials as well as a variety of books and magazines.
These have been difficult months during the investigative period and the monotony of prison life make the time seem to pass even slower. During their detention Javier and Tato have expressed their feelings through public statements and have stood in solidarity with other imprisoned comrades by fasting or releasing statements. They have had to face the nightmare of imprisonment head on but have emerged with new questions, thoughts and feelings that have reaffirmed their beliefs.
After more than two months since their arrest they have been allowed one inter-prison visit with each other. This can be permitted once a month according to a behavior assessment determined by the gendarmerie.
Legal Status
On Friday June 26 a hearing was held and a new public defender was assigned who announced that the comrades were refusing to cooperate with the official investigation.
As a result of the hearing, Javier was given permission to regularly receive dried fruits and nutritional supplements. In addition, the comrades were granted a five minute visit with their new lawyer in the court cells after the hearing. And finally Javier allowed a doctor to check on his cracked rib which he had been nursing for two months because he was not willing to receive any assistance.
After close to two months in custody, Tato and Javier gained access to the investigative folder that contains the evidence to be presented against them. The bus driver's statement is still the only piece of evidence against them.
Despite the legal situation and the constant friction with lawyers both comrades are calmly waiting to be given the date for their next hearing.
Although their daily dealings with the gendarmerie have been hostile from the beginning, Tato and Javier have remained steadfast with the support of their loved ones. At first they were closely monitored and classified as prisoners who posed a risk of escaping but these conditions have now been eased. Even so, co-existance with the cops will always be difficult since neither comrade is prepared to resign or bow down to ill-treatment.
From outside we support our comrades with hearts full of love and the certainty that the howl of the pack crosses any wall. Therefore we remain complicit in affinity and solidarity with Javier Pino and Natalia Collado. By strengthening ties, through constant growth and learning with our comrades with more force so that every gesture of affection is a little heat to reach their hearts this winter.
As we wait for the next hearing date we send all our love to our comrades.
JAVIER AND TATO TO THE STREETS!!
Group of comrades and friends.
(via contra info, translated into English by Insurrection News)
Anarchist prisoners Tamara Sol and Tato (Natalia Collado) have announced that they will begin a solidarity fast with the hunger strike of Juan, Nataly and Guillermo. Starting from Wednesday, May 20, the comrades will abstain from one meal per day. They also stated that they have not ruled out further escalation of their fast in upcoming days.
(via contra info)
11.05.15: Graffiti & flyer action in the inner-city suburbs of Melbourne for the anarchist comrades facing repression inside the dungeons of the Chilean state. Slogans sprayed for Nataly, Juan and Guillermo - on hunger strike since April 14th and for Tamara Sol Vergara and Natalia Tato Collao. Flyers pasted about the case of Tamara Sol Vergara and the hunger strike of Nataly, Juan & Guillermo.
(send to us by Subversive Tagging & Propaganda Cell)
Today, May 5th 2015, the Santiago Court of Appeal presented the verdict against our sister, Tamara Sol Farías Vergara. The court rejected the appeal presented by the defense and reaffirmed the sentence dictated on February 4th 2015, in which Sol was convicted to 7 years in prison, 61 days of probation, as well as a series of monthly payments to the courts. The family was devastated by the sentence, who had hoped the sentence would be reduced. Nonetheless, we know that “justice is not for the poor,” as Tamara Sol’s father, David Farías Delva, stated in leaving the court room.
Once the sentence was read, the family’s desperation was noted in the protest and frustration of Tamara Sol’s grandmother, who jumped at the judge and was brutally repressed by the judicial police. The elder mother and activist, Luisa Toledo, has had to endure years of frustration and suffering due to the murder of her two 16 and 18 year old children by the secret police during the military dictatorship, better known as the Vergara brothers, and has struggled for justice and the imprisonment of her sons’ murderers for over 30 years. However, the murderers remain immune walking freely through the streets, while today her granddaughter has been taken to prison in a clearly political trial against the family.
Solidarity was also seen outside the Santiago Court House, where the streets were full of youth protesting the unjust conviction and in support of Sol. The protest was heavily repressed by special force police of the GOPE, attacking protestors and even those of us exiting the Court.
Tamara Sol Farías Vergara (25) was convicted for first degree attempted murder for the shooting of Ronaldo Francisco Vargas Fuentes, a bank security guard for Banco Estado, who was not hurt in the incident. However, she was still sanctioned heavily by a crooked justice system that has been made to oppress the poor.
FREE TAMARA SOL!
SOLIDARITY with the Vergara family!!
Marrichiweu!!
The Women’s Coordinating Committee for a Free Wallmapu [Toronto]
Video of the court's rejection of the appeal HERE
Video of solidarity gathering outside the courts HERE
(via Women’s Coordinating Committee for a Free Wallmapu)
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