FROM THE GREEK GAOLS A call for the revolutionary prisoner Savvas Xiros and an intervention by tree prisoners of “Revolutionary Struggle”

FROM THE GREEK GAOLS
A call for the revolutionary prisoner Savvas Xiros and an intervention by tree prisoners of “Revolutionary Struggle”

The history of Savvas Xiros is known not only in Greece but around the world.

In his hands burst an improvised explosive device, while he was trying to activate it. The explosion caused very heavy injuries. Half-dead he was brought to the hospital where the doctors' attempts to rescue him were "combined" with the most brutal interrogation methods, in order to obtain information on the Revolutionary Organization "17th of November", which he was a member of. All this he has described in his book "The Day That ...".

The health damage from the explosion, but also the treatment suffered by the prosecuting authorities (this treatment is recorded as the "crime of the Evangelismos", the name of the hospital) is heavy. Savvas Xiros today remains in his ninth year of imprisonment under the regime of special isolation imposed on this category of political prisoners, being mutilated, with breathing and severe vein problems, problems with walking, balance and orientation as well as hearing and vision and under the risk of total blindness.

We, the Action for Liberty, Greece, ask you to sign this Press Release / Declaration for the suspension of the sentence of Savvas Xiros, a member of the Revolutionary Organisation "17. November".
Please send the name of your group , organisation, party, trade union etc.to "ro-achim@otenet.gr .

PRESS RELEASE

Stop the slow death of Savas Xiros

Let the appeal for the suspension of his sentence be accepted so that he may be treated in hospital

Athens, 30th November 2010

Savas Xiros has appealed to the Magistrate's Court of Piraeus asking for the cessation of his penalty, so that he may be treated in the ACHEPA Hospital of Thessaloniki, which accepts to treat him. He pleads a number of doctors' opinions (in their majority from public hospitals), as well as the decision published on September 9th, 2010 by the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). The ECtHR condemned Greece for "inhuman behaviour" in violation of article 3 of the European Human Rights Declaration.

The evidence of the doctors' records included in the appeal shows the image of a prisoner condemned to a slow death:

a) Total blindness on one eye and minimal sight on the other, which is also at risk of blindness.

b) Vein deficiency and its effect on the limbs, which creates the risk of mutilation.

c) Hearing problems with the risk of total loss of hearing.

d) Neurological and blood vessel problems.

e) Chronic asthma.

f) 67% disability established by the Qualified State Committee.

Bearing in mind all the above problems, the ECtHR accuses the Magistrate's Court of Piraeus that it deliberately adopted only one of the four doctors' records, so as to reject the previous appeal for ceasing the penalty. (The other three doctors, two of whom forensic surgeons, had expressed the opinion that only in a specialized hospital under constant care and treatment would be a hope of stopping the continuous deterioration of Savas Xiros' health.)

In fact, the ECtHR condemned the Greek state that it applies on Savas Xiros revengeful methods of detention, refusing to give him the opportunity of having treated the multiple health problems he faces. They judged that "being accepted to a specialized medical centre for the period demanded by the nature of his medical treatment could prove crucial for the improvement of his health".

The doctors' opinions show that particularly his eye situation continually deteriorates. Because of the cruelty of the Greek state he suffers from total blindness on one eye and the other is at risk of losing sight too. Unless there is immediate treatment in a specialized hospital, the situation will become irretrievable.

The enforced stay in prison of a man with the problems of Savas Xiros is in itself inhuman behaviour. It could only be explained as a means of revenge on the part of the Greek state to a prisoner of "special nature".

Savas Xiros must be immediately released from prison.

As a first step his appeal to have his penalty ceased should be accepted so that he may be treated in the state hospital that accepts him.

Any delay in satisfying this appeal will mean the continuation of a crime.

Action for Liberty
http://actionforliberty.wordpress.com/


International Call for Solidarity from members of Revolutionary Struggle (Greece)

Comrades,
We are three political prisoners, members of the armed group Revolutionary Struggle [Epanastatikos Agonas], and we send you militant greetings from the Greek prisons.
We were arrested in April 2010 along with other three comrades who are being accused of involvement in the organization. Since then, we have been on pretrial detention [under the terrorism act], waiting to be referred to a trial in the first months of 2011.
In an open political letter to society, the three of us claimed political responsibility for our participation in the organization of Revolutionary Struggle. In this way, we defended our actions which were directed against the Capital and the State, and contributed through practice and speech towards the overthrow of the State and capitalism, aiming at social revolution, at a non-statist, anti-authoritarian, communal and communist society, in which assemblies and councils of the people will undertake social, political and economic operation and management.
By claiming political responsibility, we also want to defend the armed struggle, and to highlight its timelessness and importance within the broader struggle for the overthrow and social revolution. Most importantly, we want to highlight its relevance and necessity for our times. It is our belief that the appropriate objective conditions for the overthrow of capitalism have developed in this era of global economic crisis more than in any other time since the Second World War.
Also, by undertaking political responsibility we wanted to restore the memory and honour of our comrade Lambros Foundas, who was a member of the Revolutionary Struggle and was killed in an armed clash with cops in March 2010 during an attempted expropriation of a car –a preparatory action of a wider action plan of our organization.
The political, economic and social environment in which the Revolutionary Struggle was formed and has developed its action is very different from that of the Western-European urban guerrilla groups, which were active from the 1970s and 1980s up until the early 1990s. Back then the bipolar, the competition between the US-USSR and their political-economic systems were dominant. It was the time when the model of Keynesianism was sinking into crisis and political devaluation, as the Capital regained its strength against the proletariat, governments of Western countries one after the other abandoned state intervention in the economy – the so-called ‘economics of demand’ – and replaced them with ‘economics of supply’, while the States began the assault on labour and social gains, defending the interests of the economically powerful and imposing the neo-liberal financial and political model of governance.
The economic and political environment in which the Revolutionary Struggle was formed was set by the USA hegemony, the economic globalization, the neo-liberalism and the fight against terrorism, which is the peak of the political-military globalization. Because, for us, both the “fight against terrorism” and the totalitarianism of the markets are two sides of the same coin; they are the political and economic nature of the globalization. Whenever and wherever the globalization is not able to be imposed by the weapons of the capitalists and international financial institutions (IMF, WB, WTO, ECB, FED), by the financial tools of international stock markets, by poverty, hunger and marginalization, it is imposed by the sharpening of state violence and power, by the repression, the war and military incursions, by fire and iron.
The period from 2003, when the Revolutionary Struggle started its action, up to 2007, while the growing social crisis was creating strong social dissatisfaction, the neo-liberal consensus was strong, due to the fact that the capitalist development was continued ‘smoothly’ using the bank loans, as a global scale bubble growing against the successive financial crises that were shaking the planet (Southeast Asia crisis, economic collapse in Argentina, Dot.com crisis in the US).
Since 2007, year of the first ‘bursting of the bubble’ of the residential mortgage loans in the US, which gave the onset of the global financial crisis, the failure of the neo-liberal consensus started, leading to a deeper and deeper political and social scorn for the regime.
During its first period the Revolutionary Struggle set as cutting-edge issues the ‘fight against terrorism’ with the military operations of the US and their Western allies to the countries of the region, and with the intensity of state violence, repression and terrorism in the countries of the capitalist centre and the semi-periphery, in which substantially Greece belongs (rocket attack against the US Embassy, attack against the former minister of Public Order, against police targets and courts), the neo-liberal invasion, the marketization of all the economic and social functions left, the attack of the Capital against labour gains (bomb attacks against Ministries of Employment and Economy).
Then, since 2008, the global financial crisis was a true challenge for us in order to upgrade our action, making attacks against economic structures and institutions such as the stock market, Citibank and Eurobank. Our ambition was to hurt the vulnerable – due to the crisis – system as long as possible, to strongly sabotage the political choices of the Greek government and the ‘rescue-of-the-country’ plans imposed by the troika (IMF, EU, ECB).
This was the reason that the PASOK (Socialist .ed) government was so afraid of the Revolutionary Struggle, since – according to the statements of a member of the government – the organization ‘could blow up the financial measures’. That’s why our arrests, which took place a few days before the IMF, the EU and the ECB entirely take the reins of power in Greece, were characterized by the Greek government and other European and American political factors as a great success.
For us, the financial crisis we live in today is the first truly global crisis in history and the only one since the Great Depression of the early 1930s that affects so intensely all the countries of the capitalist centre, while its character is systemic; it concerns the nature of the capitalism itself and the nature of the market economy, and it is multi-dimensional, because other than financial it is political, social and environmental.
On the occasion of the current crisis, both economic and political elites around the world conduct a frontal attack against societies; former achievements of the labor movement are permanently buried in the name of competitiveness, the welfare state is long past, while institutions of the system such as the nation state lose their importance, concepts such as sovereignty have no real meaning, and representative democracy in many countries such as Greece, which come under the supervision of the transnational elite and economic institutions (IMF, Central banks, etc.) is humiliated, since in fact a series of constitutional provisions are cancelled, and it becomes the vehicle for the establishment of a globalized totalitarianism, that of markets, multinationals, bankers and their political institutions.
Against this charge of the political and economical elites there is no room for the implementation of Keynesian experiments and reforms. This has been obvious by the governments’ respond to the crisis, by unleashing their wildest neo-liberal attack against the middle and lower classes, against the willing of the majority of people. On the occasion of the financial crisis, they forward the greatest robbery and looting in human history and the greatest transaction of wealth from the basis to the top of the social hierarchy, driving more and more people to hunger, impoverish and death.
For vast parts of the societies both of the periphery and the centre of the capitalist world, the neo-liberal model of development has bankrupt alongside the general economic regime. Next in line to fall is the political system of the representative democracy.
The lack of social consent doesn’t stop the European governments from a series of political coup d’état with the excuse of over-passing the crisis while supported only by minorities. In this way, they provoke the rage and exasperation of the social majorities, which quite often are expressed in violent ways on the streets of European cities (of France, England, Greece, Ireland, Italy…).
All the above record a series of political and social conditions that, for us, are the most appropriate in order to put into practice the international proletarian counterattack, to accomplish the overthrow of capitalism and the State, to undertake the revolution. Because today the dilemma of the fighters but also the people repressed is one: social revolution or total submission and death.
Our obligation is to create the subjective circumstances, namely to contribute to the creation of a polymorphic revolutionary movement at national and international level that will form the conditions for the realization of the social revolution.
Within this political and social situation, the armed struggle can be of particular importance and may hold a central role, as it may reflect the overall political conflict with the regime, to herald the armed proletarian counterattack of peoples and to propagandize in the most dynamic way the overthrow and social revolution.
We want our trial to be a political step to express in public these political positions; we want it to be registered in history as a moment of the struggle for freedom. To highlight the importance of the social revolution as the only answer to the crisis that condemns the largest parts of society to economic and social devastation.
[We want our trial] to become a public condemnation of the system and all its collaborators no matter their political accession. To highlight that the armed struggle, despite the attacks by the system, is vivid and well-timed but also important in our days in order to promote the revolutionary process. We want to speak out about the need for the formation of revolutionary movements everywhere, which will persuade the accomplishment of the social revolution.
In such a trial we believe that the best ‘witnesses of defence’ are the comrades who have chosen their dynamic clash with the system. These are the fighters who have been members of guerrilla groups and have remained immovable and impenitent in their choices, by defending their struggles, their comrades who died in prison, those who were imprisoned for many years.
With their political statement in court, they will testify their own experiences, their own struggles as these were expressed through different social and economical conditions. They will speak about the timelessness and historical continuity of the social and class struggle that will be waged until the total destruction of the capitalist system. They will also speak about the struggle that is continued inside prison cells by the prisoners of this war. Because we do not choose the path of struggle to accept the conditions of imprisonment imposed by our enemy in order to morally defeat us and lead us to political or even physical extermination.
For us, that would be the best expression of solidarity; to make this trial a cry for freedom.

Pola Rupa, Nikos Maziotis, Kostas Gournas

From http://guerrillanews.wordpress.com/2010/12/25/international-call-for-solidarity-from-members-of-revolutionary-struggle-greece/


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