English

US President Obama announced that US will not build proposed missile base in Redzikowo. This announcement ends speculation about whether missile "defence" base would really be built in Poland and Czech Republic.

Most of Polish society was against base, although government made intense propaganda for the base and really tried to get it here. Anarchists called for organization of only mass protest against base in Slupsk, city next to Redzikowo, and Redzikowo. They also went on base and showed Americans what kind of security is on the terrain of proposed base.

But decision of president is not a victory for antimilitarist groups in Poland or Polish society. These failed to make such a big mobilization as even in Czech. People were against but did not make mass protests. Nonetheless, the antiwar and antimilitarist groups are happy with this decision.

Sept. 16 was the official start of the campaign for free and good public transport initiated by the local section of ZSP in Wroclaw. Hundreds of leaflets were given out and signatures were collected on a petition. Many people, including transport workers, stopped to discuss and debate the ideas.

Among the postulates of the campaign are also improved conditions for transport workers.

ZSP plans to repeat this action in different neighbourgoods.

ZSP is also calling for a passenger strike beginning on Oct. 26. ZSP will be trying to organize some passenger mutual aid groups (like used in Sweden) in case of problems with controllers.

More information on the campaign can be found, in Polish here:
www.niekasuj.pl

Website of Wroclaw ZSP:
www.wroclaw.zsp.net.pl

ZSP has started a campaign in Warsaw among workers at JWC Construction.

After meetings with Chinese workers at JWC, we were able to get contact and are trying to monitor the situation and help people be aware of their rights and to fight for them. We would like to encourage, as much as possible, workers' self-organization at the sites.

Part of the campaign is also aimed at public awareness about working conditions on their building sites. The campaign page is under construction.

www.jwc.zsp.net.pl

On Sept. 7 and 11, members of ZSP, Anarchist Solidarity and non-alligned supporters picketed at the Serbian Embassy in Warsaw. On the 7 a protest was delivered into the Embassy but the next time, there was already a police van waiting and nobody was willing to say anything to us. Instead we made a few speeches condemning the arrests and state repression.

Solidarity action are continuing around the world to protest these outrageous arrests.

ºº The following explains the essence of the activity and points of view of this voice of the Venezuelan anarchist movement. It is based on two recent interviews: the first one published in Solidaridad Obrera of Catalonia in January 2009, the second in June 2009 by the Star Anarchist Group from Madrid.

-- Who are you?

** El Libertario is a journal in print since 1995 (56 issues to June 2009) that attempts to inform about anarchist theory and practice in Latin America and the rest of the world, as well as to support the libertarian aspects of the social movements in our region. We do not receive – nor do we want to receive – any type of financing from the state or any other institution of hierarchical power. Our activity is 100% self managed. This voice is inspired by the anti-authoritarian ideals of anarchism and is propelled by the Editorial Collective of El Libertario, an affinity group open to the participation and collaboration of people who share libertarian attitudes and ideals, in an atmosphere of mutual respect free of dogma. The main criteria of this affinity is the shared anarchist ideal, the construction of a society based on direct democracy, social justice, self-management, mutual support and free agreement without authoritarian enforcement of the law, among other values. Besides being a propaganda group, we try to inform the existence of a libertarian movement in our country, but for that we assume that there must be a series of grass roots social movements, belligerent and autonomous, as a necessary condition for the expansion of anarchist ideas and praxis in our milieu. For this reason we link up with different popular social organizations, joining them in the struggle against hierarchical power and for human rights. Likewise, some of us work on theoretical research and study. We also foster the promotion of self-managed cultural activities, such as audio-visual shows, talks, or the First Anarchist Book and Video Fair, planned for November 2009 in Caracas. Lastly, within our affinities and possibilities, we participate in campaigns such as that of last year commemorating the 20th anniversary of the El Amparo massacre. For more details about us, how we think and act, see www.nodo50.org/ellibertario and our printed issues.

On 9th September 2009 there was a demonstration in İzmir, Turkey to close Pagani detention center for migrants and refugees on Lesbos/Lesvos island. The activists from Turkey and other countries went through Aslancak Kıbrıs Şehitleri street to the Greek consulate holdıng a big banner and spreading over 100 leaflets in Turkish and English to inform about the Pagani prison and the situation inside. On the banner it was written in 3 languages: Noone is illegal in Greek, Freedom of Movement for Everybody in Turkish and Close Pagani Prison in English. On the way to the consulate and in front of it the activists shouted Shut Down Pagani, Freedom of Movement is Everybody`s Right, Noone is illegal in different languages. The letter for the consul was taken by the consulate worker. 2 activists wanted to talk to the consul face to face about shutting down Pagani. The worker told that he needed to discuss it and just after this the consulate was closed in front of the activists faces. That was the Greek authority response. Meanwhile the civil cops started to appear and after a moment they were 20 who began filming the activists.After an hour the activists moved nearby and sat on the grass wıth the banner in front of the consulate. Then the bus full of riot police arrived and civil cops checked the ID of all activists.

http://lesvos09.antira.info

Vegan

ASI Statement

On September, 4th 2009 District Court in Belgrade decided that arrested members of ASI will be held for thirty days in detention. Our comrades are accused of an act of international terrorism.

Union Confederation “Anarcho-syndicalist Initiative” found out about the attack on Greek embassy, and of the organisation that took the responsibility for this act, through media.

We use this opportunity to remind the public once again that these methods of individual political struggle are not methods of anarcho-syndicalism, quite the contrary – we proclaim our political positions publicly and through our work we seek to bring masses to the syndicalist movement and all the libertarian and progressive organisations.

Wanting to brutally suppress its fierce critics the state, through its mechanism of repression, acts with banal logic and maps as suspects those who explicitly stated their libertarian beliefs, and by their imprisonment ends the case and gives a false picture of its efficiency to the public.

The workers at Argentina's occupied ceramics factory, FASINPAT (Factory Without a Boss), won a major victory this week: the factory now definitively belongs to the people in legal terms. The provincial legislature voted in favor of expropriating the ceramics factory and handing it over to the workers cooperative to manage legally and indefinitely. Since 2001, the workers at Zanon have fought for legal recognition of worker control at Latin America's largest ceramics factory which has created jobs, spearheaded community projects, supported social movements world-wide and shown the world that workers don't need bosses.

"This is incredible, we are happy. The expropriation is an act of justice," said Alejandro Lopez the General Secretary of the Ceramists Union, overwhelmed by the emotion of the victory. "We don't forget the people who supported us in our hardest moments, or the 100,000 people who signed the petition supporting our bill."

Hundreds of workers from the FASINPAT factory waited anxiously until the late hours of the night for the legislature's decision. The expropriation law passed 26 votes in favor and 9 votes against the bill. Thousands of supporters from other workers' organizations, human rights groups and social movements, along with entire families and students, joined the workers as they waited outside the provincial legislature in the capital city of Neuquén. Enduring the Patagonian winter weather, activists played drums and shouted: "here they are the workers of Zanon, workers without a boss."

On January 13, 2009 a riot broke out in Riga (Latvia).

The authorities of the country had lost all trust of the population, industry and agriculture had been completely destroyed, and IMF credits wasted and the people could not pay even for their very modest flats. Mass unemployment and misery was the immediate threat for many thousands.

Under these circumstances after a meeting organized by opposition parties some of the people tired of the lies told by politicians and powerlessness of the opposition took to radical action. They threw stones into the Saeim (Latvian parliament) windows, overthrew police cars, and broke into Latvias Balsams shop, belonging to a well-known Latvian politician. This was a spontaneous outburst; it had not been prepared by any organization. People of different social classes, ethnic origin, age and political views took part in the riot.

Now the cases of 46 participants of the event are in court. They are charged for participation in mass disturbances (Art.225 part 2). If they are found guilty they will be sentenced to an enormous prison term - from 8 to 12 years. The rebels did not kill anybody and the material damage they caused is not so high, yet, the authorities are afraid of new riots and treat those who dared to challenge them with extreme cruelty. The people who defended their right to live are judged like criminals.

3 antifa demos are planned in Budapest on 15th of August to protest against the demo dedicated to Rudolf Hass. The latter was officially banned recently, but there are rumors about another smaller nazi demo on the same date.

The 15th of August was planned to be a Day when Hungarian neo-nazis planned to have a demonstration to commemorate the death anniversary of Rudolpf Hass, the Hitler's deputy who committed suicide on 17 August 1987. The neo-nazi groups, such as NS-Hungary that serves as an umbrella organization for 'Blood & Honor' Hungary, 'Pax Hungarica', 'Veres Kard' ('Bloody Sword'), so-called 'Skins Hungaria', and Hungarian Guard (Magyar Garda) supported by right-wing party 'Jobbik' promised to disclose their location only 2 days before the demo. They were expecting support not only from local skinheads and football hooligans, but also from neo-nazi groups from abroad.

WHO ARE WE? Autonomous Action – it is a community of people, for whom “freedom without Socialism is privilege and injustice, and Socialism without freedom is slavery and brutality”. We consider that the most important thing in life are not the consumption of goods, making a career, reaching positions of power and making money, but creativity, real human relations and personal liberty. All of us, be it workers and the unemployed people, students and pupils, employees and marginal elements, have one common unifying element – to protest against any power of a man over another man, state, capitalism and officially spread bourgeois “culture”. A desire not to be a wilful nut in the mechanism of the System – to collectively resist it, to demand free self-realisation.

OUR IDEALS AND OUR AIM. Autonomous Action against any form of domination and discrimination, both within the society and in our own organisation. The current system of domination is tightly interlaced with repressive state pparatus, industrial capitalist economical structure and authoritarian and hierarchic relations between people. We see, that every state is an instrument of oppression and exploitation of the working majority for the benefit of the privileged minority. Power of stateand capital is suppression of personality and creativity of each and everyone. This is why for us libertarian (free, stateless, self-governed) communism, a society without domination, is the necessary structure of society. The closest aim of Autonomous Action is to create a tradition and basis for a new humanist culture, social self-organisation and radical resistance against militarism, capitalism, sexism and fascism.

On July 29, a protest was held outside the main Prosecutor's Office in Caracas. The demonstrators were protesting in defense of the right to social protest. It was a response to growing repression of political protests in Venezuela.

The demo was supported by various groups including human rights organizations as well as socialist, worker and anarchist groups. Activists pointed out at the same time as the government is repressing social protest, the murderers of farmers and trade unions have gone unpunished.

A representative of the Prosecutor's Office of course denied that they repress workers for protesting but claimed there were other reasons. The date of the demonstration was not accidental: early that morning was to be a hearing in the case of the 14 SIDOR workers charged with "misappropriation and restricting the freedom to work", crimes invented by the government in 2005 to restrict the right to strike. The case was postponed until February 2010.

July 21 saw major clashes break out in Warsaw between police, security guards and traders from the KDT bazaar and their supporters. The bazaar, housed in a metal commerical building, is to be torn down and the city ordered the traders out. Many, however, refused to leave. A battle ensued which saw well over a hundred people injured and the main street in downtown Warsaw blocked for hours.

(Films from the clashes can be seen here and here. )