"Communique # 2"
Regarding the Action Against the Rhein-Main Air Base and the Shooting
of Edward Pimental [1]
August 25th 1985
The purpose of the action was to render a coordinating point of the US
military machine - A CENTER FOR CARRYING OUT IMPERIALIST WAR –
nonfunctional. That meant to materially act against their commando
centre or their military equipment (given that it was not possible, for
a variety of reasons, to act against the headquarters) and against
those who operate this machinery, as such, against
the Air Base and all the soldiers who, whether in the headquarters or
elsewhere,
"do their job." The fact is that every transport of US
intervention troops to the Mediterranean region and/or the Middle East
is already organized from there. As we were carrying out the action,
the "Bright Star" Maneuvers were approaching their end and the troops
were already withdrawing through the Air Base. During the TWA
hijacking, a Killer Commando of the Delta Force flew out of the Air
Base in the direction of the Middle East, in preparation for the
planned military solution. And when soldiers are to be sent directly
into action, for example the Special Units of the Air Force, they are
stationed at the Air Base.
THE AIR BASE, IN ITS FUNCTION AS A COORDINATING POINT FOR IMPERIALIST
WAR AND AS A SECRET SERVICE CENTRE, STANDS AT THE CENTER OF THE
CONFRONTATION BETWEEN THE INTERNATIONAL STRUGGLE FOR LIBERATION AND
IMPERIALISM - WHICH IS WAR - AND, AS SUCH, SO DO ALL THE SOLDIERS WHO
ARE THERE.
The international class war has, since Vietnam, developed so
significantly at the dialectical level in favour of struggle that we
have determined the escalation of the revolutionary war in the
metropole, for ourselves, to mean a COMMON ATTACK BY THE WEST EUROPEAN
GUERRILLA.
Through the struggle of the urban guerrilla commandos of the FMLN
against the US Marines in San Salvador, through the hijacking of the
TWA aircraft by the "organization of the oppressed of the earth" in
Lebanon and now through the attack against the Air Base via a common
commando made up members of Action
Directe and ourselves, the perspective for the international
anti-imperialist revolutionary front is made realistic on a new level.
It is in a position to shatter imperialist power and achieve a new
breakthrough for the worldwide liberation process. ONLY IN THIS SHARP
CONFRONTATION WILL THE WARS OF LIBERATION AND THE STRUGGLE FOR
COMMUNISM IN THE WEST EUROPEAN METROPOLE HAVE A REALISTIC CHANCE OF
SUCCESS.
In this process, one essential task for the West
European
guerrilla is to disrupt the functional capacity of the imperialist
military
machine here in the center, to make the planning and organizing of
their
intervention impossible. We shot Edward Pimental, the air defense
specialist,
who was in the army of his own free will, and in the FRG [2] for the last three months, and who gave up his
previous job because he hoped to get ahead more quickly and easily. We
shot him because we needed his ID card to get onto the Air Base. For
us, US soldiers in the FRG are not simultaneously villains and victims.
This social worker caricature does not play a role in how we understand
them.
After Vietnam, Lebanon, Grenada and the official introduction of the
Air-Land Battle Doctrine, the official strategy for Blitzkrieg in the
Third World and
against the socialist states in the East, every soldier must understand
that
he will pay for waging war. That is to say, THEY MUST ALL UNDERSTAND
THAT
THIS IS WAR AND MAKE A DECISION.
Naturally, this is not based on a misplaced anti-Americanism, as is
claimed in the media. It is based on a practical understanding of the
international class war, with a perspective for the development of the
revolutionary process in the West European metropole.
THE MILITARY BASES, FACILITIES AND COMMANDO CENTRES OF THE US
STRIKE FORCES AND OF NATO ARE WAR SITES.
Red Army Faction
August 25, 1985
Footnotes
N.B. All footnotes in this document were
added by the translator and editor. None are originally from the RAF.
[1] The shooting of GI Edward Pimental was first
linked to the RAF when his ID card and a sheet of paper containing the
RAF and Action Directe symbols were mailed to a West German newspaper.
This created much confusion, and the left speculated that it was a
counterinsurgency ploy in the wake of the Air Base action meant to
discredit the RAF and Action Directe. The RAF sent this
communiqué to clarify what had, in fact, occurred. [return
to text]
[2] FRG - Federal Republic of Germany,
West Germany. [return to text]
