To the Revolutionary Prisoners in the Imperialist Prisons of
Western
Europe
Early February 1989
We have begun a collective hunger strike again and want to write you
briefly.
The time is ripe. After 18 years of isolation (lately with increased
differentiation programs), we need a material breakthrough for
ourselves and the association of all prisoners from the struggle; there
is no way the situation can remain the same!
We do not want to waste a lot of words on the subject of isolation.
Enough has been said about that over the past 18 years. But we see this
struggle not only as a specific and necessary part of our long history
of struggle against isolation, but also we think that it is of
importance in the wider struggle against the imperialist
counterrevolutionary projects, and as such is connected with all
struggles of the West European revolutionary prisoners for collectivity
and revolutionary identity - this is one
struggle, one front-line in the whole class confrontation in West
Europe
- as it is also one front-line in the world-wide spectrum of struggles
against
the imperialist prisons.
More and more, white torture [1] is
being exported from here, above all within the context of West European
integration - in which the coordination and standardization of the
counterrevolutionary programs is of the utmost importance, especially
on the terrain of the imperialist prisons. Therefore we consider it
particularly necessary, and a particular responsibility of ours, to
break this strategy of extermination here; for this is where we have
been confronted with this kind of torture for the
longest time, and it is we who have the most experience with it.
We also hear from Spain about forceful attempts to break apart the
collectives of prisoners from ETA [2]
and GRAPO-PCE(r) [3], using solitary
confinement and isolation. The political prisoners in Belgium are also
confronted with isolation. The Irish, the Palestinian and the Kurdish
prisoners are confronted with isolation. The degree of this isolation
is indicated by the fact that after 3 months we still don’t know which
prisons the Palestinians are being held in. We
don’t know what the current situation of the prisoners in North Ireland
is.
We know from our comrades from Action Directe [4] with what kind of meticulousness the regime of
isolation
is carried out against them. We know every detail of their experience
from
their struggle for revolutionary collectivity and identity during their
last
hunger strike, during which they were immediately confronted with the
whole
“heavy handed” strategy of the West European bloc of counterrevolution,
and
during which they asserted themselves against the attempt to snuff out
the
existence and consciousness of revolutionary antagonism. But the
promises
that were made to them during their last strike have still not been
fulfilled
and we insist that this situation must change as well.
What the Italian comrades of the communist prisoners collective Wotta
Sitta [5] said in their statement of
dec. 18th 1987 is also true for us:
“. . .also in Italy, the projects for the political solution are
accompanied by periodic waves of arrests of revolutionary and
antagonist proletarians and by a increasingly perfected strategy of
differentiation and selection in these prisons. This reality is
expressed in different ways all over Europe and shows that the struggle
against the project ‘regretter - renoncer -
political solution’ cannot be separated from the necessary struggle
against
the strategy of differentiation and isolation in prison. This strategy
can
now be destroyed only by developing an intensive dialectic of unity
between
the revolutionary forces and the working class movement across europe.
The
struggle against isolation and for the association of the prisoners
from
guerrilla movements in different European countries is also our
struggle
and the struggle of the whole revolutionary movement and the class! The
project
of “exemplary pacification - of renunciation - of the political
solution
- dialogue - amnesty”, which certain sections of the imperialist
bourgeoisie
and the reformist left carry from Italy to the rest of West Europe, is
everywhere
followed by increasing isolation, differentiation, physical attacks,
communication
bans and the attempted destruction of every revolutionary and
proletarian
antagonism - vis-a-vis the whole revolutionary movement in Western
Europe."
We will quote briefly what two imprisoned Portuguese comrades from FUP
[6] said in an interview after the
“left” media in our country had spread a big story about a deal and
agreement of the political prisoners:
“Well, we have seen that some newspapers allegedly quoted ‘sources’
amongst the prisoners and that supposedly the FP-25 [7] and the ORA [8]
are also involved in it. We are, for our part, waiting for these
organizations to comment on this publicly. Furthermore, we are
convinced that the government doesn’t want to release us and it swings
the bait of negotiation in front of us in order to break our morale, to
divide us and to set us against each other. It is not enough for them
that we are in jail. They want us to grovel before them. This is why we
won’t have anything to do with negotiations;
revolutionaries have nothing to negotiate with bourgeois power. We know
that
some people will call this position dogmatic... when Otelo now sends
appeals
to his ‘friend’ Soares [9], who is
the
one who ordered his arrest; he is liquidating himself as a
revolutionary.
We deplore this about-face that we have seen coming for a long time...
What
the real struggle within the left is about and what doesn’t appear in
the
headlines, is that the revolutionary left, which is still weak, has to
confront
the parliamentary left, which has come to terms with the regime. We
think
that eventually the revolutionary left will be the only alternative for
the
masses...”
The West German dimension of projects of pacification is a reaction to
the revolutionary break that has occurred in the metropole, and at the
same
time it is also an expression of their helplessness and aggressiveness.
It is also an attempt to disorient people, for they are faced with
people struggling for a new level of consciousness, an awareness that
in the new international situation there must be a united protracted international
revolutionary process, for which revolutionary politics in the
imperialist centres are a necessity. Today the struggles must develop
simultaneously and
there has to be a break in the imperialist centers, otherwise the
worldwide balance of power will continue to develop in a destructive
way, here as well as in the three continents.
Palestine Turkey Peru Chile El Salvador South Africa USA
- Everywhere isolation is used against imprisoned revolutionaries. We
see this in how imperialist repression everywhere attempts to solve
problem
by liquidating imprisoned revolutionaries with the increasing use of
white
torture, because they hope that this way they will avoid public
protests
against torture, but this will fall apart in the face of the struggle
of
the prisoners and the whole revolutionary anti-imperialist movement.
Even if this sector - the terrain of the imperialist prisons - is only
one part of the whole confrontation between the international
proletariat
and the imperialist bourgeoisie it is also a breaking point in this
confrontation in the context of the whole process for a social
revolution
All our solidarity goes out to all fighting revolutionaries in the
imperialist prisons and we send you revolutionary love knowing that, in
the struggle
for liberation, we will fight together through this stage against
imperialist prisons.
Through this hunger strike we also fight for political discussion
across all borders, for an authentic exchange of experiences between
all different revolutionary processes and for a common political
perspective.
Association of all prisoners from the guerrilla and resistance in one
or two large groups into which new prisoners will be integrated, with
access to common yard time with the other prisoners; association for
all prisoners who are struggling to achieve this objective.
Release of all prisoners for whom recovery from sickness, injury or
torture through isolation is impossible while in prison
Release of Günter Sonnenberg, Claudia Wannersdorfer, Bernd
Rössner and Angelika Goder.
Free choice of medical care for all prisoners without Staatsschutz
control.
Access to political information and free communication for prisoners
with all groups in society.
Prisoners from the Red Army Faction
Early February 1989
Footnotes
N.B. All footnotes in this document were
added by the translator and editor. None are originally from the RAF.
[1] A reference to sensory deprivation which was
one of the intended effects of complete isolation. Many human
rights observers and medical professionals maintain that this
constitutes
a form of torture. As Dutch psychiatrist Sjef Teuns stated in 1973
(“Isolation/Sensorische Deprivation: Die programmierte Folter,” in
Ausgewählte Dokumente):
“Sensory deprivation – because it can only be produced through human
manipulation
– is at once the most human and inhuman method for the protracted
degradation of life. Applied for months or years, [it] is the
proverbial ‘perfect murder’ for which no one – or everyone, except the
victim – is responsible.” [quoted in Jeremy Varon's Bringing the
War Home: The Weather Underground, the Red Army Faction, and
Revolutionary Violence in the Sixties and Seventies, p. 218] [return to text]
[2] ETA – a Basque nationalist guerilla
organization. [return to text]
[3] GRAPO-PCE(R): the military wing of the banned
Reconsitituted Communist Party of Spain, the First of October
Anti-Fascist Resistance Group (GRAPO) was an armed underground
organization.
[return to text]
[4] Action Directe was an anti-imperialist
guerilla organization which cooperated with the RAF in the 1980s. [return to text]
[5] Wotta Sitta: a collective of prisoners held
in various special prisons, coming from the different Italian guerrilla
groups (Red Brigades, NAP - Armed Proletarian Units, Red
Brigades-Guerrilla
Party, COLP - Communists Organized for Proletarian Liberation,
Resistance).
[return to text]
[9]Otelo most likely refers to Otelo
Saraiva de Carvalho, a popular hero in Portugal who played a key role
in the Revolution of 1974, who was arrested in June 1984 for belonging
to the FP-25. He was released on a conditional basis in 1992. Mario
Soares was president of Portugal from 1986 to 1996. [return
to text]
