Hunger Strike Statement by Helmut Pohl [1] on Behalf of Political Prisoners in West Germany
February 1st 1989
As of today we are on hunger strike.
We will not give up; association must be achieved now.
Everyone who wants to, knows what isolation is; it is understood and
defined internationally as torture. Isolation has become the rule for
imprisoned
revolutionaries here, whether they are from the guerrilla, the
resistance
or are foreign comrades; and they are using it against social prisoners
who
resist. And it is being increasingly adopted internationally as the
clean
and detestable method of the refined West Germans/Europeans. So
isolation
must be broken here.
We have carried out nine hunger strikes during which two prisoners have
died [2]; many more of us have
damaged our
health. These eighteen years of torture must end now. That is our
definitive decision; that is how we will resist.
There is not much more to explain. Our situation and our demands are
clear. We have gotten sick of talking about isolation and the fact that
we want
to be together. Those inadequate words, repeated over and over again,
have
already made a mockery of the reality in the prisons. We will be saying
something now and again during the strike, but for now just a few main
points.
We will not go on this way any longer.
From the beginning, the goal of isolation was to destroy the prisoners
in order to snuff out the politics of the RAF. They failed in that
because
of us, but we won’t put up with it any longer. We don’t want to put up
with
it any longer; that’s how it is. That is our political and existential
decision now. Although we have been able to assert ourselves against
their destruction-assembly line, and we have also won something
decisively new for ourselves in this situation; there is a limit for us
as to how long individuals can remain
in permanent struggle and how restricted a political group behind bars
can
be. This limit has now been reached.
It never worked for long; that can been seen in the hunger strike cycle
over the years. Through them we defended our identity by struggle and
consistently brought collectivity alive again in the solitude, until
that which we had achieved for ourselves in these holes through
struggle was used up again. We are not going to just add another strike
to that now. That is no longer possible; for us, there is nothing now
but the material goal.
We want association now, and we also want to close this extremely long
phase - and then we want to go further. We will no longer agree to a
foreseeable reaction of “isolation will be abolished,” that is to say,
the cosmetic,
single, specific adaptations with which the FRG State hopes to simply
neutralize
the attacks against isolation while changing nothing for us. Not again
after
all this time. That must be clear from the very beginning. We always
used
every little change. We were always ready to take steps. But now there
is
nothing left except association.
It is a mistake to believe that the ground can be knocked out from
under our feet by some new opening, maybe so-called “normal prison
conditions.” That would mean a new round. There is absolutely no
possible outcome except association.
Things have changed - the need for isolation and the possibility of a
counter-structure under these conditions - nothing remains as it was in
this inferno.
Over time, the demand has taken on a more far-reaching significance for
us. We have only been able to make it through these times because of
our relationships
with one another and their permanent living development, and in that,
our
interconnectedness has become a part of us like an arm or a leg.
Today, no one can take that away from us – it cannot be undone. It is a
material fact created through the struggle against destruction - and so
now we can say: it is the dialectical product of their repressive
measures. And after these measures have existed for 18 years in every
possible variation and no “normality” was able to be established with
them, they have to swallow the bitter pill of our association.
It is already a question of more, not only subjectively, but also in
respect to the political development. In reality, there has long been a
huge gap
between our situation and our possibilities and what the real situation
as
a whole demands in order for us to continue to move forward. Even
though
we don’t have our association yet, the question of a further, more
far-reaching
perspective for the political prisoners is already developing. It is
about
us. Everybody wants something from us. For us, things only works
collectively.
And without us, things don’t work. That should have become clear in the
many
attempts over the years to do things without us. We want to take part
in
the whole political discussion now. That is the other side of
association.
New questions have arisen out of a whole series of developments here
and internationally. On the whole, a new stage has been reached in the
conflict, in which everywhere, on both sides, the goals, the
formulation of politics, the preparation for the struggle are being
taken up anew. It is also a reflection of the fact that the question of
the prisoners is being raised again by
both sides here. The State is offering pardons, state-conforming groups
want amnesty - and the revolutionary resistance is again making it
clear
that the political prisoners must be free. We also think the time is
ripe
for this debate. But it will only move forward in a process of
discussion
and practice through which revolutionary politics become a new and real
factor. Our struggle for association shall now become part of that
process.
Out of many beginnings in the last year, out of the openness and the
will
that cuts across the various groups in the resistance, we believe a new
unity in revolutionary struggle is possible.
We are now seeing a reversal of the degeneration of the left that has
taken place since the late 70’s. The struggle in the metropolis can
also join
the international struggle as a new factor. And then real new
possibilities
will also be opened up in the FRG.
That is our hope.
For us, association now comes first. Then we want to discuss the whole
situation - and our freedom. For us, the situation is clearly
intensifying
around us. Our goal is, of course, freedom. We don’t want to establish
a
part of a political organization in prison; a counter-structure as
prisoners
is certainly not enough to make us happy.
We believe it is possible then to work for our freedom; there is
consensus among us that this is a realistic goal. In order to see how
it can be developed further, how it can be brought about, we have to be
together. We have determined that association will be a transition.
We are now taking on a new form of collective struggle. In the last
strike, they made a new law with which they wanted to prevent us from
using hunger strikes as a tactic. The “coma law.” That means that the
will and the decision-making capacity to keep on struggling should be
taken from the ones in a coma in a long drawn-out medical-technical
manipulation in the intensive care unit. For the struggle as a whole,
that implies they want to contain the critical development and decision
within a narrow timeframe, in practice at the one point where many of
us, after two or three months, will be close to the
edge. Then maybe several would die, but in a short, head-on
confrontation
- and they would “accept” it, as they said last time. And then, as far
as
they are concerned, it would be over. And that would also mean that the
tactic
would be turned against us politically. Because, in such a final
simultaneous
confrontation, the entire logic and objective would be thrown into
question:
When many are dead, how could the others then want to be together?
We will turn that against them and carry on a long drawn-out struggle.
Each of us is the collective. We are going to begin together. Then
after two weeks, we are going to go over into a chain all except two
will temporarily interrupt the strike, then after two more weeks, the
next two will join
in again, and then the next two after two more weeks, and so on. We’re
not
stopping this time until we have association.
We demand:
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
Rossner and Angelika Goder.
Free choice of medical care for all prisoners without Staatsschutz[3] control.
Access to political information and free communication for
prisoners with all groups in society.
For the prisoners from the RAF
Helmut Pohl
February 1, 1989
The two comrades who have been striking since February 1, 1989 are Karl
Heinz Dellwo and Christa Eckes.
The ___ comrades joined the indefinite strike on March 1, 1989.
Footnotes
N.B. All footnotes in this document were
added by the translator and editor. None are originally from the RAF.
[1] Helmut Pohl was a member of the RAF arrested
on February 4th 1974 and sentenced to five years in September 1976; he
was again arrested on July 3rd 1983. [return
to text]
[2] Holger Meins died on hunger strike in 1974
and Sigurd Debus in 1981. [return to text]
