Στις 28 Ιούνη 2004, τέσσερις άνθρωποι συνελήφθησαν στο Aachen της Γερμανίας μετά από ανταλλαγή πυροβολισμών με την αστυνομία και ομηρία κάποιων άλλων, καθώς προσπαθούσαν να αποφύγουν ένα μπλόκο της αστυνομίας. Τα ονόματά τους ήταν Bart De Geeter, José Fernandez Delgado, Gabriel Pombo da Silva και Begoña Pombo da Silva.
Ο Bart είναι βέλγος αναρχικός 26 ετών, ενεργός για πολλά χρόνια ιδιαίτερα μέσα από την αλληλεγγύη στους κρατουμένους (ήταν μέλος του Αναρχικού Μαύρου Σταυρού της Γάνδης) και στους χωρίς-χαρτιά (μετανάστες).
Ο Gabriel είναι γνωστός ισπανός αναρχικός, 36 ετών που έχει περάσει 20 χρόνια στη φυλακή από τα οποία τα 14 στις διαβόητες φυλακές FIES (ισπανικά "λευκά κελιά" - απομόνωση), κι έχει αγωνιστεί για χρόνια ενάντια στη βαρβαρότητα των φυλακών.
Ο 44χρονος José Fernandez Delgado είναι επίσης ισπανός αναρχικός που δραπέτευσε από τις φυλακές μετά από 24 χρόνια.
Η Begoña είναι 34 ετών και αδερφή του Gabriel. Ζεί στη Γερμανία κι έχει μια 7χρονη κόρη. Δεν έχει κάποια σχέση με το αναρχικό κίνημα.
Οι 4 τους, σταματήθηκαν από τη γερμανική αστυνομία λίγο πριν τα σύνορα, σε ένα βενζινάδικο στο δρόμο προς το Aachen, σε μπλόκο για ναρκωτικά. Όταν οι μπάτσοι προσπάθησαν να ψάξουν το αμάξι ο ένας τους πυροβόλησε στον αέρα. Τις επόμενες στιγμές πήραν ένα ζευγάρι για ομήρους, ενώ η μπάτσοι συνέλαβαν την Begoña και καταδίωξαν τους 3 άνδρες. Μετά από καταδίωξη και ανταλλαγή πυροβολισμών, άφησαν τους ομήρους να φύγουν και κατέφυγαν σε ένα γκαράζ, περικυκλωμένοι από την αστυνομία. Μετά από λίγες ώρες, τελικά παραδόθηκαν.
Οι 3 κατηγορούνται για 9 απόπειρες φόνου, 2 απαγωγές ομήρων, ένοπλη ληστεία, σχεδιασμό ληστείας, και σοβαρές παραβάσεις του κοκ.
Απ ότι έχει γίνει γνωστό, οι κατηγορούμενοι δεν αντιμετωπίζουν τον γερμανικό "αντιτρομοκρατικό" νόμο (άρθρο 129α/Β του ποινικού κώδικα) ωστόσο η υπόθεσή τους σηματοδότησε μια ευρεία επίθεση ενάντια στους αναρχικούς στην Ισπανία, το Βέλγιο και τη Γερμανία, ως υποτιθέμενο "διεθνές δίκτυο".
Σαν συνέπεια αυτού, στις 4 Αυγούστου 2004 στη Δρέσδη, η αστυνομία εισέβαλε στο σπίτι δυο συντροφισσών, από το κίνημα αλληλεγγύης στους κρατουμένους και συγκεκριμένα την οργάνωση Rote Hilfe (Κόκκινη Βοήθεια) στη Γερμανία. Η οργάνωση αυτή συνεργαζόταν με τον αναρχικό μαύρο σταυρό της Γάνδης για την υπεράσπιση των 4 του Αachen. Οι δυο γυναίκες κατηγορούνταν από την αστυνομία ότι συνεργάστηκαν στη ληστεία με τους 4 συλληφθέντες, βάση ενός χάρτη που βρέθηκε στο αμάξι τους, και της αίτησης που είχε κάνει η μια να δει τους συλληφθέντες... Τελικά, αφέθηκαν ελεύθερες. Οι 3 όμως παραμένουν φυλακισμένοι σε 13, 14 και 3μισι χρόνια.
Πηγή: http://www.escapeintorebellion.info/
*English:
Anarchists arrested in Aachen, Germany
On June, 28 2004, four people were arrested in Aachen, Germany, after a shooting with the police and hostage-taking, while attempting to escape a police control. These four persons are Bart De Geeter, José Fernandez Delgado, Gabriel Pombo da Silva and Begoña Pombo da Silva.
Bart De Geeter is a Belgian anarchist, 26 years old, active within the movement for several years, particularly within the solidarity work with prisoners (as a member of the Anarchist Black Cross - Gent, Belgium) and people without papers.
Gabriel Pombo da Silva is a well-known Spanish anarchist, 36 years old, who spent 20 years in prison of which 14 in the infamous FIES isolation regime. In October last year he escaped from prison and ran away from Spain. Gabriel is one of the social rebels/anarchists who struggled for years against the brutal conditions, the isolation, torture and mistreatment within the Spanish prisons. The 44 year old José Fernandez Delgado is another Spanish anarchist who escaped from prison recently after spending 24 years in prison.
Begoña is 34 years old and is Gabriel’s sister. She lives in Germany and has a 7 year old daughter. Except for being the sister of Gabriel, she has no relation to the anarchist movement.
The four were stopped by the German police just beyond the German border, at a petrol station on the way to Aachen. The reason for the police intervention seems to have been a drug control. When the police wanted to search the car, one of the 4 pulled a gun and shot in the air. In the next moments, the three men took a couple as hostages and fled with a car; the woman though was jumped upon and arrested by the police. The three men were chased by the police, a shooting took place way and back, and when their car broke down they let the hostages go and fled with another car. Finally the three hid in a garage, where they were surrounded by the police, and after some time the three gave in.
The three men have been charged by the public prosecutor of Aachen with attempt of murder (9 times), hostage taking (twice), armed robbery, planning of a robbery and serious traffic violations. Given the course of the events, it is likely that Begoña is held with less serious charges.
At this moment, an international investigation is going on against the international radical left movement, that is: Spanish, Belgian and German anarchists are under investigation and are considered as an “international network”. As far as we know, no investigation has been opened on the basis of article 129a/B of the German Criminal Code (terrorism).
There is also no extradition demand from Spain or Belgium, since the events took place in Germany. Whether more charges will follow, eventually by other EU countries, remains to be seen.
The fact that an international investigation of the international radical left movement is going on became very clear when on August 4, 2004, in Dresden, Germany, the police raided the house of two female comrades. Both are long time activists within the prisoners’ solidarity movement and the organisation Rote Hilfe (Red Help) in Germany. They were asked by the Anarchist Black Cross - Gent, Belgium, to provide lawyers for the detained, and since then they follow up the case together with the ABC-Gent. The two women are now suspected to have planned a robbery together with the four arrested!! According to the police, in the car of the arrested a city map of Dresden was found on which weapon shops and police stations are marked. Also an eventual escape route to the Czech Republic was on this map. This city map, together with the fact that both activists provided a lawyer for Bart and asked for a visit permit, seemed to have been sufficient reason for the police to raid the house of the two women. During the house search, by the Landeskriminalamt Sachsen and the Aachen police, mobiles, computers, writings, letters of prisoners, etc. were confiscated. The two women were not arrested. One of the women made a complaint about the house search, but it was refused as ungrounded by the regional court of Aachen. She appealed this decision.
In the media, the case was initially covered as a spectacular event, good to fill the front pages and to fulfill the need for sensation, and to spread a bit more the fear for all those “dangerous criminals”. When it became known that there is a political background, the first stories about possible connections with ETA, etc. showed up - as usual when it is about Spain/Spaniards. From journalists who don’t know more than what governments, police and justice tell them, you can’t expect more…
We though know that it’s our comrades that have been captured and that they wage a struggle, as we do, against repression and prison, against poverty and exploitation, against exclusion and alienation. We have no doubt that they will continue the struggle inside prison, and we will be on their side outside. We are all prisoners because we neither want nor accept nor are resigned to this miserable world full of injustices, lies and suffering.
We call for international solidarity with our comrades, captured because they struggle to break down all walls and frontiers and for freedom for all.
http://www.escapeintorebellion.info/index.php?newlang=english
Solidarity with Gabriel Pombo da Silva
Urgent appeal to send protest letters to the prison of Aachen against the continuing isolation of Gabriel Pombo da Silva
Gabriel Pombo Da Silva, sentenced to 13 years of imprisonment in the 'Aachen4'-trial, asks for our solidarity.
It seems that the German authorities want to isolate Gabriel even more than before. To remind you: since his imprisonment at the end of June 2004 in the prison of Aachen, Germany, he spends 23 hours a day alone in a cell, quasi- isolated from everyone inside, four times a month he can have a visit of 45 minutes.. . Now it appears that also letters from and to him 'disappear', that postage stamps sent to him from outside are not handed over, that books and CD's are kept by the prison. Before, they had arranged that money on his prison account is confiscated, so that he is only left with the strict minimum to buy from the prison cantine. Those who know Gabriel know what it means for him not to be able to read and to communicate; as he writes himself in a recent letter: “reading has pulled me out of 14 years of torture of all kinds.., has saved me from misanthropy and madness.. . What do they want from me? Do they believe that by cutting me off from the sources of culture, art, sentiments, relationships, ... from which I drink, they can convert me to the kind of 'mummy' such as they are? Do they forget that Memory, memories, reasonings, .. do not burn at the stake as was thought in the time of Torquemada the Inquisitor, or of Goebbels and his book burnings in fascist Germany..?”
Gabriel has, just as every prisoner, just as every human being, a profound need for social contact, for communication, for participation in social life and political debate. The existing system of power and greed is more and more directed towards the destruction of this, of individuality, of the social, of consciousness. This goes evidently – so drastically – for the prison system.
The attempts to isolate Gabriel more and more aim clearly at the destruction of his personality and political identity. They must be stopped. We ask you all to send letters, faxes, emails to the prison of Aachen. It is the least what can be done now and direct. Below the addresses of the prison of Aachen and an example letter (in german) you can use if you want.
Solidarity with Gabriel and all prisoners in struggle! Stop isolation torture!
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JVA Aachen
Dr. Hans-Joachim Gries
Krefelder Str. 251
52070 Aachen
Ort, Datum
Sehr geehrter Herr Dr. Hans-Joachim Gries,
unser Freund Gabriel Pombo Da Silva sitzt nunmehr seit Ende Juni 2004 in der JVA Aachen ein. Das ist ein Fakt den sie kennen, genauso wie Ihnen die Fakt bekannt ist, dass er 23 Stunden in einer Zelle eingesperrt ist. Doch diese Isolation reicht Ihnen offensichtlich nicht.
Sie händigen die Bücher nicht aus, die Gabriel Pombo Da Silva von Freunden und Freundinnen geschickt bekommt, genauso wenig die für ihn zugesandten CDs. Sie halten Briefe zurück; die die reingehen, als auch die die rausgehen sollen. Sie stehlen Briefmarken aus den Postsendungen die an Gabriel Pombo Da Silva gehen.
Glauben Sie tatsächlich damit den Willen und die politische Persönlichkeit unseres Freundes brechen zu können? Dann werden wir Ihnen hiermit mitteilen müssen, dass das ein Irrglauben Ihrerseits ist.
Wir fordern von Ihnen:
- Herausgabe der Bücher, die an Gabriel Pombo geschickt worden sind und geschickt werden
- Herausgabe der CDs , die an Gabriel Pombo Da Silva geschickt wurden und geschickt werden
- Weiterleitung der Briefe an Gabriel Pombo Da Silva inklusive der Briefmarken und sonstigen „Einlagen“
- Weiterleitung der Briefe die Gabriel Pombo Da Silva schreibt, und zwar an die Adressaten für die sie vorgesehen sind!
Sie schaffen es nicht unseren Freund von uns zu isolieren. Ihre Mauern, Ihre Bewacher, Ihre Schikanen helfen Ihnen da gar nicht!
Send appeal to Aachen prison:
Telefon: 0241 9173-0
Fax: 0241 9173-273
E-mail: poststelle@jva-aachen.nrw.de
Gabriel is an anarchist who along with another, Jose Fernandez Delgado, escaped from the brutal F.I.E.S prison system of the Spanish State. Gabriel and Jose are now residing in the Jails of Germany, after attempting to escape a police control on the Belgium/German border. Gabriel has written quite a lot since being in Jail 20 years, and he is only 36.
You can read more about the case here: escape into rebellion
A letter from Gabriel Pombo da Silva
"Yes, I am aware of the harsh repression that you have been suffering in Italy, further reason for reinforcing the undertaking of the Anarchist Black Cross.
Obviously they want to wipe us out in a squalid manner, thus their effort to criminalize “anti-repressive organizations” and place them on the same “legal” level as the Informal Groups. The fact is that they want to shut up any opposition to their system of Domination, Control, Exploitation and Death.
All my rebel love and complicity can be taken for granted: to the Informal Groups of the FAI and, generally, to all those who struggle against the State-Capital and its Prisons… and to all comrades in prison, all the more so if “guilty” like me of loving freedom in all its sense without measure.
Our trial in Aachen finally comes to sentence in August… I say finally because it is torture to go to court. They handle us worse than animals, with glasses provided with black-painted lenses, earplugs and shackled hands and feet… We are scattered in various prisons and they always transport us separately, each with his or her group of riot cops in balaclavas.
After 21 years of prison, so much struggle and torture, there is nothing that surprises me in this life. It only provokes me to greater rage that correspondence is “lost” along the way or only gets to me after several months of delay. What the fascists of the Spanish state were unable to do the “German Federal Republic” is doing.
I feel powerless and enraged because I can do nothing about it, and in this sense I appeal to the international revolutionary solidarity of our comrades.
A strong rebel embrace to all!!"
Gabriel Pombo da Silva
Aachen, July 21, 2005
Another text from Gabriel:
"It's raining in Aachen"
by Gabriel Pomba da Silva,
Anarchist insurrectionalist political prisoner in Germany
Translated by Jordan ML, 2005
It's raining in Aachen and above a grand expanse of grey clouds hangs, and when my eyes sink from the heights to the front, i see a wall, also grey, and behind the wall denuded trees that raise their arms to the heavens as though they were imploring, damning, rebuking, asking, "why are my roots set in this Earth, this cemetery of living men who wander like zombies between the walls of their cells?"
All the same, tree-brothers... there you are, predestined as am I to suffer the rigors of the Seasons, of the Weather, of the caprices of men and the rigors of intemperateness... It's only that many moons ago I ceased raising my arms to the heavens to beg, damn, rebuke or ask for anything from the Architect of the Universe...
I let the rain soak me, I let the cold make me contract... I let the rays of the sun caress me... I close my eyes and I am like you, and when I open them again I am a tree with blood and eyes that contemplate, from the vantage point of the inevitable, the passage of time, amazed and petrified.
There was once a Time when I had no roots, and traveled to many different places, where I saw blue, yellow, orange, and red skies... Skies darkened by a million flickering eyes...
There was once a Time when I climbed on the arms of our brothers and sat myself in the highest branches to see human beings as ants wandering from one side to the other, and I asked myself, what is pushing them to this frenetic coming and going?
Oh yes!! And by the way I discovered in your hands and arms bird's nests, eggs, little birds without feathers and with closed eyes... and I murmured to them, "One day you will open up your eyes and fly through many colored skies... but you must beware of the huntsmen..."
Oh!! I am sure that many birds, descendants of those others that I saw with their eyes closed, have flown over infinitely colored skies, have lit upon branches in many other trees... some others will have fallen from the nest, others will have been hunted down, others abandoned because some hunter will have killed their fathers and mothers...
But life goes on its inexorable course, full of life and death, happiness and tragedy, full of trees: men, woman, and birds, heavens of a thousand colors, of rain and sun...
It's raining in Aachen and I am not going to let my memories, my emotions, my ideas and feelings die of the cold and the grey, nor at the hands the frenetic ant-men...
It's raining in Aachen and I let the rain soak me, feed my melancholy, and give wings to my dreams... After everything, brother tree, our roots are fed by the Earth, and everyone and everything, sooner or later, ends up as shadow, ash, memory, yesterday... Well then, why not go forwards faithfully towards anarchy? Is there anything greater? I ask you...
Gabriel,
January 31, 2005, in germany.
Source: http://situationist.gq.nu/