About the double robbery in Velvento, Kozani (Greece)

Our days pass, our nights do not.

We run for our escape, while around us a regular manhunt is developing. Behind us a predefined life, carved by the hands of the dominants, aiming at internalizing our subjection as an objective condition, legalize ethical systems of laws and rules, equalize the individual with a statistic logic of numbers. Ahead of us the world of our “utopian” fantasies which is conquered only with violence. One life, one possibility and decisive choices.

Look at the between the clouds and jump, because the fall has never been a more assured choice.

On Friday 01.02.13, together with a group of comrades, we proceeded to a double robbery of the Agrotiki bank and the Post Office in Velvendo, Kozani. Our opinion is that there is some substance In analysing to an extent the operational part of the robbery. Mainly to show all the sides of the attack, the choices we took, the mistakes we made and the reason which led to those:

So, Friday morning, we attacked the two targets divided into two groups. Our plan from the start was to take the money from both safes, which we did. During our escape a series of unfortunate events and wrong handling of the situation, led to the revelation of our vehicle, as well as our direction to the police.

Due to the police cordon, the comrade who was driving the van which was externally disguised as an ambulance, was seeking for escape routes for the group that carried out the robbery. In his attempt, he made the mistake of passing by a cop car three times, resulting in him being considered a suspect. A car chase followed and then, because he ended up in an unknown area to him, he reached four dead ends at the last of which he was surrounded, effectively erasing any chance of escape. Thus, after burning the van he was arrested. With all these developments and while our comrade who had the escape vehicle was already in the hands of the cops, our choices of escape were narrowed down drastically.

We decided, therefore, to stop the first oncoming vehicle, since it would secure a more safe escape for us and our comrades. The main matter in this condition was to ensure our comrades new escape vehicle would not become known to the cops, so we decided to keep the driver of the car with us, until we found an escape route for us too. Its approximately at this point that we encountered a cop car which gradually led to a wild car chase until the city of Veria at which point most of the areas police forces were behind us. Obviously we never considered even for a second to use our hostage as a human shield (we would not have had a problem if for example he was a bank manager), anyway the police did not know about him. In the end he became a human shield for the cops unbeknownst to them, because he was the reason we did not use our weapons to disengage. Because our conscience and our morals did not allow us to risk the life of a person who ended up with us against his own will.

At this point we want to clarify something, that we did not carry the weapons in order to intimidate anyone, but as a tool in case we clash with the cops. So, the reason we did not act as we should have, in order to escape, was a condition we were in due to our wrong handling of the situation. The only way of escape now was speed and our attempt to gain distance with our vehicle from the cops who were chasing us.

However, the city of Veria is not the best place for something like that and thus we soon got stuck in a narrow street resulting in our arrests. During our arrest, the only thing we stated from the start was that the person who was with us in the car had nothing to do with the robberies and with us.

Nevertheless the cops continued beating him too, at least for as long as we had eye contact with him. The above narration is not in the frames of showing off and self-presentation, but in order to reverse the legacy of the arrests without a fight that the conditions lead us to.

The narration ends at the central police headquarters of Veria, where a long torture followed on three of us by the pigs of the police. Their tactics are known and expected: hood over the head, handcuffed behind the back and beatings.

We consider obvious that there is a line between us and the system which imprints the war between two worlds. The world of dominance, oppression and enslavement and the world of freedom which we create and keep alive through our restless fight with the power.

In this war the the pigs of the police are a permanent target of anarchist guerillas as they are the vanguard and repressive branch of the mechanisms of dominance. This is why we considered the attitude of the cops against us a given. If the state did not fight us, then we would have a good reason to be worried. Torturing as a method, was, is and will always be a weapon in the arsenal of any given authority. We, of course, as anarchists, refuse to use such methods on our enemies and prefer the dignified practise of political “executions”, since we do not want to reproduce their rotting world but to exterminate it.

The opinion that wants fighters a prey under the nails of the repressive mechanisms internalizes the perception of defeat in the subversive circles. It is the acceptance of a perception of limiting the war against the enemies of freedom, in the frames of accepting the urban social ethics and legality. And to not be misunderstood, the above cue concerns announcements such as ANT.AR.SY.A or A.K., which contribute more to the reformism than the radicalism. It is pointless refer to journalists, SYRIZA and other parts of the system who with “friendly” announcements towards us attempt to re-approach any consciences which start to diverge from the norms, assisting thus the stabilization of the regime. Now, as for confront the practises of torture, for us, the answer lies in polymorphy.

The highlighting of certain events through actions of counter-information such as communiques, posters, demonstrations etc is definitely necessary, so that more people can come to a conclusion. A conclusion that doesn’t allow for “isolated incidents” or “vengeful behaviours” but leads to the perception that physical violence has always been a method of repression and control from authority. It Is the part of war between dominance and rebellion. The more this message spreads, the more the feeling of terror must spread to the by-nature torturers, the cops. For the cops not to beat there there is no point in inner-system complaints and legislative procedures, which means discounts and informal acceptance of the juridical or journalistic authority. There needs to be a resistance and resistance needs to have violent forms too. Because an attack on cops (not only those of Veria), with stones, molotov or weapons, undeniably leads them to reconsider their choices, counting their wounds before they lift their hand again. Because as it has been correctly said before, our enemies have names and addresses.

We wont analytically mention the role of banks, either way in our time it is clear to everyone. Their existence is a constant robbery. For us, as anarchists, they constitute targets for any form of attack: incendiary, bombing, robbing. Of course, many things have been said about our case and surely there is a need to reverse the climate. To strike the constant operation of misinterpretation of our choices and to reveal the rotten sociological approach and pseudo-humanitarian pedestal, which due to our ages they wanted to ascribe. “The kids if next door and they rob a bank? Why?” Because a robbery is a conscious political act. It is not the next stage of a frustrated post-pubescent period, ambitions of personal wealth, neither is it a result of our alleged laziness. It does however include our desire to not commit our lives to a brutal exploitation of wage labour. Our refusal to become cogs of economic interests. Our resistance to their onslaught of the mental and value bankruptcy of their world. It is clear to us that we do not deny the creativity within our communities. Besides, the organization of a robbery demands both spiritual and physical work. We refuse however to surrender our creativity to a world of production and reproduction of labour. However, it would be of little substance to deny a world of slave labour while not working on destroying it. We are unrepentant anarchists and we do not seek sympathy, compassion or understanding because we acted “wrong” in a”wrong” world. We seek the spreading of our values and our practices, and we will fight for this till our last words, till our last bullet.

Every aggressive action of ours, is also an instance of the revolutionary war on which is being held on all levels. The money gained from this robbery were not intended for the artificial consumerist paradise.

It is simply the toll to move every form of struggle. From the printing of communiques to the buying of weapons and explosives, for the funding of illegal structures of defence and attack. From the renting of our illegal houses to the supplying of explosives in order to blow up social peace. The purpose is the spreading of direct action against this condition of slavery we live in.

Either guerilla style, or all out and open, whichever each person thinks is more fertile and effective, any way an individual or collective is willing and wants to contribute to the struggle. Always the aim of every action of ours, every guerilla tactic is to spread the revolutionary conscience. To consciously stand against the world of totalitarian enslavement, against a constantly evolving enemy which wipes out everything in its path. Against this condition, the fight for freedom and our attempt to give militant characteristics to every aspect of the anarchist struggle is fertile and necessary. Because anarchy can never be a pleasant idea inside the totalitarian world of subjugation, but is at constant clash with it. It cannot be limited neither to harmless and democratically acceptable events, neither fetishisms of the means, but constitutes an undivided entirety of every form of struggle.

Every person or group of people depending on their desires and way of thinking, contribute with aby way possible to the continuation of the struggle. Anarchy our way of organizing, living and fighting. It is the organization without limits, it is the never ending struggle. It is extreme comradeship we experience in our revolting communities against the rotten social structure. Concluding we would like to salute all the comrades who mobilized. Flyposting, shouting chants, organizing gatherings, writing texts in solidarity (in and out of prison). To all those who are right now planning their attacks.

Anarchists:
Nikos Romanos, Dimitris Politis, Andreas-Dimitris Bourzoukos, Giannis Mihailidis

P.S. 1 We want also send our solidarity to hunger striker Spiros Dravilas who is fighting a painful and tough battle for a breath of freedom. Strength to him.

P.S. 2 A while back, was killed in an random clash, comrade Ryo in Indonesia. Ryo was an anarchist who through his action promoted the international solidarity. Now even though he is away from the hostilities we cause against the existing, we are sure that we always look towards the same star, the star of constant anarchist insurrection. Honour to comrade Ryo

Text by anarchist Nikos Romanos concerning his connection with the CCF

In the near future I will be called by the modern inquisitor Mokkas to “apologize” (testify) concerning my participation in the Revolutionary Organization Conspiracy Cells of Fire.

The reason I clarify my position is to state my choices and attitudes of struggle to my comrades. The penal responsibilities of an indictment leave me indifferent. Not from the position of a martyr but as an anarchist choice of clashing with the laws and the juridical mafia.

I do not recognize their procedures, neither the right to be judges by subhumans, such as Mokkas, who for me do not even have the right to life. As much as I can I intend to insult their procedures and highlight, as a hostage now, the revolutionary conflict taking place everyday with authority. The intransigent attitude towards the judges is one more moment of battle in this war condition we are living.

I state therefore that I was never a member of the R.O. CCF and I still disagree with positions of the organization. This fact was not a serious enough reason for me not to be comradely connected with the comrades of the CCF. A connection which led me to share with them common thoughts, worries, experiences, knowledge. To share experiences for the attack on dominance and its allies.

I engraved and continue to engrave a course on the territories where the anarchist struggle stands high and spreads its insurrectionary force. In this contradictory but pleasant course, my choice of participating in revolutionary structures (and of course not the technical mistakes I made) does not constitute “guilty” evidence but honourable of me.

The oppressive strategy denies the autonomy of the anarchist groups of direct action and based on a centralized model they use the CCF to “excuse” the aggressive practices of the wider insurrectionary tendency.

A similar condition was also experienced by the fighters in Italy with the prosecutions of prosecutor Marini. The witch-hunt unleashed by Marini led to the condemnation of anarchists to exterminating sentences and tough restriction measures. One more example which proves that the terms of the “dialogue” should not be legal but armed.

Our attitude tries to promote a perception which is indifferent to the legalistic matters (to the extent possible of course) and targets the root of reproduction of all these methods, our common enemy.

Insurrectionist practices should be enriched and the level of violence should multiply.

I stand in solidarity with the imprisoned members of the CCF and I raise my fist to them from the prisons I am now hostage. Strength comrades.

Comrade greetings to all the guerilla groups, the cells of FAI/IRF and the revolting individualities all over the world.

LONG LIVE DIRECT ACTION LONG LIVE ANARCHY

Nikos Romanos
Avlona Prisons

P.S.1. When you are restless, take a deep breath and look high up. In the star you will see are hidden our hopes and behind them our smiles. For now continue, to love, to attack, to fight. Anyway, you know. People who hope die holding hands, this is how it should be. In the middle there is nothing, that is the only thing for sure. Until then use as a life compass your experience. Argiris and Foivos, strength and good luck.

P.S.2. The only happy news of the days is the positive course of the health of comrade P.Argirou. My thoughts are with you comrade.