Letter from the 4 anarchists arrested for the double robbery in Velventos, Kozani

The days go by,the nights do not. We run towards our while a literal manhunt goes on around us.Behind us a life which is preconcerted by our rulers,with the sole purpose of the internalization of our subjection,for our allowance of “moral” laws and rules,for the comparison of a human being to a statistic and a number.Before us, a world which our visions of “utopia” can only conquer through violence.A life,a chance and decisive choices. Look at the gap between the clouds and jump,for the fall is has never before been the surest choice. on friday the first of february ,along with a team of comrades ,we carried out the double robbery of the agricultural bank of greece and the post office in velvento,kozani.We believe there is a reason to to analyze the operational standpoint of the robbery.Mainly to reveal all aspects of the attack,our choices,our mistakes,and what led us to making them: On the morning of friday we proceded with our attacks in two teams.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 revealation of our vehicle and our direction to the police. Due to the perimeter the police maintained,the comrade who was driving the van which was disguised as an ambulance was seeking for escape routes for the team that carried out the robbery.During all this he made the mistake of passing the same location three time which was in the line of sight of the police,this led him to be considered a suspect.This concluded with a pursuit of the van,later due to the area which he was in being unknown to him,he reached four dead ends the last of which was surrounded by police,effectively erasing any chance of escape.After burning the van he was arrested.With all this having happened and our comrade who was in possesion of our escape vehicle being in police custody our choices of escape were narrowed down drastically.We decided to stop the first oncoming car and use it as our escape method.The main reason for this choice was to ensure our escape vehicle was not compromised by the police so we decided to keep the driver of the car with us,until we found how we could escape.A little after this we encountered a cop car which gradually led to a pursuit by police till 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 huma shield (we had no problem for example doing the same to a bank manager),anyway the police did not know about him.In the end he became a human shield for the police unbeknownst to them,because he was the reason we did not use our firearms to disengage.Because our conscience and our morals did not allow us to risk the life of a stranger and an innocent person who ended up with us without his own will. At this point we want to make it clear that we did not carry weapons with the intention of striking fear in anyone ,but as tools to use to our advantage in the chance that we were met with police forces.So the reason we did not act as we intended was that the situation we were in was due to our wrong managment of the situation. Our only chance of escape in the end was our speed and our effort to gain distance from the cops that were in pursuit of us.However the city we were in was not such as to allow us to do this which ended up in our arrest.During our arrest the only thing we stated was that the person who was with us in the car had nothing to do with the robberies and with us.Nevertheless the police continued hitting him too,at least as long as we had eye contact with him. This naration of the incident has not been made for us to be on the spotlight or to show off but for the sole reason of showing the conditions of our arrest and why we did not resist. The conclution takes place in the police prescint of veria,where a long torture ensued on three of us by pigs of the police force theirtactics are known and expected: bagged,handcuffed behind the back and beat. We consider obvious that there is a line between us and the system which reveals a war between two different worlds.The world of rulers,oppression and enslavement and the that of freedom which we create and maintain through our ceaceless fight with the power. In this war the the police’s pigs are permanent targets of anarchist guerillas as they are the vanguard and pivotal in the repressive mechanisms of sovereignty.For this reason we considered the polices actions against us a given.If the state did not fight us,then we would have a good reason to be anxious.Torture  was,is and will always be a primary method used by any given form of state or power.We as anarchists refuse to use such methods on our enemies and prefer the dignified political “executions”,because we do not want to mimic their digusting world but to destroy it.The fighters’ beliefs are far off from those that the media and the supossed “radicals” and statements by political parties such as SYRIZA and ANTARSYA which contribute  more to reform than to radical thinking,political parties like these who try to be “friendly” to our cause are only trying to orient consciences who have drifted off from the social norms aiding the stabilization of the state. Now, as for the practises of torture,the answer lies in diversity.The revealation of certain events through declarations,posters,demonstrations are needed so that more people can come to a conclusion.A conclusion that doesn’t allow for “isolated incidents” and “vengeful interntions” but that violence has always been a method of repression and oppression.It IS the war between dominance and rebellion. The more this message spreads,the more the feeling of terror must spread to the oppressors,to the cops.For cops not to be violent there must be a disturbance in the system.There needs to be a resistance and resistance needs to have violent forms too.Because the resistance against cops (not only those of veria),with rocks,molotov cocktails or weapons undeniably leads them to reconsider their choices,counting thier injuries before they attemp to use violence again.For the exact reason that is that enemies have a name and an address. We wont analytically adress the role of banks,either way in our time it is clear to all of us.Their existence is a constant robbery.For us, for anarchists,they constitute targets for any form of attack wether it be arsonry,robbery or bombing.Of course,our case has been made a big deal and we fealt a need to change the pace.To strike the constant effort to misinterpret our motives and to reveal the rotten social and pseudo-humanitarian form of this age,which they tried to impart due to our  ages. “kids next door and they strike a bank.Why?” Because a robbery is a clearly political practice.It is not the product of a frustrated post-pubescent period,ambitions of enrichment,especially not of our supposed laziness.It is in fact our desire to not commit ourselves to a brutal life of wage labour.Our refusal to become cogs of economic interests.Our resistance to their onslaught of the psychological and decaying worth of their world. It is clear to us that we do not deny the creativity within our society.Moreover the organization of a robbery depends on both spiritual and psysical work.We refuse however to surrender our creativity to a world of production and reproduction of labour.However, it means little to us to deny a world of slave labour while not working on dismantling it.We are unremorsefully anarchists and we do not seek sympathy,compassion or understanding because we acted “wrong” in a world that is “wrong”.We seek the spreading of our messages and our practices,and we will fight for them till our last words,our last bullet. Every aggressive action,is an instance of the revolutionary fight on every level.The money gained from these actions were not meant for meaningless consumption but to strenghten our cause in every way possible. The purpose is to strengthen direct action aimed against this age of slavery we live in.Either guerilla style ,or all out,whichever each persons thinks is best,any way someone chooses to help our cause.Our motive for every move our every guerilla tactic is to spread the revolutionary conscience.To stand against universal enslavement,against a constanly evolving enemy which scans and filters all in its past.The fight for freedom and our efforts to impart a fighting characteristics to every aspect of the anarchist movement is necessary. Because anarchy can never be a pleasent idea in a society of universal subjection.But it is in constant conflict with it.It can never take part in peacful and democraticaly approved events,or fetishisms of the media,but it constitutes a undivided being of constant conflict.Every person,every group of people help in whichever way the want,whichever way they choose to ensure our cause remains strong.Anarchy is our method of organizing ourselves,of living and of fighting.It is organization without limits,it is the never ending fight.It is extreme fellowship we live through in our revolting communities against the rotten social structure. In conclusion we want to say hello to all our comrades which acted.With posters,shouting slogans,organizing events,writing texts (in and out of prison).And to all those who are now planning their attacks.

the anarchists

Nikos Romanos

Dimitris Politis

Andreas-Dimitris Bourzoukos

Yannis Michailidis

Text by anarchist N.Romanos concerning his connection with the CCF

Letters and texts of the comrades arrested – PDF

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