Update:
In June of 2008, anarchist prisoner Juan Sorroche was released under house arrest.
See also:
Confrontation (Olympics news section)
Indigenous Anti-Olympics Resistance
An Account to Settle
Four homicides for the preparation of the "Olympic Games of Peace" in Torino, an escalation of police terror in the neighbourhoods of the "undesirables", while the blood of the imprisoned in revolt flowed inside the detention centre of Corso Brunelleschi, between deportations and hunger strikes.
Italy: Direct Action against the Olympics and the High-Speed Railway (2005-2006)
RIOT 2010? RIOT NOW! Attacking the Olympics and it's project: Canada, Greece and Italy
A PDF version of this article can be found here, for you to print out and distribute. This article also appears in Why We Hate The Olympics.
The Olympics is not just a worldwide event, it is a project used to accelerate what the bosses are already doing, expanding capitalism, colonization, social control and industrial/technological civilization. The project is the subjugation of our lives to the plans of the bosses, the hyper-expansion of security forces and the exploitation of the earth, destroying our possibilities to live free. The Olympic project is the encouragement of false nationalism, attempting to unify people the world over within borders and behind state power undermining true indigenous nations. Vancouver, British Columbia is host to the 2010 Winter Olympics. Here the Olympic project is in the frenzy of developers tearing up Vancouver to reconstruct a wealthier urban dream. We see it in the expansion of ski-resorts and promotion of tourism and land exploitation, like the opening up of the province of British Colombia (BC) to uranium mining. To protect their investments the bosses hire more police, form and expand private security companies to patrol Vancouver and pump money into the treaty process, trying to buy BC from the indigenous people because BC knows it is unceeded native land, never treatied, never surrendered.
Indigenous warrior and elder Harriet Nahanee of the Nuu-chan-nulth nation, and Squamish nation by marriage, lived on the North Vancouver on a Squamish reserve when she was arrested on May 25th, 2006 for defending unceeded Squamish territory from Olympics development. Her arrest was part of the mass arrest and eviction of a month-long land defense camp in West Vancouver. The camp was set up to prevent the destruction Eagle Ridge Bluffs by the highway expansion between Vancouver and the main Olympic venue, Whistler.
The injunction to remove the occupiers of the Eagle Ridge Bluffs camp was filed in May 2006 by highway construction contractors Peter Kiewit and Sons. Kiewit and Sons is no small family business, it is one of North America's largest and longest operating construction and mining companies.
Since 1884, Kiewit has been building a business around the construction of military, air force and naval operations centers, nuclear waste storage experiments, and resource exploitation, including oil and gas, mining and dams.
The arrest of Harriet Nahanee is part of their business: plundering native land and reinforcing the systems of repression.
When in court, Harriet Nahanee would not apologize for defying the injunction ordering her to remove herself from the land, nor would she recognize the authority of the courts. She stated that she is a sovereign indigenous person. Because of her refusal to show remorse she was sentenced to two weeks jail time. While in jail, she suffered from pneumonia and died on February 24, 2007 shortly after being released. Her spirit continues to inspire resistance.
On, March 7, 2007, on Coast Salish Territory [Vancouver, Canada] the Olympic flag was removed from it's pole at the Vancouver City Hall. The action was claimed by the Native Warrior Society (from the communique) "...in honour of Harriet Nahanee, our elder-warrior, who was given a death sentence by the BC courts for her courageous stand in defending Mother Earth." The communique continues, "We stand in solidarity with all those fighting against the destruction caused by the 2010 Winter Olympic Games. No Olympics on Stolen Native Land!"
In death and in life people are expendable to the roar of capital. In the rush to build 2010 Olympics infrastructure two workers have died on the job and one more on his way home in early morning hours after working a night shift.
On June 12, 2006, experienced blaster 45 year old, Mike Greer died in a blasting accident during the construction of a road to the Callaghan Valley Olympics venue near Whistler to be used only for access by RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police), and security and emergency personnel. Greer had been working 10 to 11 hour shifts, six days a week. On June 15, 2006, 50,000 dollars worth of damage was done to five vehicles on that same road. In 2007, Murrin Construction was fined $216, 000 for "gross negligence" relating to his death.
On January 21, 2008, Andrew Slobodian, 22, from Ontario, Canada, died while working on the Canada Line rapid-transit project in Vancouver for the 2010 Olympics. The crane he was operating flipped over and crushed him midway along the bridge deck that spans the Fraser River from Vancouver to Richmond.
In 2006, it came out through a union backed petition that foreign construction workers for the Canada Line rapid transit contractors, were paid less than 4 dollars an hour by SNC Lavalin and others, represented by the joint-venture company InTransitBC. SNC Lavalin is a Canadian company and military ammunitions manufacturer seeking reconstruction contracts in Iraq and with mining, nuclear, engineering, real estate and pharmaceutical interests worldwide. SNC has a contract to manage the Canada Line for the next 35 years.
These companies manufacture and exploit the precariousness of foreign workers, so they can pay them as little as they can get away with, skim the wages off their backs and fire them when the workers make a stir, like they just did when workers involved with union organizing were fired on the excuse that their services were no longer needed, voiding their visas and making their existence in Canada illegal.
After the Olympic events have passed, the project of capitalism, colonization and social control will most likely continue. Our struggles come from before 2010 and will reach beyond.
The Olympics is just another mask the bosses wear, a spectacle encouraging us to celebrate and buy tickets to our own exploitation. We do not revel at their masquerade we celebrate with our rebellion.
RESISTANCE TO THE OLYMPIC PROJECT IN GREECE
The Olympics was set to take place in Athens, Greece in the summer of 2004, however, Greek anarchists let out a call that resounded in the voices of many others: "Let the Olympic Games die in the land they were born!" In November 2003, anarchists attacked three Athens banks with homemade gas bombs in solidarity with seven imprisoned anarchists and against the arrival of FBI Chief Robert Mueller, coming to inspect security measures for the Olympics. The seven anarchists were being held in jail for their participation in demonstrations at the EU summit in Thessaloniki in June 2003, during which damage was done to businesses, banks and cars.
In solidarity with the prisoners dozens of other actions were made including hunger strikes in other prisons, commandeering corporate radio stations, arsons against state infrastructure, sabotage of 70 metro station entrances in Barcelona and unfurling banners at an Olympics event. In extending the actions beyond just responding to repression, solidarity becomes an attack, which reinforces other aspects of struggle. The actions echoed one another: "Solidarity is our weapon!"
In February 2004, two government trucks were burned using homemade gas canisters during International Olympic Committee meetings in Athens. The claim for responsibility was signed by the Olympic mascots. To complete the Olympics infrastructure in time, work went on non-stop and many foreign temporary workers were hired. In the rush, dozens of workers died. There is no official number, some say up to 150 workers died on Olympics related work sites in Greece.
On February 25, 2004 outside Greece's Labour Ministry, an anti-Olympics demonstration took place also against the working conditions at the Olympic village site where five workers already died. At the demonstration people hurled rocks and red paint and clashed with the police.
The Olympic security apparatus involved the construction of new prisons, NATO security systems, US, British, Israeli, and Australian secret service and the installation of hundreds of public police surveillance cameras.
Exactly 100 days before the games, three gas bombs went off damaging a police station. On July 22, 2004 firebombs were thrown at the Cultural Ministry building and the nearby headquarters of the Cultural Olympiad causing structural damage. During an anti-Olympics demonstration later that night, anarchists threw a firebomb at the Interior Ministry building and spray-painted surveillance cameras set up for the Olympics.
On August 27, people rioted in Athens against the coming visit of US Secretary Colin Powell to the Olympics, smashing and pulling down surveillance cameras, breaking bank windows, attacking the offices of the Association of Greek Industrialists and spray-painting "Against the Olympics of Repression" on a billboard. Colin Powell cancelled his visit to Greece. The Olympics are over in Greece but attacks on surveillance cameras continue. Dozens of cameras have been destroyed during daytime demonstrations, night attacks or in simultaneous sabotage of different locations.
In Athens, November 2005, traffic was held up by a banner reading "Sabotage the Systems of Social Control", while at the same time comrades were setting the camera control boxes on fire. This is the second time these cameras were destroyed.
RESISTANCE TO THE OLYMPIC PROJECT IN ITALY
The next Olympic games after Athens, was the 2006 Winter Olympics in Torino, Italy. In time for the games the bosses decided to push through construction of a high-speed train line (TAV) between France and Italy despite active resistance to the TAV construction since the late 1990's. An anarchist from Carrara understood the "No TAV" movement as "...an obstacle to the restructuring process which has as its results the destruction of the environment of the area, the sackings of thousands of workers (and) the super-exploitation of the railway workers to benefit a clique of businessmen and speculators."
In March 1998, the Italian police arrested 3 anarchists on serious charges of "subversive association for the purpose of constituting an armed gang". They were accused of various direct actions linked to the popular struggle against the construction of the high-speed railway through the Val di Susa in the Piemonte region.
Two of the arrested anarchists Edoardo Massari, a 38 year old from Ivrea, and Maria Soledad Rosas, a 22 year old from Argentina commit suicide during their persecution. Italian anarchists called it murder. The evening after Maria's death more than a hundred people gathered in the centre of Turin. A barricade of old furniture, wood and mattresses blocked the road. A barrage of smoke bombs and flares transformed the scene. Paint sprayed messages appeared on walls. "This is the first response to the death of Soledad."
Solidarity actions in Athens, Greece saw 10 cars go up in flames at the Italian embassy and at Agencies belonging to Italian companies Fiat and Alfa Romeo.
In 2005, construction for the TAV was underway at the mountain sports Olympic venue, Val di Susa. In the winter of 2005, residents of Val di Susa and supporters from many places came together to prevent the TAV by occupying a construction site.
Residents of the valley had been demonstrating, blocking roads, and launching strikes against the railway project for weeks. Graffiti messages against the railway line and the police occupation of Val di Susa spread throughout the area.
In December 2005, the camp was violently evicted by paramilitary police. To try to keep the police out, residents blockaded the major highway that runs through Val di Susa and barricaded streets in the valley town of Bussoleno. Workers also went on strike in Torino in solidarity with the struggle.
The day after the eviction, a mass demonstration in Val di Susa was held including blockades, a battle with the cops, and the sabotage of equipment at the TAV development site. Mayors from the region attempted to stop anarchists and autonomous anti-capitalists from charging a police line, but failed.
At a solidarity demonstration against the TAV in Torino people blockaded a railway depot, attacked two police cars and the car of the President of the Piemonte region, smashed up a bank and an Olympics store and set a bonfire in the streets. Graffiti on the streets denounced the Olympics and the high-speed train line.
The planned route of the Olympic torch was diverted throughout Italy again and again. In Genoa, on December 18, 2005 a blockade forced the flame procession to stop and the flame to be transported in a car. In Trento, on January 23, 2006 the torch was snatched by anarchists who ran with it for sixty metres. In Bergamo, on January 29 clashes caused the flame to bypass the town. In Cuneo, on February 3, the route was delayed for forty minutes due to a cable strung across the road by anarchists. In Val di Susa, on February 5, people overwhelmed the procession and tried to put out the torch with a "NO TAV" flag.
For intervening in the torch run and snatching the torch in Trento on January 13, Juan Sorroche and another anarchist received jail sentences, which were commuted to fines. One of the other arrested anarchists, Massimo, claimed the disruption in court as being related to the exploitation of immigrant workers on the Olympic-related construction project of the TAV high-speed railway.
In June 2006, in Rovereto, Italy, after the Olympic events ended, Juan Sorroche and three anarchist companions refused to present their identity papers to the cops. They resisted the cops attempt to drag them to a police station and when the cops called in reinforcements they fought against the arrest damaging a cop car and causing six cops to seek first aid. While in prison for these actions Juan and another companion Mike put out a statement expressing their actions as an act of solidarity with immigrants and other illegal's "...who, unlike (them), don't have the possibility to choose but are compelled to run away in order to escape imprisonment." They encourage the spread of resistance to identity checks calling it "active solidarity." Affirming their actions as a reflection of their hearts they refused to repent.
After serving part of his nine month sentence in jail, a Judge released Juan on the condition that he remain in a certain town and not return to Rovereto. He left anyways and was arrested in Spain on numerous charges including the burning of three train cars belonging to Trentalia, an action claimed because of the company's involvement in the deportation of immigrants. Again Juan is in prison, this time sentenced to seven months for doing solidarity graffiti for anarchist companions arrested for intervening in the arrest and institutionalization of a woman sleeping on the street.
To write to Juan (April 2008) :
Juan Antonio Sorroche Fernandez
Casa Circondariale Poggiorale
Via Nuova Poggioreale 177
80143 Napoli
ITALIA
By interacting with social struggles in other places we see that the project of social domination is global. All over the world capital aims to advance, restricting access to the means of survival, channeling populations into production and consumption, and refining methods of social control.
Internationally, social control (i.e.: immigration systems, police, social welfare, labour, technology, prison) is experimented with and implemented differently. What is yesterday's surveillance technology in London becomes today's in Vancouver.
Beginning by truly engaging our own struggles and deepening our relationships here, our struggles can intensify by extending outwards to others who share our aspirations. Solidarity can be a weapon and a catalyst for subversive social relationships.
Although we can learn from the methods and analysis in rebellion in Italy, Greece and so many other places, our methods should be born from our surroundings and the contexts that we generate. Let us experiment and push our selves beyond pre-conceived limitations.
The systems of social control are growing, cultivated through projects like the Olympics, but they are breakable. They depend on our ongoing submission. We refuse them this necessity through our ongoing rebellion.
These words go out to those yet unknown companions whose hearts rebel, propelling them towards conflict, joy and dignity, right now.
Links:
Insurrectionary Anarchists of the Coast Salish Territory
News & information on social conflict across Canada
Prisoner support for indigenous warrior John Graham
In memory of Harriet and about current resistance
Indigenous and Solidarity actions, news and articles
"Let the road to the Olympics be littered with the wreckage we leave in their place!"
- Anarchists,
from a Vancouver action on September 29, '07 in solidarity with anarchist prisoners Gabriel Pombo da Silva, Jose Fernando Delgado and Marco Camenisch
A guide to surveillance camera destruction can be found here.
Insurrectionary Anarchists of the Coast Salish Territories