Leave no protester behind

By David Pike

"All told, more than 3,000 suspected terrorists have been arrested in many countries. Many others have met a different fate. Let's put it this way -- they are no longer a problem to the United States and our friends and allies." (Applause.) - From the 2003 State of the Union Address

The future is a war. That is made clear by President Bush in his recent State of the Union address and it is not a surprise. But he is so openly bloodthirsty! It is the President’s stated support of extra-legal, in-the-street executions of suspected terrorists that shows we are facing not only a preemptive invasion of Iraq and a global war on "terror" but simply total war. We clearly need to directly intervene in these matters.

The huge crowds of diverse people that have been protesting the US drive to invade Iraq are impressive to me. However, I don’t see that they impress the President and other pro-war leaders much. It seems to me we will need to strengthen our cooperation and resolve and put much more pressure, in a variety of ways, on the US government and attendant corporations before we stop their plans. And they are not going to like it!

No matter how much they call us un-American, traitors, and other names. No matter what threats of legal and extra-legal reprisals they issue or what manipulations and media maligning they perform. Despite the tear gas, water cannons, beatings and arrests, we will always have the natural right to follow our varied consciences. Those of us sick and tired of their world of depraved violence and heartless exploitation are many and of many, many different backgrounds, experiences, and beliefs. This is an honest strength when allowed to express itself in creative action. I’ve seen religious pacifists dressed in special garb kneel to pray at arms factories and their brethren break into shipyards to vandalize warships. I’ve seen anarchists work patiently to keep prisoners connected to friends and family and help fill their medical and educational needs as well as run wild in the streets, beautiful in bright colors and percussive music. Diversity of methods allows for personally passionate expression, empowerment, and construction of our community-based power.

Whatever strategy people and their organizations choose, when we defy authority we should expect a response. Clearly, the government and the corporations have many ways to keep us in check and continue with their business. We have our own ways of maintaining cohesion and empowering even more people to resistance.

How to survive stopping their war
Classic tactics of those in power to prevent our success are to take away privileges (i.e. firing journalists and deejays who air criticism of the "War on Terrorism"), to ignore and marginalize (i.e. barring Ralph Nader from the presidential debates and leaving him out of the news), and to attack and demonize (i.e. immigrants stripped of rights, detained, and deported; or anti-capitalist protesters rounded up and labeled violent extremists).

The third tactic of brute force seems particularly important to me because it tends to scare people away the fastest, draws off loads of energy, morale, and resources, and it physically hurts. Also, the government is apparently ever happier to use it and more of it (see Presidential quote above…). Please pay attention to historic parallels – this can be done at any scale. The basic run down goes like this: target a person or group of people out of the larger crowd or population; separate them through unfounded claims (i.e. criminality), selective harassment and arrest, and legal manipulations (i.e. special permits or registration); scare off potential supporters, demoralize the target group/arrestees, and reinforce the split by maintaining the "otherness" of those targeted through continued legal action and media coverage.

Preventing the success of "divide and conquer" is as simple as critical thinking and solidarity. It is also very difficult to maintain through all the pressures and conflicting forces of our political movements and society in general. Solidarity decreases the actual, personal risks and costs to individuals without releasing them from responsibility. It is a crucial part of building our movements so that people will see we are serious about sticking together and helping one another through adversity. Here is a current example.

The case of housing and global justice advocate Camilo Viveiros
Camilo’s (pronounced Camille) case is a good example of the problem and the solution. He is facing decades in prison on felony charges stemming from the August 2000 protests at the Republican National Convention (RNC) in Philadelphia. Camilo joined a particular march against police brutality (for which Philly is infamous) and the criminal justice system. This march included many anti-authoritarians and anarchists – a commonly targeted grouping – and was provoked at one point by a squad of bike police ramming into the crowd. Chaotic melee ensued with the police grabbing and clubbing randomly. Camilo was given a concussion in his beating while being arrested as one of three accused of assaulting the police commissioner himself. (Initial bail was $450,000 and Camilo was denied medical attention for four days.)

Commissioner Timony retold a story of valiant battling with frenzied extremists over and over in the mass media, displacing the police violence onto the "Timony-3" defendants in particular. He went on to build his career off the RNC occasion -- later called "the largest single violation of civil rights since the Vietnam War" by civil rights advocates.

In the years since this event, Camilo has been out on a reduced bail and fighting the court case the whole time. As an experienced and dedicated activist, he and his supporters – Friends of Camilo – have been able to raise money for legal costs, secure a lawyer, counter false media accounts of the incident, and gather a widening base of people in solidarity with him. In this instance, 95 percent of the 420 arrested throughout the weekend have either had their charges dismissed or been acquitted, likely putting some pressure on the city’s prosecutors to get convictions of the "Timoney-3" in order to justify the massive cost of the entire operation.

Camilo is lucky in that he is well known and well liked by many people through his tenant organizing job and all the projects and campaigns he has worked on over his entire adult life throughout the Northeast. His immediate support came from this fairly large group of people and was able to accomplish much. As time went on and the organizing spread, people who are total strangers to Camilo started writing letters of support and helping out because they see the clear threat to our rights of free speech and assembly and the danger to future political activity if the police and other authorities are not called out on their violently unethical actions. Camilo’s trial was set for Feb. 18 but has again been postponed. Again our patience and determination to keep a fellow resister out of prison is tested.

This is solidarity: individuals joining together to raise our collective power in the defense of an individual, which in turn defends all of us. This is critical thinking: looking past the broadcast claims by the authorities to find solid facts and real people being painted up in cynical stereotypes. Personally, my first question in this kind of situation is not what someone is being charged with. That is often part of the fiction being built by the authorities. My support for victims of political repression is unconditional at the basic level. I foremostly want to keep them out of jail and go from there. I know there are many different people with whom I have some common cause, and believe we can deal with any disagreements ourselves. That is to say, I am certainly not going to let the powers that be take someone down just because they are different than people I am used to. This is where I see our cohesion coming from as we move against and beyond the global war machines toward another world.

Remember, isolation causes desperation. Stay open, stay strong.

For more information, see Friends of Camilo at www.friendsofcamilo.org; R2K Legal Collective at www.r2klegal.org; or Midnight Special Law Collective at www.midnightspecial.net

David Pike can be reached at fivetimes1@hotmail.com.

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