Europol & Mexico to Cooperate Against (A)narchists

by Gabriella Segata Antolini (April 30, 2013)

Alarm in Europe due to Mexican Anarchists

In a cooperation accord which will soon be negotiated between the European police and the Mexican government, a report on “terrorist trends in the EU” is about to be published. A recount of the attacks in Italy and Mexico would explain Europol’s alarm.

BRUSSELS (Proceso) — The police force of the European Union (EU), Europol, intends for the cooperation accord it will negotiate with Enrique Peña Nieto’s government to include the exchange of information about anarchist groups operating in Mexico.

Last October 4th, the EU Cabinet approved Europol’s beginning of accord negotiations with the Mexican government. Its primary–but not sole–component would be the fight against narco-trafficking.

The eventual collaboration of the Mexican and European police against the anarchists would fall within the framework of European politics of fighting terrorism, according to a Europol document dated April 4, 2012 of which Proceso has a copy.

The document specifies, “At this time there has been no cooperation between Mexico and the EU in matters of the fight against terrorism. Nevertheless, Mexico is relevant for Europol because there have been reports of the presence of members of terrorist groups based in Europe (for example ETA). Mexico is also very relevant for Europol due to the numerous extremist anarchist attacks that have been committed there (…) Allegedly, they were perpetrated in solidarity with anarchists incarcerated in the EU.”

According to the document, the information that the Mexican police would give about this would be incorporated into an operational database with which Europol works and which corresponds to “domestic terrorism.” Its official name is Analysis Work Files Dolphin.

On April 25, 2012, Europol published their EU Terrorism and Situation and Trend Report, which is the most recent [actually the 2013 report is out now -TN] and corresponds to events that happened in 2011.

Europe traditionally dedicates a part of this report to “leftist and anarchist terrorism.”

The document says that in 2011 there were 37 terrorist attacks–attributed to anarchist and revolutionary groups–in Denmark, Germany, Greece, Italy and Spain. In 2010 there were 45 attacks of this kind. The majority being acts of arson.

The Europol report counts 23 bombing attacks in 2010 and 11 the following year. These attacks caused 6 deaths in 2010 and 1 in 2011 in Greece when an activist was fabricating an explosive device in a building’s basement. In Italy, two persons were wounded in two different attacks in 2011.

The FAI

In their report, Europol puts emphasis the activity of the Informal Anarchist Federation(FAI) of Italy. They explain that this group claimed attacks in 2011 in their country and in Greece, Germany and Switzerland, and confirms that its modus operandi “for years” has been the coordinated sending of explosive devices by mail. Recently the FAI also started to operate in the UK.

The FAI was created in 2003. That year and the following, they sent a series of explosive letters to representatives of the European Parliament in Brussels and to officials of other European institutions, such as the then-president of the European Commission, Romano Prodi, or that of the Central European Bank, Jean-Claude Trichet, as well as the headquarters of Eurojust (an organization for legal cooperation) and of Europol itself in The Hague, Holand.

The FAI is one of the anarchist groups with the greatest strength and determination in Europe, as their recent activities demonstrate.

On December 9, 2011, a bomb–inside of a yellow padded envelope–exploded in the tax office of Equitalia in Rome. The explosion destroyed a desk’s glass and caused injuries to a hand and the eyes of the agency’s director, Marco Cuccagna.

Two days earlier the FAI had sent a letter-bomb to the executive director of Deutsche Bank, Josef Ackermann. The letter, which contained a combination of explosive and shrapnel, was discovered by the bank’s security services. The return address corresponded to the Central European Bank, located a few blocks from the Deutsche Bank headquarters in Frankfurt, Germany.

On this occasion the police found a message from the FAI that warned of three bomb attacks “against banks and bankers, fleas and bloodsuckers.”

On May 7, 2012, a man traveling by motorcycle shot at Roberto Adinolfi, an executive of the Ansaldo Nuclear group, the Aerospace Consortium, and the Finmeccanica defense group. The victim was wounded in one leg.

Days later, on May 16, the FAI–through a letter published by regional papers of Southern Italy–threatened the Prime Minister Mario Monti, and declared that they were preparing more actions to avenge the incarceration of eight anarchists in Greece.

In this three page letter, the group claimed the attack against Adinolfi and referred to the Equitalia tax agency, which had become a symbol of the crisis that swept the country. The strong pressure the tax authority exercises against its citizens has provoked numerous suicides.

The FAI warned in this message that they would attack the Italian State, “likewise through Equitalia, until it changes its politics and starts to protect the people,” as a response to the statements from the Ministry of the Interior, Annamaria Cancellieri, to the tune that the attack against the tax agency was considered an aggression against the State.

The underground organization added that every suicide provoked by the economic crisis would be considered an “assassination committed by the State.”

At this time the Italian police decided to reinforce the security of various magistrates of Bologna, Italy, who had been threatened by Greek anarchists for being implicated in the investigation of a package bomb sent from Athens to then-Italian Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi, on November 1, 2010. The sending of this explosive material was attributed to members of the Greek group Conspiracy of Cells of Fire (CCF), tied to the FAI.

Also receiving police protection were eight businesspeople, including the CEO and Chairman of Finmeccanica, Giuseppe Orsi, who was arrested last February 12th for having committed alleged acts of corruption in the sale of 12 helicopters to the Air Force of India when he was the general director of Augusta Westland.

The Mexican network

Many anarchist groups in other countries have claimed–with the name of the Italian organization–their own actions: Mexico has a “faction” (the Informal FAI of Mexico) with presence in various states.

The Informal FAI of Mexico and other anarchist groups have a close relation with their Greek peers. The activity of these groups has grown over some four years, according to the expert Jorge Lofredo of the Center for the Documentation of Armed Movements.

The Italian anarchists think that the State’s most recent offensive against them began in 2001 with the creation of special police groups for their surveillance. Those in Mexico claim that the repression against them hardened in Mexico City during Marcelo Ebrad’s term (2006-2012).

Anarchist attacks in Mexico are numerous, but very few are divulged by the media. This was the case of the explosive package deposited in a postal box that exploded on February 21st in the hands of a worker of the Postal Service who took it illegally.

In a communique dated February 22nd, this attack was claimed by the anarchist groupIndividualists Tending toward the Wild, one of the most active in Mexico and whose attacks against the “techno-industrial system” are directed at academics and scientists from centers like the UNAM or Monterrey Tec. This group claimed the murder–committed in Cuernavaca on November 8, 2011–of Ernesto Méndez Salinas, a biotechnology expert of the UNAM.

The Informal FAI of Mexico and other anarchist groups have carried out recent actions: On Friday the 5th, the Emile Henry Insurrectionalist Revolutionary Group Tending toward Anarchy – Informal Anarchist Federation (FAI) / International Revolutionary Front (IRF) claimed the January 18th arson of a passenger bus of the Tucdosa line in Oaxaca, the “sabotage” of four Telmex telephone booths and the sending of “a homemade incendiary bomb” on March 29th to a PAN office.

This last action, the anarchists said, was done in solidarity with the community radios and communities that oppose the wind power megaprojects in Istmo de Tehuantepec. The explosive was deactivated by the police.

Last March 6th a group of anarchist youth announced that a “solidarity activity” (a rally) would be celebrated in front of the embassy of Italy in Mexico. They protested the arrest of several of their companions in Europe, in particular eight of them in Italy, one in Switzerland and another in Germany, as a result of the police Operation Ardire on June 13, 2012. Some of those captured were bloggers from the internet site Culmine.

They also expressed in this peaceful action their solidarity with two more anarchists arrested in Italy on August 27, 2012 and manifested their support of the Greek anarchists of the CCF group imprisoned in their country.

Earlier, the Mexico City faction of the Informal FAI of Mexico and another of the CCFclaimed the arson of two pharmeceutical product stores in San Juan Xalpa, Iztapalapa, last September 18th.

The Mexican anarchists mentioned in a communique that the purpose of this action was to express their solidarity with their compañero Mario López, with Gabriel Pombo da Silvaand Marco Camenisch, imprisoned in Germany and Switzerland respectively; with the prisoners of the CCF in Greece and with those arrested on June 13, 2012 in Italy.

López was captured on June 29, 2012 after setting off an explosive in Coyoacán, imprisoned in the Southern Detention Center and released on bail last December 29th.

On August 21, 2012, the Informal FAI of Mexico and the CCF claimed authorship of another intentional fire, this time at the Plásticos Viga business, in Apodaca, Nuevo León, another in the Museum of the Mexican Revolution in downtown Puebla.

These actions, they said, were to express solidarity with the “eco-anarchist” Braulio Durán, imprisoned in León, Guanajuanto for allegedly having set fire to an HSBC ATM on September 17, 2009, as well as with Mario López and again with the anarchists imprisoned in Italy after Operation Ardire.

But the attack most obviously close to the Italian anarchist movement was that of the early hours of December 12, 2011 against the Italian Institute of Culture in Coyoacán. It wasclaimed by the Revolutionary Anarchist Cell – Gabriella Segata Antolini and theAutonomous Cells for Immediate Revolution – Práxedis G. Guerrero (CARI-PGG) / Faction of the Informal FAI of Mexico.

These same organizations set off an explosive device on September 18, 2012 in a BBVA-Bancomer branch in the Obrera neighborhood of Mexico City. In April and May of 2012 the CARI-PGG sent two explosive packages to the Greek embassy in Mexico, the first in the name of the capital’s then-prosecutor Miguel Mancera.

In the communique claiming the attack on the Italian Institute of Culture in Mexico, the anarchists expressed again their suport for their imprisoned compañeros in Italy and in particular Federico Buono, an anarchist arrested on June 15, 2011 in Milan in possession of two homemade bombs.

The Mexican anarchists said that this attack against the cultural institute–a branch of the Italian government–was also to affirm their “presence” in the FAI and the IRF.

About admin

Opposed to politicians who equivocate about air quality & BioMassacre
This entry was posted in Uncategorized. Bookmark the permalink.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.