Some of the moments that this orientation of ours was expressed -in the direction of internationalisation within the new conditions of our times- were the efforts for the mutual information and solidarity between the struggles, like our comrades’ visiting the zapatista villages in Chiapas and their participation in both the intercontinental encounters “For Humanity and Against Neo-liberalism” in ’96 and ’97. It was also the participation of many of our comrades in the manifestations of solidarity and information for the revolt of the indians in Mexico, as well as for the Movimento Sem Terra in Brazil. (Like this demonstration in January 13^th ’98 towards the mexican embassy, which was about the slaughter of the indians in Acteal and which was spontaneously continued by the anarchists to the Police HQ., as a show of solidarity with comrade N.Maziotis who has been arrested earlier that day.)

It was also the participation in the social manifestations and events, with the slogan Attack to Europe!, against the Top Summit of the European Union (EURO-TOP) in Amsterdam, in June ’97, and in the European Summit in Koln, in May/June of ’99, as well as the meeting with italian and other anarchist comrades in Turin, in ’97.

Of similar orientation and with the explicit content of internationalising the struggle was also the two discussions organised by comrades in Athens, in October and November of ’97: the one about the meaning and the new perspectives raised by the international meeting and events against EURO-TOP in Amsterdam (something that has become more obvious today after the events of London in 18 June ’99 and the events of Seattle in 30 November ’99), and the other one about the matter of the italian state’s attack against anarchists, based on the repressive theorem of the special police forces ROS and public prosecutors Vigna & Marini.

The dynamic of this struggle urged many anarchists to mobilize, acting with any means in solidarity with the people resisting, and a number of comrades, among them Nikos Maziotis, took the initiative to create an open political ground of meeting and common action, having the wider purpose of a conscious and actual proposal for the meeting of anarchists, in order to surpass splintered, opportunate and fragmented character of their interventions in the social struggles. An open assembly was formed with this aim, after a manifestation-discussion organised in the Polytechnic, in December 11^th ’97, with the slogan: SUPPORT SOCIAL RESISTANCE AND DEVELOP SOCIAL SOLIDARITY AGAINST THE ATTACKS OF THE STATE AND THE CAPITAL...

But the struggle does not unfold in a linear way, and there came the arrest of comrade N. Maziotis to violently strike this collective effort of ours, and also to give it a more urgent but also a wider character, given the fact that, as it is known, every repressive operation of the state -such as the one in 13 January ’98- causes a more extensive, even if usually refracted, mobilization.

In any case though, the matter of Nikos Maziotis, as it came into light after his arrest and him taking the political responsibility for the bombing attempt against the Ministry of Industry and Development, constituted a critical point in the anarchist struggle, including and raising a great number of practical and co-related issues of this struggle.

Issues concerning the multiform character of anarchists’ presence and intervention in relevance with the so-called “intermediate” -not directly subversive- social struggles (such as the one in Strymonikos and later those of the jobless teachers and the pupils), emerging inside the new conditions created by the state and the capitalist restructuration. Issues concerning the social dimension and the importance of the directly aggressive struggle, as the later was expressed through the individual action of our comrade, in the bombing attempt against the Ministry of Development in December 6 ’97. Issues concerning the real dimensions of anarchists’ solidarity, as much with the social resistances as also between themselves, and issues concerning specifically the mutual communication with the imprisoned strugglers and the anarchists’ positions towards their comrades’ trials, as unseparable parts of the struggle. At last, issues that have to do with anarchists’ volition and their promotion of self-organisation forms, for the development of counter-information, of a continual intervention in the social fields and of provoking situations of counter-attack.

Issues for which - for most of them at least- the Assembly was the place where it was persistently attempted to be given practical answers, through specific proposals and initiatives by comrades. And in many cases that was achieved, despite the fact that it was a place with basically few people and despite all the problems connected with a continual, long-lasting and open procedure for the meeting of comrades, who were being fluctuated in number and in availability, according to the circumstances, their needs or their choices.

More specifically and especially about the matter of international solidarity and information, this effort was as well practically carried out mainly by initiatives from the Assembly, with first -but not only- priority to raise the case of N.Maziotis as a significant element of the wider struggle that is globally carried out against the state and the capital.

For example, within this specific effort for the internationalisation of the struggle and during the whole period of N. Maziotis’ captivity, from his arrest to the trial, there were sent to comrades abroad many translated documents, such as the texts that he wrote in prison, documents and material concerning the anarchist positions and actions developed in relation with Maziotis’ case, about the struggle in Strymonikos and the wider struggle against the installation of TVX Gold, about the intervention against the 29^th Congress of the Workers’ General Confederation of Greece in the city of Kavala and the anarchists’ attack against trade-unionists, about the movement of jobless teachers against a new competition prescribed for them by the educational reform and about the arrest of comrade K.Mitropetros (within this struggle), about the pupils’ movement and the arrest of comrade V.Evagelidis, about the war launched by NATO in Yugoslavia and generally the Balkans etc.

Many of these documents, and mainly those concerning N.Maziotis’ case, were distributed and published by comrades in Italy, Spain, France, Germany, USA and elsewhere.

Also, within this effort, comrades from the Assembly, who participated in the anti-authoritarian demonstrations in Koln, in May and June of ’99, against the EU summit, informed the comrades from Europe on N.Maziotis’ case and generally about the struggle in Greece, and hanged a banner for the liberty of imprisoned militants.

But in the reverse direction as well, there were many contributions from comrades here, indicative are the documents published in the Anarchist Bulletin about the struggle of anarchists in Italy against state repression.

It was also proposed to some comrades from abroad to come personally in Greece for the occasion of the trial. Despite the restricted time until the 5^th of July, most of them were able to respond and they came a few days before the trial, giving through their participation and their presence among us an international dimension to the solidarity with N.Maziotis. Three of them, C.Cavalleri from Sardinia, A.Bonanno from Sicily and H.Bess from Paris, testified in the court as witnesses, among many friends and comrades who stood by Maziotis, while there also arrived many messages of solidarity from other countries and they continued arriving even after the trial...

As it is already known, in July 8 ’99 N.Maziotis was convicted in a 15-years prison sentence, for manufacturing explosive materials and bombs, provision and possession of explosives and bombs, possession of arms and ammunition and for attempt to cause explosion, while he was given the mitigation of ...not having ignoble motivations for his actions.

In this point we should first underline the international concern and the pressure exerted for N.Maziotis’ heavy conviction, as an obvious proof of the greek state’s unswerving alignment with the orientations of the transnational authority centers, which coordinate the international repressive activity in the name of “anti”terrorism. Undisguised pressure that was exerted by american factors, in view of the visits in Greece of the US Foreign Affairs’ person in chief for “terrorism” issues and the visit of the Minister of US Department of Defense, Cohen, as well as in view of the expected visit of US president Clinton. Pressure that was followed by a public expression of their satisfaction for Maziotis strict conviction, which was considered as a favorable development and a positive presupposition for the continuation of the “anti”terrorist and the wider cooperation of the USA with the greek state. We should also notice that our comrades’ conviction with the specific element of “not having ignoble motivation” for his actions against the state, it substantially means a public confession that he is a political hostage, and it should be seen as a necessary maneuver of retreat by the court, in its ultimate attempt to somehow counterbalance the impressions created against it by anarchist N.Maziotis’ indisputable supremacy in values, in which there should be co-estimated the broad social resonance of his stance, the ardent solidarity of anarchists during his capture, as well as the militant contributions of many friends and comrades who were offered to accompany him, as witnesses, in his battle with the empowered court, having the conscious purpose to turn this trial into a state’s conviction.

(From the documents of this trial, they are already published by the Assembly, The “Pleading” of Anarchist Nikos Maziotis -which was translated in a series of languages- and the “testimonies” of the comrades from abroad in the brochure Speech of Solidarity for Anarchist Nikos Maziotis - Alfredo Bonanno, Costantino Cavalleri, Hellyette Bess).

After N.Maziotis’ trial and with the occasion of the comrades’ from Europe presence among us, the Assembly organised and called for two open discussions in the Polytechnic School, in July 9 and 10 ’99, always in the direction of internationalising solidarity and information: the first one was with Hellyette Bess, About state repression, political prisoners and the social movement in France, and the second one with Costantino Cavalleri and Pierleone Porcu, About the attack of the italian state against insurrectionalist anarchists. But from the first day, the Polytechnic was surrounded by police forces that were hindering people from turning out at the place of the discussion. It is typical that, after some students of the school protested about that police presence, in a communication between the university authorities and the ministry of Public Order, when the vice-chancellor asked about the purpose of this encirclement , the General Secretary of the ministry answered that “he does not agree with the subject of the discussion scheduled” (!!). Despite that, the discussion with the comrade from Paris -who had been imprisoned for many years because of her participation in the organisation Action Directe- finally took place with lots of comrades participating, after managing to pass through the police circle. For the next day and as long as the Polytechnic would be blockaded again -as it really happened from the early hours- the place for the discussion with the comrades from Sardinia was transferred and that was announced orally.

In August, there also came comrades D. and M. from the solidarity committee for the political prisoners of RAF, in Koln, Germany, who were not able to come earlier in time, before the trial of N.Maziotis. After them being informed about the situation of the struggle in Greece and with the chance of their presence, there was the third discussion organised by comrades from the Assembly, in the 29^th of August and it was announced only orally.

After making a wide selection of extracts from those three discussions about the struggles in Europe and the hostages of the state in France, Italy and Germany, we proceeded to this present edition, as one more contribution in the evolvement of solidarity and information, and in the perspective of a further encounter with the comrades in Europe and in the whole world. Because the authentic struggles for freedom not only they don’t recognise any self-limitation, but on the contrary, they have a global radiation, as, through their evolvement beyond the state borders which artificially separate the peoples, these struggles reveal and define the only real borders that penetrate the people in every corner on earth: those lines of confrontation, abysmal between those who rule and those in revolt.

We should notice as a matter of fact, concerning those responsible for the present publication, that the comrades from the Assembly have already decided, since September ’99, to put an end to this open proceeding which lasted for 21 months; exactly because within this long term and in the several phases of the struggle, a)the subjective forces and the availability of the comrades as well as b)the objective potentialities of the wider movement for such collective, multiform, continual and long-ranged ventures, were both exhausted, after offering what they had to offer by interacting. After the end of the Assembly, it was decided its transformation in to a new collective procedure, delimited by the positive and negative experiences of the recent past, where it was also decided to continue publishing the Anarchist Bulletin for Counter-information and Action.

We should also mark that the long work for writing down the recorded pieces from the discussions, for selecting and correcting them, was realised with the contribution of comrades, from the summer of ’99 until January of 2000, without them at the same time neglecting the priorities of the struggle in the intermediate time period. Like the expression of solidarity and counter-information for the trial of comrade K.Mitropetros, in the 1^st of November, the anarchist campaign for Clinton’s visit in Athens and the wonderful attack that followed in the city center in the night of November 19^th, the presence and the attempt to intervene in the pupils’ mobilisations, with special moment that of the anarchist block which was attempted in the demonstration of the 16^th December and especially the moment of the violent counter-attack of a handful of anarchists against the KNAT (the striking group of the communist party which polices the youth’s mobilizations in cooperation with the riot police...)

Because they are always beautiful these moments where there is unleashed an attack against the order of the world... Again and again...

Last, we should dedicate this edition to the memory of the people in revolt who fell in the struggle against the state and to those who are kept hostages in its prisons.

The struggle against the State and the Capital is going on...