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Newsgroups: talk.politics.guns From: aforum@moose.uvm.edu (autonome forum) Subject: a history of the Red Army Fraction (RAF) Message-ID: <1993Jan5.105236.4742@uvm.edu> Organization: University of Vermont -- Division of EMBA Computer Facility Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1993 10:52:36 GMT Lines: 250

subject: a history of the Red Army Fraction (RAF) posted by: autonome forum --

THE HISTORY OF THE RED ARMY FRACTION (RAF)

The Red Army Fraction, Germany's oldest revolutionary armed clandestine organization has, for the past 22 years been, as they put it, "shaking the imperialist system". The most recent communique the RAF (10.4.92), in light of the changed world situation and the rise of the new world order, takes a retrospective and introspective look at its history and political theory and practice with the aim of fostering discussion and debate around armed resistance to imperialism and capitalism. In this communique, for the first time in a long while, the RAF takes itself to task; questioning and debating both its role in the fight against imperialism and the merits of its guerrilla actions as a means of attacking and overcoming imperialism, in order that a new political orientation may be found. Most importantly, the RAF has decided to stop its attacks while this debate and discussion goes on. What follows is a very brief overview of the history and politics of the RAF. The RAF emerged in 1970, out of the anti-Vietnam war student movement, and after a brief period of consolidating itself as an organization it began attacks in support of the Vietnamese people's liberation struggle, bombing targets associated with U.S. imperialism's and fascist West Germany's complicity in the Vietnam war. In May of 1972, the RAF attacked a whole series of targets - Army bases, police headquarters, the right-wing press, and more. In a communique accompanying the May 12, 1972 bombing of a police headquarters, the RAF summed up their duties as "the steady development of the revolutionary guerrilla movement, the long and protracted process of the struggle for liberation from fascism, capitalism, capitalist exploitation and suppression of the people." And in a document entitled "Concept of the Urban Guerrilla", the RAF stressed its link with liberation struggles in the three continents (Africa, Asia, and Latin America), putting forward the strategy of "fighting from the inside"; waging the struggle from the metropoles, the homelands of imperialism, in support of these liberation struggles. By 1975, most of the RAF's founders were either in jail or dead. In spite of intense repression, the RAF continued to maintain its revolutionary offensive. A 1974 hungerstrike by RAF prisoners culminated in the murder by the state of Holger Meins, a RAF founder. Consequently, a commando from the June 2nd Movement, a more anarchist guerrilla grouping, shot and killed the president of the West Berlin Supreme Court, and the Holger Meins Commando of the RAF occupied the West Germanan embassy in Stockholm, Sweden, in an unsuccessful attempt to gain freedom for their imprisoned comrades, most of whom were standing trial at the Stammheim prison. From the start, there was criticism of the RAF and its actions. For example, the editors of the British periodical "Anarchy" took the RAF to task rightly, arguing that "the armed resistance of the RAF is both centralised and spectacular, and this has two very negative effects: their actions don't relate to people's everyday experience and the majority of people look at their struggle with the police as some kind of private feud in which they have no part." Further, they argued that the RAF, by refusing to combine legal and illegal work, and by carrying out actions which were supplementary rather than integral to the struggle, had effectively cut themselves off from comrades who were willing to help them. They had isolated themselves from the masses, preaching a political elitism and avant-guardism that seperated them "from the many types of direct action that are carried out at the grass-roots level." In 1976, Ulrike Meinhof, another founder of the RAF, was murdered by the state, leading to demonstrations throughout Europe, including the bombing of the West German consulate in Nice and the bombing of the U.S. Armed Forces Radio station in Frankfurt. Then, in September 1977, as the Stammheim trial continued, the RAF kidnapped the Daimler-Benz Chief Executive Martin Schleyer, a former S.S. officer. To make a long and complex story short, the RAF demanded the release of its imprisoned comrades in exchange for Schleyer; the state refused. Consequently, Palestinian comrades hijacked a Boeing 737 and reiterated the demands of the RAF. The elite anti-terrorist German GSG 9 squad stormed the plane freeing the passengers and killing some of the hijackers. The German state then murdered three RAF members in their cells at Stammheim. Martin Schleyer was later found, executed by the RAF. Between 1977 and 1979, the RAF was somewhat less active. Their base of support fell away, and in the eyes of many the RAF had become essentially a 'free the guerrilla organization' - all of its actions seemed to be aimed only at liberating its prisoners and it appeared to be engaged primarily in a private war with the state. Further, the main original political motivation of the RAF - the Vietnam war - was over. By 1979, the RAF emerged with a new orientation - U.S. imperialism's and NATO's plans to turn Europe, and Germany in particular, into one huge NATO installation complete with nuclear weapons. A new base of support was sought among the growing anti- nuclear and militant peace movements in Germany in order to build an anti-imperialist movement that could effectively combat NATO's plans to use Germany as the 'take-off' point for its wars against the Third World, all under the slogan: "War on Imperialist War". Also in 1980, the June 2 Movement announced that it was disbanding and joining the RAF, stating that its notion of "spontaneous proletarian politics" had produced division among the guerrilla movement. In a communique they argued that "It can never be the job of the guerrilla to please the population and to get their applause, but the job of the guerrilla is to become the frontline." The RAF's new offensive started with their unsuccessful attempt on Alexander Haig, at that time a NATO General, and continued through into 1981 with a failed rocket grenade attack on NATO Commander U.S. General Kroesen, and a bomb attack on the U.S. Air Force/NATO headquarters at Ramstein. In a communique accompanying the Ramstein action, the RAF stated that they targeted it because it was the base for nuclear war in Europe, and the starting base for war in the Third World. In 1981, the Revolutionary Cells (an autonomous guerrilla structure, in existence since 1973) issued a long paper in which they castigated the RAF; taking the RAF to task for their abstractness. The RZ put forward their ideas of a 'popular' guerrilla, arguing for a guerrilla force "of which the activities are understood, which enjoys the sympathy of the people, and with a perspective on broad support." Importantly, the RZ criticized the RAF for not acknowledging that in addition to the class struggle between proletarians and capitalists, there are also other contradictions which must be solved; for example "the women's movement and over-exploitation and sexist suppression of women, the ecological movement and the destruction of environmental conditions by industrial technology." These are all criticisms which the RAF appears to be, since 1989, addressing more seriously, as the April '92 communique points out. The year 1982 saw the RAF author an important document entitled 'Guerrilla, Resistance and the Anti-Imperialist Front' which called for a united anti-imperialist front against NATO imperialism, and in which the RAF essentially recognized and realized that they had made serious tactical and political mistakes in 1977. Essentially, the RAF criticized its earlier vanguardist ideas, and called for anti-imperialist struggle alongside others, rather than the RAF being at the forefront of the struggle. While in 1982 and 1983 the RAF was operationally quiet, in 1984 the RAF came alive. On December 4, 1984, RAF prisoners began a collective hungerstrike which called for the unity of all political prisoners and which again called for a united front against imperialism. This hungerstrike mobilized, and was accompanied by, a large number of attacks and actions by anti-imperialist groups, including Belgium's Communist Fighting Cells (CCC), the Revolutionary Cells (RZ), and France's anti-imperialist Action Directe (AD). These actions were not just carried out in solidarity with the hungerstrike, but as part of the over-all offensive against NATO and imperialism. On January 15, 1985, in a joint communique, the RAF and Action Directe, announced the formation of what they termed "the international organization of proletarian struggle in the metropoles, with its politico-military core: the West European guerrilla." Ten days later Action Directe executed french General Audran, stating in a communique that he had "been central to the strategic imperialist project of homogenizing the European states under NATO's control." Then on February 1, 1985, the RAF executed Audran's German counterpart, Ernst Zimmerman. In August, the George Jackson Commando of the RAF/AD attacked the Rhein-Mein Air Base due to its role as "a centre for war against the Third World." In order to gain access to the airbase, the RAF executed an American G.I. and used his I.D. card to get them in. This caused fierce debate among the German left, and further served to alienate the RAF from some of its base of support. As one autonomist put it: "Any military line of action is wrong when it proceeds in isolation from what is being fought against. If I fight against something, then I must also have a line to those who are the victims of what I am fighting against. This is not at all the case with the RAF. With the Revolutionary Cells it is different; they make sure that their actions convey a message." In July of 1986, the RAF assassinated the German industrialist Karl-Heinz Bekurts who was involved with SDI research, and in October of 1986, high-ranking Foreign Officer Gerald von Braunmuhl was executed, "one of the central figures in the formation of the West European policy in the overall system of imperialism." The year 1988 saw the RAF issue a joint communique with a fraction of Italy's now-defunct Red Brigades - the BR-PCC (Red Brigades-Fighting Communist Party) - in which the unity of the revolutionary movement was called for, in the face of unification in Europe, and in which it was argued that "the attack of the West European front against the strategic projects for the political, economic, and military formation of West Europe aims at weakening the imperialist system and causing a thorough political crisis." In September of 1988, the RAF carried out an unsuccessful attack on the German Secretary of State for the Minister of Finance, Hans Tietmeyer, and in November of 1989 they were succesful in executing one of the world's most powerful financiers, Alfred Herrhausen. In 1989, the RAF carried out yet another unsuccessful hungerstrike which called for an end to isolation toruture and the regroupment of political prisoners. July of 1990 saw Hans Neusel, state secretary in the Interior Ministry and the government's leading 'terrorism' expert, survive a RAF attack. In the accompanying communique, the RAF appeared to have taken some of the criticisms directed at it to heart; it acknowledged the need for resistance to come from within grassroot movements, and called for the building up of a "counter-power from below" which would be made up of a diversity of struggles, including, for example, the squatters movement. During the Gulf War, the RAF machine-gunned the American embassy in Bonn in response to the devastation in Iraq being waged by US/UN forces. The accompanying communique called for, among other things, solidarity with the struggle of the political prisoners in the isolation units in the U.S. In 1991, the RAF asassinated the head of the company responsible for the reconstructing of East Germany along capitalist lines, Detlev Rohwedder, "one of the architects of the new Germany". In the communique around this action, the RAF argued for the necessity of pushing through "the preconditions for a self-determined life with human dignity in the struggle against the reactionary great German and West European plans to exploit people here and in the Three Continents." Since then, the RAF has again been operationally quiet, although they have been releasing communiques around issues such as political prisoners, and attempts by the police to criminalize the legal resistance movements by stating that parts of it carry out logistical support for the RAF. [NOTE: another communique around the G-7 summit was released on 29.6.92 -ed.] With this most recent communique, the RAF appears to be taking the criticism levelled at it throughout its history ever more seriously. A reading of the communique makes clear that the RAF is shedding its vanguardist ideas, and is taking into account other struggles and other contradictions, i.e. racism and sexism. They now see various struggles such as the squatting and anti- fascist movements, the struggle by refugees and immigrants against racist asylum policies, and the fight by social prisoners against isolation as all being integral to the building of a counter-power from below. It is unclear what role the RAF will play within this "counter-power". Whether or not the RAF continues to carry out actions on a lower-level as a "popular guerrilla", as the Revolutionary Cells mentioned above, or whether they will cease to exist entirely, remains to be seen. This decision by the RAF to break with its past history and practice has precipitated massive discussion and debate within the German autonomous left. Many are discussing the role of the armed resistance - how and in what context. The building of a revolutionary movement requires that these questions be discussed, not only in Germany and in other parts of the world, but also here in North America.

For the full text of this communique, or of any of the communiques mentioned, and for information about armed struggle, political prisoners, and militant resistance in Germany, North America, and the rest of the world, write to Arm The Spirit, or contact Autonome Forum via e-mail: aforum@moose.uvm.edu

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