Interview With The CCC Prisoners Collective

     The CCC (Cellulues Communistes Combattantes - Fighting
Communist Cells) prisoners have been long forgotten. In the
decade since their conviction in 1988 they have been left without
support, except from the "Parents and Friends of the Communist
Prisoners" (APAPC) and some groups and individuals abroad. The
anarchist movement never did much for the prisoners of the CCC,
neither to better their situation nor to work for their release.
There are a couple of reasons for this that are worth mentioning.
     First, the hostility of the entire classical leftist
spectrum, also from self-defined revolutionary groups. There is a
widespread theory that says that the CCC - together with the
"Gang of Nijvel" - was part of a destabilization campaign by
extreme right elements inside, or in cooperation with, state
agencies. This thesis was systematically spread in papers and
magazines and other publications, and a lot of anarchists
believed this theory.
     There are lots of elements pointing towards the fact that "a
strategy of tension" raged in Belgium in the middle of the 1980s.
We think the idea that the CCC was part of this "strategy" to be
nonsense. There is no evidence whatsoever to support this. And
there's also this: What about the fact that four militants were
arrested, brought before the courts, and  convicted? These people
never renounced their beliefs and are still politically active.
Those who spread these stories (and lets name them: these rumors
were especially spread by the Maoists from the PTB - the Workers
Party of Belgium) showed which side they are one (the side of the
bourgeoisie) and to where sectarian logic leads. Attacked in
their claims for power and truth, they threw overboard the most
fundamental revolutionary principals: the defense of and
solidarity with victims of state repression.
     Secondly, there is the position of the CCC concerning the
FRAP arrests, who they see as "anarchist adventurers", possibly
manipulated by Action Directe. Plus, at the trial they acted as
"snitches". Though there is much more that can be written about
this, we don't consider ourselves qualified to make statements.
This because of the lack of background information on the
internal affairs of the armed underground resistance groups, and
because we don't have the documents of the trial itself. We hope
in the end that all persons concerned give clear answers about
this matter.
     Finally, there is the Marxist-Leninist ideology of the CCC,
which we think is the main cause for their isolation. Because
this entails a rather fundamental (theoretical, political, and
ideological) discussion, we have chosen to answer on this later,
in a direct answer to the CCC, which we will publish. We state
clearly: Supporting the CCC does not mean we defend their
political ideas. We have few illusions about those ideas and the
concrete consequences they have (for us).
     Supporting the CCC prisoners points at one of the main
purposes of the ABC: non-sectarian support and defense of
revolutionary prisoners, this means those who carried out acts of
resistance against a system based upon inequality of race,
gender, class, etc., and who are heavily prosecuted because of
that. The CCC prisoners have been victims of isolation, didn't
have a fair trial, and suffer even to this day under exceptional
measures, and they are kept in confinement only because of their
political ideas.
     It doesn't matter if their choice for the armed struggle is
right or wrong - morally or empirically (politically or
strategically) - what matters is the fact that people had the
courage to act in consequence with their ideas and convictions,
in other words people had the courage to be free. Let's not
forget that those who have chosen to go underground in the
resistance are fully aware as an ever present probability that
one day they will be arrested, or possibly killed (there are 28
dead RAF militants to remind us of this fact).
     We have an impression that those who condemn the CCC because
of this (the violence) are often the same ones who close their
eyes to the massive structural violence which marks our society,
and to the cold cynicism of those in power who use the most
brutal and gruesome means to maintain their positions, and for
the enormous interests behind this all. Anyone who faces this,
who in other words looks the daily reality of class struggle,
oppression of women, racist violence, the destruction of nature,
etc., in the eye, loses either courage and hope, or every
illusion that this system can be changed without violence.
     In general, in our democracy, unwelcome ideas are being
fought by silencing them to death. If this doesn't work - because
the silence is being broken by some hard blows - they are being
fought by locking up people, or more "thoroughly" by killing
them. As anarchists, we don't believe that this is a solution.
Ideas are defeated by open arguments and debate, and by putting
your own ideas in practice. We are well aware that anarchists
don't own the truth. We are convinced that we still have a lot to
learn from those who fought the struggle to its bitter
consequences, and from those who continue doing this. Therefore
we are willing to discuss with the CCC, and we invite others to
do the same.

Anarchist Black Cross
Gent, Belgium
June 1998

-----

Q: Since the 1980s, the armed revolutionary struggle has almost
disappeared in Europe (except for the IRA and ETA). Action
Directe, GRAPO, the Red Brigades (BR), and the CCC all ended
their activities. The RAF first announced it was suspending its
political-military operations and has recently dissolved itself.
Are you aware of this evolution? What do you think about this?
Does this point to a new direction for the revolutionary left?

     Of course we keep a close eye on the evolution of the
revolutionary movement in Europe, but we don't think that things
are as simple as your question may suggest. Different groups have
stopped for different reasons. The CCC and AD, for example,
because they were military defeated. The BR because political
reorganization was made impossible by repression. The RAF because
they have politically degenerated and dissolved themselves. The
PCE(r) and GRAPO are still active, and communist and
anti-imperialist guerrillas are very strong in Turkey and Greece.
     The revolutionary struggle never developed in a uniform and
linear way. It's a phenomenon of great complexity, subject to
conjunctural and local influences, etc. At the end of the 60s and
the beginning of the 70s, a big wave of struggle emerged in
Western Europe, although it started to collapse since the
mid-80's, that's a fact. But we do think that the next wave to
come will be stronger, because of a more favorable
socio-economical context as well as because of the rich heritage
of experiences and reflections from the previous wave.
     The most important merit of the struggle of the RAF in the
70's, of the BR, the PCE(r) and GRAPO, and of the CCC, etc., is
the fact that the first steps have been made towards the
political orientation and the revolutionary strategy that are
presently needed in the imperialist countries. Only by relying on
a critical and constructive balance of these 15 years of
struggle, and by valuing this decisive contribution, will it be
possible for the revolutionary movement to resume the offensive
for the overthrow of capitalism and the liquidation of the
bourgeoisie.

Q: What makes you think that a new wave of armed struggle is on
its way in Europe? This, considering - again - the
self-dissolution of the RAF and the peace negotiations in
Northern Ireland which seem to indicate the contrary?

     These two examples divert our attention from the subject:
The RAF already lost sight of the revolutionary objective 15
years ago (and turned in the direction of radical reformism), and
the goal of the IRA has never been social revolution but the end
of British domination in Northern Ireland. We are only talking
here about the armed struggle as an expression of the
revolutionary contradictions within the capitalist society.
     We are Marxists, we think that social and historical
phenomena are dictated by the evolution of objective
circumstances, and in the last resort by the contradiction
between the development of the forces of production and the mode
of production. These contradictions dictate the necessity today
of the overthrow of capitalism and the arrival of socialism.
     The central question is: How to bring about the step from
capitalism to socialism? Historical study and Engels answer:
"Violence is the midwife of the entire old society that bears a
new society within. It is the means by which the social movement
will make it and by which it smashes fossilized and dead
political forms."
     The practical question is: Which strategy has to be applied
for the struggle to accumulate the necessary forces to attain
liberation? The experience of the class-struggle in this century
and the characteristics of the situation answer: the continuous
revolutionary war, of which the first phase is armed propaganda.
     Once there exists a revolutionary way out (sure, in this
case, very difficult) in a situation which seems to be further
completely blocked, one can be sure that this way out will be
used one day or the other. First of all, this will be done by the
avant-garde elements, later, once the road is laid, by growing
parts of social groups which have an interest in rushing past
capitalism.
     All this, to say a couple of things very quickly, because
the question is very complex. Among the tendencies where people
think it opportune to take up weapons only when the masses have
already done so and the partisans of "here and now" without any
preparation (without a program or organization), one finds a
diversity of analyses. Our analysis is situated on a level in
between, and one can also quote those who set the foundation of a
real Leninist party as a condition to trigger off the armed
struggle. We invite the comrades who are interested in our vision
on this subject and in the various conclusions we made to take
notice of the documents we have exchanged with the French
revolutionary organization "Voie Proletarienne" devoted to this
question in the debate.

Q: Can you give a short history of why and how you made the
choice for armed struggle? Are you still convinced of the choice
and the analysis made at the time?

     The struggle of the CCC is situated in the spin-off of the
break with Soviet revisionism that emerged in the 60s. In this
period, the Chinese revolution and the struggle for liberation in
the Third World stimulated a new revolutionary trend in the
imperialist countries. This trend convicted the Communist Parties
who walked behind the banner of the Soviet Union, and every other
reformist orientation. At the start of the 70's, the first
movements came forward in West Germany and then in Italy, who
openly questioned the use of revolutionary violence and the
political-military practice to overthrow the power of the
bourgeoisie. The CCC are the inheritors of these first
experiences, with the advantage of the roads already travelled in
the 70s, and they have tried to go even further by taking up the
task of giving their share of the answers to the questions which
are only put forward by the revolution. In this respect it's
worthwhile to state that big theoretical advances often emerge
from defeats: Bolshevism is the critical inheritance of the Paris
Commune, the cultural revolution is the critical inheritance of
the victory of the bourgeois powers in the Soviet Union of the
50s, etc.
     So far as militant commitment is concerned, we've never been
attracted by violence or armed struggle in and of itself.
Communism means peace, brotherhood, and it's this kind of world
we fight for. If we really want a world without war and without
weapons, a world of brotherhood, then we have to begin to defeat
the (fully armed) bourgeoisie in a class war. The rest is only
hypocrisy.

Q: One often hears the remark that the CCC came out of nowhere.
This is in contradiction with, for example, the militants of the
RAF, who chose the armed struggle only after a long evolution
among the ranks of the radical non-parliamentarian movement. Your
answer is so abstract, it brings only forward purely theoretical
considerations. Could you be a bit more concrete?

     It is true that the cells aren't the almost-spontaneous,
empirical outcome of the radicalization of a non-armed movement,
non-parliamentarian or otherwise. But why does it always have to
be like that? The history of the international communist movement
is not characterized by the eternal repetition of always the same
processes but, on the contrary, by assimilation of the lessons
from former experiences - and this is only for the better!
     To be able to talk explicitly about the foundation of the
Cells, we have to state precisely: one person (with this
political background) meets another (with a different political
background) who knows a third person (with yet another political
background), etc. We consider this of minor importance, but if
you really insist, we can present things in the following order.

Pierre: This is the road I travelled as a militant. Informal
participation in several struggle and protest movements from 1972
onwards; agitation in secondary schools and with students, the
denunciation of the coup in Chile, opposition to the military
budgets, the reaction against the last crimes of the Franquist
regime, support of the workers of Glaverbel, etc. In 1975 we took
part in "le Collectif pour la Liberte d'Expression" (struggle
against the project Van den Poorten) and the first political
trials. Co-founder in 1976 and afterwards the driving force
behind "Comite de soutien aux prisonniers de la RAF" (which
changed its name into "Comite de defense des prisonniers
politiques en BRD"). Organized the occupation of the Dutch
embassy in Brussels to protest against the extradition of three
RAF militants to the BRD in the spring of 1978. Arrested in
Zurich in the summer of the same year because of the acquisition
of ammunition and prohibited from residing in Switzerland under
suspicion of "support for a terrorist organization" (in this
case: the RAF). Founder of the militant press "Georgi Dimitrov".
Co-founder in 1981 of the magazine "Subversion (Revue
Internationale pour le communisme)" and in the same period of the
organization DOCOM (Documentation Communiste) together with
mostly militants of Action Directe who had just been released
from prison. Actively engaged in solidarity with French
revolutionary Frederic Oriach who was imprisoned again in 1982.
Co-founder of the magazine "Ligne Rouge". Participation in the
practical and political preparations for the construction of the
"Cellules Communistes Combattantes". Exclusive engagement in this
struggle since 1983. Beginning in 1984 I went into complete
clandestinity, 8 months before the start of the first
political-military campaign of the organization. Armed arrest on
December 16, 1985.

Bertrand: My history is somewhat shorter but illustrates clearly
what we said in the beginning. I was fifteen years old when the
RAF kidnapped H.M. Schleyer and sixteen when the Red Brigades
kidnapped Aldo Moro. The question of the armed struggle poses
itself in other terms for a militant of my generation than for
the militants of the former generation. They had to think first
of the armed struggle in an imperialist country as a hypotheses,
and then they had to take the first steps. For me, the urban
guerilla was already part of the political landscape. I took part
in 1978 in the Committee For The Support Of The Prisoners Of The
RAF, set up by Pierre; in 1982 I went into revolutionary
clandestinity.

Pascale: Details about my militant and political career (which
starts also in 1972 with my participation in the movement of
secondary schools against the project VDB) will not add anything
to what just has been explained. I want though to make clear, if
this interests you, that I did not take part in the construction
of the Cells. In fact I only joined the Cells and their
structures in the autumn of 1985. During the time of the
construction and the first actions of the organization, I was an
open militant in the collective of the periodical "Ligne Rouge"
which made propaganda for the armed communist groups. With "Ligne
Rouge" we, among other activities, reproduced the communiques of
the Cells in the form of pamphlets which we then distributed them
during demonstrations, gatherings, etc.

Q: In your communiques, the CCC describe themselves as a
vanguard. Many people have criticized this vanguard concept, the
leadership of your organization. The CCC were always willing to
accept criticisms, but did you ever seek a real dialogue with the
movement (like the RAF eventually did)? Do you still adhere to
the principle of the "correct line"? Do you still think it's true
that power comes from the barrel of a gun? In other words,
doesn't the danger exist that the popular revolution could become
dependent on the armed struggle and a political line chosen by a
minority of people?

     There are a lot of misconceptions here. The CCC never failed
to carry their responsibilities, but they did not claim to be the
sole authority, the leading party in the sense of Leninism. The
name of the CCC itself points to a decidedly different reality in
which it is impossible to take on the unifying task of such an
organization. Also, the CCC sought to emphasize one of the
priorities of the revolutionary movement, which we contributed
to, namely reflection and working out political theory.
     We think that revolutionary success requires a vanguard
organization. What do we mean by that? A fighting structure which
brings together and strengthens the best forces from our camp,
and this is to be at the head of the proletarian forces within
the class struggle. The revolution is not an artwork, it is an
historical task in which people must appear as winners. We need
to give ourselves the objective, material, and ideological
possibilities to achieve victory, and it is the revolutionary
vanguard party which opens the first door towards this. Because
organization is superior to non-organization, consciousness is
better than unconsciousness, and so on.
     But the CCC were not this party, although they wanted to
work towards building it eventually. The goal of this
organizational attempt, the practice of armed propaganda, and the
search for political confrontation with all groups with respect
to the class struggle, all of this brought the CCC to conclude
that they were the at the most advanced position in the country -
when viewed objectively with respect to the vanguard - both
theoretically and practically. And we still believe this today,
even though we were defeated.
     The political-military campaigns of the CCC in 1984 and 1985
took place within great popular and proletarian mobilizations.
They were supported by an important theoretical-political
production which called for struggle and critical debate and the
triumph of correct analyses and ideas over false ones. For
example, the stationing of American missiles in Florennes in 1985
was described by the CCC as imperialist war and a crass
manifestation of capitalism, and the group criticized the
illusions of petty-bourgeois pacifists. But there was no debate.
Some silence, some protest, and even attacks by groups waving red
or black flags were the answers we received.
     "Power comes from the barrel of a gun", yes that's true. But
let's not get everything mixed up. This truth is an exact
reflection of human ideas and values in the objective world.
Truth is the correct interpretation of reality, something which
gives us the possibility of acting in an effective manner.
Marxists do not operate on the basis of dreams or following their
subjective preferences. They strive to know a historical and
social situation as it is, to find the best method to intervene
in it and control it (the "correct line"), and in so doing to
bring to movement towards socialist revolution, the abolition of
paid labor, and to come closer to the end of exploitation and
injustice.

Q: Why do you never react on actual themes, for example the
struggle of the Zapatistas in Chiapas, the congress of the
"Autonomen" in Berlin, or, here in Belgium, the wave of strikes
in the Forges de Clabecq, Renault-Vilvoorde, and so on?

     As a general rule, when comrades ask us to react on a
certain event or ask some advice on a certain subject, we do
answer on the given question. But we don't see why we should
express ourselves about everything and more. Our imprisonment -
and the length of it - removes us from the struggle and from the
specific realities, and that is a serious limitation on the
knowledge we have and on our ability to contribute in a creative
and original way. Searching for a common ground (even
revolutionary ones) in an illusionary theater and inevitably
always reacting too late on the events isn't really motivating.
     But we sure don't absent ourselves from the social actuality
and struggles. For example, if we consider in "La Fleche et la
Cible" the question of syndicalist action and the revolutionary
perspectives of it, or if we write about the strategy for the
struggle for the accumulation of the proletarian forces, etc.,
then we are intervening in the core itself of the questions
brought to the fore by the conflicts such as those in Clabecq or
Vilvoorde.
     Isn't this the only serious way to act, and the most
constructive, also the only possible one today for us in jail? We
can deplore this restriction, try to overcome it as much as
possible, but it is there, and with the years always heavier to
bear.

Q: "The merger of the militants of the CCC with the collaborators
of the 'FRAP' is particularly false. The Fighting Communist Cells
and this 'FRAP' are complete strangers to each other (this is, by
the way, confirmed by the police investigation) and are even
political enemies. This merger is a manoeuvre by the powers that
be; they want to depoliticize the struggle of the CCC by tying it
to the adventure of the 'FRAP', that is by insisting on the
common point of one similar penal infraction. Moreover, this
merger gives the authorities the guarantee that two precious
collaborators are present on the scene of the court. How can the
farce otherwise be played?" This paragraph is an extract from the
pamphlet "Freedom! Information For The Liberation Of Pierre
Carette, Pascale Vandegeerde, And Bertrand Sassoye", distributed
by the APAPC. The CCC did distance themselves several times from
the FRAP, can you give once more the main reasons for this?

     This is a question that we have had to come back to on many
occasions (we even edited a complete document in 1990, "Le
'FRAP', provocation et repentir"). This story is of minor
interest, let us just recap the essential. Starting in 1985,
three attacks took place in Brussels, claimed by a "Front
Revolutionnaire d'Action Proletarienne". In fact this "Front"
didn't really exist, it was a satellite of the French group
Action Directe. The aim? To give the illusion of a real existing
"West European Guerrilla Front" as called for by the RAF and AD
some time earlier, and to which the CCC in Belgium (and GRAPO in
Spain) had refused to join. When the police searched the bases of
AD in Brussels, they found documents of the FRAP and they
arrested two people. They claimed to be anarchists, but
confronted with the repression, they deny their little adventure
and made an agreement with the Department of Justice. They were
rewarded for this with minor sentences and were soon freed. End
of the FRAP.

Q: Why did the CCC refuse to take part in the "anti-imperialist
front" called for by the RAF and AD? This seems strange,
especially when one knows that the CCC were very close to AD
(especially via Frederic Oriach) and that your organization
appeared for the first time with the "October First
Anti-Imperialist Campaign".

     A small correction to begin with: Frederic Oriach was in
prison for a long time in France as a militant of the Noyaux
Armes Pour l'Autonomie Populaire (NAPAP), the heirs of the
military organization of La Gauche Proletarienne (GP), which was
founded long before Action Directe, and on a totally different
political basis. He was only "close" to AD in police
constructions (and its echoes in the media) which took care that
he was jailed for a second time in 1982. In a long interview in
1983, in which he gives details about his rich history as a
fighting internationalist communist, Frederic summarizes: "So
it's easy to understand that I have nothing to do, near or far,
with AD in contradiction with those ludicrous constructions so
often made up."
     In a famous piece of 1916, "Imperialism, The Highest Stage
Of Capitalism", Lenin continues the ingenious historical analyses
of Marx and defines the nature of the "parasitism" and decay of
capitalism. For the Cellules Communistes Combattantes, the term
"imperialism" is situated in this Marxist-Leninist context. For
the RAF and AD in the beginning of the 1980s, "imperialist"
mainly describes the relationship between dominant countries and
dominated countries, a bit like how the Third Worldists see
things. So the difference is very big! And this is only one of
the many differences above lots of other differences on a
philosophical level, in connection with the historical and
economic theory, in connection with the political line and the
strategy to follow. For example the strategic concept of the
"front" looks wrong to us. We believe in a party of the Leninist
type as most the important national organizational principle, and
an 'internationale' of the Comintern-type as the transnational
organizational principle.
     In our work of 1993, "La Fleche et la Cible", we have tried
to work out our criticism on the concepts of the RAF and AD. In
essence we reject it's subjectivist character, their tension
towards the radical-reformism and to militarism.
     Beyond this we can remark that the RAF, who were the driving
force behind the "Front", has dissolved itself (which made big
headlines in the papers, of course), while GRAPO, who rejected
the concept on a basis of fighting communist critics, last month
did an daring armed propaganda operation in the heart of Madrid
(which was the subject of a total media blackout, of course).

Q: Did you ever have the impression of being manipulated? We ask
this question because it's is often said that the actions of the
CCC, together with the "Gang of Nijvel", were part of a "strategy
of tension" organized by the extreme right? In this case
references are made to Pierre Carette's brother and to weapons
found in CCC safehouses, etc.

     From the very start the CCC was subjected to a lot of filthy
and contradictory slander from different corners, from the
extreme-right (CCC=KGB) to the extreme-left (CCC=CIA), and it has
stayed that way until this day.
     For some it was necessary, and still is, that the struggle
of the CCC - where the goal is crystal clear - is interpreted as
something suspicious, with an obscure ground and mysterious
objectives, and this is to stop reflection about the political
questions and revolutionary strategy. As long as one keeps on
talking in terms from bad spy novels, like "manipulations" and
"destabilization", one rejects the central question which really
interests the proletariat: Which offensive strategy is best for
the class struggle? One darkens this decisive truth, namely that
the armed struggle is essential when restarting the revolutionary
process, and they isolate these fighters. It's a well-known
trick, and one finds the same lies about the Red Brigades in
Italy, the GRAPO in Spain, etc. In the early days they said Lenin
was a "German spy".
     It has been asked before why we don't systematically deny
this slander. Let's talk about the examples put forward in the
question. Well, what is there to deny? Yes, Pierre has an older
brother. So what? Yes, the CCC (and Action Directe and the RAF)
were in the possession of arms taken from the attack on the army
barracks in Vielsalm in May 1984. So what? Well, strictly put,
absolutely nothing. In the end "one believes who one wants to
believe".

Q: "Pierre Carette has a brother". Yes, but there are also rumors
that he was a member of the secret service and that Pierre
Carette was a militant together with his brother in extreme right
groups.

     We must leave guilt by blood relationship to the classical
tragedies, and to the media liars of the PTB. We are not in a
position to inform you about military careerist Henri Carette,
who was related with extreme right groups at the end of the 60s
at the University of Brussels, because Pierre has got the least
contact with him. It was their total and definitive ideological
contradictions which was the ground for them breaking off all
contact with each other.

Q: Why did the actions of the CCC stop after your arrests?

     Simply because the objective vulnerability of our
organization didn't allow further resistance against the blows
against our group and to take the initiative again.
     The police offensive of the winter of 1985/86 was not
limited to our arrests. It was followed by the discovery of our
operational bases, of garages and clandestine apartments, by the
seizure of important material, and the paralyzing of comrades,
etc. This certainly doesn't concern a political decision. Reality
has shown that the Cells were badly prepared for repression, on
the level of simple structural security, and on a more general
political-organizational level. Here we make an allusion to the
militaristic deviation that has partly contaminated the CCC, a
deviation we have admitted and criticized in "La Fleche et la
Cible" and in the debate with Voie Proletarienne.
     But even more than our defeat, where we have to learn our
lessons, the experience of the CCC in Belgium has show how the
practice of the armed propaganda can be an enormous uplift for
revolutionaries.

Q: Can you give a more precise explanation about the split
between you and Didier Chevolet?

     Didier Chevolet was a militant of the Cellules Communistes
Combattantes and after that a member of the collective of
prisoners until the summer of 1995. At that time he let us know
of his decision to leave the collective and his choice to try to
be released in an apolitical way. We have tried, without success,
to make him realize that his step was individualistic and in
contradiction with our common interest, and that the "apolitical"
character of his position was an illusion, because it came out of
an objective political situation. We regret this schism very
much. We have lost a comrade, and by losing our unity much more
than a comrade.

Q: How is the treatment in prison? Are you being held in under
special conditions (for example "high security")? Do you have
contacts with social prisoners? How are those contacts?

     At the time of our arrests in December 1985, we were put in
total isolation, a treatment never before seen in Belgium and
this was condemned as torture by the well-known humanitarian
organizations. In May/June (1986) we held a first collective
hungerstrike, lasting 43 days, but without real results. We were
held in isolation for three years, even until after our trial,
and we only succeeded to reach a discontinuance after a second
long and hard hungerstrike.
     From then on we were integrated in the prison population,
but we were still held under exceptional limitations (for
example, non-stop surveillance, opening of mail, limitation of
visits, etc.). We must also point out that we are not dependant
upon the administrative authorities of the prison, but upon an
obscure committee that works under the Department of Justice.
     Our contacts with social prisoners are a priority in
solidarity. We try to answer in a positive way on posed questions
and systematically we support the common demands and protest
movements. During these exchanges we defend the proletarian
interests and the principles of the communist morale. We try to
develop a just reflection upon the nature of the system and the
crime it brings, we fight racism, sexism, etc. But it's still
just a drop of water in a desert of misery.

Q: In prison you did several actions. Which and why? In the media
there were no articles, the left didn't react. Is the left
suspicious about you? Or you against the left? Were you (better)
supported by foreign groups?

     We held two important hungerstrikes, in 1986 and in 1988, to
get out of isolation and to gain the possibility of prolonging
our collective political work. The mainstream media were rather
discrete about this struggle. What is there to wonder about? They
are part of the system. The extreme left didn't react. This needs
a double comment. First of all this isn't all that surprising
coming from the institutional left (PCB, POS, PTD), it's proof of
the profundity of their political and ideological corruption.
Secondly, we were surprised by the general leftist movement. The
ball is in their camp: Why is there no solidarity, apart from
political differences, with revolutionaries confronted with
criminal repression in their own country? Isn't this a sign of a
terrible weakness?
     During the hungerstrikes we were actively supported by the
"Association des Parents et Amis des Prisonnier(e)s Communistes".
On an international level we were supported concretely by groups
and comrades from Germany, Switzerland, Denmark, etc. But the
more spontaneous solidarity was clearly stronger on a European
level. Once again: Who should draw their lessons?

Q: What can people do for your release?

     At this time it is clear that the authorities are not
prepared to release us and they will only be prepared to release
us when they fear a growth in the mobilization for our cause.
They could be worried about the growing interest in the
experience of the Cells. In a message on the occasion of "the
international day of revolutionary prisoners" we made following
statement:

"There are two important reasons why we are held. First of all to
hold back from the communist movement fighting militants who have
proven their dedication. Secondly they want to terrorize those
who, tired of reformist deadend streets, want to go on the
revolutionary path.

We will leave prison when these political motives are unmasked
and the protest is so great that the powers that be will see it
more advisable to release us than to appear in their real form,
rather this than to attract the attention on the causes that
force them to this hardness towards us, who are only three with
many years in prison behind them.

This will be a long struggle where all good will is welcome. This
struggle will be won, which will please us of course, but this
above all will serve the general struggle of the proletariat.
Without the last we wouldn't afford ourselves such public calls
for solidarity. But this solidarity fills us with force, trust,
and enthusiasm."

     What needs to be done? It is necessary to develop a public
militant agitation: set up local committees, organize information
gatherings, make dynamic and well-sounding interventions, etc.
Everything which can break the wall of silence, built and
maintained by the powers and their accomplices, will put us a
step further towards freedom.

(Source: Anarchist Black Cross - Gent
<http://www.xs4all.be/~ance/abc-gent>)