july 2020

another sweet summer of a thousand julys or a heatwave so hot men piss steam whilst women ovulate hard-boiled eggs or a metaphorical piercing chill of an alpine november…?

“…in july

you fry or fly, you dry or fly, you cry or fly,

deny or defy, deify or decry,

stay shy or get spry,

belie or apply, comply or ask why

or

you buy and die

in july” –

e e cummings

**(from the anthology “Rhyme Time With Our Treason”, edited by N.E.Wunnz, Anne S. Thetick, Ann Dovayousd, Stan Dedpo-Attri, Tec Neeks & Mo Desopperendeye)**

2020 2019 2018 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013

June 2020 here…August 2020 here

30/7/20:

US, Oregon (Springfield): clashes on BLM march…The rise of black counter-insurgency

“…A counter-insurgency campaign has fundamentally altered the course of the movement. While the retreat and defeat of the movement that it induced may turn out to be temporary, such campaigns present significant obstacles to further radicalization, and therefore must be addressed. This counter-insurgency campaign on the ground was spearheaded by the Black middle class, Black politicians, Black radical academics, and Black NGOs. …”

Comment from a friend:

“The failure of this ill-will piece is the failure of nearly everything that talks about the social movement in the US these days. It’s framed merely in terms of race. All the motivations and the betrayals of everyone is through the lens of race.
They get the timeline right in terms of things significantly changing after week one, and then all the snakes moving in. But there’s an a idolization of the “black proletariat” as the pure ones/ the vanguard. Describing that first week’s participants as “revolutionary abolitionists”- what kind of activist babble is that? The first week as a “black-led rebellion”- nobody was leading anyone in that explosion! (Black and white activists and ministers and shop-owners were leading the charge to snuff it out that first week, but they were the only leaders around.) They’re mostly right in describing what killed everything (though conveniently leaving out their own activist rhetoric among the perpetrators), but sloppily wrong when describing what that everything was. It was rage, and boredom, and the mental derangement that the pandemic reaped on all of us, and uncertainty about the economic future, and a generation that grew up with American riots on the news, and it was the desire to be happy, and vengeful, and to not feel little for once in our lives. People were possessed, and to just say it was the black proletariat leading the charge against “racial capitalism” is a disgusting over-simplification of things, and honestly only serves the same people they are outraged at for co-opting things.

The recuperation of recuperation.”

Mexico, Chihuahua: National Water Commission vans torched in riot over water; offices burnt

“Mexico owes the United States about 405,000 acre (500 million cubic meters) this year, which must be paid by October 24. Payment is made by releasing water from dams in Mexico. Mexico has fallen considerably behind payments in previous years and now needs to quickly catch up with water transfers. The expansion of water-intensive crops has led Mexico to use 71% of the Conchos River which flows north, while according to the treaty [from 1944] only 62% of the water should be used, leaving the rest to flow into the Rio Bravo, also known as the Rio Grande, on the border. In the past, Mexico has delayed payments, hoping that periodic tropical Gulf storms would occasionally cause windfall. But while Hanna made landfall in Texas earlier this month, the rains did not reach enough inland to fill the dams in Chihuahua. The water commission sadly remarked: “Although tropical storm Hanna recently reached the northeast of the country, international dams (those involved in the treaty) did not restore the desired volume, as the increase flow occurred downstream. ” The problem has already led to clashes. In March, protesters torched vans, blocked roads and demonstrated at the La Boquilla roadblock, also in Chihuahua.”…Report from Mexican anarchist group

A Message From The Company

29/7/20:

Paraguay, Ciudad del Este: looting, burning and clashes with cops during protests against return to total quarantine by state

Jordan, Amman: clashes during teachers’ strike – cops beat up and arrest teachers

28/7/20:

US, Portland: “WTF is Going on in Portland Right Now?”: A Report

Sample quote:

“Joanne Hardesty is Portland’s only Black city councilwoman. She has longstanding ties to local organizing against police brutality and has not shied from principled but politically precarious stances against both the police bureau and the police union. After the first night of demonstrations in Portland set the City ‘Justice Center’ on fire, she willingly took the hit for Portland’s white liberal Mayor and declared a curfew against the demonstrations. Since the beginning of the rebellion, her decisions and positions have been at times surprisingly uncharacteristic. She and the City Council continued to hesitantly stand beside the Mayor after almost two months of nightly police attacks on increasingly bold and militant demonstrations. As the Mayor issued mealy-mouthed statements denouncing “the violence that has gripped our city,” (notably unclear as to whose violence he was referring), he pledged to rein in police and work with police leadership to enact reform. The Police Union contract was expiring, a moment in which Hardesty and the local leadership promising reforms had a rare opportunity which one might expect more astute political leaders would utilize as a chance to offer significant concessions to the streets. In a surprising move (given the political climate, the popularity of demands to move against the Police Union generally, and multiple City Council members who had campaigned against the Police Union for years), the Mayor and City Council united in granting a one-year extension of the contract without qualifications. At the State level, the Governor banned teargas except when life was under threat, and the legislature committed to enacting state wide policing reforms. The day after the tear gas ban, the police declared a riot and gassed demonstrators.”

China Is Harvesting the DNA of Its People. Is This the Future of Policing?

“…For several years now, the police and other authorities in China have been collecting across the country DNA samples from millions of men and boys who aren’t suspected of having committed any crime. In a report published by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute last month, we exposed the extent of the Chinese government’s program of genetic surveillance: It no longer is limited to Xinjiang, Tibet and other areas mostly populated by ethnic minorities the government represses; DNA collection — serving no apparent immediate need — has spread across the entire country. We estimate that the authorities’ goal is to gather the DNA samples of 35 million to 70 million Chinese males….The Chinese police are not doing this work alone. Evidence continues to accumulate that private companies, both Chinese and foreign, are complicit in this extraordinarily vast, and ominous, assault on the privacy of Chinese citizens. In Hunan Province, Huangrui Scientific Instruments Ltd. — a company based in the provincial capital that produces a range of medical, chemical and scientific products — has sold to thePublic Security Bureau of the city of Liuyang some 140,000 DNA testing kits produced by Thermo Fisher Scientific, a U.S.-based Fortune 500 company. That’s enough equipment to test roughly one in five men in the community…a representative of Thermo Fisher said that the company was “proud to be a part of the many positive ways in which DNA identification has been applied, from tracking down criminals to stopping human trafficking and freeing the unjustly accused.”…Thermo Fisher had previously been criticized — by human rights organizations and scholars — for supplying DNA collection and analysis equipment to the Chinese authorities in support of their campaign of repression against ethnic minorities in Xinjiang…Earlier this week, the U.S. Commerce Department added to its list of sanctioned companies two other subsidiaries of BGI Group — the Chinese parent company of Forensic Genomics International [SF: see this and this]— for “conducting genetic analyses used to further the repression of Uighurs and other Muslim minorities” in Xinjiang…BGI Group has rejected the accusations. Yet the company is also reported to have agreed to build “a gene bank” in the region…BGI Group has also been producing tens of millions of Covid-19 test kits for distribution to more than 80 countries — raising concerns in places like Australia and California that any DNA data collected in the process might then be misused. For now, China appears to be the only country in the world where police are harvesting en masse DNA samples outside the scope of criminal investigations. But how much longer before others follow suit? In other countries, including the United States, law enforcement authorities are also pushing the ethical boundaries of genetic data collection.The police in New York routinely collect DNA samples from people they arrest or simply question — sometimes without saying. Across the United States, police officers search private ancestry sites like GEDmatch scouring genetic data looking for potential leads in cold cases — also without the knowledge or the consent of the people who uploaded their personal information…”

For a critique of DNA forensic bollocks see “the myths of DNA…”: “DNA is used by the state to provide “objective” evidence of guilt in criminal cases. Supporters of DNA testing point to the fact that several innocent people have been freed as a result of DNA testing applied retrospectively, but whilst it can show innocence* it’s far more dubious as a means of assessing guilt than fingerprinting, for example. It is very easy to plant or mix up DNA from an innocent person at a crime scene, and there have been clear instances of people whose DNA has been found at crime scenes but who were clearly hundreds of miles away from the crime at the time of the crime. …it takes more than DNA to make a living organism. I once heard one of the world’s leaders in molecular biology say, in the opening address of a scientific congress, that if he had a large enough computer and the complete DNA sequence of an organism, he could compute the organism, by which he meant totally describe its anatomy, physiology, and behavior. But that is wrong. Even the organism does not compute itself from its DNA. A living organism at any moment in its life is the unique consequence of a developmental history that results from the interaction of and determination by internal and external forces. The external forces, what we usually think of as “environment,” are themselves partly a consequence of the activities of the organism itself as it produces and consumes the conditions of its own existence. Organisms do not find the world in which they develop. They make it. Reciprocally, the internal forces are not autonomous, but act in response to the external. Part of the internal chemical machinery of a cell is only manufactured when external conditions demand it. For example, the enzyme that breaks down the sugar, lactose, to provide energy for bacterial growth is only manufactured by bacterial cells when they detect the presence of lactose in their environment. Nor is internal” identical with “genetic.” Fruit flies have lone hairs that serve as sensory organs, rather like a cat’s whiskers. The number and placement of those hairs differ between the two sides of a fly (as they do between the left and right sides 0f a cat’s muzzle), but not in any systematic way. Some flies have more hairs on the left, some more on the right. Moreover, the variation between sides of a fly is as great as the average variation from fly to fly. But the two sides of a fly have the same genes and have had the same environment during development. The variation between sides is a consequence of random cellular movements chance molecular events within cells during development, so-called “developmental noise.” It is this same developmental noise that accounts for the fact that identical twins have different fingerprints and that the fingerprints on our left and right hands are different…”

*Apparently, even using DNA to “prove” innocence is dubious and often fairly arbitrary. A person’s DNA changes – and over a long period can change quite substantially. Which might be a good reason why the “guilty” in prison should also ask for DNA testing.

Also China (just received): Worker protests on the rise in June as wage arrears proliferate

27/7/20:

US, Arizona: clashes with cops (videos and links)

UK: critique of high speed railway link

26/7/20:

US: Minority Report – 100s of mathematicians boycott predictive policing

“Several prominent academic mathematicians want to sever ties with police departments across the U.S., according to a letter submitted to Notices of the American Mathematical Society on June 15. The letter arrived weeks after widespread protests against police brutality, and has inspired over 1,500 other researchers to join the boycott. These mathematicians are urging fellow researchers to stop all work related to predictive policing software, which broadly includes any data analytics tools that use historical data to help forecast future crime, potential offenders, and victims. The technology is supposed to use probability to help police departments tailor their neighborhood coverage so it puts officers in the right place at the right time.”

Senegal, Pikine: town hall looted, wreck and torched by street market sellers

Sparked off by authorities’ reduction of hours during which they’re allowed to scrape a living.

25/7/20:

US: Thousands Take to Streets in Solidarity With Portland; construction site of Youth Jail Set on Fire in Seattle…

Seattle: various links:

North Carolina:

Gelderloos critique of witless white “ally” snitches in need of stitches

24/7/20:

US, Missouri: report on murder of unarmed white woman by cop in June

“According to a database of police shootings in the United States since 2015, half of those shot dead by police—and four of every ten who were unarmed—have been white. People in poor neighborhoods are a lot more likely to be killed by police than people in rich neighborhoods. Living for the most part in poor or working-class neighborhoods as well as subject to a racist double-standard, black people suffer disproportionately from police violence. But white skin does not provide immunity.“

23/7/20:

US, Portland: and so it goes on (videos and links)

Received: “The_Working_Class_Pandemic_Wildcat_Strikes and Working Class Self-Organising in the US” (informative, but somewhat academic in the autonomist tradition and probably over-optimistic)

Israel, Jerusalem: Protesters Call to Release ultra-Orthodox Man Detained for Spitting at Policewoman (see also 14/7/20 below). More here (includes video comparing with Portland).

“13 detained during protest against the continued detention of Benjamin Friedman, who has been in custody for three months. Hundreds of ultra-Orthodox Jews demonstrated Wednesday night in Jerusalem in protest of the continued detention of Benjamin Friedman, who was arrested more than three months ago on suspicion of spitting at a policewoman. Demonstrators blocked Bar Ilan street, which goes through ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods in northern Jerusalem and was the setting for riots over the closure of the roads on Shabbat in the early 2000s, set fire to cans and confronted police. Police in riot gear stormed a rally on Friday, removing hundreds of protesters by truck. Benjamin Friedman, a resident of Beit Shemesh, in central Israel, remains in custody following his refusal to carry an electronic handcuff on Shabbat. Since his arrest, members of extremist factions have occasionally taken part in demonstrations in the Mea Shearim neighborhood of Jerusalem. Police forces in the area have often used violence against demonstrators. Footage circulating on social media from Wednesday’s demonstration shows a police officer kicking one of the protesters hard and punching him in the face. Other images show police pushing demonstrators who fall to the floor. In addition, the demonstrators surrounded a car that got stuck in the place, threw objects at it and tried to open the doors. The driver fled the scene, running over a protester. Police said they have launched a search for the driver.”

Videos:

https://twitter.com/i/status/1286060088575381504

https://twitter.com/i/status/1286058583067590661

T additionally writes:

Reading about the Azov Battalion tas well as the official responses from the state of Israel denouncing antisemitism brings to mind Israel’s secrecy and dodginess regarding its arms deals with the same neo-nazi groups that it claims to be worried about:
“Is Israel trying to hide arms exports to neo-Nazi militias in Ukraine?”. Which comes as no surprise considering Israel’s long (and semi-secret) history of diplomatic, military and tactical collaboration with fascist and openly antisemitic regimes responsible for the disappearance and murder of thousands of Jews, such as the Chilean and Argentinian juntas.

22/7/20:

US, Portland: Oregone energy…and a liberal pro-Democrat report

21/7/20:

Belgium, Antwerp: cops order demonstrators against probable murder by cops to go home and they do

“Young people gathered in Antwerp to protest against police violence following the death of a 29-year-old man after an arrest on Sunday, but the police stopped the group before the demonstration could start. On Tuesday afternoon, a group of young people responded to a call on social media to gather in Antwerp to protest after the death of Akram, a 29-year-old Algerian man, after an arrest close to the Antwerp train station. The police were on the scene en masse and stopped the group at the Meir, the main shopping street. “The demonstration is not allowed and will not be tolerated. Whoever does show up, will be kindly asked to leave,” the police said beforehand. Around 2:00 PM, youth workers from Samen Op Straat, Samenlevingopbouw and other organisations sent home several people who showed up. “It is better that we do it than that they are arrested or fined” Ironically, Samen Op Straat, one of the organisations which sent kids home so they will not protest on the street, translates as “Together on the Street”.

Scientists use epidemic-type models to assess rioters

“Episodes of social unrest rippled throughout Chile in 2019 and disrupted the daily routines of many citizens. Researchers specializing in economics, mathematics and physics in Chile and the U.K. banded together to explore the surprising social dynamics people were experiencing. To do this, they combined well-known epidemic models with tools from the physics of chaos and interpreted their findings through the lens of social science as economics. In the journal Chaos, from AIP Publishing, the team reports that social media is changing the rules of the game, and previously applied epidemic-like models, on their own, may no longer be enough to explain current rioting dynamics. Using epidemiological mathematical models to understand the spread of infectious diseases dates back more than 100 years. “In the 1970s, this type of methodology was used to understand the dynamics of riots that occurred in U.S. cities in the 1960s,” said Jocelyn Olivari Narea, co-author and an assistant professor at Adolfo Ibáñez University in Chile. “More recently, it was used to model French rioting events in 2005.” From a mathematical point of view, the team’s work is based on the SIR epidemiological model, known for modeling infectious disease spread. This technique separates the population into susceptible, infectious and recovered individuals. “Within a rioting context, someone ‘susceptible’ is a potential rioter, an ‘infected individual’ is an active rioter, and a ‘recovered person’ is one that stopped rioting,” explained co-author Katia Vogt-Geisse. “Rioting spreads when effective contact between an active rioter and a potential rioter occurs. They discovered that the SIR model uses Hamiltonian mechanics for mathematics, just like Newton’s laws for physics. “This allowed us to apply well-known tools of the physics of chaos to show that within the presence of an external force, the dynamics become very rich,” said co-author Sergio Rica Mery. “The external force that we included in the model represents the occasional trigger that increases rioting activity.” When including such triggers, the team found the way a sequence of events occurs varies greatly based on the initial number of potential rioters and active rioters. “Even the sequence of rioting events can be chaotic,” Rica Mery said. “Rich dynamics reveal the complexity involved in making predictions of rioting activity…it was surprising that the idea of disease spread can be well applied to rioting activity spread to obtain a good fit of rioting activity data. “While you might think that the study of disease transmission and problems of a social nature vary greatly, our work shows epidemiological models of the most simple SIR type, enriched by triggers and tools of the physics of chaos, can describe rioting activities well,” Vogt-Geisse said.

“

This reduction of people to more easily measurable forms of physical, ideological, psychological, etc. social control should contribute to convincing those who hate capitalism to not fall into largely predictable, ritualised and over-repeated forms, strategies and ideas of social contestation.

20/7/20:

USA, Oregon: Portland cop clashes continue…anarchist report on Portland movement and the filth…and another anarcho-report

Trouble with repeated confrontations is that they tend to get stuck in a groove and what was subversive a month or more ago becomes ritualised and more and more get involved in dealing with arrests and other cop horrors but so far, as far as I can see through my star-gazing telescope, few seem to be trying out innovative tactics and even less some direct attempts to communicate theoretical reflections, particularly to other sections of the city.

19/7/20:

Iran: executions of 3 men involved in riots halted …after state threatens to kill anyone involved in revolt…just a couple of days after cops disperse renewed protests against misery

“…Videos posted on social media from inside Iran on Thursday showed protesters chanting, “Fear not, fear not, we are in this together!”. Some chanted slogans against top officials. Videos posted on Twitter showed a heavy presence of security forces in several cities. “People are angry. The economy is so bad that we cannot survive,” an Iranian man told Reuters news agency by phone from Tehran on Thursday, asking not to be named due to security concerns…” See also this and below for 16/7/20.

18/7/20:

Sierra Leone, Makeni: at least 5 murdered by cops in riot against relocation of power plant , the rioters attacking ruling party offices

Explanation of some of the reasons for the anger.

UK, London: riot as cops clamp down on rave party

17/7/20:

US, Oregon: report on clashes

“…by 930, most of the fencing has been knocked down and re appropriated as a barrier. 9:42 LRAD announces that the parks are closed and we need to evacuate the park or we are subject to arrest, citation, and use of force…11:58 Pepper balls and a tear gas canister is fired out of the federal courthouse “murder holes” because protestors started converging near the steps. 12:12 The response to the pepper balls and tear gas by the crowd was to block the entrance to the Federal Courthouse with fencing. 12:39 LRAD announces that we are subject to arrest and use of force, asking crowd not to block the doorways to the JC and Fed Courthouse. 1:32 The crowd had lit fireworks in the direction of the JC and blocked off one of the doorways. PPB has declared an unlawful assembly, telling the crowd they have 4 minutes to clear out all of the barricades. They also announced downtown is closed. They changed their verbiage tonight by saying that the crowd was “inhibiting local and county law enforcement….”

16/7/20:

Argentina, Jujuy: prison riot (videos and links)

Iran, Behbahan: riots (videos and links)

Tunisia: protesters shut down main oil production site in south

“Hundreds of protesters on Thursday forced their way into the remote El-Kamour production site, located in the desert south of the town of Tataouine despite the presence of army personnel protecting petroleum installations. A hefty contingent of forces had been deployed to the site, including a helicopter, but there was no violence between security personnel and protesters who chanted “Tataouine does not give up” and sang the national anthem, according to AFP news agency. The demonstration follows weeks of unrest in Tunisia’s south, one of the country’s most marginalised regions, burdened by above-average unemployment, failing infrastructure and an underdeveloped private sector. Since July 9, a few dozen demonstrators have been camped in the desert near El Kamour. Other groups joined them on Thursday before the site was breached. “

15/7/20:

US, Portland: report on 7 weeks of conflict

https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a33347230/portland-oregon-protesters-detained/

https://itsgoingdown.org/solidarity-with-the-people-in-the-streets-of-portland-against-the-federal-occupation/

X writes:

Portland this year has become like Italy in the “hot autumn” of 1969: a laboratory of counterinsurgency. The fascist future is now the present. Oh yes, and a new verb “to be Pinochet’d.”

Another friend in the US said the protests/riots in Portland have become repetitive and ritualised, with no innovation. The totalitarian future/present can only be combated with experimental practices that not only involve rioting, occupations, intense discussion and targeted critique, graffiti, wildcat strikes, sabotage, etc. but strive to go beyond their separations and limitations in ways that learn from the strengths and weaknesses of the past but go further into the partially unknown. As always, easier said than done.

14/7/20:

Chile: various riots over Coronavirus constraints and reduction in pensions

Israel: Jerusalem Deputy Mayor Caught on Tape Dragging anti-Netanyahu Protester on the Ground

Police Arrest 20 After Thousands Protest Poor Government Aid Amid Coronavirus Economic Crisis

Self-employed from hospitality, tourism and arts industries stage protest in Tel Aviv ■ Three officers lightly injured.

Over 10 thousand Israelis protested in Tel Aviv on Saturday against the government’s handling of the economic crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

After hundreds left the square after the event, they marched through the city’s main streets, blocking roads and junctions and chanting “Bibi go home!” Police arrested 20 after clashes erupted between law enforcement and protesters. Of those, 16 have been questioned and two will have court hearings regarding extending their detention.

Police said that three officers were lightly injured as protesters attacked police, threw tear gas and bottles at them and vandalized public property on Rothschild Boulevard. “Police are constantly avoiding the use of force and are working to clear traffic jams to allow traffic flow,” a police statement said.

On Sunday morning, Finance Minister Yisrael Katz said in an interview on Kan television network that “Demonstrations are part of democracy, I understand the allegations and the pain of the demonstrators. Our plan is to provide an economic safety net for employees and the self-employed for the coming year. We will leave no one on on the streets.”

On Friday, leaders from hospitality, tourism, transportation, arts and culture industries declined an invitation by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to discuss the situation.

Tel Aviv, July 11, 2020:

“The Israeli government and its leader are responsible for the failure in implementing aid programs,” said the organizers, who called on the government to amend its financial aid packages.

On Thursday, Netanyahu and Finance Minister Yisrael Katz announced that self-employed individuals will receive an immediate 7,500 shekels ($2,150) stipend. They promised that money would be transferred to accounts by next week, following criticism that the two previous rounds of coronavirus aid were delayed and insufficient.

Iliya Zsibulsky, a 32-year-old actor, said he’s been unemployed since theatres were shut in March. Holding a mask of a pig’s face, he explained that it represents the government “of pigs and too many ministers who don’t see us. They’re detached from reality.”

“I received a meager and ridiculous sum from the government and I also have to pay taxes for it,” said Zsibulsky, who went back to living with his parents and is working in deliveries after years of living alone and earning a decent income as an actor.

Boaz Meirchik, owner of the Duplex nightclub in Tel Aviv, told Haaretz that implementing health regulations made his business no longer profitable and that he is uncertain about its future. “The whole economy is going to collapse if the government doesn’t act. There will be a period of austerity after the coronavirus. Netanyahu’s plan is not enough,” he said.

“I’m retired and unemployed but the state doesn’t recognize or compensate me,” said Ruti Sofer, 74, from Jaffa, who had been working as a caretaker before the pandemic. “I received 4,000 shekels ($1150) in two payments and that’s it, they told me I’m not illegible for more. This is the first time in my life that I have to ask for money from my six children in order to pay for food and bills,” said Sofer, adding that Netanyahu should “Climb down and remember that whoever put him there can also take him down.”

Hours before the protest, organizers announced that various politicians had asked to join and give speeches at the event but were asked not to attend as they had “Had enough time to work for us.” Organizers said they wished for the protest to not be affiliated with any political factions.

Organizers agreed to a number of conditions for the police to allow the protest to go ahead, some related to the coronavirus, in anticipation of a large number of attendees. Groups of 20 people are required to stand two meters apart from one another, while each group is required to maintain a distance of ten meters from other groups.

In a statement distributed among protest groups, organizers asked that those attending the protest not give the police a reason to stop the event, urging them to comply with Health Ministry guidelines.

Meanwhile, demonstrators called on others online not to bring cellphones to the demonstration so that they could not be later tracked and required to quarantine if they happened to be in the vicinity of a confirmed coronavirus patient.

***

Other report on Tel Aviv [not paywalled]:
https://www.timesofisrael.com/hundreds-block-roads-clash-with-police-in-tel-aviv-after-economic-protests/

“several hundred people blocked traffic and clashed with police at several locations…”

13/7/20:

Russia, Amur region: wildcat strikers smash up office of contractor after not having been paid for 2 months

RS writes:

“Migrant workers in the Amur region destroyed the office of a company that is building a gas processing plant for Gazprom. They haven’t been paid for two months.

1000 builders broke into the office of “Renaissance Heavy industries”, a contractor involved in the construction of the Amur gas processing plant, and began to destroy everything around them.

According to the workers, they had a good reason – they have not been paid for 2 months, so they decided to demand their money by force.

They are striking without professional organizers from trade unions. According to statistics, 77 percent of strikes and workers ’ protests in Russia are Non-Union.

There are several important points here.

1) This strike is the result of self-organization, not of a trade Union bureaucratic organization.

2) Precisely because there is no trade Union, the workers took violent actions. Trade unions, at least in Russia, always block such actions.

3) However, even the vast majority of non-Union strikes in Russia are non-violent.

4) Violence against bosses in Russia is usually used by groups of workers from Central Asia, often Iranian-speaking Tajiks or Turkic-speaking Kyrgyz. The presence of millions of foreign migrant workers in Russia makes the situation interesting. The ethnic composition of the Russian population is gradually changing, and foreign workers sometimes use very radical methods of fighting against their masters, including real uprisings with the cold weapons in some cases. Groups of Tajik workers have repeatedly engaged in armed clashes not only with ordinary bosses, but also with mafia groups that tried to harass them or did not pay their salaries

P.P.S Currently, the Investigative Committee of Russia has opened a criminal case against the participants of the strike.

youtube.com/watch?v=JWPcvZvG20c&fea...

P.P.S. This is no longer a struggle with monuments (like in USA) or other examples of bourgeois ugliness, but a real proletarian uprising. [SF note: this implies that the movement in the USA is not a partially proletarian uprising; undoubtedly it’s been a mixed bag but then it’s on a far vaster scale – something like 2000 towns involved in protests, riots, looting and monument destruction – than what RS calls an uprising in one work situation involving considerably less people]

Workers who live on the territory of the construction are systematically deceived.

The employer recruits most of the workers for a month, then they are dismissed under various pretexts, without paying their wages, and then employer recruit new ones. Those who are lucky, stay to work, but also from time to time become victims of deception. This happened to the participants of the riot, who were not paid part of their salaries for 2 months.

The monthly salary of workers is 600 dollars. Workers live in poor conditions – 8 people per 20 square meters.Their working day is 11 hours. They work with 1 weekend in 2 weeks. If you do not come to work for 1 day due to illness, the bosses take from your salary the amount equal to the salary for 2 working days! Transportation costs are not paid. There are no vacations. The food in the factory canteen is of disgusting quality. At the same time, the bosses take money from the workers ’ wages for this food. All together is a violation of the obligations that the bosses took on earlier.

Among the workers there are many cases of coronavirus. Living conditions contribute to infection. As a result of the quarantine, prices in the store increased by 2-3 times. This last circumstance prompted the workers to seize the store and take away the products.
Most of the workers are migrants, Uzbeks and Kyrgyz. However, there are Turks and Filipinos among the workers. At the same time, the Renaissance company that organizes work on this construction in the Russian village is Turkish company. This is a class conflict of the era of globalization.

Workers seized part of the buildings in the village and took food from a store. They are opposed by riot police. A diplomat from Uzbekistan went there. We are talking about a revolt of 1000 workers. The riot continues. The Russian Governor promised the workers to return their money. But this has not been done yet. The village, which was captured by workers, is surrounded by police, riot Police and the Russian army, including armored vehicles. The government has opened criminal cases against the workers.

The workers probably consult among themselves about what to do next, but they have not created an organized revolutionary proletarian structure (regular assemblies and an elected workers ’ Council for operational management, whose delegates can be replaced at any time). The workers also do not have a bourgeois-reformist structure (such as any trade Union) designed to introduce conflict into the field of legal systemic measures (inviting and hiring lawyers, negotiating with the employer, attracting the media, etc.). this is Partly why the situation is uncertain.”

More from this anarcho-syndicalist site (Google translate):

“Workers involved in the construction of the Amur Gas Processing Plant, who had not received their wages for several months, rebelled and ransacked the company’s offices. The riot was suppressed by the riot police and the National Guard. Several participants were reportedly arrested. Criminal cases have been initiated against the rioters. We view them as social prisoners and demand that all charges be dropped immediately!

The incident occurred due to the financial claims of employees against the management of the contractor. On Monday, various websites and media published videos in which people in orange overalls smash whatever they get in their way and throw things. “This is how the workers passed. They smashed everything, even knocked out the light bulbs. They just turned everything over,” the man summed up in one of the videos.

According to the Telegram channel Baza, the workers were not paid their wages for three months, and they “decided to demand their money by force.” The site vesti.ru indicates that the workers demanded “an increase in wages and payments for three months of quarantine.” The video also recorded overturned cars and the arrival of riot police officers at the plant.

About 300 people took part in the riot, the press service of the AGPZ told RBC. She also noted that as a result of “unlawful actions”, the “utility and administrative premises” of the contractor Renaissance Heavy Industries were damaged. “The reason for the conflict was the disagreement between the employees of Renaissance Heavy Industries and its management on additional financial remuneration,” the press service of the enterprise said. At the same time, the message emphasized that the contractor “in a timely manner and on an ongoing basis receives payment for the work performed within the framework of contractual obligations for the project.”

On the fact of “mass riots” a criminal case was initiated on the grounds of a crime under Part 2 of Art. 212 of the Criminal Code (participation in riots), indicates the management of the Investigative Committee for the Amur Region. The report notes that the conflict arose “between the citizens of the Republic of Uzbekistan – employees of the contractor and its management.” In addition, on the basis of reports, a pre-investigation check was organized on the facts of non-payment of wages to the contractor’s employees.

The Amur gas processing plant near the town of Svobodny is being built by order of Gazprom. The company emphasizes that it will become one of the world’s largest natural gas processing enterprises with a design capacity of 42 billion cubic meters per year. The plant will be an “important link” in the gas supply chain to China via the Power of Siberia gas pipeline.

Renaissance Heavy Industries was founded in 2011 and implements large-scale construction projects in the heavy industry in Russia, Turkmenistan, Turkey, Iraq, Mozambique and Kazakhstan. The company performed work for Norilsk Nickel, Phosagro, Novatek, Gazprom Neft and other Russian companies. Renaissance Heavy Industries is part of Renaissance Construction F 79, one of the largest construction contractors in Russia. Among the projects of the company, which was founded in 1993 by the Turk Erman Ilydzhak, are Evolution and Neva Towers in Moscow City, Lakhta Center in St. Petersburg (https://www.forbes.ru/newsroom/ obshchestvo / 404965-vse-krushili-dazhe-lam …)

+ + +

The authorities were forced to admit that the workers were really not paid wages. The contractor Renaissance Heavy Industries, whose workers staged a pogrom at the Amur gas processing plant, underpaid workers more than 14.4 million rubles. This is reported by the prosecutor’s office of the Amur region.

The prosecutor’s office began checking after the riots at the Amur Gas Processing Plant (AGPZ). As noted in the prosecutor’s office, Renaissance Heavy Industries unilaterally withheld 14.4 million rubles. from salaries of more than 1000 employees. The money went to pay personal income tax for two months of the current patent. Also, the prosecutor’s office said that Renaissance Heavy Industries did not take measures to provide material and household support for foreign workers. In this regard, the Svobodnensky city prosecutor opened an administrative case against the organization under Part 1 of Art. 18.9 of the Administrative Code (violation of the rules for the stay of foreign citizens in Russia). In addition, he made representations to the heads of organizations involved in the construction of the Amur GPP in connection with violations of labor and migration legislation.

Also, in relation to the organization and the head of the territorial separate unit, the prosecutor’s office opened cases of an administrative offense under Part 1 of Art. 5.27 of the Administrative Code (violation of labor laws). The regional prosecutor Ruslan Medvedev went to the scene. On his instructions, a temporary reception office of the prosecutor began to work at the plant on violations of the rights of workers involved in the construction. At the same time, the prosecutor’s office controls the investigation of criminal cases under Part 2 of Art. 213 of the Criminal Code (hooliganism) and part 2 of Art. 212 of the Criminal Code (participation in riots).

The UK stated that citizens of Uzbekistan participated in the pogroms. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Uzbekistan also took control of the incident with its citizens in the temporary rotational camp of the company Renaissance Heavy Industries. The consul general of the embassy went to the scene. He will find out the circumstances of the incident and ensure the protection of the rights and interests of citizens of Uzbekistan (https://www.rbc.ru/rbcfreenews/5f0d5b6b9a7947da1187f92b)

+ + +

On the fact of the riots on the territory of the construction of the Amur gas processing plant, two criminal cases have already been initiated. Earlier it was reported that a case of hooliganism was opened, but on Tuesday the prosecutor’s office of the Amur region clarified that a criminal case was also opened under Part 2 of Art. 212 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (participation in riots) (https://www.rosbalt.ru/russia/2020/07/14/1853562.html)

+ + +

Financial disagreements between a Turkish contractor company and builders from Uzbekistan at the Amur Gas Processing Plant (AGPZ) have been resolved, in the next few hours the employees “should fully return to work” at the site, the joint press center of the AGPZ told reporters.

“The financial disagreements between a group of Renaissance Heavy Industries employees and its management, which caused workers to speak at the Amur Gas Processing Plant, have been resolved. It is planned to fully return the contractor to work on the construction site within the next few hours. The main construction work is being carried out as usual,” the press said -the center of the plant.

It is noted that the negotiations were held with the participation of the Governor of the Amur Region Vasily Orlov, representatives of the regional government and law enforcement officers. “During the preliminary investigation … the information about the delays in salaries to the working personnel of Renaissance Heavy Industries was not confirmed for several months. The employees receive their full salaries on time in accordance with the labor contracts … The refund of the amount of patents to the employees will take place according to the plan on July 15th. .. the issue of additional payment for construction personnel, who is on duty for a long time, is being considered, “the press center adds (https://ria.ru/20200714/1574316782.html)”

9/7/20:

Greece: riots over repression of rights to demonstrate

6/7/20:

Chile, Valparaiso: furious riots over lack of aid following Coronavirus and economic crisis

5/7/20:

Kenya, Kisii: police station torched after cop shoots dead market trader

“…The Kisii incident adds to a long list of alleged extra-judicial killings during the Covid-19 period, with heavy-handedness in enforcement of regulations on the pandemic blamed for the deaths….protests were witnes sed in Nandi County earlier in July when a local shoe shiner was allegedly shot by police for not wearing a face mask. According to residents of Olessos, the shoe shiner refused to part with a Ksh50 bribe for not wearing a face mask, causing a heated argument between him and the police officer who shot him.Two more Nandi residents were shot dead by police as they protested the shoe-shiner’s death on the Nandi-Kapsabet highway. At a service held on Thursday, July 2 to honour the three lives lost, Nakuru Senator Susan Kihika warned Police Inspector-General Hillary Mutyambai of an uprising if the situation worsened. “I want to tell the Police and the IG, get prepared because we shall not sit and watch you do this to our fellow Kenyans. We will set all the police stations in Kenya on fire if that is what we have to do.“

4/7/20:

US, Baltimore: died on the 4th of July – city harbors war criminal…

…Oregon: Americans show their independence by protesting & rioting for 38th consecutive day…Seattle: car driver murders protester, maims another; court calls it “vehicular assault”…Pennsylvania: nazis manipulated into defending the indefensible with guns and cops

3/7/20:

Chile (1-3/7/20): clashes in 13 areas of at least 2 cities as social movement continues (videos & links) More here.

Sample quote:

“One dead, confrontations and a burned bus in a new night of incidents in various communes of Santiago…The most serious disorders took place in Melipilla, where a 21-year-old man died after being shot, which the police said came from protesters. There were also some protests in sectors of Estación Central, Cerro Navia, La Granja, Peñalolén, Quilicura or Pudahuel.One dead, confrontations and a burned bus in a new night of incidents in various communes of Santiago….For the second consecutive night, this Friday, protests and incidents were registered in various communes of the Metropolitan Region in response to a new call on social networks to demonstrate against the social and economic crisis that is causing the pandemic…In Cerro Navia, in the northwestern area of the capital, a bus from the company Metbus of the Red system (ex Transantiago) was burned….In Villa Francia, at Central Station, there have been clashes between protesters and policemen on 5 de Abril Avenue with Quemchi passage, with the launching of Molotov bombs at the uniformed police, who responded with tear gas bombs. While in the town of Lo Hermida, in Peñalolén, unknown individuals set fire to barricades along Grecia avenue and shots were fired at police personnel ..There were also some barricades in sectors of Pedro Aguirre Cerda, La Granja, Quilicura and Pudahuel.”

UK, London: boneheads’ broken bones as cops crash and crush street party

2/7/20:

Ethiopia, Ambo: cops kill 2 at funeral of radical singer…internet access continues to be blocked as over 100 killed This report is rather confusing – hard to tell which are racist attacks, which are conveniently attributed to racism, which are by the cops, etc. etc.; confusion is the sole unifying policy of all the powers-that-be.

US, Portland: fire in County Injustice Centre etc. on 2nd day of protests being declared “riot” More here… report on workers’ strikes at 2 Chrysler plants over management’s bad handling of coronavirus risks…Colorado (Denver): clashes over attempt to create autonomous zone

another sweet summer of a thousand julys or a heatwave so hot men piss steam whilst women ovulate hard-boiled eggs or a metaphorical piercing chill of an alpine november…?

“…in july

you fry or fly, you dry or fly, you cry or fly,

deny or defy, deify or decry,

stay shy or get spry,

belie or apply, comply or ask why

or

you buy and die

in july” –

e e cummings

(from the anthology “Rhyme Time With Our Treason”, edited by N.E.Wunnz, Anne S. Thetick, Ann Dovayousd, Stan Dedpo-Attri, Tec Neeks & Mo Desopperendeye)

June 2020 here…August 2020 here

30/7/20:

US, Oregon (Springfield): clashes on BLM march…The rise of black counter-insurgency

29/7/20:

28/7/20:

Also China (just received): Worker protests on the rise in June as wage arrears proliferate

27/7/20:

26/7/20:

25/7/20:

Other links –

Seattle: various links:

North Carolina:

24/7/20:

23/7/20:

US, Portland: and so it goes on (videos and links)

Received: “The_Working_Class_Pandemic_Wildcat_Strikes and Working Class Self-Organising in the US” (informative, but somewhat academic in the autonomist tradition and probably over-optimistic)

Israel, Jerusalem: Protesters Call to Release ultra-Orthodox Man Detained for Spitting at Policewoman (see also 14/7/20 below). More here (includes video comparing with Portland).

22/7/20:

US, Portland: Oregone energy…and a liberal pro-Democrat report

21/7/20:

20/7/20:

USA, Oregon: Portland cop clashes continue…anarchist report on Portland movement and the filth…and another anarcho-report

19/7/20:

Iran: executions of 3 men involved in riots halted …after state threatens to kill anyone involved in revolt…just a couple of days after cops disperse renewed protests against misery

18/7/20:

17/7/20:

16/7/20:

Argentina, Jujuy: prison riot (videos and links)

Iran, Behbahan: riots (videos and links)

15/7/20:

14/7/20:

Police Arrest 20 After Thousands Protest Poor Government Aid Amid Coronavirus Economic Crisis

13/7/20:

9/7/20:

6/7/20:

5/7/20:

4/7/20:

US, Baltimore: died on the 4th of July – city harbors war criminal…

…Oregon: Americans show their independence by protesting & rioting for 38th consecutive day…Seattle: car driver murders protester, maims another; court calls it “vehicular assault”…Pennsylvania: nazis manipulated into defending the indefensible with guns and cops

3/7/20:

Chile (1-3/7/20): clashes in 13 areas of at least 2 cities as social movement continues (videos & links) More here.

2/7/20:

US, Portland: fire in County Injustice Centre etc. on 2nd day of protests being declared “riot” More here… report on workers’ strikes at 2 Chrysler plants over management’s bad handling of coronavirus risks…Colorado (Denver): clashes over attempt to create autonomous zone

1/7/20:

…Iowa: minor clashes outside Capitol

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**(from the anthology “Rhyme Time With Our Treason”, edited by N.E.Wunnz, Anne S. Thetick, Ann Dovayousd, Stan Dedpo-Attri, Tec Neeks & Mo Desopperendeye)**