Opposition à Poutine lors de la manifestation de Moscou

Governement organised demonstrations 7th of September
in various Russian cities with
theme "Russia against terror. Together we will
be victorious !". Various celebrities were inviting
people to meetings in television every half an hour,
and in several cities all mobile phone users got
spam SMS messages. Moscow demonstration was officially
organised by pro-governement FNPR trade union and
independent from executive powers, but it is little
doubt who really paid the bills.

Anarchists from Rainbow Keepers, Moscow Union of Radical
Artists and other groups decided to join
Moscow demonstration, expecially since it was organised
in an exceptionally suitable place, right next to the
residence of the leading terrorist of Russia in Kreml. Many
workers and students were sent to demonstration during
working hours (although no doubt many came on their
own as well), so demonstration gathered tens of thousands
of people. 130 000 claimed by officials may be an
exaggeration, but 100 000 would not be an unrealist number.
Vasilevsky embankment was crowded with people, such
as Bolshoy Kamenniy bridge over Moskva river. At least
4000 police and besides them conscripts were organised
for security, we had to pass 3 security checks in order
to get to meeting. Fortunately they did not paid attention
to our banners, leaflets and buttons.

Since our message (our main banner being "We are all hostages
of a terrorist state") was slightly different from
the official one, this was again an action I was wondering
how many teeths I would have left afterwards. Some
people from liberal Committee of Antiwar Action came
to support us, together we were maybe 25, so numbers
were a bit uneven.

First we saw some orthodox christian fundamentalists, and
we went to raise our banner in front of them in order
to annoy them. But there our banner was not really visible,
not to talk about placates, so we moved close to exit
from the square towards Kitay-Gorod. This was an excellent place,
since hundreds, perhaps thousands of people saw our placates when leaving
the demonstration. Some did not agreed with us a lot,
and a couple of times a fight was near. Cops managed to grab
our banner and tear down few placates, but one of the
arrested was de-arrested and two others liberated themselves.
In the end no-one was arrested, and cops backed up since we
argued that we came to demonstrate against terror as well.
In the end there were plenty of angry people, cops and suspicious
types one of whom had an SS button, so we decided to leave
in an organised group. There were plenty of far-right people
around, in Kitay-Gorod we saw a bunch of boneheads. This day
their messages was not much different from the mainstream.
We did not paid much of attention to speeches, but every third
word seemed to be "derzhava" (superpower) or "pobeda" (victory).

We had planned some shouts such as "State is the main
terrorist" and "No to war in Iraq and Chechnya", but we
kept quiet since they did not really fit to the mood
of the event which was not that of aggression, although
that obviously was the original intention of organisers.
Although state was obviously up for a patriot show-off,
big part of the people were there more for sorrow than
for a fight. I would guess some people would be even
disappointed for the event, they came with candles but in
the end officials were playing militarist marching music.
Some critical banners besides ours were around
("Putin, you promised to flush them down from the toilet,
now they are flushing us"), few people came to shake
our hands and to ask when the next anti-war action
will happen.

We distributed around 700 copies of the leaflet below,
and several hundred leaflets of the anarcho-syndicalists.
Tomorrow (thursday 9th) we will join weekly anti-war
picket in Pushkinskaya, organised by liberal anti-war committee.
We have had problems with them in the past (they
have organised events connected to electoral campaigns),
but they earned my respect when they came to
support our action even when they could disagree
with our "no war but a class war" message.

****

We all are hostages of inhumane power ! Let us free ourselves !

Yesterday - Nord-ost, today Beslan, tomorrow what ? And every time, what
follows the nightmare is the same : fear, hysteria, apathy, powerlesness -
in the society, growth of ethnical hatred and calls to strenghten police
executive powers, censorship and control of the state over people.

We are in a vicious circle, which must be destroyed !

It is about the time to understand, that we all are hostages of the state,
hostages of the politicians, generals and oligarchs, who fulfill their
selfish and imperial goals, who spit on the blood and suffering of people
in Chechnya and Russia. It is time to see, that what happened is due to
fact that politics in Russia are not at all dependent from the society.
Dollars and imperial ambitions are paid with streams of blood. Terrorists
attacks in Moscow and Beslan are echo of the war in Caucasus, they follow
from daily war crimes, mop-up operations, destruction of peaceful
inhabitants. State terror gives birth to answering terror - and neither of
them may be justified. Tragedy which happened is a payment of the society
for blind belief to the governement, a payment for passivity and
ignorance. We all are paying for crimes of politicians and army officers !

Ignorant tireness and limiting our already narrow liberties will not be an
exit. Exit will be abolishing our role as statists and marionets of the
state, leaving shameful passivity, and throwing away hypnosis of lies and
propaganda. We must began resistance and put society on control of the
situation in the country, we must immediately stop the war in Caucasus !

Let Putin wage alone war in Chechnya, not sending others there ! Let
Basayev occupy Kreml and Duma instead of taking innocent children to
hostages ! It is their quarrel, not ours ! Let us stop them !

source : Rainbow Keepers Moscow Union of Radical Artists