[On the night of Monday to Tuesday, June 17 in Berlin, 36 vans of the war collaborators Telekom and Amazon went up in flames: 17 vehicles of the first company in the Lichtenberg neighborhood, and 19 vehicles of the second in the Britz neighborhood, a few minutes apart, around 3 a.m. Below we reproduce the statement of this antimilitarist attack published in de.indymedia on the same day].
Antimilitarist attack against collaborators with the army, Amazon and Telekom
Last night, several vans of Amazon and Telekom were set on fire in the south (Britz district) and east (Lichtenberg district) of Berlin. Neither the fences nor the cameras managed to prevent the antimilitarists from attacking these two army collaborators. Both companies benefit greatly from widespread militarization and wars. That is why it is right to sabotage them.
Instead of a champagne reception, we opted to celebrate the opening of Amazon-Tower with charred shells. But we find this gruesome building repulsive not only because of its impact on the neighborhood, but also because of all the other dirty tricks of this tech giant, and in particular because of its active participation in war and genocide. Amazon’s servers and cloud services are used by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) to store the massive amounts of data resulting from mass surveillance of the Palestinian population. Through its subsidiary Amazon Web Systems (AWS), Amazon is one of the IDF partners. In 2021, AWS, Google, and Microsoft signed contracts with the IDF to use their servers (Project Nimbus). Since the Israeli invasion and the complete destruction of the Gaza Strip that it caused, the IDF needs much greater computing capacity to be able to use its military AI programs.
AWS servers are mainly used for this. The IDF and AWS work very closely together and consult on specific airstrikes. This means that the annihilation and starvation of Gaza that is taking place before our very eyes, the planned forced displacement of the entire population, and the AI-based slaughter and maiming of hundreds of thousands of people, many of them children, are calculated and stored on Amazon Web Services servers. But Amazon is also militarily active in other areas: as a major trading partner of the U.S. military, for example, and as a generous sponsor of King Trump’s military parade in Washington last Saturday. The State and Capital moving in the same direction towards fascism.
War, militarization, genocide, and the policy of genocide and imperialism are now based on high technology. To function, the state and the global military system need a very complex technological infrastructure. In Germany, it is managed and developed by the state-owned company Telekom. No war works without technology, and the German Federal Armed Forces benefit greatly from the militarization taking place around the world. Telekom supports the Federal Army in the field of cyber defense and trains soldiers in IT. Companies like Telekom benefit from rearmament, the $400 billion government budget to make people “fit for war” and the reintroduction of military service.
Similarly, Telekom is making money as a computer provider to border authorities, police and intelligence services, in the war against refugees at Europe’s external borders and in the growing militarization at home. Nor have we forgotten that, as one of the world’s largest telecommunications providers thanks to its acquisition of the Greek telephone operator OTE as part of the Troika’s measures, Telekom has made a name for itself as one of the world’s leading telecommunications providers. Telekom was one of the main beneficiaries of the wave of massive privatizations during the Greek crisis. For this reason, the company has already attracted criticism, both here and elsewhere, becoming the target of numerous attacks.
In addition, through T-Systems, Telekom is doing business with techno-fascist Elon Musk’s Starlink company. T-Systems offers the U.S. and other countries a service that uses thousands of Starlink satellites to send text messages into space despite white areas. Elon Musk is not just a shining fascist, he is the richest man in the world, and with his megalomaniac projects he wants to colonize not only Earth, but also space and the planet Mars. In the race to see which macho has the most satellites and the most power, he is closely followed by Amazon boss Jeff Bezos with his Project Kuiper satellite project (which will soon include 3,200 satellites). These two companies now resemble non-state empires that are also increasingly important in military terms: Starlink not only supports Ukraine and Israel in their military attacks with data – Musk also has the power to prevent these same attacks by making Starlink data available. So Musk and Bezos, with their network of technocratic companies, not only benefit from the war, but can now also determine its course.
We believe that today, as yesterday, it is right to attack the collaborators of the army. What is surprising is not that antimilitarists attack military enterprises, but that not all those who abhor wars and massacres attack military enterprises. What is surprising is not that the antimilitarists want to sabotage the war, but that all those who are against militarization and rearmament do not do their bit to contribute to disarmament. What is surprising is not that people are deeply affected by the genocide and the war of extermination in Gaza and the forced displacement of Palestinians from the West Bank, but that half the world has apparently become accustomed to seeing a far-right government commit genocide. What is surprising is not that so many people are trying to stop this genocide, but that so few are trying to burn to the ground the homes, businesses, warehouses and infrastructure that benefit from this ruthless bloodbath and make it possible.
Whether in Palestine, the Congo, Sudan, Ukraine or Myanmar, it is the ruling classes that benefit from wars.
Sabotage and revolt are legitimate, it is legitimate to vindicate life against militarism and the technologies of death, just as it is legitimate to vindicate and defend antimilitarism against nationalism.
It is right to liberate life from all militarism and war, from the state and patriarchy.
Against all wars and armies.
Love and strength for Maya on hunger strike and for all the others imprisoned in the Budapest case, for Nanuk, Daniela and the anarchists N and M.
A hug and warm greetings to Athens where Marianna, Dimitra, Dimitris, Nikos and AK are imprisoned in Korydallos prison.
In memory of the struggle of Kyriakos Ximitri
Excerpted from Sans Nom and translated by Informativo Anarquista