“Communique # 2” Regarding the Action Against the Rhein-Main Air Base and the Shooting of Edward Pimental [1]

The purpose of the action was to render a coordinating point of the US military machine – A CENTER FOR CARRYING OUT IMPERIALIST WAR – nonfunctional. That meant to materially act against their commando centre or their military equipment (given that it was not possible, for a variety of reasons, to act against the headquarters) and against those who operate this machinery, as such, against the Air Base and all the soldiers who, whether in the headquarters or elsewhere, “do their job.” The fact is that every transport of US intervention troops to the Mediterranean region and/or the Middle East is already organized from there. As we were carrying out the action, the “Bright Star” Maneuvers were approaching their end and the troops were already withdrawing through the Air Base. During the TWA hijacking, a Killer Commando of the Delta Force flew out of the Air Base in the direction of the Middle East, in preparation for the planned military solution. And when soldiers are to be sent directly into action, for example the Special Units of the Air Force, they are stationed at the Air Base.

THE AIR BASE, IN ITS FUNCTION AS A COORDINATING POINT FOR IMPERIALIST WAR AND AS A SECRET SERVICE CENTRE, STANDS AT THE CENTER OF THE CONFRONTATION BETWEEN THE INTERNATIONAL STRUGGLE FOR LIBERATION AND IMPERIALISM – WHICH IS WAR – AND, AS SUCH, SO DO ALL THE SOLDIERS WHO ARE THERE.

The international class war has, since Vietnam, developed so significantly at the dialectical level in favour of struggle that we have determined the escalation of the revolutionary war in the metropole, for ourselves, to mean a COMMON ATTACK BY THE WEST EUROPEAN GUERRILLA.

Through the struggle of the urban guerrilla commandos of the FMLN against the US Marines in San Salvador, through the hijacking of the TWA aircraft by the “organization of the oppressed of the earth” in Lebanon and now through the attack against the Air Base via a common commando made up members of Action Directe and ourselves, the perspective for the international anti-imperialist revolutionary front is made realistic on a new level. It is in a position to shatter imperialist power and achieve a new breakthrough for the worldwide liberation process. ONLY IN THIS SHARP CONFRONTATION WILL THE WARS OF LIBERATION AND THE STRUGGLE FOR COMMUNISM IN THE WEST EUROPEAN METROPOLE HAVE A REALISTIC CHANCE OF SUCCESS.

In this process, one essential task for the West European guerrilla is to disrupt the functional capacity of the imperialist military machine here in the center, to make the planning and organizing of their intervention impossible. We shot Edward Pimental, the air defense specialist, who was in the army of his own free will, and in the FRG [2] for the last three months, and who gave up his previous job because he hoped to get ahead more quickly and easily. We shot him because we needed his ID card to get onto the Air Base. For us, US soldiers in the FRG are not simultaneously villains and victims. This social worker caricature does not play a role in how we understand them.

After Vietnam, Lebanon, Grenada and the official introduction of the Air-Land Battle Doctrine, the official strategy for Blitzkrieg in the Third World and against the socialist states in the East, every soldier must understand that he will pay for waging war. That is to say, THEY MUST ALL UNDERSTAND THAT THIS IS WAR AND MAKE A DECISION.

Naturally, this is not based on a misplaced anti-Americanism, as is claimed in the media. It is based on a practical understanding of the international class war, with a perspective for the development of the revolutionary process in the West European metropole.

THE MILITARY BASES, FACILITIES AND COMMANDO CENTRES OF THE US
STRIKE FORCES AND OF NATO ARE WAR SITES.

Red Army Faction
August 25, 1985

[1] The shooting of GI Edward Pimental was first linked to the RAF when his ID card and a sheet of paper containing the RAF and Action Directe symbols were mailed to a West German newspaper. This created much confusion, and the left speculated that it was a counterinsurgency ploy in the wake of the Air Base action meant to discredit the RAF and Action Directe. The RAF sent this communiqué to clarify what had, in fact, occurred. [return to text]

[2] FRG – Federal Republic of Germany, West Germany. [return to text]