From: TATBLATT@LINK-ATU.COMLINK.DE Subject: TATblatt Press Statement Date: Friday, May 19, 1995 The Austrian press and partly the international press gave in the last few weeks a large amount of interest to the TATblatt. Interest with different quality and point of view of course. To put something against the image of the "leftist terrorists" and "extremist bomb attackers", we release the following statement. We ask you to spread information further in your media. - TATblatt Statement To The Press About The Recent Developments In Austria: On April 12, 1995, two long time members of the militant- left died in an attempted sabotage attack. Peter Konicek (31 years old) and Gregor Thaler (30) were found by the police one week later in a forest area south of Vienna (near Ebergassing village). They had attempted to blow up an electricity pylon with a home-made bomb. As far as we know from press reports they had not paid attention to the magnetic field below such a pylon. The magnetic field triggered off the bombs while Peter and Gregor prepared the sabotage attack. This pylon of a 380 kv power line is one of two existing central supply lines to Vienna. This power lines connect the West European power supply systems with Eastern European. From Eastern Europe cheap nuclear energy is planned to be directed to Western Europe in near future. Until now there are many open questions about this fatal incident. No statement of the two militants was found (or made public by the police). Therefore there are many speculations in the press and even within the left about this. For us only one fact seems to be clear: two members of the militant left attempted a sabotage attack for environmental reasons. Immediately after the police announced that the two dead were leftists, the press and rightist politicians started a campaign against the left. A terrorist left network was published which included not only militant leftists but also liberal performers, politicians of the Greens and even Social Democratic ministers. Most of the attacked persons and groups denounced the published network as complete nonsense while on the other hand pointing the finger on the radical left. Many people noticed that the all-out attack of the right wing has the intention to divert attention from the terrorist nazi-bombings of the last two years. The police announced that at least one further person took part in the attempted attack in Ebergassing. The search for this unknown person was taken to justify the following intensive investigations in the left. On the day the police found the corpses of Gregor and Peter, the police raided the antifascist centre in Vienna - the Ernst-Kirchweger-Haus (EKH). The EKH was squatted 5 years ago and is now a centre of the Austrian militant left, of a Roma organisation, of a Turkish Communist Party and is home of refugees from various countries. One of the dead, Gregor Thaler, had a police registration in EKH. This was the sole big action of the police so far. Behind the scenes the police developed intensive activities of interrogations and home searches. Around 50 leftists were interrogated so far. A further 150 are on the police list, according to press reports and police statements. TATblatt Following the tragical failure of Ebergassing our radical left bi-weekly magazine TATblatt became the target of a campaign to cut of all funding and to search our office. This attack was initiated by Joerg Haider, leader of the right populist "freedom movement" (Freiheitliche - F) and taken up by nearly all daily newspapers and weeklies of Austria. TATblatt was presented as the "centre of left-extremist terrorism", stating that despite TATblatt-journalists themselves are not terrorists the immediate social background is. No evidence of accusations were given that the saboteurs of Ebergassing had any contacts with TATblatt. The smear-campaign against TATblatt is part of the attacks of Haider - whose contacts to right extremists are well documented - on left initiatives in Austria. Almost all cultural groups dealing with left issues like anti-nazism have to face continual attacks of F-agitators against "public subventions for left-extremists or perverse cultural activities" for two years. But the recent attacks of Haider went far beyond this scope. A donation of 6,000 Austrian TS (600 US$) from the Minister for the Interior, Caspar Einem, to TATblatt was reason enough to demand the resignation of the minister. TATblatt was used by Haider as a tool to destabilize the current coalition of Social Democrats and Conservatives. Adding to this Haider ran amok because of the reason of the donation of Einem; Einem donated to support a legal trial, because TATblatt published "Joerg Haider pursues racist baiting" (J.H. betreibt rassistische Hetze) two years ago. In part Haider's attacks were successfull. All political parties including the Green Party published statements to keep aloof "from violence of any sort" including TATblatt, despite the fact that TATblatt is published legally for 7 years without a break. All public funding was cut off immediately two weeks ago. The behaviour of the green establishment is in sharp contrast to so-called "common people". To counter further attacks on TATblatt and the radical left infrastructure in Austria it is them and not Green or Social Democrat careerists who give hope, power and the necessary support to fight nazism, environmental destruction, sexism and racism not only in this country. Contact: TATblatt Gumpendorferstr. 157/11 A - 1060 Wien Austria Tel: 431-222-596 80 78 Fax: 431-222-596 80 784