Mongoose Maniacs,
welcome to Comrade Z’s favorite Anarchist Movement Tactics series,this is for your autonomous viewing pleasure,please read and spread the knowledge far and wide.
THE PIQUETEROS “HASTY BLOCKADE” AND TIRE FIRES
The piqueteros of Argentina, a movement of poor and unemployed people that arose in the late 1990’s, developed the hasty blockade to a high level. During large mobilizations, and through coordination between many autonomous groups, they used hasty blockades to paralyse the transportation infrastructure of the entire country. In August 2001, for example, the piqueteros were able to shutdown some 300 highways and roads throughout the country.
The most common tactic used by piqueteros was to arrive on a road, highway or city intersection, and block it with tires. Small fires were often built in the middle of the road, and if necessary the tires themselves were set on fire, often by inserting a few plastic bags doused with gasoline into each tire’s rim and igniting them. The burning plastic bag would quickly ignite the rubber on the tire.
In one case, a Hasty blockade established by piqueteros consisted of the unravelling of a chain link fence and extending it across a roadway, where it was secured to a telephone Pole.
The piqueteros, a movement based in community and family groups, would also have a self defence force at their blockades, usually masked people armed with batons. The batons became one of the symbols of the movement. These groups would defend the blockade against any vigilante actions by motorist’s as well as assault by small number of police.
Piquetero blockades often lasted until police had mobilized a large enough force that threatened the blockade, at which point they dispersed.
TREES: Some hasty blockades have been established by cutting down trees so they fall across the roadway,making them impassable. A military term for this technique is ABATIS or (abattis),with the trees felled so that they cross over top of one another. Historically, abatis were made of branches pushed into the ground with their sharpened tips pointed toward the enemy.
An abatis made of trees can be dismantled fairly quickly by forestry workers equipped with chainsaws,or by heavy trucks equipped with cables that pull the trees off the roadway.
Felled trees were used during the 1995 siege at Ts’Peten in South Central BC,and during October 2013 Mi’kmaq blockade of fracking vehicles in New Brunswick.
Well, I hope you enjoyed this episode of Z’s favorite Anarchist Movement Tactics,stay tuned for the next round.
Solidarity and Sabotage, Z .
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Check out :U.S. Army’s Field Manual on Countermobility Operations (FM 5-102) WarriorPublications.WordPress.com
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