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14.2 A*dam-Info evening: Struggles in chilean prisons
nnnnnnn - 08.02.2011 23:32
Information, analysis and discussion with a comrade on the last 20 years of struggle inside and outside prisons in chile.
The info night starts at 19:30, will be held at the Bollox on Monday, Febuary 14th, 2011.
Below is an overview of the years of struggle against prisons since the fall of the dictatorship and the beginning of democratic regime.
20 years of struggle in Chilean prisons- 1990 -2010
A short time after the restoration of the democratic regime in 1990, after the arranged exit of the military dictatorship and the bourgeois opposition, some dissident political voices started again to be imprisoned in the chilean penitentiaries. Especially militant comrades of political-militant organizations, who decided to continue the armed struggle, of such groups as FPMR, Mapu Lautaro, different fractions of the MIR and other minor groups and organizations. The so-called communist party and the rest of the left abandoned them focusing only on campaigning for the political prisoners taken during the military dictatorship, distancing or ignoring the ones that fell during democratic times. It is very relevant that the publication Punto Final, places in each issue the slogan “there are as many days of democracy as there are political prisoners” or the P.C. started a campaign for “the last political prisoner in prison”, shunning from their propaganda any reference to any imprisoned revolutionary arrested since the beginning of democracy.
These comrades in prison founded organizations such as La Coordinadora de Combatientes Encarcelados (Coordination of imprisoned fighters) from which emerged the slogan Carcel Combatiente (Struggling Prison). And in the streets, little by little, different groups of friends and family of the political prisoners joined forces, demanding the freedom of their imprisoned loved ones. Already in the first years of the 90’s, radical fractions agitated for the liberation of these prisoners, through strong street struggle outside of university campuses. These were the times of Cordon Macul, la Resistencia Autonoma Estudiantil, la Coordinadora Revolucionaria del Pedagogico, among other groups and individuals, who in Santiago and other cities struggled for the freedom of their comrades. These organizations were not only composed of university students.
The proletarians in revolt built active solidarity with the prisoners of social war, that went beyond belonging to a certain group or beyond their political views (sometimes the support that was given was blind of any critique towards the projects and programs of certain Leninist organizations). The hunger strikes inside the prisons were accompanied by a struggle and propaganda on the streets, by distribution of flyers and pamphlets, however on small scale.
After 1996, the Koletivo de Prisoneros Politicos Kamina Libre (the Political Prisoner Collective Walk-Free) was born. This was a group of comrades that broke with (or were kicked out) of the Mapu-Lautaro, who spread intensely their positions outside of prison, distributing their publications; at the beginning only among small minorities, and after reaching different proletarian sensibilities, such as punks, for example. The Kamina Libre especially managed to get “a great agitation from the outside, achieving unexpected conditions inside prisons, establishing a permanent and fluid communication between inside and outside.” (“Peste Negra” first semester 2009). By the end of the 90s and the beginning of the 2000s big hunger strikes of political prisoners took place, despite political differences (sometimes very deep) and with support and struggle from the streets, including direct actions like violent attacks by encapuchados (masked people) against the MacDonals on Macul st and Grecia st in Santiago, in the year 2004. While some would fully go for the struggle, others would choose the path of negotiation with the State.
This part of the struggle was culminated more or less victoriously in 2004-2005, after massive demonstrations in the middle of the centre of Satiago and very long hunger strikes, practically all political prisoners were freed from the goddamn prisons. We should make it clear that we are referring only to “chilean” comrades, because in those times there were already Mapuchean prisoners in the dungeons of the racist State.
We cannot close this brief overview of the political prison situation in chile of these years, without mentioning some of the bold actions aimed at freeing from claws of institutional power the imprisoned comrades. In 1990 a commando Mapu Lautaro, rescued the prisoner Marco Ariel Antolioletti, killing several prison guards and cops that were guarding him in a routine transport from a hospital. During the action the comrade Marcela Rodriguez was seriously injured by the police.
Unfortunately the comrade Antonioletti was executed by the cops because of a tip by the miserable snitch Juan Carvajal, who he was staying with at the time. He then held important delegations in social organization during the social-fascist government of Bechelet. Then in 1996 a fistful of comrades of the fraction of the FPMR, were rescued from the high security prison by a helicopter, in an impressive action against the government of Eduardo Fei. (During this unforgettable action the comrade Mauricio Hernandez Norambuena was freed, who continued to struggle in other places, and is now captive of the Brazilian state). There were several more episodes, mutinies and frustrated escape plans all supported by the outside.
Although it’s painful to mention, we should not forget these hard episodes of repression, such as the assassination of several militant FPMR, after a frustrated attempt of escape from prison (and to think about the fact that there are stalinists that support the mobilizations and demands of the prison guards, a uniformed forces of assassins and torturers, that control and manage the prisons which are completely full of proletarians). We should also not forget that the mass transfers of prisoners from several prisons to the newly instated Carcel de Alta Seguridad (High Security Prison) stronghold of the repressive engeneering and of the attempt to annihilate the rebellion by the democratic governments. In these CAS in 1999 there is a massive attack against the political prisoners by the special forces and the anti-riot police and the prison guards, with the massive beatings in the prison’s air court, derogatory speeches of officials over the defeat of the revolutionaries, among the humiliations and tortures.
The continuation of the anti prison struggle
Present day.
In the last years the prisons, -overpopulated by thousands of common prisoners, thanks to the government’s policy of filling up the prisons to the brim- has seen a return within its bars of many political prisoners. Aside for all the Mapuche prisoners there are already some comrades that are incarcerated because of their political positions, and for acting them out. We would now like to say a few words about Mapuche prisoners. The so-called Mapuche conflict has become more heavy in the last decades.
Many indigenous Mapuche communities started campaigns for the reclamation of their land: they didn’t just sit back and wait for the racist state to sell them their own lands back. They went themselves to expropriate from big land owners or lumber industries, provoking a campaign of state terrorism in the 9th and 10th regions of the country (the southernmost provinces of chile). The criminalization of the organizations and community, open repression against man, women, children and seniors, military attacks against the villages, torture, assassination, imprisonment, seems to be the final solution of the Chilean state of this conflict. In the prisons all around chile, dozens of Mapuche political prisoners are held hostage.
Furthermore, there has always been a campaign of harassment against ex prisoners, made more heavy since the robbery of the Security bank in 2007, where a cop was executed. The government and the press accused of this robbery three ex prisoners (Marcelo Villarroel, Juan Aliste and Cristian Gutiérrez three ex-Mapu Lautaros members, also Marcelo was a member of Koletivo Kamina Libre) and Freddy Fuentevilla an ex-MIR, and lastly a common criminal. The accused denounced that this was a frame-up made by the police, helped by the media. However, through their actions proved that they wanted nothing to do with the justice system and this circus: they fled (even though they were invited to give themselves up by some leftist intellectuals, like Gabriel Salazar). Freddy and Marcelo managed to run away to argentina, but in 2008 they were caught. Today they are imprisoned in chile, after being extradited from argentina.
Of course we are not saying that it’s because of the actions of certain comrades that the repression starts, because the state of war of the bourgeois against the exploited is permanent, and this does not need excuses. After the escape, arrest and detention of the comrades in argentina, some ex-prisoners were arrested, but fortunately they were soon released.
There are also some anarchist comrades arrested, through a frame-ups carried through to show the efficiency in what in the neolanguage of the state and its media is known as the “caso bombas” (the bomb case): Dozens of violent direct actions occurred in the last years in Santiago and other cities against banks, police and government buildings, tv channels and other symbols of the capitalist beast.
Comrades such as Cristian Cancino (who was arrested after the death in combat of Mauricio Morales) are arrested and accused of the “caso bombas”; Matias Castro and Pablo Carvajal are accused of the attack to a police headquarter; Axel Osorio was accused of complicity in the case of the Security Bank, just to mention a few. When we say that the comrades are imprisoned because of frame-ups, we are not victimizing them, we are just saying that the state and its repressive machines have been scheming crude maneuvers to fabricate and arrest the “guilty”, to exhibit in front of the media. Against all these lies and frame ups some respectable “anarchists”, tried to publicly divide the waters from the insurrectionary and anti authoritarian fractions, distancing themselves from these positions. Through this they showed even more all of their misery.
If we are speaking about political prison nowadays, we cannot forget ex prisoners like Flora Pavez, again imprisoned, or combatants that after the definite dismantle of their armed organizations, went into robberies and expropriations to survive, and are now in prison.
In the streets there were different attempts to continue several initiatives, to fight for the liberation of the political prisoners: coordinations, support with the struggles of the Mapuche, support and solidarity to one or the other specific prisoner. We should not forget all the difficulties that this situation we are facing: the lack of clear speech on the inside of certain comrades, a lack of common initiatives, a lack of a network (formal or informal) minimally coordinating the support of prisoners from outside the walls, a lack of a clear discourse about the common prisoner, etcetera.
On the other hand we should also recognize the different specific steps that have been made in the fight for freedom: the international days of solidarity for Freddy and Marcelo (September 2009) when they were still imprisoned in argentina. Or in november the international week of agitation and solidair pressure with the comrades kidnapped by the chilean state; or the international hunger strike from the 20th of December to the 1st of January, called out by the comrade Gabriel Pombo da Silva, locked up in germany. These days and campaigns developed inside and outside of prisons in many countries, have been charged with a strong anti-capitalist and internationalist spirit that is important to highlight.
Lastly we should not forget the dentention of 14 comrades on the 14th of August in Santiago and Valparaiso, accused of subversive terrorist association and of setting off explosives. In the most obvious campaign developed by the Chilean state against the antiauthoritarian and anarchist milieu, these detentions are scapegoat of the hundreds to bombs that have placed in different cities of the coutry against churches, banks, police headquarters and political party offices, for which no one has been yet found guilty. This is the way to punish certain comrades because of their depth and practice of different anti capitalist sensibilities.
This is how the state tries to justify its repressive machinery, through detentions and showing them off to the public as a great success in its fight against delinquency and terrorism. Unfortunately for the ruling class interests this didn’t turn out as they wanted: there have been answers from the streets: demonstrations, blockades, informative meetings, graffiti, flyering, also other comrades organized a solidarity initiative with the comrades, by forming a group composed of family and friends of the arrested that together with other groups and individuals, publicly declare their support and solidarity. Calling constantly for the agitation against the prison structure, making themselves heard and noticed.
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| aanvullingen | | 14.2 A*dam-Info evening: Struggles in chilean | nnnnn - 09.02.2011 13:00
(Door moderator verplaatst: hetzelfde bericht in 2 talen in de newswire drukt andere informatie onnodig weg.)
Korte tijd na het herstel van het democratisch regiem in 1990, nadat het vertrek van het militaire dictatorschap en de bourgeois oppositie was geregeld, waren politiek gevangenen opnieuw aanwezig in Chileense gevangenissen. De zogenaamde Communistische Partij en de rest van links liet hen achter en voerden louter campagne voor de politiek gevangenen van het militaire dictatorschap maar niet voor hen die achter slot en grendel gingen gedurende democratische tijden.
Deze kameraden in de gevangenis hebben organisaties en in de straten kwamen, beetje bij beetje, verschillende groepen vrienden en familie van de politiek gevangenen in opstand en zij eisten de vrijheid van hun gevangen genomen geliefden. Reeds in de vroege jaren ‘90 agiteerden radicale fracties voor de vrijlating van deze gevangenen door middel van een sterke strijd op straat rond de universiteitscampussen.
Dit was het begin van een agitatie binnen en buiten de gevangenissen die coordinaties, demonstraties, sabotages, hongerstakingen enz behelsten, die tot vandaag de dag nog duren. Deze initiatieven zijn constant sinds de gevangenneming van tientallen Mapuche strijders en, meer recentelijk, anarchisten die tegen veel moeilijkheden aanlopen: het gebrek aan een duidelijk discours binnen de gevangenis van bepaalde kameraden, een gebrek aan gemeenschappelijke initiatieven, een gebrek aan netwerk (formeel of informeel), dat de steun aan gevangenen minimaal coordineert van buiten de muren en een gebrek aan een duidelijk discours aangaande de gewone gevangene.
| | taal-idoma???? | el gordo sordo... - 09.02.2011 14:35
en que idioma será la noche de información????
| | language | nnnnn - 09.02.2011 16:08
the information and discussion will be in Spanish, with english translation, (or dutch if necessary)
| | re: language | nnnnnn - 10.02.2011 09:31
to be clear: the person giving the info is speaking spanish, which is going to betranslated into english or dutch.
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