Infoshop News September 02 2010
Welcome to Chile, society of jails and jailers.
This past Saturday the 14th of August, in the cities of Santiago and
Valparaiso, an action coordinated by police of all types (special task
forces) violently raided three squatted social centers and many private
homes in fives communes. The police intimidated people with weapons of
war, broke windows and doors, and took many personal items with them from
all of the houses.
14 people were detained being informed of the reason for their detention
for three hours.
Later? Six people were released on probation for lack of evidence against
them. As for the people that remained imprisoned, they were put in
isolation cells in maximum security jails where they were awaiting a 180
day long investigation process and potentially a 20 year sentence for
alleged illegal terrorist association. They have alleged that these people
were involved in making and blowing up the bombs that have erupted lately
in the capital. According to the prosecutor, this association was a
hierarchical organization directed by key ringleaders.
This supposition is in absolute contradiction with anarchist ideology -
most of the kidnapped people have been labeled as anarchists- which is
opposed to the concepts of “leaders” and “hierarchies”…
Furthermore, this charade, a perfect outcome for the puppeteers and
jailers who desire to keep their power. Above all, this has been the
result of those citizens, who like their peace so much and through their
deafness and silence, are helping to erase the oppressed, the masquerades,
jails, and resignations.....
"The bombs case" is the title that keeps appearing in the headlines of the
newspapers like a bad novel, in which the main characters, the
Minister/Secretary of the Interior, the prosecutor and his police henchmen
are trying to catch the 'undesirable' anarchists. The beginning of the
'bombs case' is a police persecutions saga that dates back to the 10th of
September, the eve of a historic date in Chile, on which people mourn
their dead and disappeared ones from the dictatorship, while others
display their discontent with the falseness of a democracy that has not
changed much from a dictatorship.
In this context, a molotov bomb was thrown at the house of the government.
The images went around the world; the symbol of the concord of democratic
parties was blown into pieces; the fraternal unifying factor of the left
has been altered. Two weeks later, a vast police contingent raided the
squat "la mansión siniestra" and arrested 6 people, who, to their own
surprise had become, thanks to the distorting role of the press, an
illegal association of "molotov bombs makers", "violent criminals",
"vandals". This scenario is the one that the 14 accused comrades were
facing.
Back then, the police never thought that evidence was necessary, because
the things they seized as alleged bomb making materials were no more than
common domestic utensils. These molotovs never existed. During the
judiciary process, the 6 antagonists of this story were allegedly the
worst moral aberrations; public opinion has given legitimacy to the
sentence of up to five years in jail … But OOPS...'mistake'! The
accusations were fake, the police’s masquerade had been revealed. Finally,
these 6 people did not serve the time they were sentenced. But that’s only
after spending 11 days in a high security prison. Just as expected, no
institution was held accountable for the irreversible physical and
psychological punishments and damages inflicted on the detainees, nor for
the personal belongings that were seized from their them and their
comrades.
Four years have gone by since this incident, and with its passing, the
travesty of justice, the inequalities and the repressions remain the order
of the day.
Only to talk about JUST A FEW concrete examples:
According to the survey of "national socio-economic characterization"
(CASEN) the economic gap has increased from 13% to 15% since 2006.
Meanwhile the administration of the government wants to spend 135 thousand
millions of pesos to build, starting this year, 10 new prisons, which
would add to the total of more than 16,500 new vacancies in the prison
system. It is important to note, according to the sources of the mideplan,
that 64% of the prison population are illiterate or have not finished
their basic studies and are the poorest and the most marginalized people
in Chilean society. This illustrates that the interest of the system is to
imprison the most marginal instead of educating them and providing them
with the tools for a better life.
These prisons need jailers…
The alliance of 'democratic' parties was in charge of the government for a
decade after the dictatorship, killing 42 people, and helping, instead of
changing, the development of the 'political constitution of Chile' that
was created by the dictatorship, strengthening it with reforms and
continuing with its tradition of criminalizing social movements and
perfecting the Anti-terrorism Law. One of the modifications to the
Anti-Terrorism Law was to give policemen a status of 'witnesses of faith',
whereby they frequently do not have to present concrete evidence against
the accused, which gives the legal support to the masquerade/ setups for
those who represent a threat to the system. Among other barbarities, now
in 2010, the turn of the 'coalition for change' with Sebastian Piñera in
power. This regime is pro-dictatorship and a huge collaborator with the
establishment of the neoliberal model. Let’s not forget that he was also
the one that gave the Chileans the opportunity of having credit cards to
live working in order to pay their debts. But above all, nowadays M.
Piñera is famous for his campaign 'the Battle against Delinquency', in
which he shows us his support for a policy of more 'security', in other
words, and to be less moderate with the term, jailers that secure the
power of their friends the businessmen and capitalists. To make sure that
things proceed smoothly, the president will reinforce the repression
against historically repressed populations, increasing police personnel to
15000 carabineros and increasing the salaries of civilian police, who have
had in the last few months their salaries increased by 18%.
This is how, the 'Battle against Delinquency', is an exemplary example
that shows how the inefficacy of the alliance of political parties has
erupted tragically in our lives. Today we become its scapegoats, displayed
like pariahs in an outlandish play, in order to legitimize their ventures
and win 'moral sympathies' among the spectators and the right. In this
hunt to cover up facts, which have been intentionally invisible in the
media, the hunger strike of 32 Mapuche political prisoners, who fight the
adversity of Chilean justice and demand their natural rights, is being
hidden. Or another omission, the use of cheap, insufficient equipment to
attempt the 'rescue' of 33 miners trapped only a few days earlier this
week.
Today, these 14 comrades, among them, anarchists, communicators and social
fighters, show solidarity to unjust causes, are involved in open squatted
social centers where they sustain libraries, video libraries, gardens, and
people who exchange and question ideas and actions in forums and
activities conducted in a horizontal manner. These people are
automatically criminalized; prosecutors have enough ambiguous evidence to
take their freedom away from them. For example, a tapped telephone call
where a mother demanded that one of the accused people be taken care of;
this was used as evidence against her. The open squatted spaces and the
people who are committed to denouncing and transforming on a daily basis
their own lives and their society have become more vulnerable to the
apprehensions of the state and its prosecutions, which illustrates that
this prosecution is also ideological.
Now...Who are the terrorists? .
We make a call to build an international support network for the people
imprisoned on the 14th of August. Today more than ever! Internationalists
of the world to solidarity and action, to face the kidnappings and lies of
the Chilean state!.
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