Workers Solidarity Movement

A Call to International Solidarity with the Chilean People
Feminists of the World Against the Violence of the State!
October 18th, 2019

The President of Chile, in agreement with the National Security Council, has declared a state of emergency – the first one since Pinochet’s dictatorship – in response to protests against the rising cost-of-living and transportation prices that have swept through Santiago. The right to assembly and freedom of movement have been effectively restricted, and control of the nation’s capital has been turned over to the army, which is currently deployed in the streets. Nonetheless, the people have come out to protest at hundreds of locations throughout Santiago and across the country, facing their fear and breaking their silence.

In September last year, we held an interview with a comrade from the OCL, a Chilean anarcho-communist (platformist) organisation with a presence in the biggest cities of that country - Santiago, Valpara’so and Concepcion. This organisation has a policy of building up the movement amongst the popular rank and file, organising Frentes (Fronts or Networks) among the traditional popular factors in revolutionary struggle in Chile: workers, students and neighbours from the slums of the cities.

Big Business doesn’t like what’s happening in South America. The election of reforming governments in Peru and Ecuador might have been a bearable irritant but that Chavez guy in Venezuela has really got up their noses. In Bolivia sections of the local ruling class got so riled up that they tried to overthrow President Morales in September. The US ruling class, in collusion with local bosses, is trying to destabilise political and economic reforms. As they see it, too much is going to workers and peasants, and not enough into their own coffers.

This article was written back in 2003 and was part of the Chilean discussion on the coming local elections at the time and the way many comrades wanted to dedicate the bulk of our resources (both financial and human) to anti-electoralism. As well, there was a debate as we were starting to run into elections in universities, schools, trade unions and community organisations and some said that anarchists were against voting in any form. Some of the arguments on tactics andprinciples have appeared again recently in the discussions I've had on the issue here in Ireland

With the corpse of Pinochet, they think they can bury all those dead standing in the way. But in order to erase the face of Pinochet from the face of Chile, they should do what they did in the past with the ancient kings: he should be buried with all of its belongings –his army, his State, his innumerable pages of laws and his Constitution. His death is only making obvious the various contradictions in today’s Chile.

September in Chile is the month of protests. It is the month where in protests and angry demonstrations throughout the country Chileans commemorate September 11th 1973, the day of Pinochets bloody (US facilitated) coup. Throughout Pinochets reign of terror September the 11th was marked by protests which were systematically and viciously repressed by the police. Although in 1990 Pinochet was forced to leave, the tradition of the September 11th protests has continued every year. This is because, despite the dictator's departure, little has in fact changed fundamentally in Chile.