San Miguel prison – Page 4

Chile: Text of anarchist comrade Mónica Caballero from San Miguel prison

Posted on 2021/10/12 - 2021/10/12 by darknights

This week marks 8 years since various groups of the Anarchist Black Cross (ABC) and different individuals around the world raised the initiative to maintain a week of international solidarity with imprisoned anarchists, and that this week coincides with the day on which the anniversary of the legal murder of anarchists Bartolomeo Vanzetti and Nicola Sacco by the U.S. government in 1927 is commemorated.

The official history written by the powerful plus the progressive democratic left and a part of anarchism have been especially concerned with creating a victimized image of Sacco and Vanzetti and far from any illegalist practice. All this based on the recognition by the American judicial apparatus that within the criminal process that condemned Sacco and Vanzetti there were many irregularities and that they would be legally “innocent” (information that became known many years after the murder of the comrades). Probably the comrades had no relation with the expropriation of South Braintree, which is important to know and make visible, as it is also important to emphasize that Sacco and Vanzetti were anarchists of action, who propagated anti-authoritarian ideas and exercised different illegalist practices.

In the territory we call the USA in the early 1900s there were several informal anarchist groups dedicated to expropriations and to the spread of ideas antagonistic to domination. Nicola and Bartolomeo actively participated in one of these groups, specifically in the one surrounding the newspaper “Cronaca Sovversiva”. These last elements “the official history” has omitted them as in the same way they have taken special care not to remember the international solidarity that the comrades had during the year 1927. There were many demonstrations of repudiation in different localities of the political/legal/police process, as well as explosions in the name of Sacco and Vanzetti, one of the best known being the action that destroyed the Italian consulate in Buenos Aires.

It is not by chance that those who sustain the Power and its false critics use and make up the history related to Sacco and Vanzetti, certainly it is not the first time and it will not be the last.

The repressive apparatuses of the State break with their own legality constantly: they create montages, rape, torture and a long etc… These practices, for those of us who position ourselves as enemies of the hegemony of Power, should not surprise us… Trusting in the democratic legality of the State is not part of my political construction. This does not mean that I intend to naturalize the abuses exercised by the powers of the State on a daily basis; making visible is not the same as being a victim.

I see a week of solidarity specifically with anarchist prisoners as one more occasion to make visible what happens behind the high walls. Prison for me is yet another scenario of confrontation, which is felt in the smallest and most everyday things.

The first step I took in a prison was a long time ago, since then I have never stopped feeling the solidarity of my comrades, that solidarity I have had in a fraternal embrace or in a beautiful seditious light in some icon of Power.

94 years after the legal assassination of the anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti, nothing and nobody is forgotten.

Those who fight against Power do not cease to be remembered.

Source: Publicacion Refractario

Chile: Text of Mónica, Marcelo, Juan, Joaquin, Francisco and Juan before the trial against comrade Pablo Bahamondes: Let’s multiply the gestures of solidarity and insurrectionary complicity

Posted on 2021/10/12 - 2021/10/12 by darknights

Our comrade Pablo Bahamones Ortiz was arrested along with Herny Mendez (today imprisoned in the former penitentiary of stgo) and Hugo Moraga (in the street after an abbreviated trial that sentenced him to 3 years) while they were being transported in a vehicle on September 8, 2018 under an investigation regarding an explosive attack occurred in April 2017 in the Corporation of Judicial Assistance of Melipilla for which the prosecution asks him 13 years in prison. In addition in said vehicle are found various handmade weapons for which Pablo is accused of manufacturing, transporting and carrying weapons and ammunition, specifically 6 shotguns, 1 box of cartridges, 1 revolver and 12 shots, asking the prosecution 23 years, totaling a total of 36 years of prosecutorial request.

His option and positioning for the permanent confrontation that led him to prison has been maintained and deepened inside the prison being an undeniable contribution both in the intra-prison struggles and in those that take place outside these walls uninterruptedly and without pause. This way of understanding and carrying out life in prison breaks with the passive figure of the victim prisoner that places him as a mere recipient of solidarity aid, positioning the comrade as an active subject in the uprising of varied and confrontational initiatives such as the hunger strike that we carried out together for 50 days demanding the repeal of the amendment to Law 321 and for the release of our comrade Marcelo Villarroel.

It is from this combative stance that as anarchist and subversive prisoners we call for solidarity with Pablo during the trial that will begin on September 27th using all the means at our disposal and all our imagination that allows us to generate constant complicit initiatives as well as to strike hard blows to power. Continue reading “Chile: Text of Mónica, Marcelo, Juan, Joaquin, Francisco and Juan before the trial against comrade Pablo Bahamondes: Let’s multiply the gestures of solidarity and insurrectionary complicity” →

Anarchic and subversive words from Chilean prisons, in the framework of the international week for anarchist prisoners

Posted on 2021/09/01 - 2021/09/01 by darknights

Shouts of war; true sounds of freedom!!!

In this week of solidarity with the anarchist prisoners we make an open call to war, to continue and intensify the conflict against every expression of Power and to strengthen the bonds of affinity for combat among all the anti-authoritarian sectors that exist and walk common paths.

It is from this position that we remember comrades Sacco and Vanzetti as part of the broad sector of anarchic illegalism, who were called “the Galleanists”, who with bombs, expropriations and executions made the American soil tremble at the beginning of the last century. Supported by the creation and multiplication of affinity groups and violent action, the illegalists expanded anarchic ideas from the facts, understanding that word and action are inseparable.

Since then much water has passed under the bridge, many have been the deaths and many prisons have seen the passing of comrades who have proudly confronted Power from the place where it has been their lot to be, nevertheless the ideas that translate into affinity and action have endured and are those that today motivate us anarchists and subversives of the territory dominated by the Chilean State to continue the war from this confinement and in the streets, always bearing in mind the necessary harmony between prisoners and supportive and complicit environments that walk from the confrontation with the normality of the existing. Continue reading “Anarchic and subversive words from Chilean prisons, in the framework of the international week for anarchist prisoners” →

Chile: ‘The wind brings good signs’. Communiqué of anarchist comrade Mónica Caballero Sepúlveda

Posted on 2021/08/24 - 2021/08/24 by darknights

As I write this reflection on the day that marks one year since the Chilean State kidnapped Francisco and me, I hear the voices of comrades demonstrating outside the prison. On the other side of the bars, fences and walls, there are restless hands and hearts acting for those of us inside the cages of capital. On this occasion, not only did their shouts reach me, but I also received a pamphlet. The wind brought a beautiful and unexpected gift: beautiful anarchist propaganda!

For those of us who do or have done anti-authoritarian propaganda actions, many times we do not dimension the consequences that these can have on other people. In principle, the objective of any propaganda is to deliver a message, which ideally incites or inspires others to act against the current system of terror. But, perhaps, the receiver of this message will not act, will not be affected by the appeal and will remain a passive spectator. In that case, it is worth asking ourselves, perhaps the propaganda was not effective enough, what is it that leads an individual to confront what dominates him or her? Likewise, what drives someone to live passively in a world of misery and oppression?

I asked myself these kinds of questions on many occasions, sometimes I thought I had found answers but with time I understood that individual freedom, that is, the decisions and actions of others, cannot and should not be measured or foreseen. To speak of individual freedom in the first instance, there must be knowledge of reality and of the factors that create or limit it. In order to decide, it is necessary to know, and propaganda is fundamental in the latter.

In my case, what pushed me to take the path of permanent conflict was undoubtedly the propaganda of others (among other factors). My political knowledge would have been very different if I had not been the recipient of endless propaganda. I don’t know if it was a pamphlet, a street scratch, a communiqué, etc. or maybe it was the set of messages, slogans that led me to question and confront the hegemony of power and the society that sustains and needs it.

Today a simple piece of paper broke all the suggestive measures of this prison and flew to me. This propaganda in this place takes on an extra aspect; it showed me that no matter how much power has or pretends to have us prisoners who fight for a world where only mutual support and solidarity rule, we will never be alone.

We need a lot of propaganda, we need a lot of direct actions, if we want to hit capitalism and the relations it generates, as well as the imposed hegemony of power.

I take this opportunity to send a strong fraternal embrace to the Vergara Toledo family. Luisa Toledo was a propagandist who contributed greatly to the proliferation of many generations of young fighters.

Death to the state and long live anarchy!

Mónica Caballero, anarchist prisoner
San Miguel Prison
July 2021.

Source: Buscando La Kalle

Chile: Against Sectarianism. For an Affinity Supported in Practice. Words from compañerxs Monica and Francisco EN/ES

Posted on 2021/08/01 - 2021/08/01 by darknights

Facing what we see as direct interpellations towards us, the need arises to write this text to make clear the issues.

As we have written on several occasions both individual and collectively, we understand anarchy not as an embodiment or place of arrival, but as a tension, a permanent confrontation in the first personm putting at the center the search for individual freedom. For us, this constant struggle has been real, which is why we find ourselves today behind bars. This situation has not prevented us from continuing to participate in struggle initiatives both inside and outside the jail.

In short, anarchy for us is an ethics and a permanent practice against authority, a practice in which we have met with others (not necessarily “anarchists”), enriching and enhancing our visions and capabilities, as well as forging close relationships of complicity, strengthened in the course of years and confrontation. To designate that these relationships can only be established with those who are called “anarchists,” apart from being a fallacy that can only be believed by those who have not ventured to travel the paths of the conflict and spend their time in front of the computer, is something that we reject from the moment when we prioritize establishing links over repeating empty slogans until you get enough. To self-identify as “irreducible anarchists” does not mean anything without being accompanied by a confrontational practice that sustains it.

On the other hand – and most importantly – assuming that anarchists only should relate to anarchists reflects an absurd purism and a sectarianism that, without a doubt, is an expression of authoritarianism. Establish coordinations and joint struggle initiatives only between those who are self-defined “anarchists” is to restrict and limit greatly our relationships and with this our chances of growing. It is to lock up stupidly in dogmatisms that restrict us and prevent us from free association. So, we see how in the name of freedom, some raise absolutely the opposite, setting sects as the basis for relationships.

With this, we do not want to say that we establish indiscriminate relationships or do not have a type of filter.

We have left clear points that for us are impassable in previous communications; repentances, dissociations and institutionality corresponds to some red lines that constitute insurmountable aspects that prevent carrying out any joint initiative with those who opt for these roads. As you can appreciate, these points do not correspond to empty labels but are concrete, in ways of living in prison and not only here. They are options that generate a total contradiction between what is said and what what is done. Well, maybe for some, the only value is what incendiary proclamations are said online or on some social network. On the contrary, we prioritize the practice and from there, we are establishing affinities and ruptures.

And certainly, authoritarian practices represent a point that we will not tolerate. We have never established fighting relationships based on authoritarianism and the experience of anarchist and subversive prisoners is no exception. The common points we have between all of them are a lot stronger than the discrepancies that we can have, discrepancies that evidently, do not represent insurmountable aspects, since if it were so, we would have set aside from the beginning of this initiative. The ties that unite us with the comrades have been forged in the confrontation. Inside as outside the jail, for more than a decade, meaning for us a relationship and enriching experience that, undoubtedly, has nourished, strengthened and qualified our anarchic path. Today, in this new confinement situation, this joint initiative is not new, but the last year has counted on important mobilizations that allow us to develop interesting projections. Now, as we affirm it in the article “about the need for continue the fight within the prison” of the magazine Kalinov MOST 4, the anarchist prisoners have broken with certain codes inside of the prisons, installed and reproduced by the members of the armed left groups from the ’80s, codes that mainly had to do with the reproduction of organic-partisan logic inside jail and also with establishing a ratio of superiority with respect to the rest of the penal population. They have been in charge of keeping live subversive codes with which we feel identified and that we see indispensable to incorporate and live. We refer to a refractory position and attitude against the prison institution that grants a particular identity, view and recognition both by social prisoners and the jailers. We also refer to the undeniable fact of continuing the fight within the prison, to show in practice that with the confinement nothing ends, that It is only another struggle, which breaks with victimism. Many times in the struggle for liberty of prisoners, comrades for decades have raised and taken forward an anti-carceral practice that has pierced the walls that divide the street and jail. These are just some of the subversive codes that we share with the comrades, who reinforce our ties of affinity in the task everyday and we are moving away from those who, even calling themselves anarchist, diverts away from the fight or is completely disconnected from this. What do these purists and so-called “anarchists” who are completely disconnected from these ideas and practices do when they face a trial or are in prison? We reiterate, we establish relationships based on common practices, not on the basis of words or incendiary announcements published on the Internet. Finally, we see the need to refer to the danger that sectarianism or purism represents within our spaces, apart from authoritarian relationships mentioned above.

From our clear anarchic positioning, supported in the permanent conflict and in individual freedom, we are establishing relationships and coordinations that potentiate us and strengthen us on this path for total liberation.

As the incendiary comrades of Conspiracy of Cells of Fire said a few years ago: Solidarity with Anarchist Prisoners and Those that Do No Repent of all Revolutionary tendencies!

TODAY WE SAY: Comrades Pablo Bahamondes, Marcelo Villarroel, Juan Aliste, Juan Flores and Joaquín García: To the street!

Mónica Caballero Sepúlveda. C.p.f San Miguel.

Francisco Solar Domínguez. C.p. Rancagua.

Translated by AMW
Continue reading “Chile: Against Sectarianism. For an Affinity Supported in Practice. Words from compañerxs Monica and Francisco EN/ES” →