Statements from Hunger Strikers in Chile: Pablo Morales Joins in the Hunger Strike which is now into the 41st Day!
BLOG POST posted on April 2, 2011 by Solidarity Beyond Borders
Blocking the street in solidarity, Buenos Aires
Art of anti-authoritarian hunger striker Felipe Guerra
Banner drop outside the "Centre for Justice," Santiago in solidarity
Freedom for the prisoners of the bombs case on hunger strike
Chilean Consulate occupied in Athens, Greece
Chilean Consulate occupied in Athens, Greece
Greetings to all who act in solidarity,
What follow are the first three statements sent out from anti-authoritarian and anarchist prisoners currently on day 41 of hunger strike in Santiago, Chile. We have re-posted the statements here to share thier beautiful words of struggle and to inspire solidarity.
On March 23rd, Pablo Morales, also imprisoned under preventative detention in the "Bombs Case," joined in the hunger strike increasing the number of participants to ten. The most curent updates are still untranslated from spanish and can be found at http://solidaridadporlxspresxs.blogspot.com.
For updates in English please refer to http://santiaskoanarquista.noblogs.org.
3rd Statement: Since the Beginning of the Hunger Strike
Posted on 03/13/2011 to santiaskanarquista.noblogs.org
Each day of this forced incarceration we review the 50 binders of “proof” from the investigation of the “Caso Bombas,” we find more reasons and spirit to continue with firm conviction our hunger strike we started on the 21st of Feb. to achieve the freedom we long for.
The binders are filled with 5 years of monitoring, tracking, and checkpoints of our movements laid out in print. Espionage by hundreds functionaries formed into various teams of the elite members of the Investigative Police (PDI) and the Carabineros, and coordinated by the National Agency of Intelligence (ANI), accumulated 60,000 recorded telephone conversations (1), in which our privacy was never important. Everything was ordered by a team of Prosecutors with an exclusive dedication, who asked for advice from Italian experts in anti-system groups and solicited advice from the very similar FBI in order to break up dissidents.
And what are the irrefutable proofs that this entire gigantic repressive apparatus wields to implicate us? In order to show but not dwell on this, we will give some examples:
1. A telephone conversation between Rodolfo Retamales and the mother of his child, during which he asked her if she had been giving the cat food and if his son was still lying down. According to the prosecution, this constitutes proof of “communicating in code”
2. A diagram found on Camilio Pérez Tamayo’s computer containing specific and transverse objectives, materials to utilize, etc. These educational plans are required for organization by all
schools.
3. A photograph of Felipe Guerra in which the youth is depicted writing his names and drawing an ACME type bomb on the beach.
4. The completion of only the minimum requirements and years in education. According to the prosecution, this constituted a “criminal plan” of the organization, yet they never mention that the accused studied General Education at the university.
5. 44 images referencing the locations of bombings occurring in the last years. According to the prosecution, this “proof” demonstrates the sophisticated technology applied in preparation for the bombings. What they have “forgotten” to mention in the hearing is that these archives were not created by any of the accused, but by the designers of the newspaper La Tercera and they were published on the newspaper’s website.
What should be noted is that none of the the “scientific evidence” puts us at the site of any bombing, there are no videotapes, no fingerprints, no DNA, there were not chemicals nor materials to build bombs in our houses that were raided on the 14th of August, none of the evidence is categorical, only presumptions and dreams of a prosecutor desperate for fame and glory who has had us locked up for over 200 days without a drop of concrete evidence.
We are accused of illicit association only for living and visiting squatted houses and radical libraries. What they intend to do is illegalize friendship, and to criminalize affections between individuals who have similar emancipatory ideas, and whom at least half had NEVER met each other before the formalization of the charges.
Although they have not demonstrated out responsibility for the bombings, the government has condemned us for a long time. Minister of the Interior Hinzpeter repeatedly asked for results from the National Prosecutors, who ceded to his pressure and took the old prosecutor off the case and put prosecutor Peña in charge, who in only 58 days “resolved” the intricate case, using the same “evidence” that the prior prosecutor had. Meanwhile, smiling and happy the President of Chile Sebastian Piñera declared: “I am happy to hear that our forces of order and security have been able to capture a band that acted with an illicit association to place bombs and terrorize the population.” (2) In every part of the world these words denote that a fair trial is impossible. But since then, the government has ridiculously assured that these statements are not to pressure the judges and that “there will be a fair trial.” ?!
Obviously this case signifies many things; the first is to make the public that the sophisticated investigation and the many resources wasted on control and vigilance have not been in vain. The second thing is to demonstrate to anyone and everyone who dissent, individuals or collectives, that they will be persecuted without piety by the authorities
Power intends to make the attacks on the institutions and symbols of capitalism into a “small Baghdad”, arguing that they “terrorize society.” Nothing could be further from reality! There has never been a single bombing that targeted people nor indiscriminate attacks against the general population. We have never met anyone who is afraid to go out into the street because they are afraid of being wounded by a bomb.
Because of this we believe that the anti-terrorist law is unfair. This fatal law, which has among its attributes the ability to globally use unidentified witnesses, the tripling of sentences, and requires the unanimous decision amongst judges for an appeal for release, when normally only a majority is required to decide.
We don’t think it is necessary to continue extending this statement. We believe that the the evidence backing the accusations brought against us is clearly weak, because since the inception of the “bombs case,” it has been a house of cards falling to pieces.
We affectionately salute all those who have supported us during these 7 months of imprisonment y and to all of those who have demonstrated their solidarity and spread our hunger strike. Our love and spirit go out to them.
We continue to demand:
1. IMMEDIATE FREEDOM
2. AN END TO THIS JUDICIAL-POLITICAL FARCE.
3. AN END TO THE INVESTIGATION PERIOD AND AN IMMEDIATE TRIAL
4. TO NOT BE PROCESSED UNDER THE ANTI-TERRORIST LAW, AND THE ABOLITION OF THIS DICTATORIAL LAW.
Santiago, March 10, 2011, 17 days since the beginning of the hunger strike.
Notes:
(1): Diario El Mercurio, August 15, 2010
(2): Diario La Tercera, August 16, 2010
Statement from Mónika Caballero
Posted on 03/12/2011 bysantiaskanarquista.noblogs.org
Dear Comrades:
It has almost been two weeks since we began the hunger strike, yet I did not have to wait for your solidarity, and your beautiful gestures have cast light into these dismal halls.
The traps of the persecutors are made to break or mold their own laws in order to create “new figures”. The decisions that will come into effect the 16th of March share these same characteristics, those accused in the “Caso Bombas” may face new charges (the best excuse to prolong preventative detention.) Their pranks do not surprise us, for the prosecutor needs more time to prove the untenable: an illicit association amongst people who do not relate in a hierarchical manner. Have no doubt… this is a political trial. Today, just like before, anti-authoritarian ideas send chills down the spineless backs of those who love the law, so it is of utmost importance to propagate the ideas and encourage the different struggles that aim for the destruction of domination.
The road is complex, the enemy mocks using the filthiest tricks possible: from preventing the drinking of water to laughing during every checkup, but it does not matter, because for each one of their attacks my skin becomes even harder still.
I send a strong embrace to my known comrades (and those I don’t know), to all the restless and unmanageable bodies and minds in every latitude: make sure that the hunt never ends.
Thanks to those of you who filled the halls and street with light!!!
Political prisoners from Aug. 14 on hunger strike to the streets!!!
DESTROY EVERY CAGE.
Mónika Caballero, Anarchist Political Prisoner Santiasko, $hile, CPF, SEAS
translated from:
http://libertadalos14a.blogspot.com/
Statement from Women’s Maximum Security Section
Posted on 02/24/2011 by ClaudiaLópezPresente
It’s difficult to summarize the events of the recent wave of repression, the coarse televised spectacle cements itself in the political-judicial-police machine, reproducing and drawing from the Italian process known as “Marini” and “Cervantes” during which various social centers and squatted houses were raided and the inhabitants charged with being an “Armed Gang.” Operation Salamander (a similar Chilean species) captured 14 people under the charges of Illicit Terrorist Association, and of transportation or placing of explosive devices.
Affectionate friendships were transformed and mutated into a hierarchical structure. Many of the arrested never even knew each other.Who would have guessed that the idea of living without reproducing power would lead to us being judged as an Illicit Association? The political functionaries maintain that the squatted houses were utilized as conspiracy centers to manufacture bombs; they say nothing of the libraries for whomever might have interest in engaging in solidarity. Now these books are mere articles strewn among “so much proof”. The prosecutor speaks of organic proof found in areas where there were indeed some attacks, motherboards would be the certainty such of scientific proof, another swift kick to the ass of the oppressors: for all the biological proof, none of it implicates those charged on the 14th of August. All of the DNA tests were done by force by the prison guards and police.
The wiles of the prosecutor reach absurd heights exemplified by the “Pakistani Case” surrounding the complicity of mediums of mass communication, which for years have cemented the anti-terrorist discourse, setting the stage for the hunt that August 14th. Besides bringing the weight of an investigation spanning over five years, the accusers are asking for 180 days of preventative detention, arguing for an even more exhaustive investigation, which will not stop with the testimony of Gustavo Fuentes Aliaga. Normally, under due process the defense would get the investigative folder prior to the formalization of the charges, within the “Bombs Case” said folder was given to the defense after almost 3 months of incarceration, and was also incomplete. Recently after over 170 days in prison the prosecutor has delivered the “classified pages.”
Modesty cannot exist among intrusions into the intimate life of the accused, from intimidating small children to hundreds of electronically monitored phone calls which only prove friendly ties among the co-accused.
Inside this prison (CPF) we have been faced with many different types of interrogations- formal and informal- on behalf of different functionaries of the prison; vigilantes, criminal sociologists, social workers, etc. They search for a declaration or the appropriate delinquent profile. We disclose this information not with a feeling of victimization, but in order to warn those who can see themselves in a similar position, power use all of its tentacles to prolong incarceration. Harassment effects all of our brothers and sisters, friends, comrades, proud families, who have never bent their heads before a jailer.
We are to be processed under the law inherited from the Dictatorship, that has as one of its attributes secret witnesses, who have been used in the judicial processes of the Mapuche people, whether civil or military. In addition, this law gives increased sentences for common crimes. Lifting the preventative detention would not be enough because if the prosecutor or Superior Court wanted to change this decision its needs a unanimous vote, whereas normally it only needs a majority, this is another pitfall of the legal system.
The blows are not just against those kidnapped on August 14th, but all those who question the current police state: exemplary punishment for anyone who will not be ruled.
It is by this that today Monday February 21st, it has been more than 180 days since the raids and investigation, we begin a mobilization with characteristics of an indefinite hunger strike. Using our bodies as a means of demands:
1. Immediate release for all of those charged from the 14th of August, not one day more. Immediate trial. 2. End to the Anti-Terrorist Law. No more secret witnesses, no more unanimous vote. 3. Transfer to/and better prisons.
These our are last words for you all, comrades: leave no space for forgetfulness, this did not begin on August 14th, nor will it end with us. Our action would be meaningless if left inside these cold walls, times are complex, we expect to stay on top of our situation here. Let your imagination run wild and turn these words into action.
In the struggle against all forms of domination: NO ONE IS ALONE!!!
Mónica Caballero Sepúlveda, Prisionera Política Anarkista. Andrea Urzúa Cid, Prisionera Política Libertaria.
Sección de Alta Seguridad (SEAS). Centro Penitenciario Femenino. Santiasko, $hile, 21 de Febrero de 2011.
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