At around noon on Thursday, October 21, there was a violent attack by prison guards – more than 50 – with the aim of tyrannizing the prisoners – less than 20 – who were in the courtyard at the time in section 1 of the maximum security of the Rancagua prison. It is in this context that, along with an equal number of social prisoners, the comrades of the section confronted the cops’ arrogance and stood up to the executioners’ orders, refusing to obey in order to protect their unshakable dignity.
Perhaps we should explain that the usual modus operandi of the prison administration in this prison is to try to bend and break the will of the individual, ordering prisoners to perform degrading acts such as putting their hands behind their backs, standing face to the wall, or doing squats, forms of submission that are constantly refused by the imprisoned anarchist and subversive comrades because they understand well the importance of the right to freedom of expression. There is no textbook that explains this analysis, it is their own conscience and ability to learn from the mistakes of each of our comrades that has led them to choose this path. It is also logical that this kind of response from our comrades leaves the prison guards with a bitter taste in their mouth, which often culminates in violence… This was one of those cases.
After the comrades refused to carry out these acts, the jailers came forward and confronted them verbally and physically, with the result that the comrades Juan Flores and Joaquín García were punished with 24 hours’ solitary confinement, with the arbitrary excuse of “active resistance”, something that heavily affects their state of conduct inside the prison (fundamental point for demanding rights such as bail or Sunday leave), not without first being beaten and sprayed with pepper spray, as well as having had to hear nazi and patriotic bravado in support of the ultraconservative Kast (José Antonio Kast, president of the Partido Republicano and candidate for the presidency of Chile, who presents himself as the political heir of Pinochet; Ed.), the only president who would allow anarchists to be killed in prison.
It is not their way to play the role of the victim, in this clash our comrades were not defeated, they resisted the guards’ humiliating orders and this makes them neither victims nor executioners, they face their daily life in prison proudly, they know they are anarchists and subversives, they do not need anyone’s permission to live and put anarchy into practice in their daily lives. The fact that they were the ones to take the blows does not mean this will always be the case, they have shown it and will continue to do so; this is the dynamic of the conflict.
Two key points, to close this text.
1 – There are several reasons why this information was not made public earlier; first, we always need the consent of the comrades concerned, we are a horizontal group of like-minded people and we completely respect individual freedom, we would never spread anything that violated a comrade’s privacy; secondly, because they are the ones who can give the most accurate account of the situation and their experience; thirdly, it is not part of our practice to spread false, exaggerated or distorted news, we do not do politics on the basis of lies, those of the world around us are enough.
2 – We are aware of the support networks that assist our comrades and friends, who care about their well-being far from any form of assistance or christian morality; we walk hand in hand with them, without protagonism and in all horizontality, this is part of their reality as anarchist and subversive prisoners; however, there is also a gigantic portion of social prisoners who, although they are for the most part far from being in affinity with our comrades, share their daily life and their prison conditions; it is for them and for all the prisoners that it is necessary to constantly give an account of the prison reality, this is also an attack on the prison and the society that strives to support it.
In several of the country’s prisons, and in particular in that of Rancagua, the practice of torture is constant: it is frequent to see prisoners “reduced to shreds” by the torturers, sprayed with pepper spray to the point of asphyxiation or even stabbed in the punishment cells, where no eye of this panopticon can see; not to mention the fact that it is often the prison administration that creates the conditions that make situations of violence explode, where it is the prisoners to be the worst struck. In the prison of Rancagua more than 9 prisoners have died in the last 3 months already; they can state they were not killed by the prison administration, but it is clear that it is as if they had been: the overcrowding of the prison is critical and the conditions in which the vast majority of prisoners live is even worse… We are against prison and authority, in all its forms.
For the destruction of prison and the society that justifies it!
Solidarity and active complicity with the anarchist and subversive prisoners in struggle in the Chilean prisons!
Buscandolakalle information bulletin on subversive and anarchist prisoners in the Chilean prisons
this context that, along with an equal number of social prisoners, the comrades of the section confronted the cops’ arrogance and stood up to the executioners’ orders, refusing to obey in order to protect their unshakable dignity.