End of trial and final declarations of Francisco Solar and Mónica Caballero (Santiago, Chile, 6-7 November 2023)
(IT) Conclusione del processo e dichiarazioni finali di Francisco Solar e Mónica Caballero (Santiago, Cile, 6-7 novembre 2023)
(FR) Fin du procès et déclarations de Francisco Solar et Mónica Caballero (Santiago, Chili, 6-7 novembre 2023)
(GR) Σαντιάγο, Χιλή: Τέλος της δίκης και τελικές δηλώσεις των Francisco Solar και Mónica Caballero
The final hearings of the first instance trial against anarchist comrades Mónica Caballero and Francisco Solar, arrested on July 24th 2020 and accused (only Francisco) of sending parcel-bombs to the 54th police station and to Rodrigo Hinzpeter, ex minister of the interior and national defence as well as a director of the Quiñenco (25th July 2019), and both of the double explosive attack in the real estate building Tánica (27th February 2020), in the bourgeois district of Vitacura (in the metropolitan area of Santiago) which took place in the context of the generalised revolt that broke out in Chile in October 2019. The actions against the 54th police station and Hinzpeter were claimed by Cómplices Sediciosos – Fracción por la Venganza, while that of the Tánica by the Afinidades Armadas en Revuelta.
In December 2021 Francisco claimed responsibility for both of the actions, giving the reasons, choice of objectives and revolutionary significance.
On 10th August 2022, after a series of extensions to the investigation period, the preliminary hearings have been concluded and requests for conviction been announced: 30 years’ prison for Mónica and 129 years for Francisco (according to the current judicial system in the Chilean State the public prosecutor’s office makes the requests before the start of the actual trial phase, the juicio oral). On 18th July of this year, after a postponement the trial finally began, which the comrades only attended in person during the first procedure of according to the current judicial system and the last hearing, attending the rest by video-conference. During the July 18th hearing, the prosecutor, reformulating the initial requests, stated that the prosecutor’s office intends to inflict a sentence of 20 to 25 years on Mónica and one of over 150 on Francisco. During the hearing of 19th July Francisco reaffirmed assumption of responsibility for all the actions.
The arrest and hearings against the two comrades have been constantly followed by the mass media in Chile, given the importance of the trial, to send out a warning to anarchists and the forms of guerriglia that have developed in the social reality of Chile in recent years, starting from the generalised revolt of 2019-’20. The trial hearings were accompanied by a solidarity mobilization with agitation and propaganda activities, broadcasts on solidarity radio frequencies, street initiatives and debates, and the publication of a single issue (“Complicidad y sedición”). Publication “Complicity & Sedition” ENGLISH SPECIAL PUBLICATION IN THE FACE OF THE TRIAL AGAINST FRANCISCO AND MONICA I JULY 2023 A3 PRINT OUT
Below is the update on the verdict and the final statements of the comrades, present in court during the hearing of 6th November (These are transcriptions, so since there is no written draft, the punctuation is that of the translator).
Verdict against anarchist comrades Mónica Caballero and Francisco Solar
Yesterday, 7th November 2023, while a solidarity demonstration was being held outside, the court – after four months’ trial – issued its verdict against the comrades Mónica and Francisco.
Francisco was found guilty as perpetrator of:
– sending two explosive devices (to the 54th station of the carabineros and to Hinzpeter);
– attempted assasination of carabineros;
– serious injury concerning an officer of the carabineros;
– injury;
– five offences of minor injury;
– damage (54th police station);
– attempted assasination against Hinzpeter;
– two offences of placing an explosive device (Tánica building).
He was aquitted of the charge of identity theft.
Mónica was found guilty of complicity concerning the two charges of placing an explosive device (Tánica building), while she was acquitted of the charge of possession of marijuana.
To sum up, the court accepted almost all of the prosecutor’s requests except for, in Francisco’s case, one of the charges of attempted assassination (which was declassified to injuries) and the charge of identity theft (for which an acquittal was ordered); in the case of the comrade Mónica it modified her position from “author” of the deeds to “accomplice” and rejected some aggravating factors demanded by the investigators.
The court will issue the definitive sentence, including the years of imprisonment that will weigh on each of them, on December 7th.
We greet the black hearts that take responsibility for striking the powerful.
Love and anarchy to Mónica and Francisco.
———
Declaration of Francisco Solar Domínguez
Good morning,
The actions that I have taken responsibility for, which I have claimed politically and for which I will be sentenced, all belong to a long, specifically anarchist, historical tradition, which takes upon itself to return the blows of the powerful and the repressors in person and without the need for intermediaries; because if someone thought that their policies of terror, based on impositions and restrictions of every kind, as well as repressive waves (in which they even, often and willingly, trample on their own legality that they talk so much about defending and respecting), would have passed unobserved and not provoked a response, they were very wrong.
We are many who know how to wait for the right moment to act, to conceive memory not as a trunk in which to store memories to contemplate and complain about, but rather as a motor that gives impulse to avenging action as part of our permanent political practice that feeds on our history, with our successes and our defeats.
And it was this mnemonic exercise that nourished the individual actions that I carried out in the years 2019 and 2020; individual actions that did not require either consensus or collective agreement, but which were the result of analyses, of personal decision and will, actions that for some others were part of and undoubtedly strengthened the anarchist urban guerrilla, which does not disappear despite the constant repressive blows, demonstrating in deeds the practicability and effectiveness of informal relations orientated towards revolutionary action. Moreover demonstrating how a large organisational structure is not necessary for the realisation of incisive actions.
In this sense, it is important to note how the large rigid and stable organisations quickly become an end in themselves, that is, they organize just to fortify the organization itself unlike the informal organizations that base their relationships on attack, giving them the dynamism that prevents them from becoming rigid and taking on the appearance of a bureaucratic logic.
Actions, as well as being strikes aimed against the representatives and symbols of power, and as well as demonstrating that it is possible to accomplish such attacks, are also a means for spreading ideas and messages, messages of rebellion and freedom that will be received and put into practice by anyone who desires. Messages that are linked with these actions constitute a real danger for the imposed order.
And I speak of imposed order because in this society there is no social contract to which individuals have delegated their freedom to the State in exchange for freedom and security – an approach that incidentally forms the foundations of modern States – but, on the contrary, the State is founded on the historical dispossession of the freedoms of individuals, subjecting and limiting them in more and more aspects of their lives, which strengthens and perpetuates State rule. The State is no longer just an institution it is found in each of our relations, making State power even more complex and extensive, and so actions against the State are not only justified , but are absolutely necessary. And of course, – as Mr Public Prosecutor also said in his final indictment – “Let us allow him to speak!” but words bound to revolutionary action, because words that claim to build new relationships without authority, must necessarily go hand in hand with revolutionary action.
A growth and proliferation of anarchist groups in recent times cannot be denied, which has led to the fact that anti-authoritarian words and practices are present in most of the current mobilizations and riots. Seeing anarchy as a tension rather than a point of arrival, and meaning it as a permanent struggle against any expression of authority rather than a perfect society or an earthly paradise as many suggest, we understand how these violent individual actions are an indispensable part of this path of liberation. I want to make it very clear that actions like these are not the first nor will they be the last along this path, but, as I have already said, they are part of a historical continuum that will not disappear; even if we are sentenced to decades of imprisonment, and even if they kill us, there will always be individuals and groups of individuals who are prepared to respond to the brutality of the State and capitalism: that is inevitable.
Finally, I want to take this opportunity to send a complicit greeting to the anarchist and subversive prisoners struggling in this country’s prisons.
Long live anarchy!
[6th November 2023]
—–
Declaration of Mónica Caballero Sepúlveda
I will try to be fairly brief as I had decided not to speak here, but I think it is necessary to clarify a few specific points regarding some of the statements that have been made, by the prosecution in particular.
I have decided to make a final statement therefore at this trial with its aim to be an exemplary punishment, because I cannot let pass the opportunity to defend and clarify a series of aspects that have to do with the ideas that I have defended and adopted in practice for the last 20 years of my life.
Mr Prosecutor asked my co-defendant if I am anarchist. And, yes, of course I am an anarchist, but what does that mean? In saying anarchism I am referring to a set of ideas and practices which, framed in principles such as mutual aid, solidarity and self-management, build ideas and practices which are inscribed in destruction and construction; what do I mean by this? the construction of what is…
When I refer to anarchism I mean that set of ideas and practices which, on the basis of principles such as mutual aid, solidarity and self-management, build the conditions so that all individuals… build the conditions for everyone to develop in an integral way, yet at the same time these conditions aim at the destruction of every form of domination.
What do I mean by “every form of domination”? The forms of domination such as, for example, the present system of economic oppression, namely capitalism, and also the hegemony of political power, that is, the present State.
We anarchists have a wide range within these practices, as the Prosecutor has said. Violence exists among anarchist practices, but this is not just the prerogative of anarchism, just as anarchism does not see violence as its only practical expression; and yes, there are comrades who have placed devices, or have sent explosive devices, but I insist: this practice of political violence does not belong to anarchism alone and anarchism does not just mean political violence.
In relation to all this, I must necessarily ask a question and answer it at the same time: what characterises anarchist practice? Anarchist practices, violent or not, necessarily belong to and draw inspiration from anti-authoritarian ideas. We cannot separate the idea from anarchist anti-authoritarian practice, also revolutionary in a wide spectrum, without taking into account the complementarity of idea and practice. That is to say, anarchist practices do not exist without the backbone of ideas. By clarifying this important question between idea and practice, I can categorically say that any anarchist practice, violent or not, will never be addressed indiscriminately.
The Prosecutor, in one of his statements, I beg your pardon, during his indictment, mentioned a very apt ancient concept of us anarchists: he referred to propaganda by the deed. The Prosecutor’s perspective on propaganda by the deed, or what he tried to explain in relation to this concept, is an extremey short-sighted way of seeing it, basically because he tried to frame it within the historical context of its apogee. If I remember rightly, between the late 1800s and early 1900s, during a congress in London, a group of anarchists from various parts of the world took propaganda by the deed as practice, and this propaganda by the deed was incarnated through assassinations, the placing of explosive devices and a long list of other episodes. But propaganda by the deed is much more than this. What I am doing, and what my co-defendant in this same trial, with our words, is propaganda by the deed; that’s the point: that all goes far beyond the mere exercise of violence, and specifically explosive devices.
I must also point out that in this trial, as well as in all the other criminal trials in which I have been accused as well as those against comrades both in Chile and other parts of the world that I have been a spectator at, our political vision has always been assimilated with criminal acts, and I think it is curious, to say the least, that this investigative aspect has always been denied, otherwise what would have been the sense of the seizing of dozens, not to say hundreds, of books, hundreds or thousands of leaflets, posters, pamphlets, and so on? I do not understand whether it has no other purpose than to study our conception of the world or our way of understanding politics or the clash with domination, and I do not understand why this aspect is always denied.
As I have already said, I am anarchist, therefore enemy of every form of domination, submission or oppression through any power structure, for which the State, in all its forms and representations, is illegitimate. Starting from the idea that this, the same State, was created and consolidated starting from the idea of the common good or at least the good of the great majority, which is very far from the truth, I live in a world where a privileged group exists at the cost of the misery of the great majority. Building forms that are antagonistic to power relations is necessary for the full development of all the inhabitants of this world, both human and animal.
Finally, I can tell everyone here that I am awaiting the verdict of this court quite calmly, because I know that the ideas of emancipation to which I have devoted a good part of my life transcend myself.
Lastly, to those present and to all my comrades here as well as those who hear or read my words later, I can say that till my very last breath, I will always yell: death to the State and long live anarchy!
[6th November 2023]
Translated from Italian by Act for freedom now!
