June 4, 2025 / informativoanarquista
Using Arms… They Don’t Resonate, They Explode – A Few Words About the Continuity of Insurrectional Action Against Those Who Oppress Our Lives: Between Universities and Laboratories
Self-determination and autonomy over our bodies in this world is a chimera; we know this. Within a system of domination that is spreading to more and more corners and dimensions, it seems not only improbable but actually impossible. Facial recognition machines controlling more and more accesses to buildings, an Artificial “Intelligence” that makes reality more indistinguishable from fiction every minute, genetically engineered foods and a seemingly infinite etcetera are part of the landscape our bodies inhabit.
Complete autonomy over our bodies doesn’t exist, but there have been numerous and repeated battles of some aspects that we could frame as self-determination: reproduction is one of these.
In the vortex between a moralistic conservatism under the cross or, on the other hand, the exponential increase of financial gains, the decision to continue or interrupt a pregnancy is subject to the perfect intersection between religion, capital and State. The sum of prohibitions and regulations around the most basic decisions are exposed when wanting or not wanting to bring children into the world. Abortion and contraception are under constant scrutiny.
But why intervene in the decision of whether or not to bring children into the world? Are we talking about a premeditated plan for the reproduction of the workforce? Total indifference towards a reality other than that of the ruling class? In truth, the existence of some initial motivation matters little, just as the miseries of the oppressed matter little. That the pharmaceutical companies increase their income even more or dream of building a society based on religious dogmas, are the only really legitimate reasons for them. All the rest are anecdotes, margin of losses or misguided lives.
At the forefront of domination, billionaires like Elon Musk see an increase in the birth rate as an urgent need. The birth of new children is urgently needed to overcome the unproductive aging of the population. A somewhat different vision of social eugenics and forced sterilizations against undesirable populations, such as those carried out by the Peruvian state against peasant women or the Swedish state against Roma.
But inside the buildings of power we can also find a granted dissidence, a sector just at the limit of what is allowed that is tolerated, where the struggle for bodily autonomy turns into electoral revenue. That breath fresh air meant not to depend on decisions of the church or calculations to reduce pharmaceutical costs translates into campaigns and slogans to finally, once and for all go from excluded to included. The feminist government of the Broad Front is the latest test. Not everything is passivity or pantomimes of fighting in processions/carnivals. Insurrectionary action takes the floor, or, more precisely, it has taken up action.
For the year 2008, the Constitutional Court prohibited the distribution of the so-called “morning after pill” for considering it an abortifacient. Strong pressure from conservative Catholic groups of the so-called “pro-life” euphemism had managed to impose its vision on millions. Thousands went back to the black market and mafias to get that pill that could allow them to decide about their own life and body.
While a massive rejection took form in the streets, some, obviously on a less mass-scale, managed to materialize their rage. Anonymous silhouettes went unnoticed when entering the University of the Andes, located in the rich neighborhood of San Carlos de Apoquindo. Impersonating students, teachers or perhaps toilet staff they managed to enter the women’s bathroom of this institution of higher learning without drawing attention and place an extinguisher full of explosives with a timer attached. Leaving no trace, the perpetrators disappeared. A phone call warned of the presence of the explosive device and urged that the site be evacuated. The authorities ignored the message, preferring to maintain apparent normality.
At 8:00pm, with students still in the classrooms, a powerful explosion managed to destroy a large part of the bathroom, interrupting the peace of the classes- and the peace of the upper class.
Known as one of the first private Universities, the University of the Andes was founded in 1989 by a group of businessmen inspired by Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer and actively linked to the Opus Dei. With Orlando Poblete, former Minister Secretary General of the dictatorship and rector of that school in 2008, courses in social sciences, law and medicine were taught in order to forge the discipline and morality of the ruling class.
A few days later, a text by “Insurrectionalist Federation” claiming responsibility for the action was disseminated on the internet: “It’s not enough to demonize and repress human sexuality… It’s not enough for them to legally prohibit the legitimate option of having recourse to abortion under optimal health conditions. It’s not enough for them. No, now the medieval court has ruled the prohibition of the drug called “the morning after pill”, adding another tier of institutional violence against individual freedom, the little left to us. They intend to impose the disgusting inquisition in which they still live on everyone else’s life. It is repression dressed in fascist robes that acts again, criminalizing bodies and shattering especially the female body, which has always terrorized them in their twisted castrated minds”.
From an anarchist and antipatriarchal perspective, the group visibilized the obvious relation between the most conservative sectors of the church with their university expression represented in said institution. This link emerges within the ruling class.
The “Insurrectionalist Federation” bombing must be understood within the cycle of explosive attacks that had been shaking the Chilean state for a couple of years. There were no arrests and by 2008 there had been almost one hundred bombings with TNT, black powder or incendiary devices.
The reproduction of the attack is evident. It wasn’t a question of one or two groups acting, but a number which, although indeterminate, represents an advance in anarchic practice. The “Insurrectionalist Federation” used this medium to engage in an honest informal dialogue with other groups, with those restless and motivated eyes that read this note: “We firmly believe in the use of all times and all methodologies to unmask and dynamite the structures that sustain the capitalist state and business in which we live. That’s why we believe it is necessary to approach the cradles of their existence so that the insurrection becomes part of their job: to attack them directly in order to destroy their horrendous kingdom of extravagance and unbridled selfishness. That is why we believe that subversive actions must be removed from the places where individuals imprisoned for exploitation live, for at this time they only contribute to make the already miserable life of those who eat rotting bread on the tables of accumulation more miserable.”
The classic informal communication that was formulated at the time by the Informal Anarchist Federation (FAI) in Italy in the early 2000s, was expressed in the offensive to the Chilean state with the suggestion of places to attack. Banks or other institutions of domination had already been destroyed in poor neighborhoods.
By May 2009, one of these various cells was preparing to attack the Prison Guard School. The accidental and anticipated detonation of the explosive takes the life of beloved anarchist comrade Mauricio Morales, unleashing a strong repression against his environment in the following months. Since then, May has become not only a month for remembrance but also for the projection of the insurrectional struggle, as the press has pointed out recently.
Since 2022 a series of attacks have been claimed by different anarchist cells grouped under an informal and diffuse network called “New Subversion”. Prison construction companies, rodeo corrals, grain trucks, financial conglomerates and buses have been targets of anarchist urban guerrilla. Despite the decline in explosive action and the targeted blows by the persuers of the South Prosecutor against comrades-in-action, over the last few years, these attacks have shown that conspiracy and attack are still ongoing.
During 2020 and then 2021, the serious damage in two batches of the contraceptive pill Ciclomex produced by the laboratory Abbot was national news. Dozens of boxes were distributed and sold with pills that lacked the active component. A mistake that would change the lives of countless women.
Without clear information and in the face of a wave of rumors, some midwives managed to raise the alarm about the situation and its terrible consequences: People who had consciously decided not to procreate could end up pregnant due to a laboratory error. The company lowered its profile and started a consumer survey, as if it were a toy missing a part or a defective appliance that led to hundreds of women impregnated against their will and without the possibility of abortion. A perfect crossroads between the religious, financial and legal system of the State. The triumph of social democracy represented by the Broad Front in 2022 with a feminist discourse as its focus didn’t pose any threat to the hand washing that was being carried out by Abbot laboratories.
For 2025, a new black may commemorated 16 years since Mauricio Morales fell in combat. In the streets, pamphlets, banners, barricades, gasoline, masks, activities and forums. But on the night of May 20, none of that could be perceived at first glance in the movement of a delivery through the streets of providence. The subject on a bicycle is captured by cameras when they stop for a few brief seconds to place an object in front of a large bulkhead and then continue on their way, getting lost in the city.
A few minutes later, a powerful bang knocks down the gigantic glass blocks that make up the bulkhead of Abbot Laboratories and destroys part of the main entrance. Anarco-delivery (as the press called it): no trace.
The “Belén Navarrete – New Subversion Revolutionary Cells” defends the attack via email: “This action is not an act of protest, much less of clemency; it is a deliberate act of revenge. A few years ago the distribution of defective contraceptive pills by Abbot – Recalcine laboratories caused hundreds of unwanted pregnancies. Given this situation the responsible companies offered a $38,900 peso compensation, not even close to half of what it took us to assemble this explosive device. Although many disagree with the method of action, let us at least agree that the sum offered is a mockery, just one more insult from the democratic dictatorship of business”.
The debt racked up by Abbot was clear and the insurrectionary action sought to make it pay. But this time, as in 2008, the action directed against that dimension of the patriarchy that submits our bodies was the precise occasion to take advantage of communicating with unknown but complicit comrades: “It’s necessary to take part in the anti-authoritarian offensive with the necessary tools that enhance our project of liberation. (…) The values of the anarchist offensive and revolutionary action confront capitalist alienation, and those who cover their faces with the veil of misery, with conviction and firmness. (…) For the creation of 1, 10, 100 cells of action, we continue writing our history of combat in act! For attack in all directions, we wager our strength in the creation of an international project!”
Once again, we speak through action and black may represents a fertile moment to establish that dialogue where memory and projectuality coexist in different dimensions without center or periphery. Words that travel from barricades to bombs, from activities to Molotov cocktails, from posters to conspiracies.
2008 and 2025 represent two moments of continuity in particular cycles where those who believe they own the bodies and decisions of the oppressed were confronted, showing us an insurrectional edge to confront a social conflict. In this way the anti-authoritarians don’t need to modify their language, simplify discourses or make pedagogical fables, but rather speak in our own language, attack the powerful and return blows. There are no forbidden territories or impositions of domination that our criticism and denial should avoid. The social war is composed of those innumerable actions and conflicts about which we have much to say and above all to do.
June 2025
Translated by Act for freedom now!