In part of the Mapuche areas, namely the four provinces of Bío Bío, Arauco, Malleco and Cautín, the Chilean state declared a state of emergency on 12 October following the offensive of the struggle groups, which are multiplying land occupations and attacks on forestry interests. This has meant an increase in police roadblocks to prevent people from moving around and, above all, the occupation of the territory by armed forces who have come to reinforce the cops and carabinieri on the ground to protect the resource exploiters. Today, January 27, this state of emergency (called Estado de Excepción Constitucional) has just been renewed for the eighth consecutive time since October by the Parliament, setting its new expiry at February 24.
In an assessment of the first 100 days of this state of emergency at the beginning of January, President Piñera’s government boasted that nearly 56,700 checks on people and vehicles had been carried out in these two regions and 140 people had been imprisoned, resulting in a 44% drop in the number of “incidents of rural violence“. However, one cannot but notice that despite the heavy military occupation, the incendiary attacks, shootings and barricades against the cops have not at all stopped, officially going from 108 in the previous hundred days (July-September) to 89 since October. And even the arrival of the new left-wing leader, Gabriel Boric, who won the Chilean presidential election in December (he will take office on 11 March), has not changed the situation.
Continue reading Chile: the Mapuche struggle continues under a state of emergency
According to the students, this was far from being the first time.
violence inherent to life within the state and capitalist systems needs prison and injustice to legitimize itself and subsist; that crime and prison is a product of inequality and the treatment is in and of itself dehumanizing, in the way we have to live our lives in society and much more so inside the prisons. It is urgent to take collective action to change our reality and never again to exercise this type of violence used by the state and capitalism.
On Sunday 16th January we gathered in Claviere. We took the public space to finally give voice to Fathallah’s story, this border killed him. Fathallah, a 31-year old Moroccan arrived in France from Italy between 29th December and 1st January and was found dead on 2nd January in the basin of Freney, downstream of Modane. The eighth person we know to have died on this damned border in 3 years.
A mafia boss was arrested in Spain in December after 20 years on the wanted list after Italian anti-mafia cops used Google Street View to confirm their ‘traditional methods’ which led to information that he was running a hairdressing salon, a restaurant and a grocery shop in Galapagar, Spain. To his “How did you find me? It’s been ten years since I even called my family on the phone.” “We saw you on Google Maps”, was the reply.
Recent mobilizations against psychiatric restraint offered us some reflections and we looked for information concerning the debate on mechanical restraint, a practice that the State declares it wants to abolish with a three-year implementation which should end in 2023. It must be noted that in institutional documents themselves, evaluations start off from data and notes dating back to 2001 and that from these analyses they come to “recommendations” and “suggestions” which since, 20 years on haven’t had any practical confirmation: people continue to die with violence.