Phoenix Project, Act 8: Action with incendiary/explosive device against a Board of Elections office and in solidarity with Mónica Caballero and Francisco Solar. (Chile)
We are not spectators, but convinced enemies of all forms of domination.
Today, wielding the weapons of life and the ideas of rebellion, we wanted to give away a bit of anarchic momentum.
Today, we decided to attack the 98th Board of Elections office in La Reina commune [in Santiago] with an incendiary/explosive device, because we are convinced that the current state of affairs is sustained not only by those who administer domination, but also in the servile attitude of those who tacitly endorse it.
This is also another cog of the democratic gear, due to its role in logistically organizing the entire electoral process at regional level. In simple terms, it appoints the board members of voting tables, the designated scrutineers of electoral commissions, and delegates from election offices, in addition to being the body that determines the polling stations.
We don’t camouflage our obscure intentions.
Why go on the attack? Anarchy should not spend energy in obstructing the passage of a load of citizens toward the democratic rite of elections, but rather try to demonstrate that any debate between the refractories and authority is impossible. Anarchy must seek confrontation, instead of the promising appeal to amend the wrong path.
Appeals for not voting, building the Popular Power, marking the vote with the initials “AC” (Constituent Assembly), for a null vote, a blank vote, or voting for the “lesser evil” are nothing but an expression of disclaimers in citizenist language, and never put a strain on authoritarian domination.
The only truly worthy response amid so much misery is the anti-authoritarian offensive in its multiple facets and forms. It is the incitement to arson by any means. It is the arson itself, the idea that motivates it, and also the hands that concretize it, the unwavering will of those who fight to the last breath, with the means they have at hand.
Against democracy, against the misery of some anarchists.
It seems we are witnessing a sacralization of democracy, as it is on everyone’s lips. Citizens and purported revolutionaries bet on it as an ideal future. Apparently, the whole spectrum of positions that the political weirdos hold is to make the existent perfect, or bring it truly into reality. Those who believe in electoral tactics, as well as those who reject them, agree on this point: the problem is not democracy but its management.
An anarchic position sets the rejection of any type of domination as the order of the day, thus it does not stop at problems of shape: neither as historical order nor as social dynamics does democracy mean a path of liberation. The struggle for more democracy equals the struggle for deepening a social system that hides the conflict emerging within it, the very conflict on which it is founded.
At the local level, apparently no one remembers that there have been gross concessions in favor of democracy from spectra claimed by anarchists and libertarians. Or is it perhaps that no one recalls the ephemeral flirt of several members of the Libertarian Communist Organization with the electoral coalition “Together We Can” here, in Santiago, a few years ago? “Anarchists”, communists, humanists and the sort, all holding hands and letting out an occasional burst of laughter. Critical support? Simple platformist chutzpah.
What deserves a special mention is that one Libertarian Network who have openly supported today one of the current presidential candidates of the parliamentary left. Is it necessary to ask ourselves what sort of anarchist supports a possible president? That’s spitting in the face of each comrade that decided to affirm anarchy by magnicide (assassination of a ruler).
On the other hand, there are those who seek to broaden their militant base at all costs, just like politicians do. For the Anarchist Revolution Current (CRA) is not enough to falsify the recent history of anarchic struggle in this territory, wrapping a supposed protagonism and an alleged and “unsustainable” police hostility about their especifist organizing. Now they also attempt to demonstrate their repudiation of the electoral process tossing up the flags of their organization. Anarchic action must be propaganda of struggle, not of this or that group or organization of anarchist chiefs.
Both the former and the latter expect to earn something back from all this, while those involved in the electoral circus at least have the honesty to not hide the intentions that motivate them. Those who superficially criticize domination, with lots of opposition rhetoric, neither deserve our respect nor are they comrades of ours.
It should therefore come as no surprise that electoral tactics are reproduced in other political and organizational scales, too, where the ballot box, voting or a show of hands are imposed and validated as methods for decision making in student federations, organizations of the left, assemblies and even some autonomous collectives. A good and disgusting example of this is the recent election of a libertarian young girl, who was transformed into President of the Federation of Students of Chile, and argues that anarchism is a “profoundly democratic” historical movement.
Those looking to have a grandstand for their organization in the market of politics also fall into the game that they reject so much. And this being the big picture, parliamentarists and the anti-election left coincide with certain “libertarian anarchists” in strategy: the dispute over spaces of Power.
Active minorities for the anti-state and anti-authoritarian combat.
Uncontrollable anarchy is not subjected to democracy and its values. It does not speak of majorities, consensus, or fundamental rights. It does not bend over the head for some shares of Power, much less wait for better times to experience its struggle. Today we are practicing, in all parts of the globe, irregular warfare against domination.
We are considering conflict in these parameters; those who expect revolutionary armies or popular militias do not even understand the nature of the current war. If conflict is asymmetric, then let’s bite and disappear (hit and run), let’s engage in hostilities against the enemy wherever they are, in every place, even within every single one of us. Far from any militaristic drift, let’s fight Power in a multiform manner, with autonomous action, and organized from informality.
The attack is not only possible, it is also necessary. Let’s generate situations and means to continue experiencing the conflict, and let’s practice our advances wherever they arise.
Face to face with the enemy.
We know that this spirit expands internationally like the black plague, and this is what inflames our burning desires to move onward. Gestures of struggle like those of Alfredo Cospito and Nicola Gai make us feel, even thousands of miles away, the urgency to contribute a grain of sand to this immense shore of anarchic insurrection. To those who do not bow down to the lion’s den, those who affirm their motivations facing the executioner, to Nicola and Alfredo our sincere respect and complicity.
While planning this action we heard about the sad accident of comrade Ilya Eduardovich Romanov, who was injured from the explosion of a homemade device in western Russia. We were really struck at this news; we recalled similar incidents that occurred in Chile, and it reminded us of how fragile the path of those who struggle is, but it also gave us more strength and dedication at the moment we moved onward with our preparatory acts. Tonight our heart was with yours, Ilya; this is a small gesture towards you, our own way of embracing you from a distance, and wishing you a quick recovery.
For each step tonight was accompanied by the irreducible and dignified attitude of all our brothers and sisters and comrades kidnapped in different parts of the planet. Those who remain day by day in struggle, unyielding and unrepentant… should know they are neither alone nor forgotten: Marcelo Villarroel, Juan Aliste Vega, Freddy Fuentevilla, Hans Niemeyer, José Miguel Sánchez, Alberto Olivares, Nicolás Sandoval, Victor Montoya, Marco Camenisch in Switzerland, Gabriel Pombo Da Silva in Spain, Sonja Suder in Germany, Nicola and Alfredo in Italy, the comrades who resist the grand jury in the US, the urban guerrillas of the Conspiracy of Cells of Fire, the Revolutionary Struggle, and the comrades detained for the double robbery in Kozani [Greece], who are facing trial soon. To irreducible Henry Zegarrundo in Bolivia, and also to the comrades who have faced their arrest in Villa Francia [in Santiago] on September 11th, 2013 in dignity and without victimization.
To conclude, we have turned the fire and explosion of our desires for freedom into action, and thus send our revolutionary solidarity to Mónica Caballero and Francisco Solar, comrades from Chile who were kidnapped by the Spanish State in the early hours of November 13th, accused of installing an explosive device which was vindicated by the Insurrectional Commando Mateo Morral in October this year.
While the States of Chile and Spain implement mechanically once again their well-known discursive, repressive and juridical strategy against supposed anarchist criminal organizations of international character, we send strength to our comrades, regardless of whether or not they’re responsible for the facts of which they’re accused.
We call for international solidarity with Mónica Caballero, Francisco Solar and the rest of the arrestees in Spain.
We dedicate this action to these comrades, intending also to contribute in the revival and multiplication of direct action in this territory. This is why we salute, despite out differences, the groups that carried out attacks this month against banks scattered around the city.
Solidarity with comrades pursued by Power: Diego Ríos and Felicity Ryder.
No truce with domination.
Memory and action for slain comrade Mauricio Morales!
Memory and action for slain comrade Lambros Foundas!
Long Live Ilya Romanov Cell
In affinity with Black International
_
Translators’ notes:
– Phoenix Project comprises the following acts so far:
#1 Greece (June 7, 2013), #2 Greece (June 12, 2013), #3 Indonesia (June 26, 2013), #4 Greece (July 2013), #5 Indonesia (August 24, 2013), #6 Greece (September 2013), #7 Russia (October 2, 2013), #8 Chile (November 16, 2013)
– Some estimates suggest that the arrest of the 5 comrades on November 13th, 2013 in Barcelona, Spain—resulting to the pretrial incarceration of Mónica Caballero and Francisco Solar, as well as strict restrictive conditions against the three other prosecuted anarchists—was timed to occur right before the general elections in Chile, that were held on November 17th.
– Ilya Romanov, a 46-year-old anarchist from Russia (released from prison in 2012, after serving a 10-year sentence), was severely wounded and hospitalized on October 26th, 2013, when an improvised pyrotechnic device he was carrying exploded prematurely, and his left hand was torn off. The investigating authorities in Nizhny Novgorod, where the incident occurred, opened a criminal case against him under article 222 of the Russian penal code (“illicit trafficking in explosives”). You may support Ilya with much needed donations via ABC Moscow.