received 08.08.2018
–What is a prison?
Prison is a material structure through which it is intended to inhibit the acts of any person who transgresses the conduct imposed by the State. Thus, punishment and the imposition of socially accepted discipline are the regime in which the captives have to live, by this seeking to annul their actions, ideas and beliefs. These acts may constitute crimes and like the ones that challenge order, be of revolutionary politics. It is with these that we again take a stand – either by supporting or having solidarity with those companions who presently are encarcerated for having carried out subversive actions for a political idea of liberation. The commitment of these companions makes us want to support them in real ways, concretely because we share goals.
We, autonomous comrades and anarchists, have been carrying out libertarian initiatives and projects for some time – from different places and contexts – seeking to generate a break with the order, the norms and eveything that tries to impose the Capital and the State. It is under this light that several people have converged to collectively create the “Anti-Prison Solidarity Network with Juan and Marcelo”.
–Who are Juan and Marcelo?
Juan Aliste Vega and Marcelo Villarroel Sepúlveda are subversive, autonomous and libertarian prisoners who are in the high security prison of Santiago, Chile, since July 2010 (Juan) and December 2009 (Marcelo).
Since very young these comrades have engaged in revolutionary struggles – during military dictatorship and after it – developing offensive actions against Capital and State. Attacks that were both to material structures and subjects that were part of the state apparatus. The times required positioning and determination, so they reasoned, trying to achieve this by joining Mapu-Lautaro, one of several political-military groups that existed in that period.
Their challange to the established order led to their arrest in 1991 and 1992, respectively. Prison was a circumstance – neither wanted nor sought by the life they chose – as one of them said in an old interview; during more than a decade they had to face confinement, the repression of the jailer and the own logic of that dreary institution.
Free again and, in the following years, a new situation causes impact on public opinion, police, state policy and the State. October 18th, 2007. A bank robbery, in the heart of the capital Santiago, against Security Bank. The assailants take the money, flee in different directions, two of them run into two police drivers, there is an exhange of shots and one is shot down, the policeman Luís Moyano. Defending capital cost him a great price: the death.
Those were the facts and the hunt would be unleashed: Juan, Marcelo, Carlos Gutiérrez Quiduleo* and Freddy Fuentevilla Saa** are exposed on television and flagged as the assailants and murderers of the policeman. They decide to become into clandestinity, one of them breaking an intra-penitentiary benefit, with which he had agreed to in 2003***.
On March 15th, 2008, Marcelo and Freddy are detained in San Martin de los Andes, Argentinian territory. Accused of illegal possession of weapons of war, they were later convicted to 3 years and 6 months. When they reached half of the sentence, on December 16th, 2009, they were expelled to Chile and taken to the high security prison. Juan is arrested on July 10th, 2010, at the Retiro bus terminal in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He is immediately expelled to Chile and is also taken to the high security prison.
In Santiago de Chile – after 4 years of preventive detention – the trial took place in July 2014, condemning them respectively to 42 years (Juan), 14 years (Marcelo), 15 years (Freddy) in jail in what was known as “Security Case” and/or “Moyano Case”.
Meanwhile more than a decade has gone by since those events in the heart of Santigo – just like what they had to face later, like the harrassment of their families and close ones. Clandestinity, beatings, arrests, defamations, exposure to public opinion, prison, transfers to various units, condemnations. A process accompanied by the solidarity of anonymous comrades, groups, collectives, political organizations, through material and symbolical support – various activities were carried out, press notes, forums, lectures, musical shows, gatherings, street agitation by propaganda, posters, publications, online dissemination and, in an illegal fashion, a wide multiformity of subversive actions in Chile and several other places in the world.
– What will we develop, as “Solidarity Network”?
Support and solidarity (in its multiple forms) is what we want to develop and project – in a practical, public and systematic way – the essential for us will be to stir up and inform about the situation of the mentioned comrades, through posters, propaganda and activities, concrete gestures that aim to “build a bridge” from the prison, between them and the ones “outside the walls”.
This type of open instances – occupying streets, diverse spaces, electronic media, associating with other groups and individuals, etc – are important because they provide knowledge about the situation of the comrades, their political ideas and practices, who exist and resist in spite of many adversities. Another important factor is to allow more people to inquire and take an interest in these anti-prison perspectives – a struggle amongst many against Capital and State. We intend to agitate and inform to create and join, to potentiate theory and practice, because when there is in conscience a radical idea clearly something must be done.
FACING THE MASSIVE INDIFFERENCE: ACTIVE ANTI-PRISON RESISTANCE!
FREEDOM FOR JUAN, MARCELO AND ALL THE PRISONERS OF SOCIAL WAR!
WHILE THERE IS MISERY… THERE WILL BE REBELLION!
Anti-Prison Solidarity Network with Juan and Marcelo
rsanticarcelaria@riseup.net
July 2018
Santiago de Chile
Notes:
* Carlos Gutiérrez Quiduleo, Libertarian Weychafe (“fighter” in Mapuche language). The subversive history of the comrade goes back to the 80s, when he was part of the urban guerilla of the Youth Movement Lautaro (MJL). He was detained in January 1995, accused of illicit terrorist association, being released on bail in October 1998. He was then arrested in 2003, accused of robbing a Santander bank in Nuñoa, Santiago. He was released on bail in 2005 and sentenced to prison in 2006 for 5 years and 1 day. Later he is accused of participation in the assault on the Security Bank in Santiago. He was arrested in November 28th 2013 in Angol, in the region of La Araucanía, by the PDI team, after 6 years in clandestinity, being swiftly transfered to the maximum security section of the high security prison in Santiago. Got out of prison in September 10th, 2015.
** Freddy Fuentevilla Saa (autonomous subversive). The subversive history of the comrade goes back to the 90s, when he was part of the urban guerilla of the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR). After being flagged as a participant in the Security Bank robbery in Santiago, he went underground, being arrested in argentinian territory, then expelled to Chile and convicted (facts reported in the text). Got out of prison in June 18th 2018.
*** Marcelo Villarroel Sepúlveda (subversive libertarian). He is the comrade who broke the intra-penitentiary benefit, to which he had accessed in December 28th 2003. His sentence goes until February 26th, 2056.
We can make abrief summary of the sentences: illegal terrorist association, 10 years and 1 day for its participation in the urban guerrilla Mapu-Lautaro. Damage to fiscal vehicles with serious injury to carbinieri, 3 years and 541 days, due to armed attacks on police vehicles in communes of Cerro Navia and Conchalí. Co-author of a qualified terrorist murder, 15 years and 1 day, for the armed confrontation with the escort of Intendente Luis Pareto, where 3 detectives died in the commune of Las Condes. Theft with intimidation (Law 18.314), 10 years and 1 day, for the expropriation of a state bank and a truck of chickens, which were distributed in a town in commune of Renca. Finally, an attack with explosives against the home of the spanish ambassador, 8 years and 1 day, during the commemoration of the 500th anniversary of the massacre of the ancestral people in this territory. All these actions were carried out in Santiago de Chile.
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