23 thoughts on “Popular explosion in Chile”

1. Viriato says:

   21/10/2019 at 17:09

   President Pinera declared that “We are at war” what has been criticized from all sides because as a stupid statement they do not make better.

   This has unleashed a series of calls to demission.

   Below is a series of news items that allow us to see the development of the situation.

   “Dockers, teachers and young people march through Antofagasta against Piñera and the state of emergency
   “Thousands of people march this Monday through the streets of the mining city. The Port Union joined the struggle of the population and called to paralyze the ports throughout the country in support of the social demands and against the repression of Piñera’s government. The paralysis covers 100% of the Port Union and 90% of Chile’s ports.

   “The Central Unitaria de Trabajadores (CUT) criticized the role that the government has played in controlling the demonstrations and therefore warns that they will call a general strike on October 23, if the constitutional order has not been re-established by that time.
   The document also signed by: Coordinadora no más AFP, Asociación Nacional Empleados Fiscales ANEF, Confusam, Fenpruss, Confederación Coordinadora de Sindicatos del comercio y servicios financieros Confederación bancaria, Sindicato Interempresa Líder SIL, Colegio de Profesores and FENATS Nacional”.

   “Of the 11,429 schools, so far there are 5,684 with suspended activities. The Secretary of State also reported that 20 schools were damaged, of which two were burned.

   “Jaime Mañalich, Minister of Health, makes an assessment

   On the pharmacies (they are private and dominated by 3 or 4 monopolies that practice the prices they want and are auctioned by the poorest population), they are open between 10 and 16 hours so that people can renew prescriptions if they need it for their health condition. There are 150 pharmacies completely destroyed throughout the national territory.

   Regarding the wounded, 239 consultations derived from this situation in the three days of protest, of which 52 people were hospitalized.

   At vital risk, he says, 8 people remain.”
   Plus the 10 deaths already counted.

   “A few seconds ago
   The Third
   Right now a crowd of people have gathered in Plaza Italia to demonstrate.”
   Despite the presence of the military there.
   The general in charge, disassociating himself from Pinera, the president, declared that he was not in war with anyone…divergences in the direction of the bourgeoisie.

   One has the impression, from here, that the movement continues to develop.

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2. Viriato says:

   21/10/2019 at 17:15

   Communiqué from a Human Rights organization in Chile

   The National Institute of Human Rights (INDH) has deployed uninterrupted work throughout Chile to protect people’s rights in the context of the days of protests.

   “We have been on the ground gathering relevant information on the state of wounded and detained people, and the violations of which they have been victims,” said director Sergio Micco.

   Thus, in the Félix Bulnes, San Juan de Dios, Clínica Dávila and San Borja hospitals, the National Institute of Human Rights found serious injuries to at least 22 people, including a man who was shot by Special Forces, five meters away and who is in a serious condition.

   The INDH also identified a boy with bullets in his liver, kidney, and legs; a girl with a bullet in her leg; and a fourth man who received a tear in his face.

   During the last few days, the INDH has been present at demonstrations in Santiago, Maipú, Iquique, Antofagasta, Coquimbo, Talca, Concepción, Puerto Montt and Punta Arenas, where police action was confirmed and buses were boarded to verify the state of the detained persons.

   Many accused the excessive use of force at the time of arrest, unjust harassment of children, mistreatment, beatings on faces and thighs, torture, stripping of women, sexual harassment, among other violations.

   “The declaration of a state of emergency in the Metropolitan Region due to a serious disturbance of public order makes the role of the NHRI and human rights organizations even more relevant.”

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3. Viriato says:

   21/10/2019 at 22:06

   From “La Izquierda” near the PTR and the argentinian PTS.

   ” At this moment, and against the repressive policies of the government, thousands of young people, students, women and workers congregate in Plaza Italia, from different sectors of the capital.

   Monday October 21 | 15:43 (Here in France at 21, 43)

   More than 100,000 people are gathering in Plaza Italia to tell the government that the military must get off the streets, that the state of emergency and the curfew will not stop the mobilization that seeks to change this system at its roots.

   With songs like “Que se vayan los milicos,” or “Fuera Piñera,” the crowd ignores the government’s request that we work “for peace. On the contrary, it has resulted in greater civil disobedience and organization in diverse sectors to respond to an intransigent government, and above all, to advance in solving structural demands such as No+AFP´s, Dignified Education and Public Health, No More Water Theft, No More Sacrificial Zones, No More GAT, etc.

   Piñera speaks of “war” and seals an alliance with exConcertación to legitimize authoritarianism against the working people

   In short, the mobilization shows the profound intention of the people to put an end to the neoliberal system that reigned in Chile since the dictatorship and that the governments of the ex-Concertation deepened and defended.

   Chile woke up and got tired of so many abuses, that’s why port workers, in different cities of the country, as well as unions and social organizations, seek to organize themselves and project the social struggle to move forward from Wednesday, October 23rd, to a great General Strike.”

   A curfew has been stablished early as 20 hours in Santiago and 18 hours in Valparaiso and Concepcion (both second and third cities of the country,)

   Here some photos of the demo in Santiago:http://www.laizquierdadiario.cl/IMG/jpg/whatsapp_image_2019-10-21_at_14.01.18.jpg

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4. Viriato says:

   21/10/2019 at 22:18

   A statement coming from miners of one of the biggest copper mines.

   “Comrades and comrades.

   Today the country is going through difficult and critical times, there has been a social and legitimate explosion, an accumulation of anger contained in atrocities, inequalities, hopelessness and uncertainty about the future. Workers are an integral part of this society and even more so we are the central axis that makes up the working class, and in the face of the serious events that have occurred we cannot remain silent and we cannot remain immobile before our people who are fighting.

   You know this contained anger well and you live it every day, some to a greater extent, but it is there alive, latent in each one of our families, close friends. This explosion of rage was not due to the increase in tickets for the subway system, which was only the trigger of this cancer of injustices that workers live daily.

   It is important to see clearly how this governmental and capitalist system oppresses us. Sometimes we are not able to see it because we are accustomed to the political and business yoke and we disguise our obvious needs with family debt.

   We have an AFP system (pensions sistem) that is a robbery; your money is taken advantage of by banks and companies and then you should borrow it with high interest rates, the profits are received by the AFP and their owners, but the losses are assumed by us workers who when we are old, tired and sick will receive miserable pensions.

   They know perfectly well that health has a price, and the one who has no money dies. They pay monthly important amounts of money in contributions and insurance, and even so when they get sick they have to pay. Look around you, comrades, break your individual bubble and see clearly how many of your parents, children, siblings, nephews, uncles, grandparents and friends are in debt because they can’t be cured; how many have died in miserable hospitals because they can’t afford to pay for their lives.

   Compañeras and compañeros, you think about what education or legacy you are leaving your children. Your children and families study in a mediocre educational system that prepares them to be cheap labor. You pay to educate your children, but the children of the rich and powerful study in even better schools, unattainable to ours pockets, and even with the benefits of the company. The children of the rich and powerful go to the best universities in Chile, the same ones that our working parents and workers raised with their effort and work and that today are taken advantage of by others than the children of the workers and humble.

   Seen this harsh reality, what will we do, comrades? We will close our eyes and turn a blind eye. How many of our children are in these social demonstrations and on the streets, how many of our parents are fighting, our wives and or husbands, our nephews and nephews, our brothers and sisters, etc… let us see clearly what is happening. Unfortunately you know very well the history and what it means when the armed forces are on the street.

   Then we will become aware when you kill one of our close ones and there we will regret it and there we will understand the importance of fighting together for a better future. There is only one power that no one can take away from us, that no one can force on us and that no one else is able to match, and this is the power to produce. No profit is generated, not a single machine is moved and no food is sown or harvested except by the hands of the workers. That power is the greatest of all, it is safe, peaceful, protector, classist and brotherhood for our people.

   This Union has a social responsibility to be the largest Union of private mining and to make produce the largest mine in the world, the most powerful transnational in the world. We have a history of struggle and loyalty to remember and today it is required to set an example for national, private and state mining.

   We must paralyze our operations for the safety of our people from regions that must travel, we must paralyze for the unbearable concern of what is happening in our country, where our relatives are an active part of these social movements, all this protected by the constitutional guarantees of article 184 of the Labor Code. But the most important and most valuable thing is that we must paralyze because we are part of this suffering working class. This began in Santiago and the whole town, from Arica to Punta Arenas went out to defend the whole people.

   We cannot continue working and making these powerful companies work as if nothing happened, knowing that they are colluding with this government that today attacks and oppresses us.
   We cannot stop paralyzing, because history will condemn us as cowards and accomplices of these abuses to the working class, and the most intimate and sense is that we cannot stop paralyzing because we will not be able to look our family in the face and especially our children who are today in this struggle, without feeling that we did nothing to support and defend them, knowing that this power and capacity is in our hands.

   To strike (paralize), she miners and miners, to paralyze all mining in Chile along with other productive sectors, until the military and oppressive forces are removed from the streets and until the government authorities are available to sit down to dialogue on an equal footing with this people who cry out and fight for equality, justice, opportunities, work and a dignified life for our people.

   Fraternal greetings.

   Directory Sindicato Nº1 de Trabajadores de Minera Escondida (Union Nº1 of Minera Escondida Workers)

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5. Viriato says:

   21/10/2019 at 22:43

   

   

   

   

   

   

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6. Viriato says:

   21/10/2019 at 22:53

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

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7. Viriato says:

   23/10/2019 at 07:35

   Today should begin a general strike and there are chances of a sucess because all over the country, even in little towns or provincial capitals that are not known for their mobilization or fighting working class spirit, are in the move (see videos)

   This first form of the revolt, much similar to the Gillet Jaunes form, if the general strike touches the majority of worker’s is an astonishly quick developpement in regard to the french situation (the government is using much the same tactics that in France. Bourgeois is an international movement as the worker’s have not) where this unity between the spontaneous movement of the people and workers never really succed albeit in some places and doesn’t las long, condamning the whole thing to ruin.

   This comes to an old tradition of unity of every one very much welded in the inconcious conciousness of the people. “Unity” is the first reflex and cry of every fighting person in the country.

   The rapidity which is spreading this revolt have surprised every one and here is matter to much thinking, taking in account that this spontaneous form, who distrust or put aside the Unions and worker’s partys, has been developpig all ob-ver the world.

   Here some videos, mostly from “far from the main towns”, mainly provincial cities.

   Puerto Varas in the south of the country. I have never heard of fights in this town.

   Elqui, medium size town in the North

   Valdivia, provincial capital in the south

   Antofagasta, port in the North

   Chillan, medium size town in center Chile

   Concepcion, third town of Chile

   Caricatures

   Last but not least, the “enemy” (Pinera has said they were making war against a “powerful enemy”)

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8. Viriato says:

   24/10/2019 at 09:26

   The call to the General Strike, so far has only achieved the paralysis of some ports and some copper mines. These are fundamental sectors of the Chilean economy, true, but it does not seem that the rest of the workers, very oppressed and little unionized due to the labor laws that remain almost unchanged from Pinochet’s time, have joined the movement other than participating in the demonstrations and actions in the neighborhoods.

   This is an article from the newspaper
   The Left, linked to the Chilean PTR which in turn is linked to the Argentine PTS. My comments between parentesis.

   “POPULAR REBELLION
   Hundreds of thousands are mobilizing throughout the country in the sixth day of struggle is taking place today, with the call for a “general strike” by various organizations of workers, students, women, residents and various social organizations. Massive mobilizations have taken place throughout the country, with hundreds of thousands.
   Wednesday October 23rd | 17:36

   In the sixth day of struggle in the framework of the protests, today hundreds of thousands mobilized throughout the country with an important response to the government of Piñera, where they have heard loud cries against repression and for “Piñera Out”. (This is very similar to the “Macron démission” of the Gillets Jaunes.)

   In Santiago, more than 200,000 people have mobilized, with many delegations of workers from the public sector and the CUT, health and teachers, as well as various trade unions with delegations, commerce and services, post office, kindergartens, who mobilized with their canvases and flags. Tens of thousands of high school students, university students and workers have also mobilized and gathered in Plaza Italia and Alameda Avenue.

   (There is not a word about the mobilization of the General Strike)

   In Concepción about 40,000 people mobilized in the biggest march of these days.

   In Viña del Mar (next to Valparaiso, the country’s main port) tens of thousands have also mobilized, some data speak of more than 60,000 people. In Valparaiso some 5,000 people also marched, and another 3,000 people marched from Santiago to Valparaiso (! Surprising and shows the spontaneous and semi-anarchic character of the action of the masses without direction. Another similarity with the movement of GJs) .

   In Antofagasta about 10,000 people have marched through the city. These are some examples of the massiveness acquired by the mobilization today.

   At the national level workers from different sectors (vague) went out to march and in some strategic sectors they have paralyzed, like the divisions and plants of Codelco organized in the Federation of Copper Workers (FTC) pronounced themselves in favor of the call for national mobilization and have manifested themselves in diverse forms dependent on unions, with blockades, partial paralyses, assemblies and marches (It is as if the workers did not use their own weapons, the strike, but they would feel more prone to forms of struggle such as demonstrations and street battles.)

   Also dozens of ports paralyze all over Chile with thousands of port workers in the main coastal cities of the country. From Arica to Punta Arenas, one of the main strategic sectors of the country is added to the general strike. (This is probably due to the influence of more radicalized sectors. The dockers took part in an important strike not long ago.)

   In Santiago, at the moment tens of thousands of people are still mobilized in Plaza Italia. (It should be noted that in addition, in Alameda Avenue there are confrontations of thousands of young people against the police.”

   As La Tercera reports (a right wing paper) the demos were with a lot more people but more pacifics.
   In Santiago, (the Izquierda paper just report on the begining of the demos and La Tercera after) they were more than a 2 kilometers long (or 20 “cuadras”) demo in Plaza Italia (more or less the denter of the town and, in the people’s conciousness, the line which divide the city between the rich neighborhoods and the leser rich ones or poorest ). This, in my opinion is significative also. Because the poorest pleople doesn’t go to Plaza Italia and the demo is mostly with low middle class, students and the more political concious worker’s but not the masses of workers.

   This is not the case everywhere and surely there were demos and “actions” in the poorest neighborhhods, but thet La Tercera, does not report.
   This insurrection is taking, more or less the form of Gillets Jaunes, but, as with the GJs without the entry in the fight, with their owns means, The Strike, the paralization of the production, their final destiny could be the same.

   There is also some talk about the constitution of “Cordones Industriales” reminding the 1973 “cordones” which remains in the memory of some people but mostly of leftisit always willing to live what their parents have lived. But there is also the tentation to “fabricate cordones” out of the real feeling and will of the working masses. If the worker’s chose to fight not in the works by striking but as the movement has fight, with demos and “actions”, then “cordones” are just this.

   The curfew has been suspended in Santiago and some of the Metro lines has been reestablished in service. This is also a sign. As someone said “without a communist party (and in Chile there is none in my modest opinion) the peoiple will get nothing”

   As a bizarre joke of “history” bouegeois are ust a few, worker’s are the absolute majority worldwide, but worker’s political conciousness lags far behind and the steam generated by the crisis just goes out through the scape valves of this kind of movements, alas, “des feu de paille” that will let behiond lessons and the begining od-f a change of the depressed spirit of the masses, but no yet more.

   Of course, whatching from so far, France, I can (and I hope) to be wrong. Please correct me if you desagree.

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9. Viriato says:

   24/10/2019 at 11:55

   A complete sell out. The folloing text needs no explanation.

   Read in El Mercurio the mouthpiece of bourgeoisie, government and rightists.

   Chile depnds for 60% of its income on copper mines.

   SANTIAGO – The Federation of Copper Workers (FTC) – an organization to which 27 unions from various mining operations in the country belong – announced this afternoon its decision to immediately put an end to the national strike of workers it was carrying out.

   The above, after its president, Juan Olguín, met with the Minister of Mining, Baldo Prokurica, and the Minister of Labor, Nicolas Monckeberg.

   According to a government communiqué, the union leaders of the mining world met with the Secretaries of State where they expressed their concern for what the country is going through, as well as their willingness to join the dialogue table called by the Undersecretary of the Interior, Rodrigo Ubilla.

   “Today we are deposing the strike and we are going to resume our functions and we remain in a state of reflection to look for the country we want. The workers return to their jobs and we resume our functions with the responsibility that corresponds to be able to rebuild our country and obviously safeguarding the safety of the workers,” said Olguín after the meeting.

   Additionally, the leader asked the government to restore public order and put an end to the state of emergency as soon as possible, so that the country can return to normality.

   (Unions calling for the “restoration of public order” and the “return to normality” is just more than can be imagined in a semi insurrectional outburst of the whole poor layers of the population)

   At the same time, the FTC leader called on other unions to unite for Chile’s sake.

   “We have been at a working table with the other organizations that have been mobilized in these two days and we call on them to join the dialogue tables. We are referring to the CUT, ANEF and others,” he said.

   Faced with the deposition of the strike, Minister Prokurica commented: “We believe that the whole country is going to value the attitude of leaders who are looking for the solution to the country’s problems and, especially, when it is the workers who represent a company that belongs to all Chileans, but also the importance of mining for Chile. For his part, Minister Monckeberg said that “we are going to set up a civil dialogue table as soon as possible, which will permanently build the roads that Chile needs to advance in a united manner”.

   (Of course, the Sinisters are jubilant. Can they expexct more of these “w-orker’s representatives”?. How to astonish , one self when the masses distrust and hate these traitors, corrupted to the core and totally with the capitalist system?)

   Source: Emol.com – https://www.emol.com/noticias/Economia/2019/10/23/965242/Mineros-deponen-paro.html

   The only hope is that the rank and file would spit to the faces of these scabs.

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10. Viriato says:

    24/10/2019 at 14:16

    Article made from clippings of different news from Chile.

    Pinera crumbs

    The Chilean authoritarian regime, heir to the dictatorship, has announced a series of minimum measures (increase 20% of the Basic Solidarity Pension and the Solidarity Pension Contribution; a minimum monthly income of $350,000; make the “catastrophic disease insurance” bill urgent; “promised” an extension of Fonasa’s agreement with pharmacies to “reduce the price of medicines”) but is not willing to grant anything structural that would change the living conditions of the working class and the people.

    These are just promises that need “the approval of the parliament” (dominated by the right) and whose aim is to save the government.

    They are afraid of losing everything, that’s why they are announcing these measures and Piñera has to “retreat” from his harsh speech, which shows the fear that the situation will continue to spill over and that the rebellion that ends up throwing Piñera out will deepen.

    All this speech was marked by the continuity of the brutally repressive line of the government with the military in command of the streets and continuous curfews that have spread to almost 80% of the country, which has claimed the lives of young people and workers, has detained thousands of people under the control of the military, dozens of seriously wounded and talk of disappeared.

    While he tries to divide by making concessions to sectors of workers and middle classes, he represses the combative youth and frightens with the military the poorest and most peripheral sectors, where they have managed to partially control the most violent events, even with right-wing mayors seeking to organize middle class neighbors against the poor.

    The level of repression by the government is so serious and brutal that this Tuesday night after the speech, three high school students, among them leaders and militants of the Communist Youth, and among them Valentina Miranda, spokeswoman for the National Coordinator of Secondary Students (CoNes), were detained by the military and in their own building, in a completely legal and arbitrary manner, in a direct case of political persecution.

    All the parties of the decadent former Concertación this afternoon approved these “measures” paying their respects to the legacy of the dictatorship.

    In the case of the Communist Party and the Broad Front, although they did not participate in the meetings with Piñera, their policy is to see “the good, the bad and the ugly.

    The Communist Party, through the mouth of its President, Congressman Guillermo Teillier, although he went out to question the state of emergency, pointed out that “a social outburst had to occur with such serious consequences, so that the government would finally establish a pension readjustment of 20 percent that we had been asking for months ago. They did not denounce that these are crumbs that seek to save the government while keeping intact the pillars of the legacy of the military dictatorship. Thus, they are placed as the “left leg” of the regime’s maneuvers to put an end to the mass mobilizations and to put an end to the tendencies that could advance to a revolutionary situation.

    Much less do they denounce, neither the CP nor the FA, parties like the DC, which seek to sustain this authoritarian government and which governs for the rich and big businessmen. On the contrary, they continue to seek “unity” with those who sustain a government that has been crippled by rebellion.

    Piñera’s fear and this maneuver are not coincidental.
    The “general strike” called by organizations like the CUT for this Wednesday and Thursday, which will have mobilizations and days of protest, should have deepened the unity among students, people in general and organized workers and draw a perspective towards the fall of the government and of this regime inherited from the dictatorship.

    The most advanced sectors promote the policy of active general strike and struggle, with assemblies, coordinators and with continuity, that puts into movement the enormous force of the working class, together with the youth and the people.

    They promote the imposition for the struggle of a Free and Sovereign Constituent Assembly, starting from the fall of the government and over the ruins of this regime, with elected and revocable representatives every 20,000 voters and who earn the same as a worker, and who discuss without any hindrance all the emergency social and political measures for the benefit of the working people.that is sovereign, that is, that no other institution of the State be above it.

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11. Viriato says:

    24/10/2019 at 20:41

    Since the beginning of this social explosion I have compared it to the movement of French Gillets Jaunes.

    There are many of its characteristics but no Goth is passed the same.

    The rapidity and the increase of the mobilizations is something different and the response of the State is also faster, rkca de laexperiencia frnacesa that has been put in practice since the first days. The bourgeoisie functions as an International that learns and advises its class brothers against the workers.

    In the same way, the left-wing parties, whatever that means (not much unfortunately) have participated much more directly in the movement.

    The Chilean Communist Party as well as the anarchist and Trotskyist organizations have not hesitated to participate in the struggle.

    As I have already published statements of the Trotskyist PTR, I have aqqui some extracts taken from the communist weekly “El Siglo” in front of the proposals of PInera to stop the protests.

    “His response “has been ridiculous, provocative, leaving everything essentially the same”. “The people of Chile need much more and will continue to fight for their objectives.

    Giving further proof of his infinite inability to govern, Sebastián Piñera has tried to extinguish the fire of the protests throughout the country with the fuel of a series of lies and proposals that bear no relation to the reality of the moment Chile is living today.

    As the Faculty of Physical and Mathematical Sciences of the University of Chile has rightly said, which is undoubtedly a fundamental institution of the Republic, “even though our country has had a significant material development in recent decades, this has been accompanied by increasing levels of inequality, abuse of privileges, segregation and injustice, which have motivated the deep malaise expressed in this crisis.

    … With official figures we will also show that Chile has one of the worst income distributions in the world and poverty levels that exceed 30%, a percentage 50% higher than previous poverty levels and during Allende’s government…”.

    And they concluded by pointing out that: “An incontrovertible scientific truth but that the control of the media and the lies about the Chilean economy from economists, international authorities and top authorities of Israel and the United States are in charge of hiding”.

    Strictly speaking, the so-called “economic growth” of the country is only related to the fabulous profits of the big companies, no matter how much they try to disguise the truth.

    And the objective is that, given to foreign capital the great wealth of the country and maintained until today all the privatizations of state companies in favor of private interests, the Chilean people continues without Public Education, without Public Health, without State Social Welfare, except in cruelly ridiculous proportions. Neither copper, nor lithium, nor any of the country’s natural riches serve the interests of the majority, but rather the pockets of a few characters of the dictatorship who continue to be powerful businessmen without ever having spent a penny.

    There are plenty of reasons for Chilean men and women to stand up and fight.

    But when they do, when the masses break their inertia and protest to demand their own, the response of the government of the same right-wing squatters is brutal repression, dead, wounded, beaten, imprisoned. Piñera resorts to the ultra discredited uniformed bodies of the military and carabineros, which he throws into the streets to repress the will of the citizenry.

    While high-ranking officers of the Army and Carabineros are in prison and subject to prosecution for having swindled the State and appropriated millions of pesos, with those who remain standing Piñera unleashes the violence that we thought had already been eradicated from the country. How can we not remember Pinochet’s dictatorship when we see what is happening these days! Once again dead in the streets of the country. Until when?

    Piñera’s response has been ridiculous, provocative, leaving everything the same in the essential, and he calculates that with a few more pesos he will be able to extinguish the flames that his sector, the business right, has ignited.

    The people of Chile need much more and will continue to fight for their objectives, which are the necessary changes that reality demands. Dialogue must be opened between the parties, that is, between the authorities of the powers of the State and the social organizations of the people. It is not a matter of sitting down to dialogue only with those above, nor is it enough to lower the absurd salaries of many sectors, nor is it enough with a couple of more string beans. The issue is more fundamental. And if the voices of today are not heard, tomorrow the situation could be more serious.

    No more military or carabineros firing and hitting the people.

    No more crumbs and weak promises.

    The mobilized people are right and only demand their own. It will be necessary to recover the national wealth for the state. They are the ones who stole the dictatorship and gave theirs away. It will be necessary to recover Public Education, Public Health, and a just Social Welfare. The type of society built by the dictatorship must be ended by assassinating thousands of compatriots, and for that a New Political Constitution of the State must be created.

    Piñera and his people will never be able to understand reality as it is and what it is about. His small vision does not go beyond his own interests. Serious, because if there are no fundamental, concrete answers to the social mobilization, it will come back again and again. The people have started to walk and their march will not stop until they achieve their objectives of Justice and Equity. We have to do it today. Tomorrow may be too late.”

    As we can see the tone is has a more fighting spirit that the distance and mistrust that the whole french left had with the Gillet Jaunes movement.

    Even if the scope of the PCCH goes no further than next elections, their participation as well as that of other left partys will give the movement a better and quickier organisation and, of course , more possibilities to developpe but, alas, also the danger to be conducted by the ways of “democratic” paths that could not change the fondamental question, that of the capitalist sistem.

    As ever “all depend of the masses” and their determination and fighting spirit. The need of a real comunist party becomes urgent. As more the movement last, the more the conciousness of the masses will developpe and the more could surge the elements for such a need.

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12. Viriato says:

    25/10/2019 at 07:13

    Due to the jet lag (6 hours) there is at this time nothing but information from a human rights centre about the repression.

    “The National Institute of Human Rights (INDH) delivered a new balance of the mobilizations that are maintained in the country.

    According to the figures handled by the organization, the number of people detained amounts to 2,840. Of these, 1,756 correspond to regions and 1,084 to Santiago.

    In addition, 582 people were injured, of which 295 with firearms.

    Sixty-seven legal actions against the represion were also reported. Among them there are 12 that are for sexual violence such as stripping, threats of rape and touching.”

    In other media, it is reported that there are about 40 people who have lost an eye (as in France the pollce corps and the military practice shooting in the face) and many have been wounded with bullets. This clearly reflects that this repressive tactic has been advised by the international capitalism.

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13. Viriato says:

    25/10/2019 at 21:24

    The demonstrations continue at this very moment.
    I present here a new analysis of the Revolutionary Workers Party (Partido de los Trabajadores Revolucionarios PTR Trotskyist or at least declared such).

    As I have already indicated, the “General Strike” is not really one but some unions do it, few and others go to demonstrations in their neighborhoods or cities.

    Here is the analysis (my coments in parenthesis):

    “The streets and the class struggle once again strike a blow to Piñera’s government and the regime, which seeks to survive and be rescued after a pact or “consensus” with the parties of the former Concertación (mainly the DC, the PR and the PPD), to re-establish “governability” after a “social agenda” that is nothing more than mendacious “concessions” , neoliberal measures (subsidies) that inject resources back into the companies in response to the legitimate aspirations of the masses. The “atentive ear” to social demands is a desperate act to deflect the struggle, and to shield the wounded regime by legitimizing repression.

    These blind blows by the government are given in the framework of a week that has been marked by the tendency of the working class (port workers, miners) and the student movement to enter. As well as the relocation of the union bureaucracy and the social movements (CUT, No+AFP, Confech, etc.) organized in the “social table,” which under pressure from various sectors decided to stop looking through the gallery and giving testimonial support, and called for a “General Strike”.

    But the bureaucracy’s call for a “General Strike” is far from being a true general strike of the masses, which they refuse to organize, because their real policy and strategy (PC and FA) is to “pressure” to “dialogue” with the authoritarian government that is already orchestrating its parliamentary deviation keeping the military in the streets.

    But with our dead there is not possible negotiation! That strategy takes these revolutionary days to the classic dead end: a dialogue that decompresses and channels all the forces to Congress, which is nothing more than giving the government and the regime a breath of fresh air.

    This Wednesday’s mobilizations showed that there is an enormous social force of workers, youth, residents, women, and native communities. More than 1 million people mobilized to once again challenge the government, the willingness, strength and energy to fight and win are enough. Today what is proposed is to develop a real general strike, with mobilization until the state of emergency and Piñera fall.

    But in order for that to develop, it is indispensable to fight politically against the bureaucracy that wants to domesticate the movement of the masses, limiting the development of self-organization and unity in action against the regime and the state. We revolutionaries always fight for this perspective, but it acquires another character when the reality and the dynamics of the class struggle impose scenarios like the current one, where it is at stake to make a (qualitative) leap in the situation.

    The tasks posed and how to carry them out

    We find ourselves in a situation with pre-revolutionary features (in the first weeks of the Gilet Junes movement some people said the same, but was really that the situation? In fact the force of a demo is not yet enough to qualified a situation as “pre revolutionnary”), the revulsive elements of the days, the elemental hatred against the government, the regime, the carabineros and the military, expressed themselves in the combativity and even savagery of the rebellion ( a rebellion is more correct). A movement of “extreme pressure” as a response and in defense in the face of a desperate situation lived by broad swathes of the masses.

    The turn of the officialism and the parties of the ex-coordination has focused on dividing the peaceful demonstration of the most revulsive and combative expressions (as in France). Its strategy consists of dividing the most determined sector to the struggle of the masses by combining harsh repression plus concessions with fine print, which leave the model and regime intact.

    Faced with this, the most revolutionary response is the organization of the workers’ detachment, in conjunction with the youth, women and the people that will develop organizations of self-organization and unleash a general strike of the masses until the state of exception and the government fall. The formidable spontaneity of the masses unleashed has not been enough for the phenomena of self-organization that have developed as committees, assemblies, coordinations, to become general and the tonic; even less to conquer a revolutionary leadership in this process to win (as in GJs movement in France) . And it is that challenge that has confronted throughout history the processes of ascent of struggle, and the revolutionary processes: the limit that means the bureaucracy to unleash all the force and the most advanced tendencies, as well as the need for the art of strategy to win.
    Both tasks for which a revolutionary party is preparing. (“preparing” means, naturally, “not yet ready”, or PTR is not ready)

    The crumbs announced Tuesday night on national television by Piñera show that the authoritarian regime inherited from the dictatorship is not willing to grant anything structural that would change the living conditions of the working class and the people, nothing is touched on the inheritance of the dictatorship, nor on the great dominant powers of the country.

    The crumbs of Piñera and the traps of the regime that do not want to lose everything.

    The first task posed by reality is to alert of the maneuvers of the regime, denouncing the crumbs of the government, to organize everywhere the organisms of self-organization, of coordination, calling to assemblies, in demand to the bureaucracy. Agitate openly the general strike of the masses to get the military out of the street and defeat this government that is already badly wounded.

    Organize the most advanced detachments that will become an example and a way to follow, as has been developing in Antofagasta with the emergency and shelter committee, in the Barros Luco Hospital, and in the GAM with the creation of the Cordón Centro. The development of the auto organized assemblies or organizations are a necessity to surpass the limits imposed by the union bureaucracy that constantly carries the force in the streets to the narrow margins of being a mere “citizen” pressure. A policy that today, in the midst of revolutionary days, is reduced to being the “left foot” of a regime that hundreds of thousands want to overthrow.

    The workers, youth and women, in their own experience of organization, of struggle committees, of coordination assemblies, of organizing diverse commissions, will experience that the greatest limit to deploy to the end the organization from the base, and that the most advanced sector leads, is the political and union bureaucracy itself, which by imposing its methods, policies, and not developing the most democratic methods of struggle becomes a kind of political police of the most advanced detachments.

    What is needed is a real general strike of the masses, not a partial and isolated march to decompress when the government prepares its detour (The trap is the same as in France) . A strike that stops production, that releases the creative and militant energy of the working class, that puts in check the government hit. It is for this perspective that we revolutionary socialists fight.

    If anything has been shown so far to hundreds of thousands of these revolutionary days, it is that it is only through the class struggle that it is possible to confront the intransigence of the capitalists. As Trotsky said, “the bourgeoisie gives up something only when it is threatened with losing everything. And that is the current situation, they fear that it will take a leap, that it will pass from a situation with revolutionary features to one that is openly revolutionary and questions its property and its State, and back to its regime, that which has been raised as an example and model to be followed by the Latin American right.

    One thing is the intransigence of the capitalists, but quite another is their resistance to maintain their model, their property, their plunder, and their exploitation. They know that the fall of the government by the hand, a general strike, would be a very big fissure, would increase the combativity and confidence in the methods of the class struggle, in which the great majority would increase their expectations in wanting to take the destiny of their own lives. The popular clamor for Piñera to resign and his government marched in blood will not be achieved outside the methods of the class struggle, let alone the attainment of popular aspirations that can be achieved entirely only in rupture with the capitalists and against their profits.

    It is a problem of concrete forces, if the government diverts the revolutionary days, or if these take a leap and give a decisive defeat to the government, which would open the possibility of imposing a Constituent Assembly, Free and Sovereign on the ruins of the regime. We put all our energies into developing the second road, although it does not depend on us which course the situation takes, we put all our forces into making the course favorable to a revolutionary process.

    Transitional Program and Soviet Strategy to Win

    As revolutionary socialists we intervene politically and in all the processes of the class struggle in pursuit of building the political tool of the working class that is the pen that unbalances the balance in a moment of revolutionary ascent in favor of the attainment of the workers’ and socialist revolution, that puts an end to the dictatorship of capital. In that way we propose the conquest of a workers government in rupture with the capitalists. We are about to expropriate them and we are fighting for a democracy far superior to those of the bourgeois republics, which are nothing more than the best armor of the dictatorship of capital.
    We fight for a republic organized by Councils of delegates elected by unit of production (factory, company, etc.) to govern the workers by defining the political course of society, and the planning of economic resources on the basis of state ownership of the means of production.

    We intervene in the class struggle with a revolutionary action program that links the “immediate need,” as in this case the end of the state of emergency and going to Piñera, to transitory slogans (bridge between their current demands and the program of the socialist revolution) to slogans related to the Soviet strategy (in this case, coordination assemblies, development of self-organization to promote the general strike of the masses), that prepares toward the struggle against the capitalist system of production and reproduction. That is to say, a block of slogans that plays as a whole a transitional role in a revolutionary perspective towards the dictatorship of the proletariat.

    We know that this perspective is not yet shared by the majority, who still trust in the mechanisms of representative democracy. That is why we propose, in the face of the current political situation, to impose a Free and Sovereign Constituent Assembly, starting from the fall of the government and over the ruins of this regime. A Constituent Assembly is the most democratic instance of bourgeois democracy, but the supposed “democrats” are not willing to develop any instance that puts power in the immense majorities that can take measures against the capitalists, they armor themselves so that this is not the case.

    We fight for a Constituent Assembly with elected and revocable representatives every 20,000 voters, who earn the same as a worker, and who discuss without any hindrance all the emergency social and political measures for the benefit of the working people. An assembly where we fight for the imposition of a program that installs measures such as minimum wages and pensions according to the basic family basket; public transportation managed by workers and users who decide the tariffs together with the working people; free education and public health, as well as the nationalization of copper under workers’ management, and others in that sense. Completely sovereign, that is to say, that no other state institution is above it.

    But we are not naive, we know that the more progress is made in taking radical measures, the greater will be the resistance of the capitalists. It has been more than demonstrated that the role of the police and the military is none other than to protect their interests against the working people, even if that means leaving dozens of dead in their wake. The state, based on an army and repressive forces that have a monopoly on arms, has a clear bourgeois class character.

    We take the legacy of the Russian revolution and the Soviet strategy, based on the development of the organs of workers power in alliance with the social sectors impoverished by this system that offers only misery, the self-organization of the masses, after the proletarian hegemony, and the methods of class struggle prepare both politically and materially for the fight against the proletariat and all the impoverished layers. The struggle to impose the interests of the broad majorities will be confronted by the capitalists with the legal (Armed and Security Forces) and paralegal (paramilitary fascist bands) resistance of the bourgeois order, as has already been seen with the departure of the military to the streets. In the face of this violent resistance by capital, the development of the democratic organisms of the masses becomes fundamental for their own defense.

    It will be those experiences in the same class struggle in which ever broader sectors of the working people make their experience with representative democracy and see the need to organize themselves from the companies, factories, transportation, schools, faculties, to develop their own democratic bodies of power and their own self-defense organizations.

    We have no doubt that when broad sectors of the masses propose to conquer power, developing their own bodies of self-determination, the bourgeoisie will rise up in arms, with all the military, police and parastatal forces that can mobilize against the revolutionary rise in power of the workers as they did against the industrial cordons and the revolutionary rise of the 1970s in Chile drowned at the point of coup, repression, torture and assassinations in 1973. But victory was possible, with a correct revolutionary strategy and a party rooted in the experiences and proofs of the class struggle, like the one we fought to build the militants of the PTR in fusion with the vanguard that gives each experience of the class struggle.”

    PTR writes too long but I dare not to cut them. Alas, their prose seems to me an old speech that I heard so many times in France…to no use. The need of a party developped inside the working class is a need that cannot be eluded. Many people talk nicely but whent the rebellion, social explosion tells them “Hic Rhodes, hic salta!” many of them take refuge in analisis and polemics and are totally incapables of giving a real direction to the rebellion. When they just not abandone the rebellion or propose ways to preserve capitalism.

    A have the impression of seeing a film already seen. I hope I am wrong.

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14. Viriato says:

    26/10/2019 at 14:42

    A reportage coming from the weekly “The Clinic” (center-left) about the superdemo yesterday that brought together more than 1.2 million people according to official estimates.
    In the other cities of the country other huge demonstrations brought the total to about 2 million people. For a country of 18 million it is not bad…
    That would make 6.6 million maifestants in France.

    The problem is: what do we do now?
    Out with Pinera!
    Socialist Chile! (this, who knows, is not yet in the minds of those who manifest, but, is there another solution?) Of course not, but this implies also a general insurrection of the whole Latin America to begin.

    “WHAT HAPPENS
    More than a million people demonstrated in Santiago against Piñera and social inequality in Chile’s largest march
    By EFE/The Clinic

    October 25, 2019
    SHARE IT.

    Chile’s largest demonstration since the fall of dictator Augusto Pinochet in 1990 brought together at least a million people in Santiago on Friday, one week after the protests against social inequality in the country, which has already left 19 dead.

    Although the call was for 17.00 hours, the immense Plaza Italia, the nerve center of the largest wave of protests in the democratic history of Chile, looked crowded an hour earlier while thousands of people remained in the surrounding avenues without being able to enter.

    A little more than an hour later, the concentration was already gathering more than a million people, according to the figures of the Metropolitan Intendancy, and was increasing as the minutes went by.

    The crowd overflowed the epicenter of social discontent to demand the departure of President Sebastián Piñera because of the repression and human rights violations committed by the forces of law and order against demonstrators in previous days.

    Chile is living a historic day today. The RM is the protagonist of a peaceful march of nearly 1 million people who represent the dream of a new Chile, in a transversal way without distinction. More dialogue and peaceful marches requires our country ❤! #ArribaStgo💪 #RMdeTodos

    Chile hoy vive una jornada histórica. La RM es protagonista de una pacífica marcha de cerca de 1 millón de personas que representan el sueño de un Chile nuevo, de forma transversal sin distinción. Más diálogo y marchas pacíficas requiere nuestro país ❤! #ArribaStgo💪 #RMdeTodos pic.twitter.com/RWcLBU67LD

    — Karla Rubilar Barahona (@KarlaEnAccion) October 25, 2019

    Also because they consider insufficient the package of measures proposed by the president to satisfy the demands for better pensions and salaries, and fairer prices for electricity, gas, university education and health services.

    A gigantic flag with the slogan “Chile awoke” began to unfold among the crowd, the slogan that has proliferated through social networks, accompanied by the phrase “We are not at war”, in reference to Piñera’s declaration of war against the causes of fires in supermarkets and Metro stations.

    Another large banner called for a “constituent assembly” to draft a new Constitution that replaces the Magna Carta of the dictatorship that has ruled Chile since 1980 and which the demonstrators blame for the neoliberal economic model that has exacerbated inequality between different social classes.

    “For the dignity of our people, to the street without fear,” was read on another large poster hung from the top of one of the buildings surrounding the emblematic Santiago square.

    In the center of the square, the brave bars of the University of Chile, Colo Colo and Universidad Católica, the three most historic clubs in Chilean football, were twinned.

    This wave of protests, which has resulted in 19 deaths, at least 600 injured and 6,000 arrested, according to the Attorney General’s Office, comes just weeks before Santiago hosts a series of important summits.

    In three weeks it should host the Asia-Pacific Economic Forum (APEC) leaders’ summit, where the possible arrival of U.S. Presidents Donald Trump, Russia’s Vladimir Putin and China’s Xi Jinping is expected.

    

    In one month the same city must organize the final of the Copa Libertadores and in December the twenty-fifth world climate summit (COP25) is scheduled, where at least 12,000 people are expected to arrive.”

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15. Viriato says:

    26/10/2019 at 21:38

    The Cabinet fell and Pinera promised to end the curfew “if the situation permits it”.

    But since it’s not “the situation” but the protesters on the street who “allow” whatsoever for the moment, it can be said that the curfew was liquidated by yesterday’s mass demonstration.

    All the ministers presented their demisióin and the contradictions within the government came to light during the day, the interior minister did not attend the meeting that put an end to the participation of the military in the repression.

    Naturally this is a desperate attempt to stop the revolt growing exponentially.

    Tomorrow it will be clearer but the tendency, so far, is for an increase in demonstrations and the increasing participation of organized workers (but in an independent way due to the characteristics of Chilean unionism. There is -when there is- a union by plant or work. This system made to divide the class allows also the independent initiative of the workers)

    The question always remains,

    Or “dialogue” between right-wing and center-left politicians.

    Or the continuation of the mobilization until to through out Pinera and to summon a Constituent that changes completely the country.

    This implies, naturally, a profound revolution that cannot remain in the Chilean framework and that must drag after at less the other Latin American countries.

    All depend on the masses as always.

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16. Viriato says:

    30/10/2019 at 08:30

    A short summary of the situation according to the right-wing daily “La Tercera”.

    “Demonstrations in the country seem to be relentless. Today, in the case of Santiago, people began meeting peacefully past noon in Plaza Italia, just after President Sebastián Piñera announced the change of cabinet.

    But it wasn’t until 5:00 p.m. that more demonstrators were added in different axes of the center of the capital. Not only did they fill the Plaza Baquedano and the Alameda, but some also reached the Paseo Bulnes.

    The idea of the call, spread through social networks, was to march to La Moneda. In the midst of this dynamic, multiple incidents were seen between the hooded and the Special Forces. The barricades were part of the scenario that could be observed and the smoke covered the center of Santiago for a long time.

    It is an almost insurrectionary situation.

    Some organizations of the extreme left have launched the slogan of a “Constituent Assembly” in order to erase all traces of pinochetism and move forward.

    But this slogan has many forms.
    The Communist Party and the Frente Amplio propose only the reform of the Constitution to remove all traces of Pinochet and return to “normality”, that is, the an-Pinochet situation.

    The Communist Party (Accion proletaria), a group coming from the former Chilean PCR, allied to the MIR and the Christian Left, also propose an Allendist Constituent Assembly. This aggregate is rather a way of reaching out to the demonstrators, Allende has a high popularity among the masses. But, naturally, Allende’s political path is not exactly to follow.
    The entire current situation derives from the right-wing course of allendism.

    The Trotskyist PTR, Argentine PTS version, also proposes a Coinstitutional Assembly, but as a stage to go to Socialism. This is more correct, but they do not have the critical stature necessary to make it reach the masses.

    The situation is, as always, complex. On the one hand we find a semi-insurrection or an insurrection that develops, with a government that literally does not know what to do and on the other hand we find political traps in front of the feet of the masses or with exits that do not have the necessary forces to implement them.

    A situation that can only be broken forward by the masses themselves or that will be one more experience that must convince the most conscious of the need for a political organisation of the workers themselves.

    In any case, this is not over… and if it ends in the future, the masses who have proved to be more intelligent than their “leaders” will undoubtedly learn the lesson.

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17. Viriato says:

    01/11/2019 at 22:44

    There is again another big demo going on in Santiago and others cities. I have no numbers still.

    The Constitutent Assembly is becoming a very much discused topic, being one of the “ways out” the crise or a tactical move of the far left to change the country.

    Here from “La Izquierda” electronic paper the PTR’s position.

    ” What kind of Constituent Assembly and what measures should it impose in order to put an end to the legacies of the dictatorship?
    In this note we develop which Constituent Assembly we fight for, and what basic measures we consider should be discussed and voted on in order to end the inheritances of the dictatorship and impose a way out for the workers and the people.

    What kind of Constituent Assembly and what measures should it impose in order to put an end to the legacies of the dictatorship?
    Angela Suarez

    Editorial Committee / Revolutionary Workers Party
    Friday 1 November | 18:34

    Can there be a truly democratic Constituent Assembly with Piñera and the current parliament?

    The Chilean “miracle” was questioned with the outbreak of the most important popular rebellion of the last three decades, with Piñera checked and with an enormous discontent with the legacy of the dictatorship and this regime that sustains it. In wages and pensions, precariousness, education, health and housing, working hours, the right to national self-determination of the Mapuche people-nation, destruction of the environment, among other issues, it is questioned that “it is not $30 but 30 years. The working people want to decide.

    Can we believe that with Piñera in government, we will have a truly democratic Constituent Assembly? Can we trust that we will have a truly Free and Sovereign Constituent Assembly in the hands of the current parliament with its Chamber of Deputies and Senate, institutions rejected by the majority of the population and elected with less than 50% of the vote?

    There will not be a democratic constituent with this presidency, which allows monarch powers as Piñera did, who with his personal decision was able to take the Army out into the streets through the State of Emergency and curfews; or with the Senate, an oligarchic institution that represents a small elite with veto power and that limits the exercise of popular sovereignty, and Deputies, both composed of a caste of millionaire politicians at the service of big businessmen and who have sold themselves to economic groups. With these institutions we will not have a truly Free and Sovereign Constituent Assembly.

    The Communist Party and the Frente Amplio not only do not propose that Piñera fall with the general strike, but they also call for a “constituent process” maintaining these old institutions of the regime. Will a truly democratic Constituent come out of the palace halls and parliamentary kitchens? If it does not liquidate the regime, the plebiscites and councils will end up in the parliamentary swamp where our demands always clash, and will continue to be postponed.

    Who would call for a truly democratic Free and Sovereign Constituent?

    That is why our struggle to throw Piñera out with the general strike and to impose a Free and Sovereign Constituent Assembly must be by liquidating the powers of the old institutions of the regime that inherited the dictatorship, such as the presidency and the current parliament.

    In order for it to be truly Free and Sovereign, that is, without any restriction, that it can discuss and take all the measures it deems necessary, it must be imposed by the coordinators and the democratic self-organization of the workers’ and popular organizations, the committees and coordinators that arise through the struggle. These organizations of self-determination are the only ones that can summon a truly democratic Constituent, where everyone can participate from the age of 14, calling elections where representatives are elected for every 10,000 voters, that are revocable, that charge the same as a teacher, and where union leaders and leaders of workers’, students’, and social organizations can be democratically elected, and that have no limitation of any other power nor any veto regarding the issues to be discussed and the measures to be taken in benefit of the working people.

    What fundamental measures should a Free and Sovereign Constituent discuss and vote in order to put an end to the legacy of the dictatorship and respond to the social needs demanded by the great majorities?

    Salary and minimum pensions of $500,000, according to the cost of the basic family basket. In Chile, 70% of the working class earns less than $400,000 (500 euros for almost similar french prices albeit the food prices but not so far from) . Enough of starvation wages, while the big businessmen get rich by the millions. An end to the AFPs. By a system of public, tripartite and solidary distribution, managed by workers and retirees, with an 80% rate of return. Along with it, an end to the precariousness of labor. No flexibility that is precarious. No flexibility that is precarious. We do not want any more workers in the first, second and third categories, which is why we must fight to put an end to subcontracting, to work and tasks contracts, to fees contracts and to short term contracts. Step by step permanent contracts for all (she) and all (he). Along with it, the reduction of the working day, without reduction of salary and dividing the work between employed and unemployed in order to put an end to unemployment.

    Free, democratic and non-sexist public education that is at the service of the workers and the people. An end to the educational business and to private businessmen. An end to the CAE and all university credit. Universal free of charge, and immediate cancellation of all debts to be studied. We consider that health should be public and free. We need to put an end to the private business of health, that is why it is necessary to put an end to Isapres and all private business.

    For a public transport system managed by workers and users, free for students and the elderly, and with agreed fares for the access of the entire population. For a plan of decent housing guaranteed for the working people. It is necessary to establish an end to real estate speculation by companies and banks, and to put an end to the housing deficit and overcrowding, with a state housing plan managed by workers, residents and neighborhood councils.

    Equal wages for men and women. Right to legal, free, safe and free abortion. It is inconceivable that those who decide to terminate their pregnancies should be imprisoned and punished, since this is a fundamental right of all pregnant women and bodies, who undergo clandestine abortion and risk their lives and health. Separation of Church and State, and an end to all state subsidies to Church institutions.

    Demilitarization of Wallmapu and the right to self-determination of the Mapuche people-nation. A people that oppresses another people cannot be free. The Chilean State has continued for 200 years the work of colonization. Freedom to the Mapuche fighters, for their right to territory and autonomy.

    Trial and punishment of the civilian and uniformed perpetrators of the murders, rapes and repression under a state of emergency and curfew. Dissolution of Chile’s Special Forces and Carabineros, enough impunity, repression and criminalization.

    However, many wonder where will the resources to pay for these measures come from?

    There are resources, we are a country with many riches, but we have to put them to the benefit of all working people and popular sectors. To achieve our aspirations we must touch the interests of the big businessmen and transnationals, who enrich themselves at the cost of plundering our natural resources by exploiting our work and destroying the environment. Without those resources that are appropriate in a few hands, we will not be able to realize our aspirations. If Piñera’s government and the old institutions of the regime such as Congress are maintained, those resources will remain in the hands of the true owners of the country.

    That’s why elementary measures must be taken:

    Nationalization of copper and of natural and strategic resources, without payment and under the management of the working people and control of the communities. In copper alone, almost 10,000 million dollars a year escape abroad, with big transnationals like BHP Billiton or Anglo-American. In the case of the forest lands, Matte and Angelini, part of the richest families and owners of the country, appropriated the lands of the Mapuche people-nation and peasants, lands that must be returned to the communities. In addition to the above, we have to nationalize the mines, forests and salmon farms in order to put them to the benefit of the entire working class.

    Annulment of the privatizations of dictatorship and democracy. Nationalization under workers’ management of the electricity, water, gas and public services companies. The increase in tariffs, as in the case of electricity, is a product of the fact that these services are in the hands of transnationals that have benefited from the delivery by the State. The dictatorship, the right wing and the former Concertación guaranteed these businesses. Public services should be nationalized for the benefit of the working population and not for the profits of a few, at cost to the population.

    Expropriation of the ports without compensation, to take them out of the millionaire profits of groups like Von Appen or Luksic. In cities like Valparaiso, where the population suffers from lack of employment, those resources could be used for a plan of housing and public works, as well as health and education, in that city and throughout the country.

    If an emergency program like the one we are proposing is imposed, it will probably have the violent opposition of the big capitalists who will defend all their privileges with their teeth and with their repressive state. That is why it is more urgent than ever to constitute assemblies and coordinators in the workplaces, studios and streets, truly democratic instances of self-organization, such as the Emergency and Rescue Committee of Antofagasta, organizations of democratic self-organization of the bases to which the union and social bureaucracies directed by the PC and the FA as the Social Unity Table, oppose, .

    These instances are the only ones that can impose a favorable solution for the working people, that allow these emergency measures to be carried out, and on the road to defeating the resistance of the powerful businessmen, be the basis for the struggle for a government of the workers that takes these riches from the big businessmen; a workers’ and popular government based on the self-determination organizations of the masses, that integrally and effectively realizes our social and democratic aspirations, and re-founds the country on new social bases.”

    Much similar to the “Popular allendista Front” of the coalition of the PC (AP), the MIR and the IC already comented.

    It seems that the far left partys (ex maoists, “trotskist”, guevarists) have a quite similar analysis of their posibilities and of to which level of demands the masses can understand and are reaching today.

    Regarding from afar, I would rather put the question of power and socialism much forward, but they are fighting in the field and, perhaps, know better.

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18. Viriato says:

    01/11/2019 at 22:58

    I post this,because de “Dialogue” trap, as it was the “Debat National” in France has been laid to the chilian people and, of course, this international bourgeois tactic could be proposed when the british worker’s take the streets as in France or in Chile.

    This piece comes from the right wing paper “La Tercera”

    “Government Councils: no vetoed issues

    On Saturday 26, the same day that he announced that he had asked all ministers to resign, President Sebastián Piñera called for citizen dialogues and open town halls (Cabildos, old way of gathering the whole people to discuss or judge the “authorities” coming from the Spanish Colnial regime. Never used before but put into practice by the masses who almost always, make revolutions looking backwards first) throughout Chile to receive proposals on the social agenda and get out of the crisis.

    The Minister of Social Development, Sebastián Sichel, is in charge of this task, taken from the example of French President Emmanuel Macron, who carried out a series of town halls after the rebellion of the “yellow vests”. The initiative will begin on November 11 and will have three forms of participation: dialogues convened by the government, self-convened instances and participation via a web page. On Tuesday 29, a first dialogue by region was held, promoted by mayors and governors.

    The methodology of the dialogues will be announced next week. It will be based on discussions about social demands and general questions about what must be created, changed or eliminated to reach that goal. A new Constitution? The government comments that no issue will be vetoed. In addition, international bodies will monitor both the design and development of the process. The idea is that, with some requirements, the results of the self-convened town halls that are being held these days will be added.

    The municipalities led by official mayors have also made their own town councils. “They needed a catharsis, to listen to themselves,” says Colina’s UDI mayor, Mario Olavarría, who last night headed one in his commune with some 70 people, an exercise he repeated last night in Chicureo. “A couple of neighbors proposed the reform of the Constitution in the first: they proposed more state guarantees regarding private activity, because they feel they are being abused,” he says. The concerns -many related to security, health, pensions and minimum salary- will be reflected on paper to adapt them to the government’s methodology.

    Opposition municipalities: With AC?

    They can be small conversation tables, large meetings or citizen meetings that end with an artistic show. In the opposition municipalities they have deployed different modalities to promote their councils, in the manner of the meetings that were held during the constituent process of Michelle Bachelet. Some are convened by local governments, others by neighborhood councils or by independent social groups.

    The mayor of Independencia, Gonzalo Durán, was invited on Wednesday to one that took place in the Unidad Vecinal 3 of his commune. The previous Friday, another larger meeting was held in the municipality, which was attended by 200 people.

    The experience is being repeated in several opposition municipalities. That is why on Wednesday, at 10 a.m., teams from 12 municipalities in the RM met in Cerro Navia, including Recoleta, La Pintana, Independencia and Huechuraba. The objective was to coordinate a methodology to promote citizen meetings to address the social crisis that broke out on October 18.

    According to the mayor of Independencia, Gonzalo Durán, the municipalities opted to follow the model of the Social Unity table that groups guilds ranging from the CUT to the College of Teachers. “The people of Chile decide about their future,” reads the call they have circulated. Under this modality they are invited to answer: “What is the origin of the current conflict? “A Constituent Assembly is needed to transform Chile” and “what kind of actions can citizens and social organizations take to achieve their objectives? According to the agreement reached by the municipalities, once the conclusions are systematized, a copy will be delivered to the Social Unity Table.

    Some of these municipalities have contacted the Segpres team, which in Bachelet’s government called for the constituent process to transmit the methodology used in that experience.

    Colo-colo fans also ( very poipular Football club )

    Nearly 2,000 people came to the Club Social and Deportivo Colo Colo. Fans of the Cacique (symbol of the club) of all ages; the neighbors of Macul, headed by its mayor, Gonzalo Montoya; historical footballers, such as Daniel Morón and Marcelo Barticciotto, and the singer Princesa Alba were some of the participants in the almost three hours of dialogue. What is the origin of the current conflict? What are the priority demands today on which the uneasiness of the citizenship is based? What kind of actions can be carried out from the citizenship and the organizations to achieve their objectives? and what is the contribution that we can make from Colo Colo? These were the questions posed for the debate. “Promoting dialogue and exchanging opinions is super enriching in every sense,” says Maricela Franco, moderator of one of the groups.

    While Ignacio Franjola, vice-president of the CSyD, explains the fate of the conclusions: “The Centro de Estudios Colocolino is going to be in charge of consolidating all this material and we are going to define in which instance we are going to share it”.

    Hogar de Cristo asks about “injustices

    Last Tuesday, Hogar de Cristo, the foundations Vivienda, Fondo Esperanza and Techo defined “Territorial Circles” in neighborhoods, sports clubs or similar spaces. From November 4 to December 31 will join to give the floor to vulnerable sectors with whom they work and gather information on their moods, in the sense of how they have lived the crisis of recent weeks. According to Juan Cristóbal Romero, executive director of Hogar de Cristo, the meetings will ask them “what social priorities are needed to move towards a more just country, the causes they see from their experiences and where the main difficulties and injustices occur. Finally, they will look for proposals and commitments that they are willing to assume “in this new pact”.

    “We join with the other organizations with the conviction that people who are always excluded, in a situation of poverty or vulnerability, will again be excluded from the dialogues that will be generated. Generally they do not participate, they are populations that live in places that are difficult to access and are not integrated so that they can convene themselves as a town council,” adds Romero.

    The conversation will be guided by a facilitator, usually a monitor from one of the foundations, and a volunteer, who will record the results obtained in an application that will function as a record book. The data collected will make it possible to make a breakdown by territory or by characteristic of the population, such as women or people in street situations, for example, so that the proposals that arise will have a specific demographic origin.

    The results will be delivered in the same Territorial Circles from which they come and to the Ministry of Social Development, to contribute to the process of dialogues that the portfolio is already preparing.

    Health as a right: the discussion of the Medical College of Santiago

    The Medical College of Santiago, the College of Midwives and the College of Nurses opened their first town hall on Thursday 31. Cited were “users, health workers and people who have worked in health from other perspectives,” explains Natalia Henrique, president of the Medical College Santiago. What did they discuss? An amendment to the Constitution to establish health as a right, along with questions about the current system of care and financing.

    The process worked in question-driven groups under the guidance of a moderator and a secretary. The summary of the day will be delivered to the National Medical College.”

    I hope chilian worker’s won’t fall in this open trap of the government. In France it doesn’t really work no matter what has been said.

    There are many others people’s assemblys going on all over the country independent of these ones.

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19. Viriato says:

    03/11/2019 at 20:44

    The contagion effect:

    Perro Matapacos ( The kill-cops dog) makes its appearance on an “evasion” day in the New York Underground (“evasion” pass through the Metro gates without paying)

    November 02, 2019
    .
    Last Saturday, October 26, a 19-year-old African-American was violently arrested for allegedly evading Metro payment inside a station in Brooklyn, New York, where he was arrested and beaten by state police, claiming that the young man had used a weapon in defense.

    The fact was widely publicized on social networks, pointing out that it was a new episode of racism and police brutality.

    Ash J
    <font color=#38B0DE>-==- Proudly Presents
    – 2 Nov. 2019
    Over 1000 people marched in the #FTP march in Brooklyn earlier tonite. Protesters shut down the streets & did a mass fare evasion in protest of rampant NYPD violence against Black & Brown people recently & to demand free public transportation. 1 person arrested. # SwipeItForward
    See image on Twitter See image on Twitter See image on Twitter See image on Twitter See image on Twitter

    Ash J
    <font color=#38B0DE>-==- Proudly Presents
    Protesters decorated the walls & trains during the #FTP march in Brooklyn earlier tonite. You can tell that they were inspired by the #EvasionMasiva protests in Chile. # SwipeItForward
    See image on Twitter See image on Twitter See image on Twitter See image on Twitter See image on Twitter

    6.952
    3:08 – 2 Nov. 2019
    Twitter Ads Information and Privacy

    5,352 people are talking about this

    Days after the event and as a protest against police violence, about a thousand people took to the streets to mobilize for what had happened.

    Several Twitter users showed how in the framework of these protests, several of the demonstrators decorated and scratched some parts of the New York subway with stickers of the dog known as Matapacos and slogans in Spanish with the word “Evade”, a phrase that drove the Chilean mobilization.”

    Tomorrow the mobilisation continues with a call from more than 20 Union and associations calling.

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20. Viriato says:

    08/11/2019 at 10:49

    A sample of the violence and class hatred that has existed in Chile for a long time and that is manifested in the newspapers of the country. This state of mind has been buried deep below by the represion of Pinochet (becoming even a source of mental deseases, Chile has one of the highest levels of mental illness in the continent) and at the same time it has developped more intense. Pinera is seen as an ancient “pinochetist”, as he was.

    The class hate is much developped, mostly on the bourgeois’ layers of the society, but also, in the proletarian layers.

    Ancient ministers of Pinera are calling the inhabitants of bourgeois neigborhoods to “arm themselves”. There have been incursions of groups of youth in some bourgeoius neighbohoods who has assaulted right wing partys and destroyed symbols of the Dictatorship.

    Chile is a volcan on the verge of explosion and this is quite apparent in the hate that transpired even in “neutral” or neutral center mild left papers.

    This state of mind, which dates back at least to the 1970s, has been exact since the time of Allende and the dictatorship.

    This news excerpt comes from a rather neutral newspaper, Cambio 21, and what follows are the comments of readers and people of the left.

    “A group of people set fire to the office of Senator and President of the Independent Democratic Union (UDI) Jacqueline van Rysselberghe and her brother Enrique van Rysselberghe during the riots following the social demonstrations in Concepción.
    After a march, when isolated incidents occurred, a group of people approached the UDI headquarters in Angol Street to enter and remove some furniture that was burned in the street and began a fire inside the headquarters of the parliamentarians, which is being investigated.

    According to eyewitness accounts, it was a group of about 30 people who managed to break the windows and knock down the door of the parliament building, to later enter, remove part of the goods to the street, and set fire.

    Concepción’s fourth firefighter, Marco Valderrama, ruled out injuries. “Only the first floor was affected, furniture, windows and real estate is what has damaged the building. I can’t talk about intentionality, but we can’t rule it out either. There is total loss in the first level,” he said.

    This Wednesday, in Santiago, a group of people had also attacked the UDI headquarters in Providencia and the monument to the party’s founder and former dictator Jaime Guzmán.

    The comments

    Ed Ramirez
    I feel like they’re coming for you, I feel like they’re coming for you, ha ha ha.
    I like – To answer – 9 h

    Jose Mansilla
    Horror, will they have burned the photo of the maraco Guzmán, a perverse criminal with a neck and tie whose past constitutional spawn is so defended by greedy and usurious people?
    I like – Reply – 9 h

    Hugo Cañete del Valle
    The only thing that was saved were the drafts of Corpesca (a scandal involving the Van Rysselberghe, very reactionary right-wing politicians, former governors under Pinochet).
    I like – Reply – 8 h

    Sergio Orlando Pastorelli Diaz
    And what does the brother do,…??? Will he be mute? I’ve never heard it in congress,…!!!
    Nepotism in its maximum expression and then they become the victims.
    I like – To answer – 7 h

    Julio Espinoza
    THEY BURNED THE NAZI’S HUT.
    I like – Reply – 1 – 5 h

    Translated with http://www.DeepL.com/Translator

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21. Viriato says:

    15/11/2019 at 14:59

    From the newspaper “The Left” linked to the Revolutionary Workers Party (Fourth International Trotkist Fraction)

    “After almost two days of negotiations in Congress, the right-wing parties Chile Vamos (UDI-RN-Evopoli), the former Concertación (DC-PPD-PS-PR), and also unusually the main parties of the Frente Amplio (RD, Congressman Boric of Social Convergence, Liberal and Common Party), have reached an agreement “cooked” within four walls to get the mass movement off the streets, divert the fight against Piñera and channel through the old institutions the mass rejection of this regime and the inheritances of the dictatorship, which will remain intact.
    (…)
    This agreement is cooked up to divert the struggles for a “plebiscite” for the next year, keeping Piñera in power. That’s right, it would be a plebiscite only in April 2020, where it would be decided whether or not there is a “constitutional mixed convention” (with the veto power of the current Congress because it will have 50% of the representatives) or a “Constitutional Convention” where only in one more year, October of next year, supposedly “democratic” representatives would be elected when the current electoral system will be designed to serve the big business parties and the caste of millionaire politicians at the service of those fortunes.

    There is not even talk of a Constituent Assembly but of a “constitutional convention” and the right wing and a minority will be able to impose their vetoes on the majorities with 1/3 in the case that wins that option, because with 2/3 their rules and regulations will be approved. Many things remain “open” where they will seek to maneuver to maintain this system.

    Who could believe that this negotiation with the same people who have deepened the legacy of the dictatorship – who created the CAE to indebt us by studying, who kept our natural resources privatized and plundered, pensions and hunger wages, who have stolen billions in the well-known cases of corruption, who have violated and militarized the Mapuche communities for years, among many other abuses – would give us a favorable solution to the interests of the working people, the youth, the popular sectors?

    It is these same politicians of the regime who are opposed at all costs to young people over the age of 14 being able to vote, those who impose non-binding plebiscites so that we cannot decide anything, relying on the institutional mechanisms of this questioned constitution. They will look for one and a thousand maneuvers to maintain the “model” and deceive us.

    This agreement not only maintains in government the hated Piñera and also the current Congress that is plagued by a caste of millionaire politicians at the service of the capitalists, but they will seek to postpone our demands and aspirations in order not to solve any of the great fundamental problems of the working people: it is not $30, it is 30 years! Salaries, pensions, housing, health and education cannot wait!

    With this “kitchen” agreement, the aberrant legacies of the dictatorship will be maintained: the brutal repression and criminalization will be maintained, as well as the impunity of all those intellectuals, politicians and materially responsible for the murders, tortures, rapes, mutilations of eyes, beatings suffered by girls and boys, grandparents, workers and youth;
    our grandmothers and grandparents will continue to live and die with hunger pensions while the AFP will continue to plunder our funds;
    They will maintain miserable wages for the working people while the companies have multi-million dollar profits; they will keep their health private while hundreds of thousands die waiting on waiting lists and millions will continue to be cared for in conditions of absolute precariousness;

    They leave market education intact with the resources of the State subsidizing businessmen who profit from this right, and will continue the massive indebtedness with the banks, who profit from our anguish of not being able to reach the end of the month;
    the costly transportation will continue so that we can continue mobilizing like cattle;
    For the Mapuche people, the militarization of their communities will be maintained and they will continue to deny the right to national self-determination of the Mapuche and native peoples;
    and natural and strategic resources such as copper and lithium, forests, water and electricity will continue to be in the hands of transnationals and large families, maintaining the looting.

    We must reject this agreement that will postpone our aspirations and continue to maintain the hated legacies of the dictatorship by which we have taken to the streets.

    Our enormous force expressed in historic mobilizations, general strikes, cuts and barricades, and the brutal repression that we have suffered with impunity for all those responsible and our assassinated of the people, are not the currency of change so that everything remains the same.

    That’s what this agreement will do, keep everything the same while they seek to get us off the streets to rebuild their “legitimacy” and kick for next year’s votes the mechanisms of a New Constitution without resolving our aspirations.

    There is strength and we continue to express it daily in the streets. We must advance to a superior struggle to tear down all the inheritances of the dictatorship and conquer our aspirations.

    We will not do it with this plebiscite, but by throwing Piñera out with the indefinite general strike that will allow a Free and Sovereign Constituent Assembly to be imposed from the mass organizations of the working people, without the institutions of this regime that only seeks to shield the great business powers that plunder the country and maintain our conditions of misery. This perspective should promote the Social Unity Table, and not its maneuvers of pressure on the parties of this anti-popular regime that seek to shield the “model”.

    It is time to promote throughout the country Emergency and Rescue Committees such as the example of Antofagasta, strike committees in places of work and study, assemblies and coordinators, so that from the grassroots we unify our demands and allow us to conquer all our demands by throwing Piñera out and putting an end to this whole regime.

    No to the parliamentary “kitchen” trap!

    Piñera pushed out by an indefinite general strike!

    Free and Sovereign Constituent Assembly Now!

    Down with the inheritances of the dictatorship!”

    In my opinion from afar, we see here a coalition of all bourgeois and petit-bourgeois partys against a mouvement that has threatens the whole bourgeois class. It should be said also that the Chilian Communist Party has not signed this agreement.

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22. Viriato says:

    15/11/2019 at 15:16

    Statement from the PCCH and other little formations on the subject:

    “The presidents of the political parties, committee heads and parliamentarians below signatories, in view of the proposal to reach an agreement between the opposition and government political parties for a new Constitution we declare.

    1.- Any process of elaboration of a new Constitution must respect a basic principle of democracy, which is: sovereignty resides in the people.

    2.- The way to unlock the persistent opposition of the right to elaborate a new Constitution, cannot violate that principle and therefore cannot restrict the right of citizens to choose the alternative they choose as the most suitable.

    For the same reason, time and time again we declare ourselves supporters of the so-called “plebiscite of entry” (=plebicito de entrada) where the free and informed citizenry, by means of an electoral process decides if it wants or not to change the Constitution of 1980 in force and then, if it wants to do so, determine the mechanism that it likes most and choose one of the 3 that have been proposed: Constituent Assembly, National Congress or Mixed Convention.

    4.- We do not agree with formulas that totally or partially limit popular sovereignty and are replaced by quotas guaranteed to political parties or congressmen.

    We maintain our willingness to dialogue with all political forces, respecting the basic principles of democracy. That is why we value and support the formula proposed by the mayors of Chile, who represent all the political forces, to consult next December 7, whether or not they want a new constitution and how to elaborate it, in the terms of the attached fascimil vote, whose results should be binding:

    Communist Party of Chile

    Regionalist Federation

    Social Greens

    Humanist Party

    Common Party

    Progressive Party of Chile

    Social Convergence Party”

    This, in my opinion is an excercise looking at the rope trying to keep a “central” position waiting to see in what direction the tightrope walker could fall.

    This shows the profound impact and profoundness of this social explosion, still without a clear political line (all partys are seen with mistrust as here in France when the Gilet Jaunes) and no real general strike that will surely put to earth the government and more. The PCCH, that has always look for a Historical Compromise, does not know in which direction the situation will developpe.

    The impact of the masses mobilization has go far beyond what many could expect and the bourgeois are really frightened and searching every possible way out. It has been seen in Valparaiso marine troops in the streets, but they were immediately “booed” by the population and without reason or explanation they withdraw.

    Then, the movement is deep inside the masses who are not willing to give up, the bourgeois, the whole pack are afraid to dead and even the socialdemocrat layers are feeling the same and trying to stop it.

    The PCCH “wait and see” perhaps there is an oportunity to grasp, perhaps it is necesary not to expose themselves to much in case of a rightist “solution”.

    But theagreement of almost all the bourgeois partys is a blow against the masses, the petit bourgeoisie will stick to this “solution”. See the article just above.

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23. Viriato says:

    23/01/2020 at 21:10

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