Anti-Fascist Coordinator of Santiago – CAS
This December 10 it has been two years since the death of the Fascist Gorilla, executioner of the working class and peoples of Chile.
Why is the C.A.S struggling against Pinochetism and his economic, social, and political legacy?
* Because we are anti-fascists, and the Pinochet regime, its advisors such as Guzman and Claro and the movements which preceded it in anti-working class terrorism, such as Fatherland and Liberty, are based on fascist conceptions of society and politics. These are conceptions that people such as Pinochet and Guzman have made their own; they are heirs of the Spanish Franco-fascist tradition, characterised by an extreme Catholicism to justify divine social hierarchies and the sacred right of property, and a phobia towards everything of the workers, everything popular and progressive. Even today, the UDI [Independent Democrat Union, part of the right wing Alliance – translator’s note], the party that is openly pro-Pinochet, continues to support the idea of hierarchical ‘syndicates’ to demobilise and depoliticise the workers, an idea common to the Nazis and Italian fascists. Independent of the shades in the themes such as racism, the economy, etc., the Pinochet regime has in common with that of Hitler and Franco being ‘the open terrorist dictatorship of capital against the working class and peoples’.
* Because just as historic fascism of the period between the world wars was the gendarme of national capital and the geo-political interests of the imperialism and the large U.S. companies, the Pinochet regime fulfilled exactly the same role. Just as the European fascist regimes were set up with the approval of the ‘Western democracies’ led by the USA, to crush the large waves of worker and popular mobilisations after the Russian revolution of October 1917, the various military regimes with fascist characteristics that appeared in Latin America are also supported by imperialism and local capital to repress the legitimate wave of struggles of the workers and peoples that struck Latin America in the 1960s and 1970s. This is the case of Chile.
* Because the Pinochet regime dismantled the gains achieved by the workers at the cost of much blood during the 20th century, mutilating the economic, social and trade union rights won in struggle with the ruling class. Just as it dismantled other popular gains, such as the nationalisation of copper, selling off the resources that belong to the Chilean people to transnational robbers, parasites and allies of the dictatorship in the privatisation schemes. All this is linked to the neo-liberal phase that capitalism adopted and imperialism promoted at the end of the 1970s. It tried to sell a ‘transition to democracy’ that really was a political re-accommodation between the local capitalists and imperialism, which no longer needed the gorilla in uniform and they preferred to have gorillas in suit and tie, renegades from social-democracy, and even Christian Democratic coup supporters such as the Concertation [bloc including the Christian Democrats and the Socialist Party – translator’s note].
* The Concertation, in marriage with the Alliance, has maintained the same fascist constitution of 1980, imposed by fraud during the curfew and the continuous raids, with superficial changes in order to sell a certain false progressivism. It has deepened the same economic model and does not hesitate to use the same fascist methods and laws against the working class and people when it needs to. Methods such as watching over the business interests with armaments of war, as can be seen with the murder of the forestry worker Rodrigo Cisternas, and with the harsh repression that has caused victims among the legitimate movements of the Mapuches and students. It also counts on the National Intelligence Agency, under the tutelage of the FBI, a worthy successor of the CNI [National Information Centre, a political police agency under Pinochet’s regime – translator’s note] in infiltrating and bullying the workers and peoples in struggle. Ministers from Concertation even attended the homage to Guzman, the ideologist of the dictatorship.
* Because there has been no real punishment of those responsible for the massacres, tortures and selective assassinations that took place under the dictatorship, nor for those that took place under bourgeois democracy. They are sent to country-club ‘jails’ or manage to evade punishment with various tricks or by alleging false dementias. Only the people themselves will provide justice through their struggle, inspired by the just punishment that the Italian people gave to Mussolini’s executioners.
There still remains the urgent task of overcoming the burden of Pinochet by fighting intransigently against the politicians that today maintain his legacy, the Concertation and Alliance, without distinguishing between them or letting oneself be deceived by a false progressivism. We must build, through a revolutionary struggle, an economic, political and social model that serves the workers and multinational peoples of Chile, where they will be in the centre and organise society according to their historic interests.
Unity of the workers and peoples against the Pinochet legacy, capitalism, today called neo-liberalism!
Down with the fascist constitution of 1980!
Do not forget or pardon them, put the fascists against the wall!
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
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