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MARTÍN MOSQUERA,
TRANSLATION BY TODD CHRETIEN. Jacobin. January 2, 2020
In November, the Bolivian military forced Evo Morales to step down: the classic
definition of a coup. Despite the evidence, some commentators — even on the
Left — have failed to identify it for what it was: an elite plot to oust a
progressive president whose program of reforms had transformed the lives of
many of the country’s most excluded people.
The overthrow of Evo Morales’s progressive government in Bolivia in November
was a traditional coup d’etat. It was stoked by right-wing elite, and has now
been consolidated by a proto-fascist leadership. Coup leaders celebrated their
victory by burning Whipalas in the streets — a flag representing indigenous
nationalities — and boasted of having defeated communism.
Accounts of what has happened in the aftermath of the coup are, to say the
least, disturbing. Assassinations, disappearances, torture, mass rape
(including of children), persecutions, and the burning of houses have all been
reported amongst Morales’s Movement for Socialism (MAS) supporters. There has
been a shocking outpouring of revanchist, racist barbarism.
Though one might expect unanimous repudiation of the coup by all democrats,
this hasn’t been the case. In Bolivia and internationally, many progressives —
especially intellectuals — have refused to repudiate the coup; some have even
gone so far as to back the mobilizations against Morales. For these
commentators, what has occurred in Bolivia is not a coup, but a popular
rebellion against fraud and an increasingly authoritarian left-wing government.
While this is obviously an implausible analysis, the influence these
intellectuals carry means that they cannot be ignored completely.
Autonomism Against the State
Luis Tapia, former member of the Autonomous Community group — to which former
Vice President García Linera also belonged — was one of the leading apologists
for the coup. For Tapia, the MAS is a right-wing party that has inspired a
popular and democratic resistance culminating in Morales’s resignation. This
position is supported by a report published by the Organization of American
States’ (OEA), which was expected to confirm fraud and place the blame for
violence on “mobs financed” by the MAS. Pablo Solón, a former minister in
Morales’s government, supports a similar thesis: Solón explicitly called for
Morales’s resignation and also held him responsible for the ongoing violence.
Similar positions are being expressed beyond Bolivia. The US-based Belgian
theoretician Bruno Bosteels issued a surprising call to take sides against
taking sides. He made the case that we should defer from taking a stand in the
debate over whether or not a coup was underway in Bolivia.
A number of autonomous feminists have echoed these arguments. Maria Galindo, a
member of the group, Mujeres Creando (Women Creating), has opposed Morales
since the beginning, and has characterized his MAS government as “neoliberal,”
even going so far as to insist on an equivalence between Morales and the
fascist leader Luis Fernando Camacho, arguing that they “both assume the role
of the delusional political boss and tough guy who is convinced that they are
the source of all truth, law, and well-being.” Galindo initially denied that
there was a coup — and even supported mobilizations against Evo — though she
later shifted her position, though she continued to blame Morales. Given this
ambiguity, she argued, “the most subversive position is not taking a side.”
Other prominent feminists, such as Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui and Raquel
Gutiérrez Aguilar in Mexico put machismo at the center of their analysis,
ultimately failing to denounce the coup.
Raúl Zibechi, an influential Uruguayan autonomist intellectual, has
characterized recent events as “a popular uprising that was exploited by the
extreme right.” In his writing he has argued that after their resignation,
Morales and García Linera incited their supporters to both rioting and looting,
“probably in order to force military intervention and thus provide
justification for their resignations under the pressure of a ‘coup’ that never
existed.” Although Zibechi acknowledges the presence of proto-fascist sectors,
he stresses that the forces mobilized against Morales “did not fall for the
extreme right’s ploy.”
Rejecting Dogmatism
Zibechi’s reasoning follows the simple precept wherein everything that comes
“from below” is progressive, and everything that comes from the state is
reactionary. This binary conception, which was already foolhardy when it
emerged during the cycle of Latin American insurrections between 2000 and 2005,
is now forthrightly reactionary.
What comes “from above” might very well be a left-wing government, while what
comes “from below” might just as well be a reactionary mass mobilization.
Zibechi completely overlooks that a substantial part of the continent has
witnessed right-wing social mobilizations in the last few years, mobilizations
in which middle-class sectors opposed to “progressive” governments have served
as a mass base for conservative or authoritarian reaction (for instance,
Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina). Yet, he prefers not to amend his a priori
dichotomy, which remains, as Kant would say, independent of experience.
Sartre famously wrote in Search for a Method that the main feature of dogmatism
is to submit facts to an a priori idea, writing that “Budapest’s subway was
real in Rakosi’s head. If Budapest’s subsoil did not allow him to construct the
subway, this was because the subsoil was counter-revolutionary.” Zibechi
submits Bolivian events to an analogous, arbitrary dichotomy: the state is
repressive, authoritarian, macho; the multitude is pure.
In the case of Bolivia, however, the mobilized masses overwhelmingly support
Evo Morales and oppose the coup. Zibechi doubles down on his argument, along with
Solón, Tapia, and Galindo, by reducing the masses to an instrument of the
state, insisting the mobilized groups in defense of Morales and the MAS are
merely its shock troops. Genuine self-organization, according to Zibechi, only
arose among the urban middle-class sectors that confronted the government,
unlike those “mobs financed by the MAS.”
The Perennial Return of the “Third Period”
In the late 1920s, the leadership of the Communist International (Comintern),
then dominated by Stalin, formulated an ultraleft interpretation of historical
fascism. Fascism was understood, in the Comintern’s overwhelmingly
“economicist” analysis, as the pure and simple dictatorial instrument of
monopoly capital over society as a whole. Assuming a monolithic unity between
the state and the ruling classes, the Comintern characterized all authoritarian
regimes of the time as “fascist,” including the pre-Hitler German government of
Hindenburg, the Polish dictatorship of Piłsudski, and Primo de Rivera’s regime
in Spain.
Alongside these reactionary regimes, the Comintern also characterized liberal
bourgeois and social-democratic parties as “social fascist.” Faced with the
danger of genuine fascism, this position was reckless in the extreme. The
Comintern considered Nazism’s rise to power as merely a short interval
anticipating the proletarian revolution, with the slogan “after Hitler, our
turn.” This perspective led the German Communist Party to adopt a “class
against class” tactic, which not only rejected a united platform of anti-fascist
action with other parties, but also targeted social democracy as the main
enemy, even when the fascists’ assumption of power became imminent. This
misunderstanding led, in Trotsky’s words, to the “most tragic page of modern
history.” Hitler’s rise to power thus encountered little resistance in the
country with Europe’s largest, best-organized, best-educated, and
most-politicized working class.
Today, we are seeing a new form of the “third period” analysis that celebrates
(imaginary) “autonomous” social movements. It is as if all governments or
political regimes “are the same” from the point of view of the “anti-statist
multitude,” and every “popular uprising” is always progressive, even if it
leads to a fascist coup. In the “multitude,” the role of the Church, Trump’s
support, Camacho and his fascist supporters, paramilitary gangs that attack and
insult MAS’s female supporters, the army, and the police are all dissolved into
an undifferentiated mass. We would do well to recall that historical fascism
also enjoyed enormous popular support (the “revolution against the revolution,”
as Enzo Traverso has put it) and appeared to be a “bottom-up” movement. Many
socialist intellectuals, like French theorist Georges Sorel, made the
transition to fascism.
“After Camacho, our turn”: this seems to be the argument of many autonomist
intellectuals today. As Isaac Deutscher pointed out, the bureaucratization of
the Stalinist Comintern — a very different sort of bureaucratization from the
institutional parliamentary habits of the Second International — initially
contained a certain “bureaucratic heroism.” Following the example of the
October Revolution, communists during the “third period” suffered brutal
repression and persecution for maintaining their political affiliations. Today,
far removed from any sort of heroism, we are witnessing the poverty of a
certain strain of left academicism that lacks any political compass or sense of
practical political responsibility.
The Criticism of Criticism
Many of the intellectuals reluctant to denounce the coup have come in for sharp
criticism. In their defense, they often appealed to their “right to criticism,”
denouncing, in their own words, a Stalinist political culture that sought to
drown dissent. Of course, among those who defend Morales in Bolivia and abroad,
there are some who do adopt such practices.
Nevertheless, this strategy, replacing analysis of the coup with a debate over
whether or not one has the “right to criticism,” seems designed to avoid taking
ownership of one’s political position. And worse still, these same
intellectuals demonstrate a degree of intolerance when it comes to any
“criticism of criticism.”
The question is not whether one can criticize the Morales government or not. On
the contrary, drawing lessons from that historical experience is essential.
What is problematic is the content of the criticism put forward, which, whether
implicitly or explicitly, positions some of these intellectuals in the pro-coup
camp.
There are many questions that Morales and his government must answer for. But
the most pressing questions tend to point in the opposite direction from those
posed by his crypto-liberal critics. For example, why did Morales and his
government fail to resist the coup when they had significant social and
political resources at their disposal?
Actions and words are important, especially when issues of such magnitude are
in play. When parts of the Left work to legitimize a counterrevolutionary coup,
this is not a triviality. In the academic world everything is politely
moderated and all opinions are supposed to be “respectable” and “interesting.”
The class struggle takes place on a rougher terrain, where life and limb are at
stake.
We are living through extremely turbulent times in Latin America: a popular
insurrection is unfolding in Chile at the same time as a reactionary coup has
struck Bolivia. While the poor and peasant masses are resisting a brutal coup,
we must hold to account those who have offered support to their enemies or
provided them with a cloak of tacit legitimacy under the name of “left-wing
critique.”
Ignacio Martinez. Daily
Dot. January 2, 2020
A Bolivian university student named María Alejandra Salinas has been arrested
based on charges of diffusing critiques against Bolivia’s interim government.
In November, Bolivian President Evo Morales resigned with the explanation that
he did so after learning police were ordered to arrest him illegally. He, along
with supporters, dubbed it “a coup.” A time of uncertainty and turmoil for the
Bolivian people ensued. In addition, there is also confusion online as
discourse surrounding the event has been centered on whether the regime change
even was a coup and if it was backed by the United States government.
To counter the possibility of state media, Salinas operated as an administrator
of a leftist meme account on Facebook known as Suchel. The page quickly gained
over 10,000 followers after conservative Senator Jeanine Añez Chavez became
Bolivia’s interim president.
On Dec. 28, Salinas announced through social media she had decided to terminate
Suchel out of fear for her safety and the safety of her family after receiving
multiple death and rape threats.
Salinas was accused of instigating violence through content on Suchel. “They
say that I promote hate, indoctrinate people. This is just a page that doesn’t
even reach 10% of the population in Bolivia I have no power over people,”
Salinas said in response to the accusations.
Since her arrest on Dec. 31, La Universidad Mayor de San Andrés in Bolivia
publicly condemned Salinas’s detention as a major blow to free speech in the
country.
Adriaan Alsema.
Colombia Reports. January 6, 2020
Social leaders who have been leading massive anti-government protests in
Colombia will meet on Friday ahead of talks with the government later this
month.
President Ivan Duque‘s emissary, Diego Molano, said Sunday that talks with the
so-called National Strike Committee will resume on January 19.
The protests that began on November 21 last year waned over the holiday season,
but could reignite to convince the government to negotiate demands for
far-reaching policy changes.
So far, the National Strike Committee has not called any new strikes or
protests, but this could change after the January 19 meeting with the
government.
Regional strike committees and social organizations will begin meetings on
January 15 in anticipation of this year’s first meeting with the government
that so far has refused to negotiate any demand.
In his press conference, however, Molano no longer ruled out negotiations.
Instead, Duque’s emissary said that the government under no circumstance would
negotiate specific demands.
Some of these demands, like the government’s controversial security policy, are
key to the National Strike Committee, particularly the students and indigenous
groups who have suffered extreme violence respectively by the police and
illegal armed groups.
As the government slowly appears to be preparing concessions, the social
organizations are trying to regain their ability to organize mass protests and
increase their leverage.
The security forces’ initial attempts to violently quell peaceful protests
backfired and virtually destroyed popular support for Duque, who already was
suffering low approval ratings.
Attempts to stigmatize the broadly supported protests also appear to have
failed as, according to Gallup, broad support for the protests remained
virtually unchanged throughout December.
To further weaken the government’s position, mayors and government who dealt
Duque’s far-right Democratic Center party a major blow in October took office
on January 1.
Opposition politicians announced legal action against the security forces in
part over the violence used against peaceful protesters.
According to the strike organizers, Duque has been trying to hold off
negotiations, a strategy that could also have adverse effects now that
government-critics have taken control over the country’s largest cities and
lawsuits are piling up.
The social organizations are now reorganizing to make sure they recover the
momentum they were able to maintain throughout December as the government
appears to prepare for negotiations.
Lucas Koerner and
Ricardo Vaz. Venezuelanalysis. January 5, 2020
Caracas, January 5, 2020 (venezuelanalysis.com)
- Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido was handed a defeat Sunday in his
bid to secure reelection as president of the country’s National Assembly (AN).
With the votes of reportedly 81 of 150 lawmakers, opposition Deputy for Yaracuy
State Luis Parra was named president of the legislature. Franklin Duarte of the
Social Christian COPEI party will serve as first vice president, Deputy Jose
Noriega as second vice president, and Democratic Action (AD) party legislator
Negal Morales as secretary. The parliamentary leadership is renewed annually on
January 5, according to Venezuela’s Constitution.
The leadership slate was presented Sunday morning by Deputy Jose Brito in
opposition to that headed by incumbent Juan Guaido.
Last month, Brito led a group of opposition legislators in breaking with Guaido
following a new corruption scandal engulfing senior AN deputies. Brito, Parra,
and other deputies were accused of accepting kickbacks from a Colombian
businessman purportedly linked to Venezuela’s CLAP food program in exchange for
lobbying US and Colombian authorities. The lawmakers have adamantly denied the
allegations, in turn accusing Guaido of corruption. Both Brito and Parra were
expelled from the First Justice party in the wake of the allegations.
Following his election to the top parliamentary post last January, Guaido
proclaimed himself “interim president” of Venezuela and was immediately
recognized by Washington and its allies. In the subsequent twelve months, the
opposition leader repeatedly attempted to oust the Maduro government by force,
while seeing his popularity plummet amid a series of scandals, including his
role in the alleged embezzlement of “humanitarian aid” and links to Colombian
paramilitary outfits.
On Sunday, Guaido never entered the legislative palace, claiming he was barred
from doing so by security forces. A video circulated on social media even
showed the opposition politician trying to scale a fence some time before the
vote.
However, his version of events has been called into question by other
opposition deputies, who did take part in the session and suggested Guaido could
have done the same. AD Deputy William Davila, a staunch Guaido loyalist, was
seen freely entering the chamber, and later told reporters that all but a
handful of lawmakers were allowed to do so. Video footage showed Guaido
refusing to enter except in the company of several deputies whose parliamentary
immunity had been revoked for alleged criminal offenses. Other top opposition
legislators, including AD’s Henry Ramos Allup and A New Era’s Stalin Gonzalez
were present for the vote.
According to Second Vice President Noriega, 31 opposition deputies joined the
ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela and other Chavista parties in
electing the new leadership. No finalized tally has been released and the
identity of the dissident opposition lawmakers remains unknown at the time of
writing.
Guaido and other opposition members claimed the vote for the new AN leadership
was illegal and lacked quorum, labelling it “the murder of the Republic.”
The former AN chief subsequently convened a meeting with loyalist deputies at
the headquarters of anti-government newspaper El Nacional. Opposition outlets
reported that a parallel parliament had re-elected Guaido as president with 100
out of 167 votes. First Justice’s Juan Pablo Guanipa and Venezuela Project
party Deputy Carlos Berrizbeitia were chosen as first and second
vice-presidents, respectively. However, no information was provided as to who
took part in the vote, though the tally did reportedly include legislators
currently outside the country.
Guaido had previously attempted to introduce electronic voting so deputies who
are abroad, some of them fleeing criminal charges, could take part instead of
their substitutes. The move was struck down as unconstitutional by Venezuela’s
Supreme Court.
International reaction was swift, with US officials rejecting the new
parliamentary leadership and reiterating their backing of Guaido. Acting
Assistant Secretary for Western Hemisphere Affairs Michael Kozak called the
days events “a farce” and said Guaido remained “interim president.”
Regional right-wing governments represented in the Lima Group likewise signaled
they would not recognize Venezuela’s new legislative authorities.
The European Union also published a statement denouncing “irregularities” in
Sunday’s vote and stating it would continue to recognize Guaido as National
Assembly president.
For his part, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro publicly expressed his
recognition of new AN President Luis Parra.
“The National Assembly has voted and there is a new leadership board. It was in
the air that Guaido was going to be removed by the very opposition,” he told
reporters on Sunday, while also criticizing Guaido for “not showing up.”
Speaking to press following his swearing in, Parra indicated his first priority
would be selecting a new supervisory board for the country’s National Electoral
Council “so the people can decide with their vote” in new legislative elections
scheduled for this year.
He also vowed to pursue the “path of reconciliation,” pointing out that “more
than 80 percent of Venezuelans want to live in peace.”
Alex Vasquez.
Bloomberg. January 3, 2020
Venezuela’s international reserves fell $832 million between Monday and
Thursday, reaching a thirty-year low of $6.63 billion on Jan. 2.
The country began the week with reserves of $7.47 billion on Dec. 30, according
to central bank data. The level of $6.63 billion is the lowest since July 1989,
when reserves were at $6.68 billion.
“The fall in the central bank’s international reserves is brutal,” opposition
lawmaker Jose Guerra said on Twitter. “There is no way to defend the bolivar
against the dollar.”
Venezuela’s central bank didn’t immediately respond to an email request for
comment. The country’s finance ministry declined to comment.
Venezuela’s black market currency rate mirrored the drop in foreign reserves.
The bolivar weakened to about 71,451 per dollar on Friday from 54,284 on Monday,
a 31.6% depreciation, according to Monitor Dollar, which reports the average of
several rates. The country’s official foreign exchange rate reached 54,442
bolivars per dollar on Friday.
Venezuela’s central bank in May sold about $570 million in monetary gold,
driving down reserves to a then 29-year low of $7.9 billion, according to
people with knowledge of the matter. The bank sold about 9.7 tons of gold on
May 10 and an additional 4 tons three days later.
CAMILA VERGARA.
Jacobin. January 2, 2020
The temptation of representative governments to repress social protest instead
of yielding to the demands of a mobilized citizenry is strong. Why would a
president satisfy grievances voiced in the street instead of fulfilling his own
government program? Why cave to popular pressures instead of allowing ordinary
channels of political negotiation and consensus to deliver change? The answer
is necessarily contextual: it depends on the degree of legitimacy enjoyed by
political leaders and representative institutions. After almost two months of
massive mobilizations and brutal repression, polls show 82 percent of Chileans
disapprove of President Piñera’s administration, with a whopping 94 percent
condemning the government’s actions in dealing with disturbances of public
order. Nevertheless, Piñera’s repressive “security agenda” is making steady
progress in Congress — which currently enjoys a dismal approval rating of only
4.7 percent — seeking to establish new crimes, increase penalties, and give
judges more discretionary power to punish.
The government’s objective in prioritizing security over social demands seems
clear: to subdue the popular uprising and prevent future outbreaks of social
discontent. New laws would impose mandatory minimums for blocking streets
(where mass mobilizations take place), occupying land (which has been central
to indigenous territorial struggles), and any type of face covering while
engaging in protests. These provisions are not sui generis but build on a legal
tradition that finds its roots in fascism and its legal doctrine centered on
the internal defense of the state.
Penal Fascism vs. Penal Populism
The government’s security agenda has stirred strong controversy. Some in the
opposition have criticized it as “penal populism.” This is of course not the
first time that the populist label has been used in a derogatory manner, but in
this particular instance the mislabeling obscures the otherwise obvious fascist
overtones of the government’s strategy to “pacify” the mobilized citizenry in
an attempt to impose an already lost status quo ante.
From its origins in nineteenth-century Russia and the Unites States, to Latin
America and Southern Europe, populist movements and leaders have appealed to a
class-based conception of the people as a plebeian subject constructed against
oligarchy. Attempting to represent the popular sectors, populism strives to
satisfy the people’s immediate material demands and visit punishment on corrupt
elites. Laws against looting, barricades, blocking traffic, labor strikes, and
the use of face masks during protests against neoliberal policies are therefore
clearly not “penal populism.” The criminalization of protest is not a demand
emanating from the people — the top three are better pensions, wages, and
health care— so it would be more accurate to understand these laws that
disproportionately punish public disorder as fascistic legal adaptations that
build on the doctrine of internal defense of the state to increase the
repressive capacity of law enforcement against a mobilized citizenry demanding
social change.
While the objective of penal fascism is to impose a legal, moral, and economic
order through disproportionately harsh laws against internal enemies, thus
undermining the protection of individual rights and due process, the objective
of penal populism is to impose disproportionately harsh penalties on corrupt
oligarchs through popular forms of justice — such as characterizing political
corruption as a crime of treason with life imprisonment or death, and
prosecuting cases of political corruption in popular courts to allow for the
“venting” of indignation and resentment. According to Machiavelli, political
trials in which corrupt oligarchs were tried by the people were the secret to
the longevity of the Roman popular republic. While penal populism is today
merely symbolic spectacle —a mannequin of the president was recently
guillotined in the square— and frauds and collusion are lightly penalized with
fines and ethics classes instead of prison time, legal fascism and oligarchic
impunity appear to be taking root.
Fascism and the Internal Defense of the State
One of the most decisive legal innovations that allowed for the hegemony of
fascism during the first half of the twentieth century was the establishment of
a set of laws for the internal defense of the State against individuals with
‘“subversive” ideologies — mainly communists but also trade union leaders,
socialists, and anarchists. The first law of this kind, promoting an
“idealistic doctrine of the authoritarian state,” was passed in Italy in 1926
after an assassination attempt against Mussolini. As his Minister of Justice,
fascist jurist Alfredo Rocco wrote, given that tradition embodies truths that
must be preserved to prevent the destruction of the state, the penal code must
reflect this new defensive doctrine and create strong protections for the
“State, family, morality and the economy” against individual actions that could
cause social change. The law punished as enemies of the state those who
“committed or manifested the deliberate intention of committing subversive acts
of the social, economic or national order” with exile, long prison sentences,
and even capital punishment. Of the thousands of political prisoners in fascist
Italy, perhaps the most famous was the communist Antonio Gramsci.
Chile adopted this fascist legal legacy first in the 1937 “Law for the Defense
of the State” establishing severe punishments for disruptions to the social
order, and then with the infamous “Law for the Permanent Defense of Democracy”
passed in 1948, which outlawed the Communist Party, disenfranchised thousands
of militants and community organizers, and limited the rights to assemble and
strike. While the latter law was repealed in the late 1950s, the former was
preserved, then perfected in 1958, and finally broadened during the Pinochet
dictatorship when the number of crimes and penalties attached to them increased
to target resistance to the regime and its neoliberal model.
Since Chile’s transition to democracy in 1990, the current Law for the Internal
Security of the State (LES) has been applied more than a dozen times against
Mapuche leaders struggling to reclaim indigenous lands and autonomy in the
Araucanía region; a journalist who wrote on corruption in the judicial system;
bus drivers and prison guards going on strike; protestors denouncing the
increase of natural gas prices in Magallanes; and drivers of shared taxi
services mobilizing in Santiago. More recently, the law was invoked to
prosecute those involved in the uprising that began on October 18 in subway
stations in Santiago. Professor Roberto Campos, accused of destroying a subway
turnstile, was held in preventive detention in the High Security Prison while
awaiting trial. He risk five years in prison.
The LES penalizes with prison time not only those who “destroy or disable”
means of transportation but also those who “incite or induce subversion of
public order or revolt,” punishing those who “meet, arrange or facilitate
meetings” that conspire against the stability of the government, and those who
propagate “in word or in writing” doctrines that “tend to destroy or alter the
social order through violence.” Because any idea that promotes social change
could be considered an incitement to the subversion of order, such laws in
other countries —many of them passed in times of external war— have ceased to
be applied or directly repealed. The Sedition Act in the United States, for
example, passed in 1918 during World War I, penalized “disloyal language”
against the government with up to twenty years in jail. Although the
criminalization of political expressions was repealed two years later, the
prohibition of any political agitation considered seditious remains in force
under the Espionage Act. The jurisprudence emanating from the application of
this law demonstrates that the violation of the right to free expression is
inevitable when arbitrary power is given to the government to censor internal
criticism. Those accused of crimes under the Espionage Act have been mostly
union leaders, socialists, communist,s and anarchists — among the most famous
are the union leader and candidate of the Socialist Party of America, Eugene
Debs, and anarchist Emma Goldman.
The most dangerous article of the LES for protesters in Chile is the one that
penalizes people who “incite, promote or encourage or in fact and by any means,
destroy, disable or prevent free access to bridges, streets, roads or other
similar public use goods.” The law is so broad that it could be applied to
students who incite the evasion of the subway fare and to all protesters who
mobilize peacefully every day on the streets, blocking traffic. The most
disturbing thing is that the government coalition has been pushing to
incorporate similar provisions into ordinary criminal law, seeking to further
normalize these “exceptional” rules.
As part of the security agenda, the Senate’s Public Security Commission
approved in general a bill that incorporates the crime of “public disorder”
into the Criminal Code, imposing penalties of up to three years in prison for
those who, “using a demonstration or public meeting,” paralyze or interrupt a
public service of prime necessity, such as the subway, or throw stones, build
barricades, or occupy private or public property. If these modifications are
approved, high school students who participate in mass fare-evasion protests at
subway stations, “frontline” protesters who make barricades and throw tear-gas
bombs back to police to protect those who demonstrate peacefully from being
repressed, and those who occupy a shopping mall as a form of protest, would
risk prison sentences without the need for the invocation of the LES.
In addition to the criminalization of civil disobedience and mass
mobilizations, the new law would also penalize looting in the context of social
unrest with five to fifteen years in prison, make disregarding curfews
(currently a misdemeanor) a criminal offense punishable by up to three years in
prison, and allow for judges to suspend benefits to welfare recipients as soon
as they are charged with “public disorder.” These new legal provisions would
impose not only disproportionate punishments but also target the poor by giving
judges the arbitrary power to suspend social benefits at the beginning of the
investigation process. A recent decision by the Prosecutor’s office not to
pursue prison sentences for people with clean records who were arrested while
looting supermarkets on October 18 seems an indication that, this time, the
Public Ministry is not willing to apply the LES, even if the government demands
it.
Hooded Class Resistance
Only six weeks before the popular uprising of October 18, senators of the
government coalition along with members of the opposition presented the
so-called anti-hood law that seeks to penalize anyone who “intentionally covers
their face in order to hide their identity, using hoods, scarves or other
similar elements” while participating in actions that “seriously disturb public
tranquility.” Since illegal detentions have been commonplace and the use of
masks to avoid breathing toxic tear gas is absolutely necessary, this anti-hood
law would legalize the arrest of peaceful protesters and ensure their
conviction.
The first Anti-Mask Law in 1845 was used in New York against small tenant
farmers protesting extractive feudal contracts and the complicity of the state
in the prosecution of debtors. After decades of legislative inaction, the
tenants organized to resist the sheriffs who tried to collect debts and evict
them. Disguising themselves as “calico Indians,” farmers successfully resisted
for five years the oligarchy’s efforts to throw them out of the lands they had
occupied for generations. Anti-rent associations sprung up throughout the state
and in 1844 an Anti-Rent Equal Rights Party was created to support candidates
who favored land reform. Instead of yielding to popular demands, Governor
William Seward doubled down by supporting a law making it a felony to appear in
disguise, which unleashed violent clashes between masked tenant farmers and law
enforcement officials. Brutal repression and controversial trials prompted New
Yorkers ultimately to vote for a constituent convention to resolve the social
struggle. The resulting 1846 Constitution abolished feudal tenure, eliminating
the most oppressive contracts, but did not address the central issue of land
reform. While anti-mask laws have been used in many states to suppress hooded
KKK members from marching — and thus to protect African Americans from public
intimidation by white supremacists — the more recent use of the law against
Occupy Wall Street protestors reaffirms the norm’s oligarchic origins aimed at
criminalizing protest to preserve the existing socioeconomic order.
The repression of class-based politics was also the basis of the 1922 Emergency
Regulations Ordinance that banned the use of face masks in Hong Kong. The
British colonial government applied it to repress a protracted labor strike in
the ports in which Chinese seamen and port workers paralyzed shipping and
docking activities to protest poverty wages and a racist pay scale. The
Ordinance was used again in 1967 to suppress labor strikes and pro-Communist
riots, and more recently this past October against pro-democracy protests. The
revamped ban penalizes the use of masks in the context of protest — except for
professional, religious, or health reasons — with up to one year in prison and
a fine of $3,200. Since then the courts have declared it unconstitutional and
the police has vowed not to enforce it.
Not only in authoritarian China have illiberal anti-mask laws been passed.
After more than three months of protests by the gilets jaunes, this past
February France passed a ban on face covering for anyone participating in
demonstrations. This new repressive law also has the clear aim to criminalize protest
since full-face veils in public areas have been banned since 2011 — France is a
pioneer on targeted legislation against Muslim minorities in the European
Union. With the new politically motivated anti-mask law that seeks to suppress
the uprising of the popular classes against austerity measures promoted by the
Macron government, protesters risk one year in prison and a $17,000 fine.
Legalizing Repression
The Chilean government’s agenda to ensure the protection of the prevailing
neoliberal order incorporates fascist-style laws to deter future popular
uprisings and give law enforcement the legal tools to legitimize their brutal
repression. The latest bill sent by President Piñera — which seeks to exempt
police from criminal liability if they shoot protestors in self-defense — is
particularly revealing of this trend. If approved, police could violently
repress a peaceful protest, as it regularly does, wait for protesters to defend
themselves and then shoot to kill with impunity in self-defense, violating individual
freedoms and due process.
Despite the “fundamentally repressive way” in which the government has handled
the peaceful protest and the grave human rights violations reported by Amnesty
International, Human Rights Watch, and the UN, fascist legal adaptations that
seek to criminalize protest continue to progress in Congress. The government’s
attempt to subdue the mobilizations in which Chileans “woke up” from the
slumber of elite domination and went to the streets en masse to claim dignity
and perform their own emancipation, must be resisted. If moves toward fascism
are not properly denounced and the proposed amendments to the Criminal Code end
up being approved, arbitrary detentions and human rights violations could
become a new normal in Chilean society.
Reuters. January 5,
2020
SANTIAGO — Chilean President Sebastian Pinera on Sunday announced a plan to
overhaul the country's public health care system, the latest in a series of
measures aimed at quelling the demands of protesters who took to the streets
two months ago.
In a televised speech, Pinera said his proposed legislation would speed up
treatment by setting new maximum wait times for surgeries, cover a minimum of
80% of health care costs and reduce the price of medications by more than half.
Under his plan, FONASA, the country's public insurer, would go from simply
paying patient bills to "defending the interests of its users."
Chile's current health care system, with both public and private options for
insurance, is widely perceived by Chileans as too expensive, complex and in
some cases, ineffective. Nearly 3 million sick Chileans languish amid long
waits for treatment. Specialists are in short supply throughout the country.
"I can imagine the indignation that Chilean feel when they see so many
problems," Pinera said in the speech. He called on the country´s Congress
to fast-track the legislation.
Protests in Chile began in mid-October over a small hike in metro fares but
quickly spun out of control. Two months of sometimes violent riots, looting and
mass demonstrations have since prompted Pinera's government to call for a vote
on a new constitution, beef up pensions and the minimum wage, and to cut
transportation costs.
Though the violence has largely subsided since the peak of riots in October and
November, isolated incidents and skirmishes between protesters and security
forces persist.
Late on Friday, vandals burned a church in Santiago amid scattered, smaller
protests throughout the city.
