Women in the Chilean Resistance

...If this movement mobilizes itself it can free political prisoners...

...In this way they hope to make the individuals surrender themselves to the authorities...

...collective insecurity...

...Let us mobilize in particular to defend women and children prisoners used as hostages, threatened by the terror of the military...

...Because this bourgeoisie which brought our women to fight for democracy was already involved in a clearly anti-democratic project...

...What is important is not us as individuals, but rather the movement of a whole people who are fighting for their liberty, and it is because of this that we are ready to take these risks...

...But, in spite of these risks, in spite of the possibility of death, in spite of the possibility of torture, in spite of the possibility of im- prisonment, individual cases, and we are very clear about this, are not important...

...Why does it try to do this...

...Long live the worker and peasant revolution of Chile...

...You will recall the role which the mobilization of women played in the harassment of the UP government...

...vve list tnem Delow in the oraer that tney appear: Non-acknowledged prisoners is a category describing those who are never formally charged and who the dictatorship denies having in custody...

...They have resisted torture sometimes until death: like Lumi Videla, a member of our Central Committee, who was killed under torture...

...From the start, they understood who their true enemies were and how to fight them...

...the torture and humiliation of tens of thousands of people...

...The largest repressive apparatus that our continent has ever seen has been organized in Chile...

...Repression in Chile, as in all Latin America, attempts through torture to break human beings, to break their consciousness, to break their ties to the social group constituting companions in the struggle...

...September 11, 1975, commemorates two years of terror under the military dictatorship and two years of heroic Resistance...

...more than 100,000 prisoners...

...Bautista Van Schowen is a 31-year old doctor and a member of the Political Commission of the MIR...

...It was then that I understood in a very concrete and personal way the importance of the international solidarity movement which denounces the crimes of the military junta...

...The dictatorship often seizes, as hostages, the relatives or friends of a wanted Resistance fighter...

...Maria Cristina L6pez Stewart, a 23-year old student, was arrested on September 23, 1974...

...Without a doubt, the struggle will be long, but our determination will lead us to victory...

...I want, today, to associate myself with their demands...

...The MIR maintains that the present government is a military dic- tatorship with fascistic aspects which is trying to become a Corporativist State...

...To destroy their true essence in order to convert them into traitors, into informers, into collaborators...

...Therefore, the Resistance has urged the international solidarity movement to send news into Chile...

...Finally, because this bourgeoisie, historically responsible for the material and ideological situation in which the majority of Chilean women found themselves, called out these women to enter into a battle to reinforce an order-at that moment crumbling-which was the basis of feminine inequality...

...The essential characteristic of the Ex- ceptional State is that, under this form, the relative autonomy of the in- stitutions of the system of domination is seriously limited...

...This popular alternative must be a huge political front of the Resistance which unites all the political forces disposed to overthrow the dictatorship...

...It is enough to read the documents from the General Secretary of Women's Affairs to see that women are being subjected to a totally passive role...

...They participate in the actions of the Resistance Committees in factories, in slums, in the countryside, in distributing the underground propaganda of the Resistance...

...and, La Tactica del MIR en el Actual Periodo (Santiago, Chile: Correo de la Resistencia, edicibn especial), September 1974...

...are destroyed...

...The hundreds of Resistance Committees, the struggle in those organizations which are allowed by the dictatorship, the increasing propaganda, sabotage and slowdowns which reduce production, the first actions of propaganda under military cover which are developing in Santiago, all these indicate that we have been able to overcome the difficulties of those first months and that the balance of forces can be changed...

...More than anything else, the capitalist reconstruction of Chile serves the interests of the large international monopolies, of those multinational companies like ITT, which carry the major responsibility for the coup...

...The consequences are visible: more than 30,000 dead...

...If it mobilizes it can create a thousands forms of actions...

...The direct mail campaign has been devised by the Resistance to aid in its efforts to disseminate information, newspapers and propaganda to the people of Chile...

...The potential of struggle of the Chilean people is greater than it seems...

...Those who had mobilized in the name of democracy and Christian and Western values are responsible for political assassinations, rape, torture, and every kind of humiliation...

...Long live international solidarity...

...But, comrades, I do not want to paint only a horrible picture...

...are sent systematically to names selected arbitrarily from the phone book...

...We offer it to our readers in solidarity with the Chilean people...

...In the prisons, they have invented thousands of ways of organizing to help support themselves and to advance...

...The Right knew how to mobilize thousands and thousands of women against the government and the Left in general, women not only from the bourgeoisie, but also from the petitbourgeoisie and even certain popular sectors...

...It is a very high cost to pay at times-the best leaders of the Chilean Resistance have fallen in combat and others have died under torture-but behind them others spring up who develop and grow, who invent new forms of struggle...

...They show us that when the interests of the ruling class are threatened by an *Here Castillo is referring to a theoretical concept developed by Nicos Poulantzas and others and applied to the Chilean situation by the MIR...

...The people demand that the unity, which today exists at the grass-roots level, be made concrete...

...August 3, 1975...

...This argument advances the position that the present Chilean regime is characteristic of one form of the Exceptional State,-a military dic- tatorship...

...I want to say once again that I am convinced of the effectiycss of these measures.* * it be lamunar to our readers...

...His present whereabouts are unknown...

...The other characteristic of an Exceptional State is the destructive repression of the mass movement which must occur during its rule...

...She is presumed dead...

...All the democratic conquests of the Chilean people, all the bourgeois democratic institutions which have existed for 150 years have been destroyed by the military on behalf of the supreme interests of capital...

...But, it is important to say that if a sector of the women could be tricked by bourgeois mystification, there were others, thousands, who knew how to resist...

...Given the fact that the press is strictly censored, the Chilean people are often unaware of the massive support their struggle receives throughout the world...

...Our fighters in Chile are beginning to gather in the first fruits of their decision not to abandon the battlefield...

...With your help we will be victorious...

...Her name appears on the recently released list of 119 non-acknowledged prisoners who the dictatorship alleges were killed outside of Chile...

...Presently, I am fulfilling both a mission and a responsibility...

...Military dictatorships, fascism and Bonapartism, for example, ace all Exceptional State forms of the capitalist State...

...Thus, the flexible interplay among the different sectors of the bourgeoisie is stopped...

...But this potential for struggle will not develop fully if we are not capable of offering an alternative policy capable of unifying the entire Chilean people...

...At the same time, I made a firm decision that as much as my physical strength would permit, I would travel to all the countries of the world to speak about what is happening in Chile, to explain why it is happening, and to discuss actions which could put an end to the situation...

...I also bring you greetings from the comrades in the Foreign Commission of our Party who represent the MIR outside of Chile...

...Proof of this is demonstrated in the hundreds of heroes and militants and fighters of the Resistance today in Chile who resist torture, who do have faith in the future of the struggle, who refuse to become defeatists...

...The lives of these prisoners are in immediate danger, as in the cases of Bautista Van Schowen, Jorge Montes, Gustavo Ruz, Maria Cristina L6pez, who for months have suffered the worst tortures...

...Hypocrisy, because this bourgeoisie which mobilized its women to protest the food shortages-as I have said-was itself responsible for the speculation and black market...

...The Exceptional State is defmed as the form taken by the capitalist State in a period of acute political crisis when the system of domination can no longer function in its classical bourgeois democratic form...

...They show us that in a period of imperialism, under conditions of dependent capitalism, the only way in which the so-called bourgeois revolution can come about is by bloody counterrevolutions...

...It took advantage of primitive anti-Communism which it had fostered for many years...

...An international campaign is trying to secure his release...

...I want to cite an example which, even if it is not the most important, reveals the historical impasse of bourgeois ideology in Latin America and particularly in Chile...

...One of the points approved by the General Secretariat is that women should be in favor of maintaining the curfews because, in this way, their husbands will have to remain at home...

...Progressive forces throughout the world will be watching Chile this month, as the people strengthen their opposition to the criminal dictatorship...

...27 upsurge in the mass movement, the bourgeoisie is prepared to renounce all its democratic and humanist pretensions in order to preserve its privileges...

...When international solidarity is fully developed, it can free all political prisoners who today popIlleallhe concentrate on calllps an torture uses o the junta...

...And as long as I have spoken to you of the suffering of our women, permit me to speak to you of their combativeness, of the role they are currently playing in the28 reorganization of the mass movement in the preparation of future battles...

...These women and men, who today suffer in Chile the full weight of the repression are the first to demand more firm and more unitary actions from the whole Chilean Left...

...capital...

...It used women as its political and ideological shield...

...In reality these people have been kidnapped by the dictatorship and they run the greatest danger of dying under torture...

...For further explanation see: Nicos Poulantzas, Fascism and Dictatorship: The Third International and the Problem of Fascism (London: New Lefl Review Mitions), 1974...

...Though an invalid, he is still alive in the Naval Hospital at Valparaiso...

...This is the political and economic foundation of the military and the technocrats, representatives of the monopoly bourgeoisie in power today...

...When we remained in Chile, we knew very well what risks we were running-the risks of combat, the risks of being a Party member, the risks of the worker, the peasant, and the woman, of the slum dweller who organizes Resistance actions...

...The events of Chile are rich in lessons...

...On the one hand, complete hypocrisy...

...The victories of the people of Vietnam and Cambodia are our victories and they show us the road to follow...

...Nevertheless, all this corresponds to the logic of capitalist accumulation based on the sbper-exploitation of the labor farce...

...We fight in defense of all political prisoners in Latin America and especially in defense of the leaders of the Tupamaros who have recently been arrested in Buenos Aires by Isabel Per6n's police...

...To convert them into destroyed human beings...

...He was arrested in 1974 and is being held at "Tres Alamos" detention center on the outskirts of Santiago...

...Let us mobilize to defend the anti-coup sailors...

...Let us mobilize as well to give financial support to the Resistance struggle of the Chilean people...

...The only words he uttered during his lengthy interrogations were slogans of the Resistance...

...like comrade Cristina, a Brazilian, a militant of the MIR, who was killed in battle with her weapons in hand in Concepci6n...

...Let us join in the direct mail campaign to support these prisoners, to end their tortures and to free them...

...and like thousands of militants who are today prepared to go to any lengths in their struggle against the dictatorship and for socialist revolution...

...It was also reported that after not being fed for nearly a week, she lost her mind and dug a hole in the wall of her cell to eat the dirt...

...For this, it was necessary to destroy not only the institutions which the generals claimed to defend at the moment of the coup, but also to undermine those "moral values'hhich they claimed to defend...

...and repression within universities and toward cultural and artistic activities in general...

...Counterrevolution has reigned since September 11, 1973...

...on the other, total blindness...

...They also demand many more expressions of international solidarity in order to increase the isolation of the military...

...I want to stress their desires here...

...On October 5, 1974, I fell into the hands of the Chilean military during a battle in which my companero, the Secretary General of the MIR, Miguel Enriquez, died fighting...

...Underthis form, one bourgeois sector assumes hegemony over the State apparatus, generally by means of the repressive apparatus (in Chile it was achieved through an alliance of the ofticer corps with the big monopoly bourgeoisie and U.S...

...and like Laura Allende, Socialist Congresswoman who decided to remain in Chile to be close to her people, who when she walked through the streets of Santiago the people gathered around her, who was a symbol, a symbol of the assassinated president...

...Due to international pressure, many of them have been released...

...A great international movement forced the military junta to free me less than one month after my arrest...

...like Gladys Diaz, a mass leader and journalist of the proletarian revolution, who was recently arrested by the military and today is undergoing cruel torture...

...These companies are the expression throughout the entire world of the presence of North American imperialism, our common enemy...

...My life is proof of what international solidarity can achieve for Chile...

...2) To respect democratic liberties which, they said, were threatened by "the communist advance...

...This mobilization had two axes: 1) To better the living conditions, in other words, to fight against inflation, the black market, and the scarcity of products, phenomena for which the bourgeoisie was not at all innocent...

...For example, in the poorer districts, they are organized to fight against hunger, creating what they call "communal kitchens...

...But the junta hasn't been able to achieve this...

...The ruling classes have understood that the only way that the bourgeois order could be saved is through imposing an Exceptional State*, the bloodiest military dictatorship that Latin America has ever experienced...

...People such as this will never be defeated...

...This political front has yet to be concretized in Chile...

...According to women who had been imprisoned with her, she was subjected to excessive torture, including being raped by trained dogs...

...If a thousand letters are mailed and a thousand cables are sent, it can save the life of a non-acknowledged prisoner, it can save someone from torture...

...I first want to give you combative, revolutionary greetings from the Chilean Resistance, from the Chilean people organized in Resistance Committees, from all militants sworn to the struggle to the death against the military dictatorship, and especially from our Secretary General Andres Pascal Allende...

...Those who had organized the march of the empty pots, have now thrust the country into the most terrible starvation...

...I want to say as well that my presence is also the presence of the Junta for Revolutionary Coordination in Latin America, made up of the National Liberation Movement (MLN/Tupamaros) of Uruguay, the People's Revolutionary Army and the Revolutionary Workers' Party (ERP-PRT) of Argentina, by the National Liberation Army of Bolivia (ELN), and by the Movement of the Revolutionary Left of Chile (MIR...

...the closing of all opposition press...

...They know, and today they know it in a particularly dramatic fashion, that the "order" imposed by the military not only signifies the worst oppression in general, but also reinforces the specific repression of women...

...In this period, we all understand these risks of prison, concentration camps, and death...

...Often, infants and young children have been taken hostage...

...A Resistance fighter receiving this in the mail will feel greatly encouraged, while supporters of the dictatorship will begin to feel as though they are aboard a sinking ship...

...And because of this understanding, they have suffered and are still suffering all the pain of the repression...

...We will continue on our road, the road which was laid down for us by the courage and wisdom of Miguel Enriquez, Bautista Van Schowen, and those who, killed in the Resistance or jailed by the military, have given their people and the whole world an outstanding example of humanity...

...the organizations permitted under representative forms of government (such as unions, the press, political parties, etc...

...As many news stories have shown, the Junta's story is a complete fabrication (see the New York Times...

...They distinguish it from the classical form of the Fascist State that developed between World War I and I1 in Europe because, in part, it dog not have a fascist party, because its base of support does not come From a permanently mobilized mass movement that massively and actively in- corporates the petit-bourgeoisie, and because the political police do not serve as the most powerful branch of the repressive apparatus...

...Let us mobilize in defense of Chilean prisoners, especially those non-acknowledged prisoners, those whom the junta kidnapped and then has denied that they have...

...I do not want to speak only of our suffering...

...With the imposition of this "new order," the oppression of women in particular is even worse...

...In front of these people and for these people, it is our responsibility to fight and to be strong...

...In addition to this, if the campaign is large enough, the quantity of mail will create havoc in the dictatorship's mail censoring system...

...He is a symbol of strength and struggle for the people of Chile...

...Any flexibility offered to the oppressed class by the system of representative democracy is now removed...

...Under the Exceptional State, the non-dominant sectors of the bourgeoisie participate by becoming "pressure groups" or carving out "areas of influence" within the various branches of the State...

...It took advantage of the lack of political development within large sectors of Chilean women in order to transform these women into cannon fodder for its fascist projects...

...That is why nonacknowledged prisoners are often the focus of campaigns to free all political prisoners...

...Today, the Chilean people are faced with a very harsh test...

...The military clique, presently in power in Chile, is the guarantor ofthese interests...

...I want to tell you emphatically that my people have been attacked but not conquered, that thanks to the large revolutionary reserves of our working class and other exploited sectors, that thanks to the decision of thousands of militants not to abandon the battlefield-among whom are the militants and leaders of my Party-today the Resistance is a reality that neither our enemies nor the defeatists can deny...

...He was arrested on December 13, 1973 and has been brutally tortured since that time...

...We can win with international solidarity...

...In the direct mail campaign, letters, copies of foreign news stories about Chile, condemnations of human rights violations, etc...

...These women, true daughters of the people of my country, are the carriers of the best values-democratic and revolutionary values...

...This is the lesson of Brazil, Uruguay, Bolivia and my country...

...Jorge Montes, a Senator in the.UP government and a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Chile, was arrested early this year...

...a curfew which, since the coup, has been maintained for more than a year and a half...

...Gustavo Rus is a teacher and a member of the Political Commission of the Socialist Party...

...For remaining in Chile and for this only, Laura Allende was imprisoned for more than three months...

...The Chilean bourgeoisie knew what it was doing...