Date:  6 Apr 2001 06:08:33 MDT
Subject: The anarchist struggle in South America


The anarchist struggle in South America

The South American working class have a long 
history of brutal repression and heroic 
resistance. The 1970s and 1980s were a period of 
intense class war which saw brutal military 
regimes come to power in virtually every 
country. Their purpose was to stave off the 
threat of revolution from the mass-based Marxist 
parties and numerous guerilla movements. The 
enthusiastic support of the United States 
government, who supplied arms, training, 
intelligence and financial aid, was crucial in 
allowing these regimes to take power and persist 
against the popular will.

In the 1980s these military regimes were one by 
one forced from power by a combination of mass 
protest and disastrous economic results. This 
allowed anarchism, which had been an extremely 
powerful force in South America in the early 
years of the 20th century, to re-emerge as a 
living movement. In 1986 the Uruguayan FAU was 
reformed, after having been crushed by the 
military coups of 1971 in Uruguay and 1978 in 
Argentina. Elsewhere although anarchist groups 
did emerge they were mostly affinity groups, 
collections of friends, mainly within the punk 
movement. The attempts at forming broader 
groupings fell apart quickly. However in the 
last 5 years many anarchists have started coming 
together to form real organisations. Militants 
from Marxist groups who have come to question 
the failed politics of the geurilleros have also 
formed an important part of these new movements.

In 1996 the Argentine OSL was formed and in 1999 
the Chilean CUAC. The FAG in Southern Brasil has 
also recently emerged and in Bolivia a number of 
local collectives have started the process of 
coming together. These new anarchist groups 
share a common conception of the need for 
organisations which are capable of coherent, 
disciplined action based upon a collectively 
agreed theory.

Much of the activity of these newly formed 
anarchist groups has been confronting the legacy 
of the military regimes. Amnesty laws were 
passed which essentially pardoned the atrocities 
commited under military rule. Much of the police 
and military are completely unreconstructed and 
their culture of brutality and impunity remains 
strong. In Argentina anarchists have been active 
in the movement against police brutality, and 
have supported the vigil of the mothers and sons 
of those who disappeared during the military 
regime. Chilean anarchists have been involved in 
the popular movement for the punishment of 
Pinochet. Bolivian anarchists have braved 
repression to work against the government of 
Banzer, who was elected president in 1997 after 
having headed a brutal dictatorship from 1971 to 
1978.

Another legacy of the military regimes is on the 
economic front. The soldiers and the tame 
civilian governments which succeeded them obey 
unquestioningly the dictates of the US based 
International Financial Institutions, the IMF 
and World Bank. They unleashed a neo-liberal 
hurricane across the continent. Millions of 
workers have been fired, denied access to basic 
services such as housing, health and education, 
and pushed to the limits of poverty.

Anarchists have been in the frontlines of the 
resistance to this brutal onslaught. In Uruguay 
the FAU has participated in mass occupations of 
land by the homeless, takeovers of factories to 
prevent closures and other campaigns of direct 
action. The Argentine OSL has been active in the 
poorest suburbs of Buenos Aires among 
marginalised and desperate workers, teaching 
literacy, and the tactics of direct action and 
self-organisation. Anarchists have also been 
active in the trade unions but, due to the mass 
closures, the union movement has been much 
weakened. Nevertheless, in Chile, the CUAC have 
succeeded in creating a strong and growing 
anarchist influence in a number of unions.

Other areas of anarchist activity include the 
fight for the rights of Indigenous peoples. In 
Chile the anarchists have played a big part in 
the militant campaign of the Mapuche people for 
their rights and in Bolivia the anarchists 
supported the uprising of indigenous people and 
peasants which shook the state in April 2000. 
Anarchists are once again on the march, their 
voices are being heard in mass social movements 
after many years of silence, and their message 
of self-organisation against capitalism is being 
listened to by an ever growing number of 
workers.

Chekov Feeney

----
This article is from the print version of the Irish 
Anarchist paper 'Workers Solidarity No 63'. 

If you want to print out a fully laid out version we
provide a PDF file on our web page.  You can make 
extra copies of this to give out if you like

Get this and see more articles on the web at
http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/ws/2001.html


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