Chile, "Solidaridad" #14 - The day jail burned: Two years after the slaughter in the prison of San Miguel (ca)

On December 8, 2010, around 05:00 am in the tower 5, located on the fourth floor of the 
San Miguel prison, amid a climate of great indifference, there was a fire that would end 
life of 81 prisoners. Subsequently, this fact would be considered, in the words of 
Ma?alich (Minister of Health), as the largest prison slaughter occurred in Chile. --- At 
first the bourgeois press emphasized that the fire was caused by the prisoners themselves, 
in a sort of riot or quarrel among themselves. Thus disguise succeeded to some extent, 
it's brutal fact was happening: 81 people were burned alive inside a prison in complete 
indifference! Today, since there is no doubt about the negligence of the prison gendarmes, 
who because of their reaction "late", left to die burned to 81 prisoners.

At no time was prioritized life of these human beings, but on the contrary, every time 
they tried to quell what was happening and did his best to keep inmates locked up under 
the pretext that they tried to "escape" .

The commonly used argument in favor of prisons, is related to the idea that they have a 
role in rehabilitation of individuals, by imprisonment. It also tells us that individuals 
who are in prison are there because they broke the law and therefore deserve punishment, 
so that take warning: only fulfilling his sentence may regain their "freedom". Thus it is 
said, that they will not commit more crimes or not perform acts against "society", because 
in the prison were "re-educated" to "reintegrate" in social life. Clearly, the 
"reintegration" quietly hidden, the idea that the state has to create subjects submissive 
and gentle, not to question private property, and that at no time put into question the 
existing order and authority, ie the social inequality, poverty and injustice.

The slaughter occurred in the prison of San Miguel just realize the injustices inherent in 
capitalism, as those who died in that place, they had one thing in common: they are poor. 
The marginality, overcrowding, unworthy and degrading treatment in which thousands of 
prisonerssa throughout this territory called Chile, and the fact that the prisons are full 
of poor is not a mere coincidence, quite the contrary, it is a logical consequence of a 
society that pushes secreted and total abandonment to thousands people.

Meanwhile, employers increasingly accumulate wealth by exploiting thousands of workers, 
paying them starvation wages or enriched in building prisons than the state itself 
subsidizes (called "operated prisons").

The jail is not and can never be a solution, since it is the capitalist economy itself 
that breeds poverty, inequality and social problems as "crime." While this system does not 
fall, does not cease to exist such problems whose taproot economic inequality cornerstone 
underpinning the world in which we live.

Juan Rojas

Published in No. 14 of the anarchist newspaper "Solidarity"

SOLIDARITY

Facing the monopoly of information by those who exercise domain, we lift this humble 
alternative information, which seeks to explain the reality that the mainstream media 
deliberately concealed or misrepresented. From a libertarian perspective and class, we 
serve the organizations that fight every day and create possible to transform this 
reality. Support and make visible the struggles and interests of the exploited and 
oppressed and in this piece of land is the goal we have set, showing that we are not 
asleep and that more and more those who rebel and begin to forge a libertarian horizon.

Solidarity , Libertarian Communist newspaper .
Chilena Region Contact: publicacion.solidaridad @ gmail.com