A huge anti-Imperialist anslaught attacks the cittadel of power of all the oppressors of the people
Against the Mining Activity Zoning Law… The Chubutazo stands up!
From the First Line of the workers and people’s uprising against the mining companies, the capitalists and its government
See more articles on the Chubutazo
- Voices of the workers of the front line of the mass uprising in ChubutSee more
- The Chubutazo was the best tribute to the revolutionary outburst of 2001 in ArgentinaSee more
- Chubut: the fourth exporting province in the country, bankrupt and plundered See more
Background and previous days
of a huge revolutionary mass uprising in Chubut
On Wednesday December 15, it took less than 15 minutes for the boss politicians, servants of the imperialist mining companies and representatives of the oil companies that plunder Patagonia and the fishing companies, which overexploit thousands of workers, to vote for the Mining Activity Zoning Law in the provincial legislature. With this law, they wanted to allow Pan American Silver to plunder gold and silver in Chubut’s plateau, and with them, the drinkable water resources of the province.
In the face of this, the response of the workers and the poor of Chubut did not take long. Thousands of teachers, state employees, unemployed workers, rebellious and exploited youth took to the streets. The war-cry was “No means no!” and massive demonstrations on the Legislature and the Government House took place in Rawson and in every city in the province, in defense of water, for work for the youth, against the Fishing Law, against labour insecurity…
In 2019, and in spite of its huge wealth, which is plundered by the big oil companies, fishing companies, and metallurgic companies -as that of Madanes, there was a debacle due to the province falling into economic bankruptcy. Since then, the governor Arcioni, together with the national government of Alberto Fernandez, started to preach the “advantages” of the open-pit mega-mining. This way, they intended to collect royalties to repay debts and refill the exhausted provincial coffers. Demagogically, they announced they would “create jobs” and that way they could postpone the crisis for which the teachers, state employees and judicial employees have not been collecting their wages, which were 6 months in arrears while the big transnational companies don’t leave a single peso in the province!
This is what Chubut crisis is about, a provincial and national state that have a big suction hose to extract the wealth out of the country and give it to the IMF and the international bankers.
The government insists that mega-mining is necessary to collect funds, to solve the provincial bankruptcy. They are such cynical scammers! This is a lie! Thousands of millions of dollars are taken away by oil companies that are plundering the whole Patagonia, and Chubut in particular! Same thing happens with Aluar steelworks, with the fishing companies that steal the sea wealth and Benetton which owns the land. This is a thousand times a lie! Chubut is one of the wealthiest provinces in Argentina and is being stolen by Madanes, BP, etc., and their fabulous profits are guaranteed by Arcioni and his murderous police, by starving its people.
With the sole announce of the voting of the Mining Activity Zoning Law, Pan American Silver’s shares rose 7% and it gained 347 million dollars in the blink of an eye. Not a cent was for the province; it was all for the shareholders of BP, as Pan American is just a front company.
All of a sudden, huge mass demonstrations burst on the streets and not only the repressor government of Arcioni was seen as an enemy of the rebellious masses but also the anti-worker government of Fernandez, as both had agreed with Pan American Silver to install mega-mining in Chubut’s plateau.
The focus of this struggle was set in the capital of the province, Rawson. There were also huge mass actions and struggles in Puerto Madryn, Trelew, Comodoro Rivadavia, and the Andes region…
Arde la Casa de Gobierno de Chubut
La Gobernación en llamas
Movilización contra la megaminería
Arcioni y Alberto Fernández
Thursday, December 16
Since the morning of that day, different groups of workers and students arrived to join the struggle which was underway in the political centre of the capital city. The roadblocks went on and the general strike was starting while the combats had already begun. The fight was against the mining companies and imperialism, with the methods of struggle of the working class and the exploited masses.
From the First Line, we could see that since the first moment, the clashes against the power institutions of the bourgeoisie were open. There was a heroic resistance against the brutal crackdown of the infantry and GEOP (Special Operations Group of the Federal Police, NT).
Meanwhile, the assemblies in defense of water were also massive in the whole province, and became generalized to all the cities, like in Trelew, Puerto Madryn, Comodoro Rivadavia and the Andes region. The unions in struggle, like SOMU (sailors), longshoremen, fish/seafood filleters, state employees, teachers, were self-organizing against the traitors of the union bureaucracy.
The justified hatred of the exploited was felt during that entire day. December 16 will remain as a reference point, as is December 20 2001, for the uprising of the workers and people of Chubut. Such a paradox, for this to happen in the same month, December, 20 years after the revolutionary process that shook Argentina starting the 21th Century.
Combates en las calles de Rawson
In the afternoon of December 16,
the masses assaulted the citadel of power
All the domination institutions of the transnationals and the big landowners of the province burnt under the fire of the hatred of the exploited. This fight made the struggle to climb another step as the rebellious masses attacked the citadel of power of the province -the house of government, which was set on fire. The same happened to the Supreme Court of Justice palace, the Legislature, the Police Station of Rawson, and other Ministries of the provincial government and other state facilities.
The masses had distinguished its enemies and also realized that they could get their demands only by defeating them. To eat, to have water and work, those on the top must be toppled.
In that time, the bourgeoisie was terrified and affirmed in fear: “‘The facilities of the Supreme Court of Justice are also ablaze, as the Rawson square, the Government House and the Legislature’, detailed the local channel AZM TV. The journalist of the Patagonia’s channel detailed after that: ‘Rawson is on fire, everything is ablaze’. In the pictures that were widespread from Chubut, heavy damages could be seen all over the public places, but mostly cars on fire in the streets and avenues of the centre of the capital city. According to reports, there are 16 public buildings attacked by the protestors”. (Infobae, December 16, 2021)
The war-cry “Everybody out, not a single one should remain” thundered against the anti-worker government of Fernandez-Arcioni, the mining transnational companies and their Zoning Law. The 2001 demand returned to clash against everything the masses hate: the boss politicians and their power.
This is the best tribute to the revolutionary combats of 2001 and the 40 martyrs killed on December 19 and 20 that year. It is an excellent starting point to defeat the huge ongoing attack against the workers and the poor.
From Democracia Obrera, being part of the thousands of fighters of the First Line, we insisted that the mobilization should not stop. With the method of direct democracy and assemblies, an elemental coordination for the struggle was beginning to be set up. The process opened in which self-determination structures of the masses should be set up and generalized. A mass semi-insurrectional process was starting. The tough clashes with the police could be seen all over. The police station ablaze. “Everybody out” for the big masses also means to disband the murderous police. There were seriously wounded among the rebellious workers, but also among the repressors. The bourgeoisie was frightened and saw its power was burning.
After years of experience of struggle against the Arcioni government, the masses attacked the centre of the power of the bourgeoisie in the province. We were before the first revolutionary action day of the uprising that has started.
Arde la gobernación del represor Arcioni
Choques con la policía en las calles de Rawson
Pintadas en las calles de Chubut: “¡Que se vayan todos! ¡Chau Arcioni!”
The fire burning in the Government House is not extinguished. Arcioni runs away so he does not fall and the police retreats, while continuing with its fierce crackdown
The rage of the exploited, which have clearly identified its enemy, is focused in the House of the Government of the Province, as well as in Rawson Supreme Court, which are still burning, and forced the troops of the murderous police to retreat from the Government House in which they were stationed to repress the people.
This is the way to fight against the IMF, the mining companies, imperialism and its lackey governments! As in 2001!
Militants that claimed to be leftists and socialists have reached here calling this a “democratic demonstration” and an “ecologist struggle”… Of course this is so, but it is also much more. It is a fight where democracy of the workers and the rebellious poor is imposed. There is neither bourgeois democracy nor capitalist democracy or exploiters’ democracy, with which the left cohabitates every day in the Parliament of the powerful. The present one is the democracy of those from below, making the power of those from the top to burn.
Here, we fight with the method of revolution, strikes, picket lines, barricades, general strike… The masses are burning the “Bastille”, the centre of power, a matter that scares the parliamentarian left away.
The fight for water is the same fight for bread, decent work, etc., which can only be victorious if led by the working class, attacking the property of the capitalists, its banks, leading the people to overthrow the government of Arcioni and all the institutions of oppression of the bourgeoisie.
From LOI-CI / Democracia Obrera we were issuing statements that tried to contribute to and collaborate with the rebellious masses. The first one, on December 16, affirmed;
“The method of struggle conquered by the workers of Chubut is clear and allows them to launch a decisive counter-offensive to disperse the power of the executioners and those who sell out the people:
Strike, picket lines and revolutionary strike! This is underway in the entire Chubut.
Self-defense committees to defeat the murderous police!
Arcioni out! Everybody out!
Expropriate the imperialist mining and oil companies without compensation and place them under workers control! This is how we defend water and conquer work and decent wages for all.
For a workers popular government based in the assemblies and the workers in struggle!
Fighting as in Chubut we will expel the IMF from Argentina and defeat its politicians who swindle the people!”
Late at night, when this hard day for the bourgeoisie ends, nobody knows where Arcioni is. We could say it is a government on the run. The police, prepared for years as true guardian dogs that hate workers and the poor, decided to flee from the Government House. There was a clash against the crackdown the entire day.
The police sought to sow terror and entered working-class neighborhoods to hunt down the activists. The hard clashes began on the periphery of Rawson. There, the cowardly police threw gas grenades at the houses that suffocated entire families, elderly and children included, who were heroically defended by the working class youth who quickly improvised barricades on the corners. Again the police escaped like a rat, driven away by the fury of those below who defended themselves house to house.
Combates frente a la Legislatura
Tribunal de justicia incendiado
Plaza de Rawson, frente a la Casa de Gobierno incendiada
Represión frente a la gobernación
La policía asesina huye de la Casa de Gobierno
In the first and second revolutionary days of struggle,
the indefinite political general strike is conquered
The traitors of the bureaucracy of oil workers, construction workers and truck drivers unions, all of them servants of Arcioni, have also run away
The longshoremen, cargo and fishing ships sailors and filleters change the balance of forces in favour of the masses!
Since morning in these huge revolutionary days of struggle, the unemployed generalized the roadblocking of highways. People are fighting in the cities with mass demonstrations, but also production is stopped. This is the main battle on December 16, when the masses got to climb a new step in their struggle, with the method of the general strike, the assemblies and picket lines. They begin to vote this in all the unions at the port and in the fishing companies. These methods of struggle push huge sectors of the vanguard to set the citadel of power on fire.
The “Bastille” is burnt by the poor, that is to say, all the institutions of domination of the bourgeoisie were burnt, as we said above.
A process of mass spontaneous insurrection has started.
As broad sectors of the industrial proletariat came to fight for their demands, the balance of forces changed decisively for the masses. The four unions of the sea industry, in a coordination body, entered the fight against the mining companies and the government. In assemblies, they voted the indefinite strike which started on December 17. The teachers, state employees, judicial employees, health workers, municipal workers, etc. are not anymore alone in their demands.
The unions of the maritime industries say: “We will not give explanations to any businessmen; we will stop everything; production will be stored in fridges and nobody will go to work. We have already voted to go on strike. Now, we will not stop until we defeat the Mining Zoning Law”. This was the course of action defined by the four unions of the maritime industries. The shop stewards of all the unions of the fishing and fish procesing industry were mandated to stop everything.
After assemblies and first actions of struggle of the workers, on December 17th, the jigger boats and cooler pots were anchored in the sea. The plants were shut. Not even a single box of frozen sea products was moved from the storages and fridges of the port. With assemblies, strikes and picket lines, the workers of the maritime industry entered the fight confronting the scabs of the bureaucracy of the oil workers union, construction workers union and truck drivers union, which, with their Social Pact, support Arcioni and the plunder of the mining transnational companies. In these days of struggle, it is clear that to defeat the government and imperialism, we need to confront the scabs of the trade union bureaucracy. They sold out the collective wage agreements of the oil workers and construction workers, giving them as slaves with no kind of rights, to the imperialist oil companies, Madanes of Aluar and the landowner oligarchy.
Fighting against the mega-mining companies and against the conditions of brutal slavery and outsourcing in which they are forced to work, the dockworkers, sailors and other sea workers, filleters and canners, became a decisive battalion alongside all the teachers, state employees, unemployed workers, rebel youth and people in struggle, to make governor Arcioni run.
In Puerto Madryn and Trelew, the female filleters marched with their knives to cut the fish and their working clothes. The women workers were at the lead. The same did the mariners and the longshoremen. A huge coordination of the workers of the fishing industry is being welded in the streets and each further step is defined in the general assembly of the workers of the four unions of this branch of the industry: SUPA (port workers), STIA (food processing industries), SOMU (sailors and machinists) and SICONARA (pilots and practicians). These battalions of the industrial proletariat were which even expelled the bands of the bureaucracy of the UOCRA (construction workers union) from the streets as they were marching to counter the workers and in defence of the government and mega-mining in Madryn and Rawson. In less than an hour, the thugs had ran away before the militant picket strike of the fishing workers, backed by all the workers and the rebellious people of the province.
With the method of the assembly, the coordination and the strike, the Chubutazo stood up. A demand was generalized: it was no other than “everybody out, not a single one should remain”.
During December 16 and 17, Chubutazo days of fire, self-determination organs of the masses began to rise and be conquered, based on unified assemblies of workers organizations, together with self-organized assemblies in defence of water. They coordinate the picket lines and highway roadblocks. In the Chubutazo an embryo of dual power of the exploited is rising.
The unemployed of the province, with their picket lines, keep blocking highways. They have also been other key component of the First Lines of the Chubutazo. They are thousands of workers laid off from the oil companies in the last six years in the entire oil area of San Jorge Gulf.
Despite the treason of the bureaucracy of the UOCRA (construction workers union) and the UOM (metalworkers union), which did not join the province-wide general strike, the workers of Aluar Steelworks joined the huge demonstrations that took place in Puerto Madryn. In 2019, the self-organized state employees which blocked the gates of Aluar plant received the solidarity of the workers inside, who stopped the production for a whole day.
As we said, the fire burning in the domination institutions placed the government and legislators on the run. In the Chubutazo, the workers and the people do not delegate the solution of their problems to anybody! So a qualitative fact happened: the guardians of the property of the capitalists, the trade union bureaucrats fled. There are conditions to generalize in Chubut what is the embryo of every important struggle in Argentina, the self-organized organizations and rank and file assemblies, as it happened in 2020 and 2021. At each step, the betrayal of the trade union bureaucracy tried to abort this process, which was isolated.
But in Chubutazo, the masses removed that heavy weight from on top of them and had their hands free to fight. Therefore we could say that the forces of the workers of the fishing industry entering the fight in Chubut defeated the infamous Social Pact regime of the trade union bureaucracy with the Peronist government, the boss parties and monopolies.
The fishing workers entered the struggle with their demands. They unite their demands with the defense of water and the expulsion of the imperialist mining companies. There are the forces to break the chains of the oil workers and construction workers, which were tied up by the millionaire trade union bureaucracy who sold them to job insecurity and destroyed their collective wage agreements.
Fileteras de Puerto Madryn paran la planta
Corte de ruta de los obreros de la pesca
Obreros de la pesca de Chubut en paro
Trabajadores de la pesca cortan la ruta en Trelew
Obreros y obreras fileteras en paro
Paro de los obreros de la empresa Estrella Patagónica
Reclamo de los obreros pesqueros: "Por una ley de pesca para Chubut, no para los empresarios y políticos corruptos"
The Chubutazo: The workers and all the exploited layers of the poor enter the fight under conditions of generalized mass political struggle
December 16 and 17: each day, the uprising climbs a new step
The workers of Chubut, have gone for years through a rich experience of economic struggle for their demands, such as wages, ending with the job insecurity, etc. We still remember comrades Jorgelina and Cristina, who, on September 17, 2019, died on the highway when returning from Rawson to Comodoro from the Province-wide Plenary meeting of teachers’ base representatives meant to deepen the unity of the workers that were fighting.
The current fight does not start from the scratch. All the sectors in struggle know each other and have recognized each other on the streets, for years. Together they resisted the ambush of Fernandez at the beginning of 2020 that took them for surprise with massive retrenchments in the textile and fishing industries, with the state employees without collecting wages for months, etc.
This time, the Chubutazo meant they have overcome the phase of mass economic struggle. The exploited entered with their picket lines, roadblocks, an indefinite general strike, burning power institutions, clashing with the police, in a phase of mass political struggle.
This means that none of the sectors in struggle and in defence of water thinks they can get their slightest demand without overthrowing the government and all the domination institutions of the bourgeoisie.
Social peace is definitively broken. Those from below have responded with a mass civil war to the war declared by the capitalists to those from below.
The political struggle subsumes the economic struggle and all the demands of the exploited. The demands “Arcioni out” and “Everybody out” express this qualitative leap forward in the fight and consciousness of the workers and the masses.
New structures expressing the character of the struggle arose; the popular assemblies in the squares, the self-organized movement and the coordination of unions of the industrial workers, the assemblies in the picket lines of the unemployed and the elements of coordination in all the cities of the province. The political struggle pushes more and more to set up the dual power structures.
The clashes with the police and burning of the police stations and public buildings became a true motion to set up self-defense committees and workers and popular surveillance committees to stop and crush a truly fascist police that publicly marched saying “piquetero, I will enter your neighbourhood at night to kill you” under the leadership of Arcioni government, all the boss politicians and the boards of the imperialist oil companies, which pay their guardian dogs double salary.
There is no blinder blind man than that who does not want to see. It spells suspicion that in the midst of these two huge revolutionary mass fighting days, the left, which had sent observers and MPs here, insisted in keeping this mass semi-insurrectional process hidden in their organs, though it shows the way forward for the entire working class to get even the most minimum demand. Not defining the facts as they are is not giving the masses a revolutionary program for victory to finish destroying the provincial bourgeois state and advancing to set up the power of those from below.
They talk of a “democratic struggle” to exert a “pressure” on the domination institutions, which is the same they had said in their election campaigns. But the domination institutions were set on fire and the people imposed that the same ones that had voted for the Mining Action Zoning Law had to abrogate it, otherwise they would fell directly by the hands of the masses, as we will see later. This is the way to fight! The bourgeoisie only gives something when it feels it is about to lose everything. The mass revolutionary offensive put the bourgeoisie in that position.
Reneging from the slogan “everybody out”, as FIT-U does in a shameful way, is for making everyone stay and the FIT-U keep living together with them in the rotten parliaments of the bourgeoisie and the oligarchy. This is what reformism is about, to be nurses of capitalism, to say “there are no conditions, never” for a revolutionary struggle and when the latter is underway, deny it.
In Chubut all the institutions of power have been burnt down. On December 17, the popular sectors went on a tour around all the burnt institutions of power.
Let’s imagine this happens in Buenos Aires. The Pink House and the Congress are on fire. Both low and high courts are on fire. The main police station is on fire. How would FIT-U leadership call this? A “democratic struggle for a minimum demand”?
The MP’s of the left are here. They cannot say they ignore what is really happening in Chubut, despite the weak work they have in that province. To try and cover the sun with a thumb does not mean the sun does not exist, and anyway it cannot be hidden for long.
At the front of the struggle, a new national statement of Democracia Obrera (Workers Democracy) appeared.
“Expropriation of all the energy industry, Madanes and the oligarchy assets without compensation! Place under workers control the oil companies, starting for imposing a progressive tax on big wealth! By expelling the bureaucracy from our unions we can recover the collective wage agreements and all our lost gains. Unite the employed workers with all the laid-off and unemployed ones: Sliding scale of working hours so we all can work and end with the misery! Everyone under the collective wage agreement, and a minimum living wage at the level of the real cost of living!
No to job insecurity! A minimum of working hours guaranteed for all the workers!
In defence of water, bread, work and dignity! We must not fight divided, never again! Long live the indefinite strike of workers in the sea, ports, the filleters and all the workers in the province! They show the way forward on how to fight against the government of Arcioni-Fernandez that kill us by hunger sell out our wealth!
Out with Arcioni! For a big Congress of the unions that are on the streets, the popular assemblies and the unemployed, with delegates with mandate of the base! Self-defense committees!
It is necessary to set up the power of those from below, to get everybody out and let the workers and the people rule, supported on their revolutionary struggle organisations!
Democracia Obrera – 17/12/21”
2019: corte de ruta de docentes y estatales por los salarios adeudados
Pintada en la Casa de Gobierno:
“Andate Arcioni”
Entrenamiento de la policía fascista comandada por Arcioni
La juventud rebelde combate en el Chubutazo
Las calles de Rawson llenas de piedras durante los combates de masas
Barricada en el centro de Rawson
Friday, December 17: the centre of power in Chubut starts the day turned to ashes The citadel of power was burnt down
In Patagonia it’s developing the most advanced battle of the exploited to defeat the IMF and expel imperialism and its servants in Argentina. Although the reformist parliamentarian left wants to hide it, the government house of the enslavers and executioners of the people was turned to ashes. The Legislature, the Supreme Court and other ministries were also burnt down. We can get in and out of these buildings at any moment. Hundreds and why not thousands walk around them with satisfaction, seeing how they have left the hated power institutions.
There are still no armed dual power developed organs of the masses able to completely disarm the bourgeoisie and impose a government of the workers and the poor in the province.
Undoubtedly, power is here, on the streets, and that path is opened. These revolutionary days that have started give the workers and the poor and the revolutionary workers time to catch up at the level of what these two days of this huge struggle caused.
This fight is the one we must wage against the IMF, the oligarchy and its parties nation-wide. To generalize Chubut to the whole Argentina is the task opened for the immediate period, that of regrouping the workers vanguard around the lessons of this heroic struggle, fighting to set up the leadership that the workers need and deserve nationally.
Chubut, a governor on the run…
Each time it is clearer that to get a minimum demand, such as defend water, we need to destroy the institutions of power. The bourgeoisie is willing to concede this and other minimum demands if they feel the risk is near of losing their power and privileges, among them, Arcioni’s head. But the workers and exploited are not willing to stop the fight they started until Arcioni ends up as De La Rua. The huge polarization and situation of revolutionary offensive being started is still far from over.
Contrariwise a submissive reformism, which wants and tries to stop the fierce attack of the capitalists and imperialism with laws in the bourgeois parliaments, living in the “Bastille” together with the “princes” of the imperialist transnational companies, the masses show that the palaces of the bourgeois power must be destroyed. This a huge first step.
What we have lived these 48 hours is no other thing that a spontaneous semi-insurrection of masses that is as conscious and mature as to have identified all the institutions of power as their enemies: the government, the legislature, the police and even the Videlaist-Peronist-Radical justice.
The degree of immaturity of the situation is given by the general staffs that claim to belong to the working class but their aspiration is, at most, to call for “pressure” demonstrations, creating the illusion that the bourgeois parliaments and government will easily give in to the demands of the workers and the people. These leaderships even vote laws that only serve the bourgeoisie or sectors of it, as FIT-U did in occasion of the recent tax reform law.
This policy of reformism is in a 180 degree angle with what the masses impose when they enter in a revolutionary offensive, burning down the bourgeois state institutions. The exploited have proved to be a million times more perspicacious and more revolutionary than the workers’ leaderships that speak on their behalf.
The masses drew the conclusion that, to have water in their house, to have bread and even work, to have peace in their families, they must set Chubut on fire, retaking the historic demand “everybody out!”.
The revolutionaries affirm that the right to mass insurrection is sacred! Long live the uprising of the workers and the people of Chubut! May it not to stop until demolishing and destroying all the institutions of the state, topple Arcioni and conquer Chubut as a stronghold of the workers’ struggle against imperialism, the capitalists and their government!
The Arcioni government, while on the run, enlists its murderous police and the bosses' justice system to counterattack and try to imprison those who struggle
The guard dogs of the transnationals are trained to fill the earth with the people’s blood. Already in the month of July 2020 the anti-worker chants with which the government and the bourgeoisie harangue the police to repress the people had come to light, when they marched to the cry of "Piquetero, piquetero, at night we will enter your neighborhood and your house".
During the last years’ struggle of the teachers, state and judicial workers, workers who fought for decent work and also to collect their salaries, they were always repressed by a police hated by the whole population. The same thing happened in the marches against the mega-mining, which were repressed not only by the police, but also by Das Neves (Chubut’s former governor) gangs', by the thugs of the Truck Drivers Union and the UOCRA.
As we have already said, we saw this again all night and during the early morning of 12/16. In Rawson and Trelew the repression was fierce.
In downtown Rawson, the response of the government and the police turned into a brutal manhunt. Seven comrades were arrested and many wounded. Dozens of children were even hit by rubber bullets. Neighbors and small shopkeepers opened their doors to shelter those who were on the demonstration from the bullets and tear gas. The dogs of prey of the forces of repression did not hesitate at all, even throwing tear gas inside the hospital, injuring several patients who were hospitalized. Thus acted the murderous police under the command of the murderous Arcioni, the same one who together with Macri-Bullrich and with the endorsement of the PJ made disappear and murdered Santiago Maldonado. Arcioni and all the bosses' parties have their hands stained with the blood of the exploited of Chubut! Along with this, to terrorize the revolted people, they announce that there are already prosecutors trying to identify the "rioters".
The counter-offensive the bourgeoisie is preparing in Chubut with its prosecutors, chiefs of the intelligence services and the murderous police, puts on the agenda a central task of the workers and the poor people of the whole country: No one in prison! No one prosecuted! Justice and punishment for all the murderers and traitors of the nation! Dissolution of the caste of judges, their prosecutors and the murderous police! For self-defense committees of all the workers who have the legitimate right to defend themselves from murderers at the expense of the state!
La Casa de Gobierno hecha cenizas
Masiva movilización en Esquel
La demanda de masas de Chubut
The Arcioni government, while on the run, enlists its murderous police and the bosses' justice system to counterattack and try to imprison those who struggle
The guard dogs of the transnationals are trained to fill the earth with the people’s blood. Already in the month of July 2020 the anti-worker chants with which the government and the bourgeoisie harangue the police to repress the people had come to light, when they marched to the cry of "Piquetero, piquetero, at night we will enter your neighborhood and your house".
During the last years’ struggle of the teachers, state and judicial workers, workers who fought for decent work and also to collect their salaries, they were always repressed by a police hated by the whole population. The same thing happened in the marches against the mega-mining, which were repressed not only by the police, but also by Das Neves (Chubut’s former governor) gangs', by the thugs of the Truck Drivers Union and the UOCRA.
As we have already said, we saw this again all night and during the early morning of 12/16. In Rawson and Trelew the repression was fierce.
In downtown Rawson, the response of the government and the police turned into a brutal manhunt. Seven comrades were arrested and many wounded. Dozens of children were even hit by rubber bullets. Neighbors and small shopkeepers opened their doors to shelter those who were on the demonstration from the bullets and tear gas. The dogs of prey of the forces of repression did not hesitate at all, even throwing tear gas inside the hospital, injuring several patients who were hospitalized. Thus acted the murderous police under the command of the murderous Arcioni, the same one who together with Macri-Bullrich and with the endorsement of the PJ made disappear and murdered Santiago Maldonado. Arcioni and all the bosses' parties have their hands stained with the blood of the exploited of Chubut! Along with this, to terrorize the revolted people, they announce that there are already prosecutors trying to identify the "rioters".
The counter-offensive the bourgeoisie is preparing in Chubut with its prosecutors, chiefs of the intelligence services and the murderous police, puts on the agenda a central task of the workers and the poor people of the whole country: No one in prison! No one prosecuted! Justice and punishment for all the murderers and traitors of the nation! Dissolution of the caste of judges, their prosecutors and the murderous police! For self-defense committees of all the workers who have the legitimate right to defend themselves from murderers at the expense of the state!
Feroz represión de la policía asesina
Compañeros heridos a manos de la represión
Saturday 18 and Sunday 19: Nobody leaves the streets! The Chubutazo does not stop!
During December 18 and 19, the Arcioni government, from the underground, is sending the police again to the most militant neighborhoods of Rawson. The masses continue in the streets. Although they are apparently taking a break, they are only preparing new actions of struggle for Monday. We are facing days of organization and assemblies. In the midst of the struggle that is shaking the province, the assemblies that bring together all the workers and exploited in struggle, seek to take up again the path of the revolutionary days of 2001, as is the case of the Union of Community Assemblies - UAC of Trelew, which affirms: "20 years after the Argentinazo we continue building the Chubutazo".
Convocatoria de la UAC de Trelew: “A 20 años del Argentinazo, seguimos construyendo el Chubutazo”
Monday 20 and Tuesday 21: new revolutionary days Arcioni tries to divert the struggle with the repeal of the law and the deception of a fraudulent plebiscite
Monday, December 20 was the 20th anniversary of the revolutionary struggle of 2001. That redoubled the cry of "Everybody out, nobody must remain!" in all the mobilizations of the province. The people of Chubut claim to be the proud continuators of that struggle.
On December 20, the masses set out to make it the definitive day for the overthrow of Arcioni. The provincial day of struggle that takes place on Monday expresses this feeling.
In Rawson, on the corner of José de San Martín and 25 de Mayo, the concentration begins to confront the attack by mining companies like Pan American Silver. This struggle begins to take on new vigor at the beginning of the week.
The power buildings are still all burned and with free access, even for curious or surprised people.
A large provincial march took place in Rawson. There were columns of workers from all over the province who are arriving to the capital. The dockworkers are present and are organizing together with the education workers, the state workers, the militant youth, the students, the unemployed workers.
The Chubutazo is alive and does not abandon the streets. The indefinite general strike is maintained.
While the mass marches are carried out in the cities, the roadblocks are strengthened and spread. A caravan also arrives in Rawson from the Andean Region. It is the 6th day of combat against the mega-mining, the plundering of the monopolies and the starving-maker government of Arcioni.
There is a cry that unites everyone, from the Cordillera to the sea: "Everybody out, nobody must remain!
From Buenos Aires comes the solidarity of the Body of Delegates of Terminal 5 of the Port of Buenos Aires in support of the SUPA dock workers and the maritime workers of Chubut in revolt, who are marking the road to be walked by the working class of the whole country.
This Monday the prosecutors covering up for the police and the murderous gendarmerie announce that they will open criminal proceedings against the fighters who are found guilty of attacking public buildings.
While this threat is taking place, Arcioni, hiding like a rat, announces on Twitter that he will reverse the Mining Zoning Law and call for a plebiscite.
But "the plebiscite has already taken place", declares the Trelew assembly in a proclamation, "it began on December 15 and ends with the resignation of Arcioni-Sastre".
From Democracia Obrera we denounce the government's trickery in a statement distributed during the day of struggle on December 20:
"The people have already decided to fire all the legislators, the mining companies and the repressor Arcioni!
Enough of tricks and deceit! The workers and the people in struggle must really win!
The masses have already voted: annulment and plain and simple repeal of the mining and fishing surrender law! Out with the transnationals! Nationalization without payment and under workers control of the oil companies!
Out with Arcioni! Up with those from below!
Everybody out, nobody must remain, as the masses keep shouting in front of the Government House in Rawson.
This is the best reminder of December 20, 2001!"
20 de diciembre: jornada de lucha provincial
Desde Rawson, habla Ramón Vera, delegado del SOMU, durante la jornada de lucha provincial del 20/12
No means no!
Against the fraud and Arcioni's trap, the cry of struggle of December 16 is taken up again: No means no!
The currents of the reformist left and sectors of the trade union bureaucracy are already announcing the "great triumph" of the struggle in Chubut. Even Del Caño, while Arcioni was talking about the puppet plebiscite, was already posing that it was a "triumph", just as he had posed the parliamentary session of December 2017 when 3 tons of stones were falling on the Congress that was stealing the pensions from the people: "popular consultation!, plebiscite!"....
But no is no! Plain and simple derogation! The Chubutazo does not end! The masses understand that the triumph is within reach, provided that the pickets, the roadblocks, the marches in the streets and the indefinite general strike are maintained.
At that time it was a question of nobody trying to expropriate, divert or steal the heroic struggle of the workers and the people of Chubut. Arcioni's plebiscite was a trap and it had to be defeated in order to repeal the law.
The assemblies continued to vote "everybody out", as happened in Trelew, while in Madryn, at nightfall, one of the most massive mobilizations of these days took place.
The workers and the people are fed up with deceit, lies and repression. While the bosses' politicians were trying to put out the fire with demagogy and deceit, more and more the masses were winning the streets.
Convocatoria para la movilización frente a la Legislatura el 21/12 “El plebiscito empezó el 15/12/21 y termina con la renuncia de Arcioni-Sastre”
Multitudinaria marcha en Madryn al anochecer del 20/12
Tuesday, December 21 The government is forced to give in on the repealing of the law...
while it prepares revenge
That den of bandits of the Legislature (servants of the oil companies, the mining companies, Madanes and company) that are \also on the run and hidden from the hatred of the people, held a virtual session and repealed the mining zoning law, when it was more than clear that the workers and the people in struggle were not going to accept its implementation or the trap of the plebiscite. In the streets, people were shouting "the people have already plebiscited: Out with Arcioni!"
The assemblies and the workers are beginning to see that they have won only the first round of a very hard fight that is far from over.
There are the threats of the prosecutors who are announcing that they will arrest the fighters. This is the first step in the revenge of Arcioni and the CEOs of the imperialist companies... The bourgeoisie is going to have to "restore order", when in reality it is the masses who conquered their order, their democracy, defeating the mining law aimed to plunder the nation.
The assemblies vote to maintain their coordination. They decide to momentarily lift the indefinite strike but to prepare a big mass march on January 4. The fact is that nobody believes anymore this government and this Legislature of enemies of the people.
The Chubutazo, as an independent mass action, went very far, but its provisional and partial conquests are at risk. This mass struggle cannot remain isolated. The trade union bureaucracy will deepen the control of the workers' movement so that there would be no "new Chubut" in Argentina. The government will armor itself more and more while it deepens the attack on the workers and the people throughout the country, as imposed by the IMF.
The masses of Chubut gave all they could and will give much more. They marked a road, the road to victory, that of the revolutionary mass actions, that of 2001.
Meanwhile, reformism, the FIT-U as a "third force", wants to impose that all those enormous forces end up as an impotent struggle of pressure on the bourgeois Parliament, which could grant this or that minimal democratic concession that does not mean the bosses have to put up money -as happened with legal abortion-, but which always armors itself and will armor itself to the teeth when the struggle of the working class and the people calls into question the property of the capitalists, their wallet and their business.
Against imperialist plunder, the fight is class against class. The defense of the ecosystems, of the rivers and of the wealth of nature of any country, and much more of an oppressed and plundered country like Argentina, is only guaranteed by expelling imperialism, expropriating the expropriators of the people and imposing a rational workers' and popular economic plan that can only be guaranteed and decided democratically by the power of those from below.
Because if it is necessary to fight against the mining companies so that the water of the houses of the workers and the people of Chubut is not cut off every 3 days and so that the rivers continue to irrigate the fertile valleys, we must tell the whole truth: to conquer bread we must expropriate without payment the imperialist oil companies and the agrarian oligarchy that produces food for 400 million people while in Argentina the people starve to death.
The struggle for bread, for water, for decent work, against inflation and the high cost of living, is a struggle that can only triumph with a revolutionary worker and popular government that leads to victory a triumphant Argentinazo, expropriating the expropriators of the people.
Chubut has marked a new path for Argentina. In that province, the struggles of Colombia, Peru, Ecuador and Chile against imperialism and the regimes of opprobrium and surrender were introduced under conditions of unheard of suffering. In Chubut, continuity was given to the fights of 2001 and to those that as in 2017 cornered Macri and the traitors of the union bureaucracy that supported him.
The FIT-U says it fights to be the "third force". What good could be to have 4 or 10 deputies if they are not at the service of organizing the real force that the working class needs, which is a great National Assembly of employed and unemployed workers that receives and shelters in its bosom delegates from all the popular assemblies and self-convened workers of the province of Chubut? What class conscious worker would not go to that great National Workers Assembly?
In Chubut the self-organization of the working class and the exploited was generalized. Direct democracy was imposed and the union bureaucracy was defeated. There are the forces which can carry forward as a point of support the struggles of the working class throughout Argentina, today encircled.
In Chubut the big imperialist companies have been confronted. There are the funds that these companies have plundered from the nation and that the people must recover in order to conquer dignified work for all the unemployed.
Chubut marks the road that the working class of all Argentina will have to follow to defeat the agreement that the Fernandezes have signed some time ago with the IMF, the representative of the imperialist powers.
The testimonial and propagandist struggles in the streets against the IMF are only one aspect and component of the anti-imperialist mass struggle. But the central ones, the qualitative ones and those that can change the relationship of forces, are the struggles in the streets of the working class with their methods of struggle confronting the bosses, imperialism and the governments.
Chubut has shown that even the smallest demand cannot be conquered without destroying the citadel of power; that even the smallest goal is achieved by fighting for everything; and that if we do not advance towards the seizure of power, even the smallest gain is lost again.
Chubut puts on the order of the day the struggle for the freedom of political prisoners and persecuted fighters like Sebastián Romero, Daniel Ruiz, César Arakaki and the oil workers of Las Heras. If we do not advance in this, the bourgeoisie, which is already seeking revenge, will impose that there be dozens of comrades imprisoned like Romero, in Chubut.
When we write this statement on the revolutionary events that shook Patagonia, prosecutors, saviors of the murderers of Santiago Maldonado, are carrying out raids and house-to-house searches of the people's fighters. Well, they will have to search all the houses of all the workers and popular neighborhoods of the province, because the fire that burned in Chubut against the looters and murderers of the people, was lit by all the people.
Those who have to go to prison and rot in jail are the thieves, that is, the CEOs of the imperialist companies and their prosecutors who live on bonuses! The Chubutazo has as a pending task the imposition of workers and popular tribunals that put the murderous cops and corrupt politicians in the dock first.
The Chubutazo deserves to be extended to all of Argentina and to make the whole nation part of the struggle of the workers and peasants of Latin America, who at every step are shaking the entire continent. That is the road to victory.
The Chubutazo set the "Bastille" on fire. The guillotine is still missing. That will be the work and task of a new regroupment of the conscious revolutionary vanguard that fights to set up an insurrectionary revolutionary party which is what the Argentine working class needs.
We Trotskyists who fight under the banners of the Fourth International are committed to this. That is why we are proud participants in the combats of the Front Line of insurgent Chile, of the massacred Colombia, of the brave metallurgical workers of Cadiz, of the heroic Syrian resistance, of the advance of the Iranian working class. We run and live the same fate as the political prisoners and martyrs murdered by fascism in Bolivia. We fight in Marikana and together with the widows of the 34 murdered miners we cry for justice. We fight in the refugee camps and we are part of the march of millions of migrants to conquer bread and a land where to live.
As the apothegm of revolutionary Marxism states: for the working class and the exploited to live, imperialism must die!
Capitalism breeds its gravediggers... It is high time that the latter become conscious and confident of their forces so that the banners of socialist revolution, sold out by Stalinists and renegades of Marxism, become once again the banner of struggle of the uprising masses of the whole world.
Martín A. and Carlos Munzer
Concentración en la Casa de Gobierno el lunes 20/12, cuando Arcioni anuncia dar marcha atrás con la ley
Movilización sobre la Legislatura el martes 21/12
Frente a la Legislatura el grito de “¡Fuera Arcioni!”
Combate revolucionario del 20 de diciembre de 2001
En el Chubutazo se atacó la ciudadela del poder y se hizo huir a la policía asesina
Marcha de los trabajadores de SOMU, SICONARA y SUPA en Rawson el 17/12
Imágenes luego de los combates y la represión en Rawson el jueves 16 de diciembre
Tribunal de justicia incendiado
