Chile: Launch of the Command by the Free and Sovereign Constituent Assembly

We share the note from our colleagues from the Anticapitalist Movement of Chile in which they inform us about the launch of an important unitary initiative promoted by different sectors of the left, union leaders, social, feminist and human rights: the National Command for a free constituent assembly, sovereign and plurinational. This initiative is the result of independent militant action against the parties of the peace pact and the new constitution signed on 15 of November. This pact represented, as we have expressed in different notes, the rescue of the repressive Piñera government and the carrying out of a rigged constituent process, in the frameworks of political regime that aims to change something so that nothing changes. We also share at the end of the article the base political declaration of the Command.

Launch of the Command by the Free and Sovereign Constituent Assembly

Today the National Command was presented in different cities of the country by the Free and Sovereign Constituent Assembly made up of social leaders, union, feminists and politicians.

From the activity in Santiago, Maura Gálvez – Bernabé, leader of the Anticapitalist Movement and one of the spokespersons for the space, expressed: “From the command of the AC we think it is important to establish that there is a third voice against the parties of the regime, a third way that fights for a truly Free Constituent Assembly, Democratic, sovereign and plurinational, where we can absolutely discuss the demands that the people put in the streets together with Piñera outside”.

At the beginning of the conference, Dauno Totoro, leader of the PTR and also spokesperson for the Command, manifested: “Today we carry out this coordinated launch in three cities in Chile, Valparaiso, Antofagasta and here in Santiago in the Plaza de La Dignidad, organizing coordinators, student leaders, secondary, social and union members who were part of those who rebelled in October of last year, and we rebel against this Chile of the 30 years, “We rebel against this country of starvation wages and pensions.”.

Meanwhile, the front line during the health crisis was present, This is how Brisa Gálvez, director of FENATS Hospital Barros Luco, declared: “I represent the health sector, the sector that has been a protagonist in the pandemic, but we were also a protagonist in the social outbreak… That is why I am here, because we were in the streets, 56 days in the streets with the slogan outside Piñera, We come with our tremendous canvas that appears everywhere and, Thus, “We are not going to lower our arms until this takes the resolution that the people want.”.

Camilo Parada, reference of the Anticapitalist Movement and in the fight for human rights added his opinion: “We call for a critical approval vote, but we do not fall into the trap of the second ballot, whether constitutional convention or mixed convention, that are within the margins that have been imposed on us from above. And we are working and fighting for a truly sovereign Constituent Assembly, libre, democratic and plurinational… They are leaving out the people who were giving their lives to change this capitalist criminal system. That is why we are going for a third way, constituent assembly!”

In that sense, Josseffe Cáceres cleaning worker of the former Pedagogical (UMCE) made reference to“that this government is far from our realities, today it was imposed on our children, the children of the working class return to school in tremendous exposure to covid infections... Likewise, Rainier Rios leader of the MST, He began by denouncing the repressive actions prior to the launch of the command and that has been the tone of this criminal government.: “On the way to this activity the pacos confiscated our material, They took us to the police station, They did a detention check on us for one reason only., because we were with flags, because we were demonstrating... That is why we want to start by saying that the open repression in October and what has occurred for all these years in the Concertación governments, Nueva Mayoría and the right that have administered Pinochet's inheritance continues even today”

An important presentation of the Command was also held in the city of Antofagasta with the participation of representatives from various spaces., within the framework of support for the port workers' conflict. Mauri Huanca spoke for the Anticapitalist Movement, spokesperson for the Assembly of Dissidents of Antofagasta, manifesting"Today, with force from the different sectors, we call on everyone, to the residents, from the workers, They can join together and be able to unify us for a true free and sovereign assembly because that is the path that the people have shown since October 2019.”

You can review the declaration Let's go for a true Free and Sovereign AC! that dozens of union organizations adhere to, political and social. Don't be left out, join in too.

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Let's go for a true Free and Sovereign Constituent Assembly!

We reproduce the common declaration promoted by various political organizations, union and social that we are for a Free and Sovereign Constituent Assembly. We invite you to join, You can write to us on our social networks.

Practically a month before the plebiscite of the 25 October we have seen how the vast majority of traditional politicians and also large businessmen have declared that they are in favor of the Approve option. At the same time, There are sectors that say that the Constitutional Convention is actually a Constituent Assembly, but with another name. But we know that it is a trap to prevent us from achieving our demands in the streets.

They want us to believe that through the constituent process we will be able to resolve all our demands expressed in the October rebellion., when in reality they want a process that is as controlled and moderate as possible, to have a Convention and a Constitution tailored to your needs, maintaining their rules of the game and protecting the enormous profits that the large economic groups have amassed in these 30 years of Pinochet's inheritance.

Faced with this scenario, those of us who adhere to this declaration and promote the Command for a Free and Sovereign Constituent Assembly, we propose:

1) He 18 Last October, millions of us took to the streets against the criminal government of Sebastión Piñera, against repression and against the entire regime inherited from the dictatorship. "Are not 30 pesos, son 30 years", was the slogan that millions of us shouted. The constituent process or the “Agreement for Peace and the New Constitution” that gave rise to it, It was born as a pact signed by the traditional parties (from the right to the Frente Amplio, and later ratified by the Communist Party) to save Piñera and Congress, to get us off the streets and open a constitutional process tailored to the old business parties, within the framework of the historic mobilizations of the popular rebellion, and alone 3 days after the national strike 12 of November, the most important since the end of the dictatorship and that had raised the possibility of defeating the government and its brutal repression with the union of the workers, youth, the feminist movement, the assemblies and the residents.

2) It is a constituent process that has given impunity to the political and material responsible for the repression., like General Rozas, Pinera, Blumel, Chadwick and company, while on the other side there are hundreds of colleagues with eye damage and political prisoners.

3) It excludes the secondary men and women who jumped the turnstiles and started the revolt, because they will not have the right to vote or be elected.

4) At the same time, This process is controlled by the business parties and contains a series of traps tied up in the November pact, that favor them so that they are the ones who see themselves represented in the Convention. At the same time, with the rule of 2/3 constitutional laws give veto power to a minority. The process itself has been designed to exclude independent leaders and new political parties that emerged in the heat of the rebellion.. On the other hand, has a series of vetoes and limitations that will prevent the demands of the street from being met, such as the impossibility of touching international treaties and with it the hated AFPs, in addition to preserving the transnational plundering of our territories under the extractivist model.

5) To really confront the right of rejection, It is not useful for us to fall into the trap of the Constitutional Convention, we must propose a third alternative: fight for a truly free and sovereign Constituent Assembly. Because, facing the plebiscite we call to vote Approve, because we are part of the millions who want to end Pinochet's Constitution, but on the second ballot we call to cancel or vote blank, to show that we do not fall into the traps of conventions: Neither the Constitutional Convention nor the Mixed Convention are Constituent Assemblies, and let them decide, again, the same as always.

6) To express this fight, we will promote a third ballot (Ballot for Dignity), with the slogans of a Free and Sovereign Constituent Assembly, Out with Piñera and to resume the October struggle in the perspective of the general strike.

7) We are in a moment where the government and businessmen are unloading the economic crisis on working people. (in complicity with the “opposition”, for example, with the law that allowed hundreds of thousands of suspensions voted from the UDI to the PC). Because, Today more than ever it is necessary to fight for a Free and Sovereign Constituent Assembly, without Piñera, that is above any current institution, where the elderly vote 14 years and where the demands of the rebellion can be discussed and resolved without hindrance, by Health, Bread and Work and so that the crisis is paid for by big businessmen: end to the AFP, Free, quality health and education for all, non-sexist, end of precarious work, for all women's rights and sexual dissidence, to stop the looting of our territories and for the end of impunity and repression. This is only possible if we nationalize strategic resources such as copper and lithium., and essential services under the management of workers, We impose taxes on large fortunes and fight for the reduction of working hours without lowering salaries so that everyone can work, putting an end to subcontracting and all forms of job insecurity, and all the program that the people have put in the streets.

We are aware that to achieve this it is necessary to resume the fight that the main centers such as the CUT have abandoned after the strike. 12 November and develop democratic organizations of the workers and the people to take this fight into our hands.

We invite all political organizations, social, territorial, neighborhood, feminists, dissidents, socio-environmental, union, etc, that adhere to these ideas, to promote this common declaration, to raise together a National Command unified by a Free and Sovereign Constituent Assembly, and jointly convene aGreat National Meeting this 10 October, so that there are thousands of us who fight for an alternative for workers to confront these traps and resume mobilization.

Free and Sovereign Constituent Assembly!
Piñera out!!
Let us resume the October struggle in the perspective of the general strike!!

Word:
Organizations and union leaders

• Emergency and Protection Committee, Antofagasta
• Directory FENATS Hospital Barros Luco Trudeau
• Union nº1 Molyb
• Inter-company union of united metallurgist workers
• Syndicate nº1 Rema Tip Top
• Union No. 1 Orica Chile
• Union No. 1 of concessionaire company workers Siglo XXI
• Bureau Veritas Antofagasta Union
• Union nº1 Famesa
• Guanaco mining workers union
• Brisa Galvez, President of the National Coordinating Federation of Health Bases
• Raul Munoz, FEANTS leader Barros Luco Trudeau
• Simon Bousquets, GAM Union Treasurer
• Erwin Muñoz, union leader Komatsu Reman
• Paul Eleodoro Cifuentes Santana Director of Union No. 1 of Embotelladora Andina
• Nathaly Flores Torres, director of the National Union of Easy Workers
• Mirna aguirre, president of the white cloak contractor Federation
• Tatiana Tapia, President of the Afta Medical Center workers union
• Patricia Romo Pdta. Antofagasta Community Teachers College
• Ivette Gareca, leader of the Union of Teachers and Education Professionals
• Byron Vilches, President of the Providencia School Union
• Laura Vernal Treasurer Providencia Union
• Carla Ramírez union delegate Padre Cariola School D-136
• Romina Godoy delegate of the School Classroom Assistants Union D-136
• Galia Aguilera union delegate SIPPE Escuela España D-59
• Paula Villegas, leader of the Classroom Assistants Union
• Yasna Ardiles union delegate School Spain D-59
• Sergio Pinto, union delegate School E-77
• Joseffe Cáceres, ANFUMCE union leader (UMCE Officials Association), Spokesperson Bread and Roses
• Antonio Paez, Starbucks Union Secretary
• Natali Hinojosa, teacher, Candidate List H Valparaíso Community Teachers College
• Camila Delgado Troncoso, Cugat supermarket retail worker and leader of the PTR Temuco
• Melissa Hunt Veas, spokesperson for the Tens Antofagasta group
• Ivo Fierro,Secretary of the Putaendo Honorary Workers Group

Social organizations, artistic, student

• Command for a Free and Sovereign Constituent Assembly
• Independent command for the approval and free and sovereign constituent assembly, Talkal
• National Command for the sovereign democratic and plurinational Free Constituent Assembly
• Here is the first line, Talkal
• Human Variety, Antofagasta
• Carlos León Herrera director of tv8 Peñalolen community channel
• Antofagasta Technical High School Student Center

Political organizations

• anticapitalist movement
• Revolutionary Workers Party
• Workers' Socialist Movement
• Together and To the Left
• Poppy Antipatriarch Collective
• Group of women and sexual diversity Pan y Rosas – Teresa Flores
• Isadora – women in struggle

Personalities:

• Camilo Parada Ortíz, Producer Museum of Memory and Human Rights – Militant Anticapitalist Movement
• Maura Gálvez – Bernabé, Leader of the Anticapitalist Movement/Juntas and on the left. Chilean Section LIS – ISL
• Dauno Totoro, PTR leader
• Joaquín Araneda, Anticapitalist Movement Leader. Chilean section LIS – ISL
• Mauri Huanca, Spokesperson for the Assembly of Dissidents of Antofagasta Maricantofa Circular – Militant Anticapitalist Movement. Chilean Section LIS – ISL
• Camilo Sarmiento, President Valparaíso Cultural Park
• Claudia Cantillana, singer