By: La Zarzamora
On March 15, Marcelo Villarroel, an anti-authoritarian subversive prisoner, served 17 years in prison, after being sentenced in 2014 to 14 years for two bank robberies, a sentence that was completed on December 16, 2023, however, the state still maintains his kidnapping in prison.
With multiple activities and actions of solidarity, different affinity groups showed solidarity with the current situation faced by the comrade, who should have been out of prison for 1 year and 3 months, however the legal apparatus of Power ignores its own legality, ignoring the fulfillment of these sentences and imposing sentences issued by the exorbitant and disastrous military prosecutor’s office, which according to power is no longer active, but which continues to be used to keep Marcelo in confinement.
A BRIEF STEP THROUGH HIS HISTORY
Marcelo Villarroel, a comrade who at the age of 13 took his path in the Lautaro Youth Movement, a structure with which he later broke 10 years later, entering into autonomous, non-hierarchical perspectives and anarchic ideas. From a very young age he lived imprisonment thanks to his active participation in the urban combat against the dictatorship and the post-dictatorship.
In prison he is part of the kolectivo kamina libre, an anti-prison collective that deepens the questions about horizontality, prison struggle, the understanding of being uncertain in prison society beyond prison walls, the consumption of animals, among other reflections, all accompanied by publications characterized by their graphics, composed of drawings by the same imprisoned comrades.
The current stage of imprisonment begins after the robbery of the Security Bank where Paco Moyano died, which generates a media, political and judicial persecution against a group of comrades who had a long history of combat. This persecution campaign culminated in the arrest of Marcelo Villarroel and other comrades on the other side of the mountain range on March 15, 2008.
On December 16, 2009, Marcelo was expelled from Argentina after 21 months of confinement, passing through different detention units in the province of Neuquén, thus being at the disposal of the $hilena jurisdiction. Since then he has remained in prison, but always active becoming part of the outside through his writings, words, graphics, and music, among others, which accompany activities, experiences and also facts and farewells that have marked the last years of the anarchic offensive.
THE PREVAILING NEED
The maintenance of these sentences issued by the disastrous military justice system is an aberration that is not supported even under the same legal parameters of bourgeois justice, so the comrade’s legal team remains fiercely in the effort to achieve the annulment of these.
Under the current context of worsening confinement and isolation in prison, the situation of the comrade becomes urgent and paramount in the fight against prison society, and his release to the street, a priority in it.
SOLIDARITY GESTURES
As a way of showing solidarity with the comrade, various like-minded groups carried out informative activities about his situation. The Anti-Karcelaria Solidarity Network “Marcelo Villarroel a la kalle” (★RSAMVALK) released a new statement of support, along with a set of large posters and pamphlets as part of the agitation and propaganda necessary in this context. In addition, in Santiago, the recovered Space La Kopa (La Granja commune) held a day for the annulment of the sentences of the military prosecutor’s office, in which there were theatrical interventions, live music and a discussion on Marcelo’s legal situation, amplified simultaneously by Axolote radio (Mx), Radio Lafkenche de San Antonio and Radio La Zarzamora.
From the support networks of Buenos Aires, Argentina and from the Iberian Peninsula, greetings have been sent in solidarity with the situation of the comrade.
Similarly, at the Tattoo Circus in Torino, Italy, the presentation of Kamina Libre, a book was held within the framework of the internationalist campaign for the annulment of military justice sentences, and also from different territories graphics, gestures of solidarity and other activities will be carried out during the coming weeks within the framework of the unwavering campaign for his release from prison.
“We call for active solidarity with Marcelo, a comrade who has not given up and who, despite the multiple adversities of prison society, continues to make a concrete contribution to the anti-authoritarian struggle, maintaining an explicit harmony with the street, never in silence, and that should be highlighted.” ★RSAMVALK
It is vital to enunciate the relevance of this year in the legal resolution of the situation of the comrade and from there the importance of redoubling the gestures and acts tending to disseminate, agitate, contribute and propagate, extending his struggle as part of a collective anti-authoritarian struggle that keeps alive the memory of resistance for the total destruction of prison society beyond mere slogans, through an active history that does not die.
It is time to break down the walls of indifference, articulating constant initiatives to achieve the objective of getting the comrade out of prison, snatching him from the state and its social-fascist institutionality, which still legitimizes Pinochet’s disastrous military justice, 35 years after supposedly having ended the Dictatorship.
For the departure to the street now of the comrade Marcelo Villarroel!!
To extend Active Solidarity!!
Strength comrade, prison cannot be eternal!