(Chile) Campaign Switch Off! Claim of Arson Attack on Cement Plant “Melón” and “Áridos Río Maipo”

“We are the piles of rubble and grains of sand in the gears of a machine that advances inexorably with a heavy step. We are disruptive factors in the engine room.”
– Volcano Group.

On the night of Saturday, August 3rd, accompanied by the forces of the river, we decided to attack the cement factory “Melón” and the company “Áridos Río Maipo S.A.” (1) located in the vicinity of the mouth of the Maipo River, seeking to paralyze the operation of these by entering both enclosures and setting fire to their production lines, logistics and administrative offices through the placement of 10 incendiary devices, propitiating the total destruction of the facilities of the property, thus consolidating our third act of sabotage with significant damage to companies that prey on and threaten life along the Maipo River, returning part of the damage that they have generated for decades to the land and the environments where they operate, as a way of contributing to the fight against devastation. To the destruction of the earth and of our lives, we are only worthy to respond with the total destruction of that which destroys it.

In this sector, as in other stretches of the river, the cement and aggregate extraction activity entails ecological sacrifice and the degradation of the communities that inhabit the environment, thus becoming another sacrifice zone (there are 4 in total concrete, cement and aggregate companies operating there), which has not been indifferent to the local population either, who have already demonstrated against the effects caused by the functioning of this nefarious industrial activity, although beyond this particular conflict in the area, we become part of it, putting into practice with conviction our commitment to anarchic revolutionary violence as a concrete and necessary method for the intensification of the conflict over land and total liberation.

Melón is a cement company operating in Chile that is currently in the hands of a powerful business conglomerate in Peru (Grupo Breca, of the Brescia-Cafferata family), which intends to expand the business of exploiting the land throughout the south of Abya Yala, adding this activity to the rest of the economic sectors in which it already operates. On the other hand, the aggregates company “Maestranza y Planta de Áridos Rio Maipo S.A.” operates actively in the Maipo River sector of the communes of Santo Domingo and San Antonio, Valparaíso Region, although not before trying to establish itself in the commune of Navidad (Rancagua, VI Region) starting its activities without even having the respective approval of the environmental impact execution commission of the region, showing their total indifference to the harmful effects of the exploitation of land and rivers. In addition to these two attacked companies, there are two other cement mixers in the area, one of them is “Cementos San Juan” of the multinational group UNACEM, which also devastates the land in several countries of Abya Yala (USA, Ecuador, Chile, Peru and Colombia).

The environmental impact of both activities is well known, causing the degradation of rivers and environmental pollution, in addition to damaging the life and ecosystems of the environments where they operate. It is not for nothing that in other territories of the first world, models to which some aspire so much, the activity of extracting aggregates in the basins is prohibited. By extracting aggregates and minerals from the banks of rivers, their course and speed are damaged, generating sinkholes that are replicated upstream like a domino effect (a phenomenon called regressive or retrograde erosion), the flora and fauna that inhabit it is destroyed and the scenario for alluvium or similar phenomena is propitiated. The impact generated by cement production is not minor, bordering on 7% of CO2 emissions worldwide (tripling those of air traffic and positioning itself as the third most polluting industry). In addition, all those absurd and enormous quantities of cement produced daily around the world (about 150 tons per second are consumed) are generated with raw materials such as sand, gravel and stones that are removed from river basins or by drilling the earth for mining and vast extensions of beaches are razed and devoured to extract the necessary sand.

Such industries exist to proliferate the current civilized model of life, where every day cement imposes itself on more and more land, crushing and hiding it to give way to ingratitude towards the natives, erecting enormous constructions after the respective displacement or destruction of wildlife habitat and vegetation that gives life to ecosystems. And this is day after day without ceasing, expanding the city more and more towards the edges and heights, thus destroying the nature of the territory, where the parks are pleasant but still a simple bubble functional to the city in the middle of all the cemented shit. Rainwater doesn’t drain properly into the ground, the heat in the concrete city is stifling, and there’s no more soil to plant. All this is cement and to maintain and reproduce it these extractive and environmentally destructive industries are necessary, this gray and opaque way of life has serious consequences and is not indifferent to us.

Understanding that these companies are part of that extensive extractivist machinery, present all over the world and punctually turning all of Abya Yala into a sacrifice zone; that the exploitation of the land is a vital artery of domination; whereas the industrial activity responsible for climate disruption caused by global warming has no real interest in stopping its devastation, but is determined to pretend to be environmentalist and that new sources of energy are still harmful to ecosystems and our lives; and above all, with the clarity that each of us are the only ones who can combat the advance of devastation, we see the urgency of attacking the industry that destroys the earth, adding our initiative and action to the internationalist campaign “Switch Off!”, a campaign that we have talked about in a previous article called “The conflict in Abya Yala and its vicinity to the “Switch Off!”. Anarchic words regarding the necessary struggle for land.”

Switch Off! Cement factories and aggregate extraction!

Switch Off! The world of devastation and the system of destruction!

May this fire be an embrace for the comrades who have dealt blows in other territories of the world such as the attacks in Germany on the cement plants of “Heidelberg Materials AG” and “Cemex”, the comrades who sabotaged gas pipelines in Mountain Valley – U.S.A., the perpetrators of the attacks on Tesla, among several other acts of sabotage and destruction on the globe, knowing that the attack must be immediate and in all territory where the facilities and means of those responsible for the devastation are located, contributing to dialogue through direct and confrontational action, without any kind of hope in institutional processes or saving entities. To those of us with whom we meet on the offensive, encouragement and affection <3.

We are also brothers with the struggle for Mapuche autonomy that consequently remains with its head held high despite the colonizing offensive of the Chilean and Argentine state, responding without hesitation with fire and bullets to the extractivist industry.

But the state offensive has not only been in Wallmapu, the repressive situation throughout the territory has been exacerbated by the hand of social democracy, which has intensified its authoritarian and police policies against any sector antagonistic to the interests of capital and the State, which disguises its anti-revolutionary actions by raising false flags of struggle by dyeing itself as ecologist, for human rights, for “native peoples” and to be against gender violence, proving not only to be a fraud in each of these aspects, but reinforcing the opposite. We see it in the escalation of repression in Wallmapu, in the disproportionate and vengeful condemnation of our anarchic comrade Francisco Solar, in the repressive media hunt in the historically combative town of Villa Francia, in the anti-occupation law that criminalizes and indiscriminately condemns the occupations of land by homeless residents, in the construction of new high-security prisons, among so many other shameless actions for the benefit of the powerful and to the detriment of the exploited and fighters, such as the release and total impunity given to the actions of police bastards such as the cops Crespo and Sebastián Zamora, the murderers of Cristián Valdebenito and those of Pablo Marchant, among many other cases. Our solidarity with all those who suffered the consequences of repression such as imprisonment, mutilation, persecution and murder.

All this being the work of nothing more and nothing less than a “popular” government that came to stop “fascism”, a government commanded by someone who at a key moment gave his hand to power to agree to bury the revolt and stop any possibility of escalation of popular violence, all this being the work of those who had the support of illustrious voters from supposedly combative sectors, we express the total repudiation of the complicit silence, victimhood and immobility of the sectors self-styled as revolutionaries that in their day tried to convince us that participating in democracy could be a good idea. We abhor anyone who, under the guise of struggle, supports and actively participates in the electoral system and representative democracy that only defends the structure of the neoliberal and police regime, because the institutions and their justice will always watch over those who govern and their repressive arms. We are disgusted by those sectors that call themselves “anarchists” or “revolutionaries” and were part of the constituent electoral show and of this government, who today, instead of making a deep self-criticism and promoting the decisive step to offensive action, remain silent after having bitten their tongues and today succumb to immobility and sterile speeches that do little to end this reality that shakes us. The only response to brutal repression, the imprisonment of our comrades, political executions and the police state is and will be autonomous struggle and direct action, far from institutionality and democratic traps. It was said in advance, counting on centuries of historical experiences of struggle, and today, after spitting and throwing it back in the face of the illustrious participants of democracy, we repeat it again: there is nothing to negotiate with the enemy, the only way is conflict, without half measures or lukewarmness, fire to progressivism and open war against all authority!

In this month of August, full of memory of Santiago Maldonado and Macarena Valdés, we continue to walk the path of direct confrontation, spreading fire against devastation, giving life and continuity to the combative memory of our dead.

Likewise, we join the call for the international week of agitation for Francisco Solar, a comrade currently locked up by the State after a sentence of 86 years and in a vengeful regime of isolation. Let’s put aside the victimist discourses and attack Power wherever it is, since that is the only way we have to get Francisco out of isolation. And the more forceful these attacks are, the greater their impact will be and, therefore, their capacity for incidence and irruption will increase, which will certainly strengthen expressions of anarchic solidarity.

“We understand that the only way to stay alive is by beating the oppressors. We know that Power will not fall with these attacks, but that does not mean that we will sit idly by. We strike because we do not contemplate citizen passivity in our lives. We move away from the formal structures of combat to take into our hands, gathered in affinity, the pleasure of attack.

Let’s unleash destructive hostilities!”

– SEDITIOUS ACCOMPLICES/REVENGE FACTION.

A strong, warm and tight embrace to Francisco Solar, Aldo, Lucas, Mónica Caballero, Tomás, Joaquín García, Panda, Rusio, Tortuga, Mapuche prisoners, Villa Francia prisoners and anarchist prisoners of the world. An impulse, a breath, a gesture and a wink, translated into fire against the industries of domination and devastation, making them part of this expansive fire of liberation.

Immediate release of the lonko Facundo Jones Huala who is on dry hunger strike in the prisons of the State of Chile.

From Wallmapu to Palestine, armed resistance is necessary against colonialist occupation. Action against genocide is viable on all continents, to destroy colonialism wherever it is found. From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.

“Let’s attack industry and the economy that benefit from colonialism and the destruction of nature and make a future worth living ever more impossible!”

Switch Off! Turn off the destruction system.

Turn off the machine. Destroy the machine.

Bau, Claudia, Mauri, Angry, toruguita and all the anarchists dead in action, walk with us on the offensive.

For anarchy, for the land, for our lives.

Insurrectional cell for the Maipo. New Subversion.


Note from Informativo Anarquista

(1) https://www.meganoticias.cl/nacional/454838-incendio-camiones-empresa-cemento-san-antonio-fds01-04-08-2024.html

Informativo Anarquista