By Lucía Herrera, November 17, 2018
The recent bomb attacks in the mausoleum of police chief Ramón Falcón and in the home of judge Claudio Bonadío triggered a series of raids, detentions and “security” protocols with spectacular television features, focused especially on anarchist and antifascist activism, but what it really demonstrates is a political will of the national government to create a climate of alarm and extreme vigilance – in the scenario leading up to the G20 Summit – on the population in general and on all organizations in the popular camp in particular.
For some time now, anarchist militancy has been the object of accusations of various kinds in the government’s discourse. It has been reproduced by the hegemonic media, making isolated demonstrations appear as part of a destabilizing strategy, or describing solidarity ties as “criminal complicity”. A highlight of this criminalization policy was the release of the so-called “RAM Report” in December 2017, in the context of the repercussions of the case of Santiago Maldonado. In this document, among other conspiracy theories, the Ministry of Security points out connections between Mapuches, anarchists and even members of the Kurdistan resistance, in what is clearly an attempt to configure an “internal enemy” to justify their persecution.
It should be noted that in this stigmatization a certain consensus of “common sense” even between popular and leftist militancy, on the supposed infiltration of these anarchist groups by elements of the intelligence services. This is something that (beyond its possibility or not) not only collaborates with their isolation but also fertilizes a kind of demonizing theory on the exercise of violence, analogous to the “there may have been a reason” that enabled the repressive advance during the seventies.
What is certain is that, at this time, the balance of the attacks has been the detention of 14 people, in three different raids. One took place in an apartment on Pavón street, where 10 were arrested. The other 2 raids were on a anarchist library in the Constitución neighborhood and a social and sports club in Villa Crespo, although there were no arrests there, the security forces took hours to thoroughly search the facilities, generating concern and indignation from members and neighbors.
To this we could add the detention of two young people from the Muslim community accused of links with Hezbollah, and events such as the discovery of a forgotten bag in a local airport bathroom that deployed an excessive emergency operation. This is part putting together a connection by the staging of “demons”, excuses and scapegoats that feed the ghosts of “internal enemies with links to international terrorism” that the government needs to activate measures of hyper control over the people. As part of the package, the statements of the Minister of Security, Patricia Bullrich, urging the population to withdraw and avoid the city of Buenos Aires during the celebration of the G20, provides a degree of alarm never experienced before in similar circumstances in our country.
The Lawyers Guild, which is carrying out the defense of the detainees, denounced, at the time of taking the case, that the staff of the court in charge “with appalling sincerity” admitted that they did not even know where they had been transferred to, not even what had happened to a girl whose mother had been imprisoned in the raid on Pavón Street. As the hours went by, it became clear in which premises the detainees were and that the girl was in the hands of relatives, but the lawyers were still unable to make contact with them. Finally, the court decided to call them to an inquiry on Saturday in the morning.
“There is summary secrecy, so as their defense we have no access to anything, we cannot talk to our defendants, even after the deadline stipulated by law for detention without communication,” said Eduardo Soares, a member of the Guild, in discussion with Resumen Latinoamericano. “It is the Ministry of Security that is directing the actions, that is, the Executive Branch. The Judicial Branch has washed its hand of the matter,” he said.
We asked him if the Antiterrorist Brigade was acting or if the Antiterrorist Law was going to be applied to them, to which Soares replied, “We don’t know what force intervenes, they don’t tell us anything, they entered the raid hooded, without identifying themselves. We don’t know if they are going to apply the Antiterrorist Law, we don’t even know what they are going to charge the detainees with during the raid.”
“As in other cases, what we see here is that it is the government then raises the level of violence,” said Soares, “we have seen it in the cases against the Mapuches as well. What could have been resolved in the civil court was criminalized and ended up with two dead. And here the same thing happens. Now the government raises the level of violence, without any explanation and with knowledge of the judicial file that the defendants don’t have,” he explained.
A week before the arrival of the G20 representatives, it seems clear that the scenario that the national government using is that of the “need” for an advanced level of legitimization of social control, whose repercussions and derivations go far beyond this event. This undoubtedly challenges not only the anarchist organizations, the priority objective of the current official persecution, but also all the organizations in the popular camp.
Source: Resumen Latinoamericano, translation North America bureau