YCL-LJC Canada expresses its full solidarity with the Chilean people and youth who have been resisting the Piñera government for weeks. We stand in solidarity with the millions of peaceful demonstrators initially mobilized against a 30 pesos increase in public transport fees and call for active solidarity with their struggles. We also call on our comrades, friends and allies, the student movement, the trade unions and the progressive and democratic forces to show their solidarity with the people of Chile. Their struggle is ours, because their enemy is the same as ours: capitalism.

We fully support the demands of the masses who, from Arica to Punta Arenas, are not only fighting against rising metro tickets, but against a whole system that has made Chile a laboratory for Milton Friedman and the Chicago Boys’ neoliberal theories through Pinochet’s bloody dictatorship (supported by Canada). Over 3000 progressive people were murdered by this regime. This is the heavy price the Chilean people paid to become laboratory rats…

In today’s Chile, the concept of social services does not exist. Health, education, water and pensions are in the hands of the private sector, who take the opportunity to speculate on the plight of the less fortunate. Youth and the people still live under the yoke of a Constitution drafted under Pinochet.

Chileans are not asking for cosmetic changes. They demand a fundamental change and are resigned in their struggle. Despite some small concessions by the President, including the end of the state of emergency and some small adjustments, the people are not fooled. They demand nothing short of Piñera’s resignation, fair and public pension plans (no to the commodification of pension plans in the benefit of the President’s relative), a 40 hours working week (of the 45 hours Government proposal), a minimum wage above the poverty line, and a new Constitution that guarantees the social rights of all Chilean-nes, but also the national rights of indigenous peoples, particularly the Mapuche nation.

Pressure certainly forced the President to accept a new Constitution, but this will be nothing else than a rewrite of the current one, and has been therefore massively refused by the protestors. 

We denounce the deployment of soldiers whose action has led to the arrest of more than 3,000 people, injured more than 250 and killed 20 in two weeks. Several young communists are also part of this roundup against protesters, including 3 JJCC leaders, Valentina Miranda, Pablo Ferranda and Anais Pinera, whose security of detention is not guaranteed. All these people are victims of intimidation and arbitrary detention.

In front of these outrageous violations of some of the most fundamental rights, namely the right of association and the right to freedom of expression, before a merciless repression by an army whose officers have never been purged since the Pinochet era and who have never apologised for the crimes committed during that period, the Government of Canada, shamefully, stays silent. Only the National Assembly of Quebec, under the initiative of the Québec Solidaire deputy Andrés Fontecilla, unanimously voted in favour of a motion of solidarity with the Chilean people.

Young Communists, we demand from the Canadian government nothing short of clear statements in solidarity with the Chilean people and the suspension of diplomatic relations with Chile as long as the demands of the protesters are not met. It is shameful to note the double standard applied by the Canada and other imperialists. When heavily armed protestors (sometimes even more so than the police forces themselves) and organised enough to be able to steal an army helicopter were storming Venezuela (targeting in particular popular neighbourhoods and social institutions of the Bolivarian process), Canada stood countless times on the side of these fascists. But when people in Santiago or elsewhere rise up, the champions of democracy suddenly forget their lines. No doubts that their democracy is the one that can traded in the world stock exchange markets. It means that Canadian mining corporations should be able to continue plundering the country’s resources on discount prices. 

Yet, whether in the streets of Santiago, Quito, Port-au-Prince or Beirut, the people – especially the youth – take the streets in a tremendous surge of mobilisation against the attacks on public services, corruption , globalization, the imposition of neoliberal measures, in short, against the natural consequences of capitalism. We extend our solidarity to them and outline that here too, in Canada, hundreds of thousands of us demonstrated on September 27 for climate justice, calling to “change the system, not the climate”.

In the face of the dangers of environmental and economic crisis, against the growing aggressiveness of imperialism and the violence of the ruling class, which is desperate to safeguard its profits, we must organize our anger and join forces so that nothing, neither bullets nor batons, can stop us. As President Allende affirmed a few moments before losing his life: “History cannot be stopped either by repression or by crime” and “History is ours: it is the people who make it”.