After more than two months of mass mobilisations, Chileans continue to pour into the streets against the right wing government of president Sebastián Piñera and decades of neoliberalism and state repression. Yet the Chilean rebellion is under assault, facing intense repression from the Piñera government and betrayals by Chile’s parliamentary left, most notably by parties from Nueva Mayoría (New Majority) and the Frente Amplio (Broad Front).
While Nueva Mayoría is a centre left coalition of establishment parties that has been in government for much of the last 30 years, the Frente Amplio is a relatively new coalition of left wing parties touted by many on the Chilean and international left as a radical alternative to the status quo. For example, in a 26 October Jacobin magazine article, Andrew Richner and Abigail Gutmann-Gonzalez wrote: “With one foot in the halls of power and one foot in the streets, Frente Amplio is in a unique position to take the lead in dismantling the neoliberal model in Chile”. Recent events prove otherwise. 
Last month, the government signed a Social Peace Pact with several opposition groups, including the Socialist Party of Chile, the largest of Nueva Mayoría’s constituent parties, and the Frente Amplio. The Piñera government promised to call a referendum for April 2020 on whether to reform the country’s constitution. The current constitution is deeply authoritarian and neoliberal, a relic from the 17-year military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. Yet, far from providing an opportunity chance to fundamentally change the structures of Chilean politics, the pact is a trap to demobilise the mass movement. 
Like previous referendums and plebiscites throughout Chilean history, the referendum – and the elections for a constitutional convention that may follow – will be stymied by the undemocratic structures of the Chilean state. Trade union officials will not be able to run as delegates. Nor will those under 18 – the youth of Chile at the head of the mass movement – be able to run or vote. Further, a two-thirds majority will be needed to approve a new constitution in a second referendum, raising the prospect that a right wing minority could block any reforms. 
While there is mass support for a new constitution, the pact has been received poorly by the mass of protesters, who continue to demand the downfall of the Piñera government. Even some within the Frente Amplio and Nueva Mayoría have rejected it. Jorge Sharp, mayor of Valparaiso (Chile’s second-largest city), has resigned from Convergencia Social (Social Convergence), one of the Frente Amplio’s largest parties, along with hundreds of others in protest at the party leadership’s cooperation with Piñera. The Communist Party, while remaining within Nueva Mayoría and promoting a negotiated solution to the crisis, has been pressured to abstain from the pact.
The parliamentary left has now backed Piñera’s new anti-protest law. Sold as “anti-looting” legislation to protect small businesses and end lawlessness on the streets, in practice the law vastly increases the level of repression against the protest movement and in effect outlaw’s opposition to the government. The law bans any protest, mobilisation or strike that interrupts public services of “primary necessity”, including public transport, hospitals, emergency services, electricity, fuel, water, or communications. It also places limitations on legal street protests by banning barricades, face masks, the blocking of traffic, and school, university and workplace occupations. Those violating the new law face a maximum five year jail sentence. 
In parliament, the new law was approved with the near-unanimous support of the Frente Amplio and Nueva Mayoría, with only a small number of MPs from their constituent parties breaking ranks to voting against it. Revolución Democrática (Democratic Revolution) and Convergencia Social, two of the main parties that make up the Frente Amplio, voted in favour of the new law, only to publicly backtrack the next day, with party leaders claiming that they had made a “mistake”. Both the Communist Party and Comunes, possibly the most left wing Frente Amplio member party, abstained during the vote, unwilling to present even a modicum of opposition. Even Jorge Sharp publicly supported the new law. This shows the extreme limitations of even the most left wing figures in the Frente Amplio.
Instead of providing genuine opposition to the Piñera government, all the parties of the parliamentary left have pursued a strategy of bureaucratic manoeuvring. Recently, the Chilean parliament voted to censure Andrés Chadwick, a far right politician who, as minister of the interior and public security, deployed the Chilean military to crush the protest movement. Their “constitutional accusation” (like an impeachment) passed with the centrist Christian Democrats joining Nueva Mayoría and the Frente Amplio in banning Chadwick from holding public office for five years. Yet Nueva Mayoría and the Frente Amplio have failed in attempts to censure Piñera. They fell short of the two-thirds parliamentary majority needed to censure the president, with the Radical Party breaking from its partners in the New Majority coalition to vote with the right. While Piñera and his government have survived, Chadwick has been presented as a sacrificial lamb in a failed attempt to pacify the movement, which is clamouring for justice for all the human rights abuses committed by the forces of the state.
There is a real sense of betrayal and anger among protesters. Gabriel Boric, a former leader of the Chilean student movement and now the most prominent parliamentarian from Convergencia Social, was filmed being confronted by protesters when he attended the latest mobilisations in the capital, Santiago. Video shows him being called a “sell out” and being told to leave the demonstration while having water bottles and cans thrown at him. 
This response is hardly surprising. The actions of Nueva Mayoría and the Frente Amplio are an astounding betrayal of the rebellion still raging on the streets of Chile. The parliamentary left has tried to demobilise and divert the mass movement via their peace agreement with the government and their endless parliamentary manoeuvring. Worse, they have now handed Piñera the legal tools he needs to shut down the mass movement.
The repression of the Piñera government is only getting worse. Twenty-eight thousand have been detained. Three hundred and forty-five have been left with permanent eye injuries as a result of lead and rubber bullets fired by police. Twenty-six people have died, more names added to the long list of Chileans who have died in the fight for freedom over the last 50 years. The United Nations has documented 113 cases of torture and ill treatment and 24 cases of sexual violence at the hands of Chilean police. On 20 December, 20-year-old protester Óscar Pérez was filmed being crushed by two armoured police vehicles after they rammed into a demonstration in Santiago, nearly killing him. This is perhaps just a small taste of the repression and violence that is to come under the new anti-protest law. 
The government has also moved to repress and persecute the radical left outside of parliament. Dauno Tótoro, former election candidate and prominent member of the revolutionary socialist group Partido de Trabajadores Revolucionarios (Revolutionary Workers Party) has been charged with “inciting subversion” for comments made against the government. The comments amount only to the chants and demands of the movement itself, such as for the fall of the Piñera government. Tótoro is currently facing a state investigation.
In the face of this repression, protesters continue to take to the streets in large numbers. They seem undaunted by the realisation that the parties of the parliamentary left, which many of the protesters put their hopes in, have betrayed them. But the betrayal should be sobering for those on the Chilean and international left. For many in Chile, the experience of betrayal has shown that parliament is a dead end and hardened attitudes against an institutional resolution to the rebellion. It has also shown that the potential to dismantle the Chilean neoliberal model lies in the power of masses of working class people uniting in struggle.

Ben Fowler

Claudio Uribe

Rebellion and betrayal in Chile

On 26 August, the Al-Taqwa Masjid mosque in the Perth suburb of Mirrabooka, where more than 2,000 Muslims regularly come to pray, was firebombed using improvised explosives. While fortunately nobody was hurt, the mosque suffered up to $250,000 worth of damage. 
Had a church been firebombed by Muslims, the city would have been in lockdown and a state of hysteria declared. In this case, the arson squad has yet to make a single arrest.
It’s not an isolated incident either. There has been a disturbing pattern of far right racist attacks on the Perth Muslim community over the last decade. 
In 2016, the Mosque and Australian Islamic College in the suburb of Thornlie was firebombed in a similar way to the Mirrabooka incident. Attackers used an improvised petrol bomb to blow up the gas tank of a car outside the mosque while hundreds of worshippers were praying inside. Islamophobic graffiti along a wall next to the burning car confirmed the racist motivations of the attackers. Two years on and no arrests have been made.
In 2010, two far right thugs carried out a drive-by shooting at the Suleymaniye Mosque in Queens Park, firing three bullets into the domed roof of the building. After their arrest, it was revealed the shooters were members of “Combat 18”, a neo-Nazi terrorist organisation. 
And the same Mirrabooka mosque firebombed in August was also subject to a drive-by shooting in 2006. 
In addition to these violent attacks, locations associated with the Perth Muslim community are regularly subjected to vandalism and harassment. 
In 2015, a pig’s head was dumped in the bathroom of the Muslim prayer room at the University of Western Australia. So likely is the prospect of vandalism and attacks that insurance companies often refuse to insure mosques. Indeed, the Al-Taqwa Masjid mosque was uninsured at the time of the firebombing for this reason. 
And Muslims are not the only group to experience these sorts of attacks. 
In 2004, three separate Chinese restaurants were firebombed and graffitied with Nazi swastikas. These attacks were the work of notorious neo-Nazi Jack van Tongeren, who led a similar spate of attacks in the 1980s. 
It is no coincidence that there has been a resurgence of such attacks. The endless whipping up of Islamophobia by mainstream politicians and the media, as well as the strengthening of far right groups inside and outside of parliament, has emboldened violent racists. 
Islamophobic electoral outfits like the Australian Liberty Alliance and the WA branch of One Nation are attempting to break into state politics, while fascist thugs like the WA branches of the True Blue Crew and the Proud Boys are building up a right wing movement on the streets of Perth.
This only encourages far right terrorists like Melbourne’s Philip Galea, currently facing trial for planning to bomb several left wing venues in 2016, including Trades Hall. 
Systematically confronting the far right when they mobilise is then an important part of standing in solidarity with Muslims and putting an end to right wing terrorism and violence.

Far right terrorism in Perth

Working class Western Australians are being told to foot the bill for the state deficit once again. 
The 2018 state budget, announced on 10 May by the McGowan Labor government, included big hikes to utility bills and to fees for state services, and cuts to education funding.
The price of electricity for households is expected to rise by 7 percent. Water and sewerage costs will go up 5.5 percent. In a climate of stagnant wages and significant lay-offs in the aftermath of the mining boom, these increases are a direct attack on the living standards of WA workers. 
The 2018 budget doesn’t just increase the costs of living. Pat Byrne, president of the State School Teachers’ Union, noted that the 1.1 percent increase to the education budget is “the lowest increase over the last five years [and] continues a trend started by the last Barnett [Liberal] government of devaluing public education in Western Australia”. 
“With inflation at 1.5 percent, and student enrolment growth in public schools at 3 percent, we’re effectively seeing a real cut to school budgets”, she said.
The budget got a different reception from the bosses. The Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the state’s peak employer association, enthusiastically supported it. Chief executive Chris Rodwell said that the chamber “welcomes the government’s strong focus on reining in spending”, and supports higher household water and electricity bills.
While marching to the tune of the big end of town, the Labor government has only disappointed unions, such as the public servants’ and teachers’ unions, that spent last year campaigning for Labor. 
Mark McGowan was elected in 2017 promising to erase Western Australia’s debt of more than $32 billion. Within two months of the election, he had announced massive cuts to the state public service, 3,000 public sector workers being put on the chopping block.
The Labor Party attempted to sell these cuts by focusing on a planned 20 percent reduction of the 521-member Senior Executive Service, which comprises Western Australia’s highest paid bureaucrats and public sector executives. 
But top public sector executives have received more than $15 million in termination payouts, with some top bureaucrats getting as much as $500,000, according to ABC reports. 
Since initiation of the public sector “severance scheme”, more than 1,600 jobs have been lost. The rest will go by the end of the year, according to the union. 
McGowan has also maintained the public sector pay freeze introduced by his Liberal predecessor Colin Barnett, which caps yearly public sector wage growth at $1,000 until next year.
While unions are now opposing the attacks in this budget, it will take more than press releases and social media posts to put an end to Labor’s campaign of austerity.

WA Labor to hike utility fees

Less than two months after Labor’s landslide election, Western Australian public sector workers are facing what premier Mark McGowan is touting as the “biggest shake-up of the public sector in decades”.
The “shake-up” will result in government departments being cut in number from 41 to 25, a process the government admits will “inevitably” result in job losses. Jobs will be slashed in their thousands. McGowan says this is necessary to bring the budget of the debt-ridden state into surplus. That the state public service is on the chopping board comes as no surprise. As part of its election campaign, the Labor Party promised to find $750 million in “savings” from the public service. 
McGowan has attempted to sell the cuts by focusing on a planned 20 percent reduction of the 521-member Senior Executive Service. The SES comprises Western Australia’s highest paid bureaucrats and public sector executives. Few will shed a tear for the likes of Racing and Wagering chief executive Richard Burt, who, according to the West Australian, pockets an annual salary of $660,000 (the highest of any public sector bureaucrat). However, the sacking of 100 or so senior executives would save at most some tens of millions. This is less than one-tenth of the $750 million in “savings” the government has slated. The bulk of the cuts will be felt by ordinary public sector workers losing their jobs, and others facing cuts to services. 
There is a clear alternative: make the mining bosses pay. According to the Australia Institute, the WA government gives the mining industry more than $1 billion a year in handouts and subsidies. The government could scrap this tomorrow. Or it could simply demand more royalties from mining companies. The Nationals last year proposed raising mining royalties for the two biggest iron ore producers – BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto – from the current figure of 25 cents per tonne (established in the 1960s) to $5 a tonne. 
The Nationals’ then leader, Brendon Grylls, calculated that this would bring in $7.2 billion over four years. Labor rejected the proposal, McGowan describing it as “a direct attack on our mining industry”. Slashing the public service is a “tough” decision that McGowan is willing to make. Confronting Western Australia’s biggest mining corporations – which according to business news source Bloomberg made a combined $36 billion in profits in the second half of 2016 – evidently is not. 
Public sector workers whose jobs are on the line have been offered little from their union, the Community and Public Sector Union/Civil Service Association. The CPSU/CSA is the state’s largest union and could mount a serious challenge to the government’s plans. However, after offering Labor the union’s support during the election campaign despite McGowan’s promise to slash the public sector, the union immediately capitulated after the specifics were announced. 
CPSU/CSA state secretary Toni Walkington described the cuts as “public sector renewal”. She has offered “to work and engage in this process for good policy outcomes”. Only by recognising the attacks for what they are, regardless of which party is undertaking them, will public sector workers in Western Australia have any chance of fending off the axe.

Public sector cuts: thousands of jobs to go under WA Labor

A crowd of family members and supporters gathered on the steps of Perth’s central law courts on the second anniversary of the death of 22-year-old Aboriginal woman Ms Dhu. They demanded that the West Australian coroner release CCTV footage of the hours leading up to Ms Dhu’s death in police custody. “CCTV – for the family!” was the chant raised by the protesters.
The coronial inquest, which began more than a year after Ms Dhu’s death, continues. Evidence so far has been harrowing. The inquest has heard that Ms Dhu – arrested for non-payment of fines – arrived in police custody at the South Hedland station, already in pain from two broken ribs that had been inflicted by acts of domestic violence.
Despite repeatedly complaining, the infection that ultimately killed her was never treated seriously. She was twice taken to the local hospital, and twice sent back after police told health staff that she was “faking it”. On Ms Dhu’s third and last visit to hospital, she was diagnosed with severe staphylococcal septicaemia, from which she never recovered.
CCTV footage of her ordeal, played during the inquest, is now being suppressed by the coroner. Despite the graphic and painful nature of the footage, Ms Dhu’s family has made a submission to the coroner asking that it be made public in order to expose the truth about Aboriginal deaths in custody.
The coroner, Ros Fogliani, has justified the suppression of the footage by citing concern that it could “re-traumatise” family members. Shaun Harris, Ms Dhu’s uncle, told Red Flag that “suppressing the footage against the family’s wishes is in itself re-traumatising”. He said that “the footage shows the deeply ingrained and institutional racism that exists in Australia”.
Ms Dhu’s case is not isolated. Only two days before the anniversary of her death, the ABC reported that two 14-year-old Aboriginal boys had lodged an official complaint with WA police that officers had held guns to their heads while they were being detained. The boys were also taken to the South Hedland police station, where they were strip-searched and made to spend the night in lockup.
According to the WA Refugee Rights Action Network, refugees on Nauru have compared the treatment experienced by Indigenous people in police custody to their own horrific conditions, sending messages of solidarity to the family of Ms Dhu. While Ms Dhu’s family and supporters gathered in Perth, refugees at the Nauru detention centre held signs saying, “We Stand With Aboriginal Australia”.

Ms Dhu’s family demand CCTV release

Management at Gina Rinehart’s Roy Hill mining site in Western Australia have been sprung using drones to spy on workers, reports say. Evidence of the practice was revealed when a “daily productivity monitoring report” prepared for maintenance and construction subcontractor ECM was leaked onto Facebook and reposted onto major news bulletin site Reddit.
The document, with accompanying photos, details the “poor behaviour” of the workers being watched, including “talking and relaxing idly during work hours”. Underscoring the moron in oxymoron, the report’s author claims the drone images also show a group “idly working”.
The report proposes to deal with the scourge of idle working and idle relaxing at the Pilbara mine site by sacking “low performers” and banning “improper behaviour”.
ECM management has refused to comment on the leaked document, saying that it “is not an ECM document”, according to Business Insider. The report is signed by Eddie Moon, general manager of Samsung C&amp;T, the head contractor for the Roy Hill project.
The spying revelations come just weeks after reports that 1200 Roy Hill workers were pulled off buses and searched by police with sniffer dogs as part of an ongoing operation targeting workers in the Pilbara. “I’m surprised everyone is not chained together”, one worker said on a FIFO Facebook group underneath a photo showing workers lined up at dawn for the search.

Rebellion and betrayal in Chile

Far right terrorism in Perth

WA Labor to hike utility fees

Public sector cuts: thousands of jobs to go under WA Labor

Ms Dhu’s family demand CCTV release

Every move they make – surveillance of FIFO workers exposed

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