io cecio: godersi cambiare il mondo

Bélen Gallardo has already been set free and is well. Cristián Jiménez is still detained in the 3rd police station, I spoke with him by phone and he’s ok, hoping to be set free.

This morning was really hard. We were in Plaza Italia: Tomás, Pato Andreu, Fernando Ortiz, Carlo Messina, Fernando Lira, Marta, Jorge, Juan Enrique and I.

We were in the first row with Tomás all the time, a barrier of mounted police impeded the demonstration, we were trying to march when the struggles started, a police officer grabbed Tomás hard and tried to arrest him, something that didn’t happen in the end.

For a long time we had the horses on top of us, we could feel their breath and their snorting in our faces and ears. From time to time, the police would start to advance with their horses and we tried to not go backwards. Tomás stayed firm together with Lobito and Pato Andreu.

We were face to face, the demonstrators millimetres away from the horses, behind people were pushing to go forward and ahead of us the horses were squashing us.

From time to time, the nervous horses would rear up and jump, Tomás and I received a few punches from the horses, light ones, but showing what could happen if one of these beasts lost control (I’m referring to the horses)

The other beasts (the police) lost sight of everything, they were freely repressing people. Different to other demonstrations, where the police would organise it so that they could beat people without being noticed very much, now they were beating people openly and in sight of the cameras. It was obvious that someone had given them the order to repress, carte blanche and they felt empowered to exercise their repression.

In this a strong dialogue was produced and you could feel the beating that they gave to Navarro, who was two meters away from us, in fact I didn’t see the beating, but I heard it, it was hard, really, really hard.

This ignited the spirits and then came the backlash from the people against the socialist leader Arturo Barrios, “this is your socialist government that is repressing us, this is your government”, they spat at Barrios.

Then came the first water cannoning with gas, hard, strong. It produced the stampede, I ran trying to protect myself, I found Juan Enrique trying to breath and to see as the gas stopped us opening our eyes. Juan Enrique was soaked to the skin; I suggested to him that we go to the office. I recovered and returned to look for Tomás, there he was again in the first row together with Lobito and Pato Andreu.

Once more there came pushing and shoving, Tomás was next to Navarro and Tellier, we tried to advance through the path south of Alameda towards the centre, Navarro was bleeding and the intention was to go the Post Office. We advanced two paces and again we were attacked by the water and tear gas. Lobito and Pato Andreu didn’t let go of Tomás who stayed firm and stoic.

Finally we managed to get round the police cordon and we advanced along Alameda towards the centre.

Every 40 meters, police tried to arrest us, we remained Fernando Ortiz, Marta Guerra, Pato Andreu and Carlo. The idea was to continue, the idea was to stop them aborting our demonstration, the idea was to not give them the pleasure of stopping us that we would walk along the Alameda that Allende was invited to open and that today, a socialist president, stops us from walking along the path of Alameda.

Stubbornly we continued, stubbornly we bypassed the police pickets, the water cannon from Alameda every once in a while drenched us.

We reached the corner with Portugal and here was a large police picket, our group had been reduced to around 30 people, here they didn’t let us continue, we tried to dialogue but the police only talk with tear gas and water cannons.

Then the water cannons and tear gas came on us once more and I tried to protect myself and squinting I managed to observe Tomás remaining and how Pato Andreu and Lobito remained stubbornly with him. It was a massive drenching, intense, strong and looooooooong. Bodies protecting bodies, the solidarity of one back to another, barbarity being resisted by the bodies of unknown people but who in this moment were brothers in the resistance of the repression.

Finally the stinking flood stopped, we tried to open our eyes but the tear gas stopped us. Tomás, Fernando and Pato were soaked. Tomás tried to dry his glasses while lots of cameras were taking photos.

The wetness was intense, we were walking and our shoes were making that noise that is typical of being filled with water.

We could no longer go on, we had no choice but to head off to the office to dry our clothes and evaluate what happened.

Back in the office, besides the heater, without shoes or socks, the media started to call and Tomas made bare-footed declarations, without trousers and with a red woman’s jacket down to his knees. Pato Andreu and Lobito, really soaked, really drenched. Marta very sexy with an improvised skirt, Fernando Ortiz drying his suit, Carlo worried about the camera and Lobito attentive asking where we go now.

We communicated with our people who were at Huérfanos and Ahumada, at the planned table of popular discontent and they were very happy, everything developed very well and we were asked if Tomás would make it there, but the truth is that we couldn’t take any more.