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Original article: No vienen por el crimen organizado, sino por la ciudadanía reunida

By Daniel Fauré Polloni, Academic at UNAB’s PhD Program in Applied Humanities
daniel.faure@unab.cl

The debate surrounding the new «public security» state of emergency introduced by President José Kast, as part of his Anti-Organized Crime and Terrorism Agenda (ACOT), has been intense.

No one disputes that organized crime poses a genuine threat, nor that addressing it is a legitimate demand from the public. However, examining this measure closely reveals that it is not actually focused on organized crime or terrorism; rather, it seems to emphasize something else entirely.

To combat organized crime, the state already possesses the necessary tools: with judicial authorization, prosecutors can intercept communications, conduct raids, seize assets, and monitor suspects. This power exists and operates by targeting specific individuals, under judicial oversight.

This new state of emergency does not enhance the state’s investigative capabilities. Instead, it grants the President the authority to suspend or restrict personal freedoms, mobility, the right to assemble, and the right to associate; to intercept all kinds of communications; and to seize assets within entire areas under the control of a general officer designated by him, for up to 120 days, extendable for another 120 days, without requiring a new congressional agreement.

The activation threshold for this measure is alarmingly broad: it can be prompted by a «serious and imminent threat» to public safety or if public safety has been «seriously affected.» Consequently, while current criminal investigations target specific suspects, this new instrument applies broadly to society at large, regardless of whether individuals are considered suspects.

The difference between what the state currently can do against drug trafficking or organized crime and what this proposal introduces lies in its focus on restricting assembly, association, free movement, and surveillance of communications. These powers are ineffective for pursuing drug traffickers (who do not march, associate publicly, or gather in public spaces), but they are exactly what is needed to dissolve a social demonstration.

A state of emergency that grants a general officer control over an area and the ability to suspend the right to assemble is designed for a scenario resembling a crowded public square rather than an anti-drug raid. Thus, this state of emergency, with its primary novelty being the suspension of the right to assemble, is, fundamentally, an instrument targeting citizens who gather.

We must recognize that the term «assembly» is significant. In a democracy, the right to assemble transforms a group of individuals into a collective subject and a social movement: a body that deliberates, becomes visible, challenges power with its mere presence, and fills the streets as a democratic practice preceding the right to vote.

Therefore, almost every authority fearful of citizen engagement begins by clearing the streets and public squares. Instead of outright banning ideas, which would be scandalous, they more discreetly suspend the spaces where those ideas become a collective voice.

I believe my interpretation is not malicious, and to verify this, one need only remember that the proposal we are discussing did not arise last week; it began four years ago. It is, almost word for word, the «Qualified State of Emergency» that then-candidate José Kast defended during the presidential debate hosted by the Chilean Association of Broadcasters (ARCHI) on December 10, 2021.

When Ramón Ulloa questioned him, Kast did not mention organized crime cartels or drug trafficking; instead, he described it as «a modification primarily for states of emergency when we have a serious situation within the country.» He specified that «given the circumstances we have faced with issues of terrorism, extreme violence, and mass destruction of public and private property… it is necessary to have a much more effective response than we currently have.»

This «massive destruction of public and private property» and that «serious situation within the country» were references to the social outbreak in October 2019, not to organized crime. Thus, this instrument remains essentially the same, offered initially as a response to popular unrest and now presented as «public safety.»

It is crucial to highlight what lies beneath the claims of the far-right. I believe that behind the genuine demand from citizens for security is a deeply rooted conviction held by a significant sector of the right: the belief that social protest equates to crime and occasionally even to terrorism.

This is a dangerous equation, as protest is not a crime; rather, it is a political and human right recognized as such in the treaties that Chile has signed.

To confuse social mobilization with organized crime is not a mere slip; it criminalizes the very exercise of citizenship under a discourse-driven strategy that is insidious yet effective, as it embeds a tool destined to restrict legitimate protest within a very real social demand.

We are told that the focus is on controlling organized crime gangs when, in reality, it aims at regulating movement, expression, assembly, and association; in other words, jeopardizing all forms of citizen expression. It is, in every sense, a bait-and-switch.

This strategy also presents a rhetorical lock that is already echoing among government spokespersons, who suggest that criticizing the government proposal equates to being against security and therefore against citizens. This is, quite evidently, an argument of coercion, as it transforms an objection (pointing out the authoritarian or ‘illiberal’ nature of the measure) into a supposed betrayal of a popular need.

However, indicating that a measure suspends basic freedoms does not mean one is against security; rather, it advocates that security should not be constructed at the expense of citizen expression.

One might argue, and rightly so, that this reform has scant chances of progressing as it stands, given the widespread opposition it faces (even from within the right) and its current lack of votes to advance. However, I believe it would be a mistake to breathe a sigh of relief and move on, as that would overlook the fact that this proposal was regarded as reasonable to the extent that a President of the Republic signed it and made it a banner of his administration.

Even if the proposal is rejected, it still reveals a troubling horizon, and although it may end up outside the Constitution, the anti-democratic conviction that inspired it will linger, awaiting another opportunity to emerge.

This conviction deserves to be viewed with perspective, moving beyond the narrow debate surrounding particular articles, because I believe this is not a haphazard response to organized crime that surfaced today, but a reaction to a lengthy cycle of social protest.

Since the late 1990s, and increasingly until 2019, a succession of social movements (student, Mapuche, environmental, housing, feminist, among others) has challenged the neoliberal consensus inherited from the dictatorship.

This cycle culminated in the October uprising and the constitutional process that followed: an attempt, despite its stumbles, at democratization from below, to rewrite the social pact beyond the elites that had guarded it.

The authoritarian drift we are witnessing today is a counter-cyclical response that arises precisely after the exhaustion of that cycle (characterized by the end of the upheaval, the failure of constitutional processes, and the pandemic with its social effects). It does not seek to target drug traffickers or organized crime; it aims to close off the streets as the place where that democratization occurred and to deter its possible return.

I believe that understanding this as a process rather than a mere situation is particularly the responsibility of the humanities and social sciences.

In this regard, there is a crucial challenge that involves not only the responsibility to name this authoritarian drift when we recognize it (the notion that ‘protest equals crime’), but also to investigate and communicate what those investigations show: that social mobilization, far from being a pathology of order, is a vital component of democracy, and that protest and proposals emanating from social movements have been a driving force behind rights and reforms that no elite granted voluntarily.

Studying the complete cycle and the counter-cyclical effect we are currently experiencing is essential to understanding what is genuinely at stake when we are offered «security» in exchange for vacating streets and public spaces.

Daniel Fauré Polloni

La entrada The Government’s New Security Measures Target Citizens, Not Organized Crime se publicó primero en El Ciudadano.