Anarchists Set Fire to Chilean Bus in Tribute to Fallen Bomber Mauricio Morales
Executive Summary
In a calculated act of arson on May 23, 2025, a group of hooded anarchists torched a RED bus in Santiago, Chile, as a tribute to Mauricio Morales, a self-identified anarchist bomber who died in 2009 while transporting explosives to attack a police academy. The incident is the latest in a series of violent commemorations by radical groups that glorify Morales as a martyr in their ongoing war against the state and societal structures.
Analysis
The streets of Santiago were once again engulfed in flames as anarchists reignited the legacy of Mauricio Morales with an arson attack on public infrastructure. The attack, staged near Mapocho and Huelén, involved Molotov cocktails and incendiary liquids hurled at a RED transit bus. While the fire was ultimately extinguished without casualties, the symbolism behind the act is unmistakable: for these groups, public destruction is homage.
Morales, known within radical circles as “Punky Mauri,” was killed in 2009 when a homemade bomb—intended for Chile’s School of Prison Guards—detonated prematurely. Since then, he has been lionized by anarchist factions in Chile and internationally. Described in memorial writings as a “warrior against social control,” Morales’ legacy is upheld as a blueprint for direct action, violent resistance, and personal sacrifice. His ideological influences—ranging from Ted Kaczynski to Max Stirner and Severino Di Giovanni—signal the deeply individualist, anti-statist currents that animate his followers.
Statements released in conjunction with the May 23 attack frame it as part of “anarchic memory” that seeks not to wait for ideal conditions, but to manifest disruption regardless of consequence. These declarations also invoked the 81 prisoners who died in the 2010 San Miguel prison fire, blaming state negligence and amplifying the anti-prison sentiment that fuels such actions.
This ideological glorification of violence has not been without real-world impact. Chilean authorities report a consistent wave of anarchist bombings and sabotage efforts since Morales’ death, often targeting state buildings and transit systems. Though many attacks avoid casualties, the persistent threat has prompted heightened surveillance, increased repression of known squats like “La Idea,” and a broader crackdown on radical collectives.
Yet repression appears only to harden these groups. “Mauricio Morales Lives!” is a recurring chant, and events commemorating him increasingly serve as staging grounds for new acts of vandalism or confrontation. The groups involved see themselves not as criminals, but as engaged in a moral war against what they perceive as an oppressive social order that imprisons bodies and minds.
Mauricio’s writings, frequently republished and cited, reveal the nihilistic underpinning of this resistance. One poem rails against the prison of identity, structure, and morality, ultimately concluding that self-liberation requires a rejection of everything—family, the state, even ideology. In this worldview, fire becomes not only a tool of destruction but a ritual of purification.
This rhetoric and the violence it inspires reflect a troubling pattern of self-radicalization and martyrization within anarchist movements. The Mapocho bus attack, while small in scale, is part of a broader trend: the canonization of violent actors and the romanticization of chaos as political praxis. In this context, acts of destruction become sacred rites, and public safety becomes collateral in a war of ideas many bystanders never agreed to fight.
