Protests in Chile - What do they Stand For?

Updated: Oct 29, 2020

Chile Despertó (Chile has woken up). The South American country is currently facing a revolution where the population is finally demanding changes coming from the Government regarding public affairs. On October 25th, 2019, more than one million of Chileans were protesting in the streets all across the country - it was around ten percent of the total population. This movement is an attempt to finally create a fairer society within the country and remove the remaining traces of the dictatorship that happenes thirty years ago.

The Pinochet Dictatorship and the Neoliberalism

To understand the reasons of the riots, we must take a trip back to the past. In 1973, the general Augusto Pinochet did a coup against the socialist president Salvador Allende and started a dictatorship which violated several human rights rules and made disappear thousands of people whose remains have never been found to this day. Around that time, the USA started to interfere in dictatorships that were happening in South America to establish capitalism in those countries. With that in mind, the USA tried to implant the Neoliberalism in Chile.

Neoliberalism stands for the market-oriented number of rules where the State has less influence in the economy, also known as the free trade market concept. Even though the dictatorship ended in 1990, its traces stil exist in the Constitution because it was created with a series of rules that would be really difficult to modify and it had a sort of disconnection between political institutions and social sphere.

One of the sentences that mark the 2019 protests is "Neoliberalism was born in Chile and will die in Chile", indicating that the people want to remove the strict essence in the Constitution so they can alter the law to favor people's needs.

2019-2020 Chilean Protests

Even though the protests have a lot of deep reasons for them to happen, it all started witl a small change made from the Government. The "spark" of the outbreak was caused by the increase in the fare of public transportation that was being implemented on October 6th. By October 14th, a few groups of students were protesting, refusing to pay the new fare.

The true starting point was on October 18th, when people were rioting all over the city of Santiago, capital of Chile. Barricades were set and the president Sebastián Piñera declared a "state of emergency" on the next day.

What started as a form of protest from a group of students against the public transportation fare became a national movement against the Government, political institutions, and the whole system created decades ago and still insist to remain immutable.

The Chilean Carabineros Abusing Their Power

[Trigger warning // Police Brutality]

The Carabineros de Chile are the Chilean national police force. Since the start of the protests in 2019, there have been videos circulating that show how the police have been treating the protesters. Things like running civilians over with their trucks, shooting into people's houses, and beating protesters up are just a few examples of the acts of brutality they have done against non-violent audiences in the protests.

A famous example of how brutal the police is happened on October 2nd, 2020. On that day, a policeman hurled a 16-year-old protestor off a bridge in an act of cold-blooded contempt. The police statement, contrary to what really happened, said that the person "fell" from the bridge. The last statement coming from them was that it was an "unfortunate event", never truly acknoledging what they did. In addition to that, the media is also extremely biased and hides the abuse and violence against the protesters to protect the police and the elite.

Human Rights Violations + More Data Released

The Government doesn't seem too worried about attending the changes people are claiming in the streets. Instead, the Government is more worried about criminalizing the movement instead of giving real solutions to the social problems like public health, low incomes, high costs of education, and the impurity of the cases of corruption.

The Parliament made a referendum where they discussed if there should be done a new Constitution, but the people were feeling "excluded" from that decision. Then, it was decided that the population is going to vote if the Constitution should be rewritten or not, and it is estimated that 80% of the people will vote "yes" to that question. They hope that, when the new Constitution is done, the people will feel like they can actually make a difference by participating in politics.

Aside from that, the National Institute of Human Rights collected data over the people who were injured during the protests. Here is what they released over this issue (most them are rounded):

- Around 3,800 people were injured, mostly by pellet shots (1,600 people) and physical violence (1,400 people);

- More than 11.,400 people were arrested;

-Around 2,100 registered abuse cases, mostly by excessive force;

- Lawsits against police or military circle around 1,800, most of them by torture type.

What is Happening with the Capuches

Admist all the protestants, there is also people who are a part of the indigenous group called Mapuche. That community claims for automony, recognition of rights, and the "recovery" of their lands.

The current president of Chile put Victor Peréz in charge of internal secuty. He worked for Pinochet during the dictatorship covering up torture and sexual abuse in Colonia Dignidad. His first decision was to go to Araucanía, where the Mapuche have been resisting the state.

Two days after the decision was taken, a racist mob, armed with sticks, attacked the indigenous people, who were protesting the lack of protection for political prisoners in the pandemic. However, the police did not stop them.