Chile ‘at war’ as 7 dead in protests
THE nation is “at war”, Chilean President Sebastian Pinera said on Sunday, as the country reeled from three days of violent demonstrations and looting that have left seven dead and almost 1,500 detained in the worst outbreak of social unrest in decades.
“We are at war against a powerful, implacable enemy, who does not respect anything or anyone and is willing to use violence and crime without any limits,” Pinera told reporters after an emergency meeting with army general Javier Iturriaga, who has been placed in charge of order and security in the capital.
Santiago and nine other of Chile’s 16 reg ions were under a state of emergency, Pinera conf ir med late on S u n d a y, w i t h t r o o p s deployed onto t he st reets for t he f i r s t t i me si nce Aug usto Pi nochet’s mil itar y dictatorship bet ween 1973-1990.
The clashes – which have seen some 9,500 police and military fire tear gas and water cannons against protesters who have set fire to buses, smashed up metro stations and ransacked shops – were sparked by anger over price hikes and social inequality.
Despite a growth rate that should reach 2.5 per cent of gross domestic product this year, several social indicators – such as health, education and pensions – show ver y high inequalities.
“Ma ny l atent re quest s have not been a nswered, tension has built up, frust rat ion has i ncrea sed i n da i l y l i fe,” s a id Octav io Avenda no, a soc iolog i st a nd pol it ic a l scient i st at t he Universit y of Chile.
T h is a nger boi led over earlier in the week as a protest against a rise in metro fa res esca lated d ra mat ica lly on Friday.
On Sunday, five people died when a garment factory was torched by rioters in a Santiago suburb, despite right-wing Pinera’s Saturday
announcement that he was suspending the fare increase.
Earlier, Interior and Security Minister Andres Chadwick said two women were burned to death after a store owned by US retail chain Walmart was set alight in the early hours of Sunday.
Another victim, who authorities initially said had died in hospital, suffered burns on 75 per cent of her body.
Almost all public transport was paralysed in Santiago on Sunday, with shops shuttered and many flights cancelled at the international airport, leaving thousands of people stranded due to a curfew imposed from evening until dawn.
Authorities reported 103 serious incidents throughout the country with 1,462 people detained – 614 in Santiago and 848 in the rest of the country.
“It’s really sad what’s happening, but the people are outraged because they’re not being listened t o, ” 26-year-old Antonia told said in central Santiago.
Several Chilean football players have also asked leaders in their country to “listen to the people” and to find solutions.
“I pray that my beloved Chile will be better,” Chilean star Arturo Vidal, the Barcelona midfielder, wrote on
Sunday night.
On Friday, the headquarters of the ENEL Chile power company and a Banco Chile branch – both in the centre of Santiago – were set on fire and heavily damaged.
Dozens of protesters torched a building belonging to Chile’s oldest newspaper, El Mercurio, in Valparaiso on Saturday evening, while elsewhere a metro station, supermarkets and other stores were set on fire.
Santiago’s metro system – South America’s largest and most modern and used by around three million people a day – was shut down on Friday as protesters burned and vandalised stations.
Louis de Grange, president of the st ate Met ro S. A . compa ny, told Canal 13 the “bruta l destruction” of the ser v ice had caused more than $300 million in damage.
The hike in fares t hat set of f t he violence would have raised the price of pea k hour t ravel f rom $1.13 to $1.15.
The government said the hike, which followed a 20-peso [about three cents] increase in January, was driven by rising oil prices and a weakening peso.
I niti all y, students and others responded by fare-dodging, but underlying social tensions quickly bubbled to the surface.
Chile has the highest per capita income of Latin America at $20,000, with expected economic growth this year of 2.5 per cent and just two per cent inflation.
Yet there is widespread frustration with economic policies that have virtually privatised all health care and education, at a time that falling pensions and rising costs of basic services have exacerbated social inequality.