Biggest demonstrations yet rock protest-stricken Chile
SANTIAGO, (Reuters) - As many as a million Chileans protested yesterday in the capital Santiago in the biggest demonstrations yet since violence broke out a week ago over entrenched inequality in the South American nation.
Demonstrators waving national flags, blowing whistles and horns, wafting incense and bearing placards urging political and social change streamed through the streets, walking for miles from around Santiago to converge on Plaza Italia.
The scenes were replicated in cities around the country.
Traffic already hobbled by truck and taxi drivers adding their own protest over road tolls ground to a standstill in Santiago as roads were closed and public transport shut down early ahead of marches that built throughout the afternoon.
Santiago governor Karla Rubilar said almost a million people marched in the capital - more than five percent of the country’s population.
“Today is a historic day,” Rubilar wrote on Twitter. “The Metropolitan Region is host to a peaceful march of almost one million people who represent a dream for a new Chile.”
Clotilde Soto, a retired teacher aged 82, said she was marching because she did not want to die without seeing change. “Above all we need better salaries and better pensions, she said.
Protests that started over a hike in public transport fares boiled into riots, arson and looting that have killed at least 17 people, injured hundreds, brought more than 7,000 arrests and caused more than $1.4 billion of losses to Chilean businesses.
Chile’s military has taken over security in Santiago, a city of 6 million people now under a state of emergency with nighttime curfews.
Yesterday morning, trucks, cars and taxis had slowed to a crawl on major roads, honking horns and waving Chilean flags. “No more tolls! Enough with the abuse!” read bright yellow-and-red signs plastered to the front of vehicles.
Chile’s unrest is the latest in a flare-up of protests in South America and round the world - from Beirut to Barcelona each with local triggers but also sharing underlying anger at social disparities and ruling elites.
Chile’s two-term President Sebastian Pinera trounced the opposition in the most recent 2017 election, dealing the centerleft ruling coalition its biggest loss since the end of Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship in 1990. But now many protest placards and graffiti scrawled on buildings around the city call for his exit.
As crowds of colourful demonstrators stretched along Santiago’s thoroughfares as far as the eye could see, the noise of pots and pans being clanged with spoons, a clamour that has become the soundtrack for the popular uprising, was ear-splitting.
“The people, united, will never be defeated,” the crowds chanted over the din.
By early evening there had been no signs of violence or clashes with the security forces, who maintained a significant but low-key presence inside paint-spattered and stone-dented armored vehicles parked in side streets.
Beatriz Demur, 42, a yoga teacher from the suburb of Barrio Brazil, joined a stream of demonstrators shuffling toward Plaza Italia with her daughter Tabatha, 22.
“We want Chile to be a better place,” said Demur. “The most powerful have privatized everything. It’s been that way for 30 years.”