Civil unrest, violence rattle ‘oasis’ of calm
Written in large letters on the wall in front of the upmarket Cumbres hotel in central Santiago is the simple message: “Eat the Rich.” In English, just in case the guests were in any doubt.
On Friday evening, masked youths ran past, escaping the water cannons and tear gas on the main street as Chile entered a third week of civil unrest over the rising cost of living and quality of social services. Some people had makeshift shields to protect themselves from pellets fired by police, while overhead a helicopter trained a searchlight on protesters.
Set back from the street with its main windows boarded over, Cumbres, like other hotels across the city, was trying to offer clients a normal service amid the chaos. More than two weeks of often violent protests has seriously damaged the image of a country that President Sebastian Pinera described as an “oasis” of calm in Latin America just one month ago. The demonstrations are so bad they forced the government to cancel two global conferences in Santiago that would have attracted tens of thousands of visitors.
“Every single booking I had for October was cancelled and I don’t hold out much hope for November,” said Gary James, who owns the upmarket tour company Sense Chile. “And it’s not going to end any time soon.”
Chile’s Red Cross has estimated the total number of injured from the protests at more than 2,500, while the Chamber of Commerce has said 384 supermarkets were ransacked, more than a quarter of the total in the country.
The Plaza Italia square in downtown Santiago is now the scene of near permanent protests, the equestrian statue at its centre a mass of flag-waving demonstrators.
By Monday afternoon, police attempts to keep the square open had failed and thousands of people once again blocked traffic through the centre.
Friday’s protest had attracted at least 10,000 people, spilling over into the adjacent streets where the police waited with water cannons. Small barricades smouldered away, sending wafts of smoke through the crowd that occasionally mingled with tear gas.
And yet for all the violence and the graffiti, the atmosphere around the Cumbres hotel on Friday was more uncomfortable than it was threatening. A couple sat eating in front of the large plateglass window of an upmarket restaurant, watching the demonstrators running past.
Street sellers hawked books and jewelry from sheets laid out on the pavement, seemingly oblivious to the tensions building nearby. Couples lounged in the park down the road.
Still, it’s a side to the protests that foreigners are unlikely to see on their television screens.
“People are sitting down in Europe now to plan their holidays 8 to 12 months in advance,” James said. “They won’t be booking Chile.”