Category Archives: Chile

‘We’ve reached a crisis’, tens of thousands protest in Chile – video report

Posted on by

Tens of thousands of people have been protesting in Chile after a student protest against a 3% hike in subway fares, later scrapped, sparked nationwide uprising demanding economical and political changes.

At least 18 people have died in the violence and thousands have been arrested amid widespread outbreaks of violence and arson. Chilean president Sebastián Piñera has replaced eight ministers and announced emergency measures to quash the protests, including a small increase in the minimum wage and higher taxes on wealthy Chileans.

But such moves have not been enough to defuse the demonstrations driven by disillusionment over inequality 

Continue reading...

Greta Thunberg asks for lift back across Atlantic as climate meeting shifts to Madrid

Posted on by

Swedish teenager needs help getting back to Europe following the COP25 meeting’s move from Chile to Spain

As delegates to the COP25 climate summit scramble to adjust to a last-minute change of venue from Santiago to Madrid, one of the highest-profile attendees has stuck out a metaphorical thumb on social media to ask for a lift across the Atlantic.

Teenage Swedish activist Greta Thunberg, who was speaking in California during a stop on her low-emissions journey from Sweden to Chile, tweeted that she was now in need of a ride to Spain.

Continue reading...

Chilean president cancels Apec and climate summits amid wave of unrest

Posted on by

Sebastián Piñera confirms he will not hold summits in November and December, as government struggles with massive protests

Chile’s embattled president has been forced to cancel two major international summits after government concessions failed to defuse weeks of violent protests that have seen thousands of arrests, left at least 20 dead and sent shock waves across Latin America.

Related: Chile protesters: 'We are subjugated by the rich. It's time for that to end'

Continue reading...

How Pinochet’s economic model led to the current crisis engulfing Chile

Posted on by

President Sebastián Piñera has chance to lay foundation of a real welfare state as protests reflect country’s discontent with inequalities

After 12 days of mass demonstrations, rioting and human rights violations, the government of President Sebastián Piñera must now find a way out of the crisis that has engulfed Chile.

Analysts have correctly interpreted the wave of protests as a reflection of discontent with the material, political and social inequalities engendered by the economic model imposed by the country’s former dictator Augusto Pinochet.

Continue reading...

The Guardian view on Lebanon and Chile: too little, too late for protesters | Editorial

Posted on by
Mass unrest has seized both countries. The long-term causes will not be resolved quickly or easily

The events which have brought two countries to the brink were precipitated by apparently small policy shifts that proved emblematic of the ruling elite’s inability to answer or even understand their people’s basic needs while enriching themselves. Chile’s biggest political crisis since the return of democracy almost 30 years ago was triggered by a 3% rise in metro fares, the protests which have engulfed and paralysed Lebanon by a proposed tax on WhatsApp calls. But the underlying causes run far deeper, and have been building for much longer. There is deep anger at political and economic systems that have ignored most of the population.

These countries are, of course, very different. Lebanon has been staggering along for years, due to both political dysfunction and endemic corruption. The central bank governor warns that its economy – long shored up by remittances from overseas – is now days away from collapse. Recently it emerged that, before he became prime minister, Saad Hariri gave $16m to a South African model: a sum encapsulating the gulf between the lives of those at the top and the rest.

Continue reading...

Chile: protesters light bonfires and clash with police despite cabinet reshuffle

Posted on by

Fresh upheaval erupts shortly after president Sebastían Piñera announces firing of hardline officials

Fresh street battles and fires have broken out in downtown Santiago just hours after Chile’s embattled president, Sebastían Piñera, fired hardline members of his cabinet in an attempt to defuse the country’s biggest political crisis since the return to democracy in 1990.

Bands of protesters lit bonfires along the central Alameda Avenue and clashed with riot police as clouds of teargas and smoke engulfed the centre of the city.

Continue reading...

Hundreds shot and beaten as Chile takes to the streets

Posted on by
Doctors say they don’t have supplies to treat wounded and accuse authorities of under-reporting injuries

“The soldier was about 40m away. He looked at me and fired,” said Christopher Madrid, pointing to the patch above his right eye. “I swung away and the bullet grazed [my forehead] and came out, left a scar of four or five centimetres.”

Madrid, a 25-year-old student, was shot last Monday by Chilean army troops as he marched in a street protest near the Catholic University in central Santiago.

Continue reading...

Chile’s congress evacuated as inequality protests paralyse Santiago

Posted on by

Legislature in Valparaíso empties after protestors try to force entry to grounds; up to 1 million rally in Santiago

Chile’s Congress has been evacuated after protestors tried to force their way on to the building’s grounds, in a new challenge to a government struggling to contain deadly unrest over economic hardship.

Police fired teargas on Friday to fend off hundreds of demonstrators on the perimeter as some lawmakers and administrative staff hurried out of the legislative building, which is in the port city of Valparaíso.

Continue reading...

Protests rage around the world – but what comes next?

Posted on by

Unrest is seemingly everywhere. We look at the some of the reasons for and responses to it in Hong Kong, Lebanon, Chile, Catalonia and Iraq

In Lebanon they are against a tax on WhatsApp and endemic corruption. In Chile, a hike in the metro fare and rampant inequality. In Hong Kong, an extradition bill and creeping authoritarianism. In Algeria, a fifth term for an ageing president and decades of military rule.

The protests raging today and in the past months on the streets of cities around the world have varying triggers. But the fuel is familiar: stagnating middle classes, stifled democracy and the bone-deep conviction that things can be different – even if the alternative is not always clear.

Continue reading...

An explosion of protest, a howl of rage – but not a Latin American spring

Posted on by

From Chile to Ecuador and Bolivia to Haiti police and protesters are clashing on the streets, but what are the common threads and will they lead to change?

Tanks on the streets in Chile. Barricades and bloodshed in Bolivia. Weeks of unrest that have pushed Haiti to the brink and forced Ecuador’s president to relocate his government.

“This is a social revolution,” said Andrea Lyn, a 61-year-old actor who took to the streets of Santiago this week. “It is us saying: ‘No more’.”

Continue reading...

Presidential apology and reform pledge fail to quell Chile protests

Posted on by
  • Thousands take to streets of Santiago for sixth day running
  • Piñera scraps fare hike and raises pensions and minimum wage

Tens of thousands of protesters have flooded Chile’s capital, setting up flaming barricades and clashing with riot police after an apology and promises of economic reforms from President Sebastián Piñera failed to quell unrest and rioting has led to at least 18 deaths.

Trade unionists in the world’s top copper-producing country joined demonstrators with a general strike in a movement that started with anger at a small rise in subway fares, but expanded into protests against inequality and to demand improvements in education, healthcare and wages in one of Latin America’s wealthiest, but most unequal nations.

Continue reading...

Chilean leader tries to calm unrest with wage rises and taxes on rich

Posted on by

Sebastián Piñera announces plans after riot police use teargas to disperse protesters

The Chilean president, Sebastián Piñera, has called for modest rises to low incomes and increased taxes on the rich after the fifth night of anger on the streets raised the death toll in the unrest to 15.

Rioting, arson attacks and violent clashes wracked Chile on Tuesday night. About half of the normally stable country’s 16 regions remained under an emergency decree and some were subject to a military curfew, the first since Chile returned to democracy in 1990, barring natural disasters.

Continue reading...

Shots fired at protesters defying curfew in Chile – video

Posted on by

Footage passed to the Guardian by the freelance journalist Jonathan Franklin shows shots being fired at protesters on the streets of Chile's capital on Monday night.  Armed men in masks fired at people defying a fourth night of curfew under martial law. 

The death toll on Tuesday morning stood at 15. The Chilean government claimed all those who died were looters, but there have been widespread allegations of brutality by the military. 

Chile is facing its worst unrest in three decades




Continue reading...

Chile on edge as worst unrest in three decades claims 11 lives

Posted on by

More clashes likely after Piñera expands state of emergency following ‘weekend of rage’

Latin America’s most prosperous country is braced for fresh upheaval after Chile’s president expanded a state of emergency beyond the capital and the death toll from three days of violence rose to 11.

“We are at war with a powerful and uncompromising enemy that respects nothing and no one,” Sebastián Piñera declared in an unyielding late-night address on Sunday.

Continue reading...

Chile: protests rage on as president extends state of emergency

Posted on by

Seven dead as protesters loot supermarkets one day after Sebastián Piñera suspends price hikes that sparked unrest

Protests and violence in Chile have spilled over into a new day and left at least seven people dead despite the president cancelling a subway fare increase that prompted the violent demonstrations.

Santiago and other Chilean cities have been engulfed by several days of riots, along with peaceful protests, after the increase in public transport costs. Authorities said seven people had been killed in incidents related to the protests, without giving further details.

Continue reading...

Chile protests: state of emergency declared in Santiago as violence escalates

Posted on by

President announces order in televised address after fare-dodging protest by students in capital widens


A state of emergency has been declared in the Chilean capital after simmering protests against a rise in metro fares spilled out into widespread vandalism and violence fuelled by rising cost-of-living pressures.
As ordained by Chile’s dictatorship-era constitution, the state of emergency will apply to Santiago and can last for 15 days. It grants the government additional powers to restrict citizens’ freedom of movement and their right to assembly. Ominously, soldiers will return to the streets for the first time since an earthquake devastated parts of the country in 2010.

“The aim is to ensure public order and the safety of public and private property,” President Sebastián Piñera said in a televised address, “There will be no room for violence in a country with the rule of law at its core.”

On Friday evening, the palm trees in Santiago’s colonial Plaza de Armas were shrouded in plumes of tear gas thrown by police agents to disperse protesters, and the headquarters of Italian energy company Enel were engulfed in orange flames as the sounds of helicopters and wailing sirens filled the night sky.

Continue reading...