At Least 11 Dead In Chile Protests As President Says Country Is “At War”

Protesters defied an emergency decree and confronted police in
Chile’s capital Monday, continuing violent clashes, arson and
looting that have left at least 11 dead and led the president to
say the country is “at war.” Police used tear gas and streams of
water to break up a march by hundreds of students and union members
on one of Santiago’s main streets, but demonstrators who at first
dispersed later regrouped elsewhere.

The unrest was triggered by a relatively minor increase in
subway fares of less than 4% — but analysts have said the protests
are fed by frustration from a long-building sense among many
Chileans that they are not sharing in the nation’s economic
advances.

Police and soldiers guarded Chileans who formed long lines
outside supermarkets before they reopened on Monday. Many of those
stores had closed during a weekend in which dozens of stores were
looted or burned.

Only one of the city’s six subway lines was operating because
rioters had burned or damaged many of the stations. Officials said
it could take weeks or months to fully restore service.

Some two million students were forced to stay home from classes
and many were unable to reach their jobs.

Conservative President Sebastián Piñera said Sunday night that
the country is “at war with a powerful, relentless enemy that
respects nothing or anyone and is willing to use violence and crime
without any limits.” He did not identify a specific enemy.

After receiving criticism for his comments, Piñera said he would
meet with members of his administration and the opposition “to
explore and hopefully advance toward a social agreement … to a
better solution for the problems that affect Chileans.”

The government is also working on a reconstruction plan that
would cover the hundreds of millions of dollars in infrastructure
damaged during the protests, Piñera said.

His predecessor, Michelle Bachelet, issued a statement calling
for dialogue and urging all sides to work “toward solutions that
contribute to calming the situation.”

Now the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Bachelet called
for an investigation into all acts, by government or protesters,
that have led to injuries and death.

The protests have shaken a nation noted for economic stability
over the past decades, which has seen steadily declining poverty
despite persistent high rates of inequality.

“I’m protesting for my daughter, for my wife, for my mother, not
just for the 30 pesos of the Metro — for the low salaries, for the
privileges of the political class, for their millionaire salaries,”
Andres Abregu, an Uber driver who complained he is still paying a
student debt and cannot provide a decent life for his family, told
the Associated Press.

Patricio Navia, a professor at the Center for Latin American and
Caribbean Studies at New York University, told the Associated Press
that protesters “feel the government cares more about the wealthy
and that social programs help the very poor, but the rest of the
population is left to care for themselves.”

“They are not poor enough to get government subsidies nor rich
enough to get government tax credits. They revolted to make their
voice heard,” he said.

Otherwise peaceful Chilean protests are also often used as
springboards for more violent action by smaller, hard-line factions
that want to overturn the social system.

“As protests go, this can be interpreted as a hopeful one.
People want it,” Navia said. “There was destruction and looting,
yes. But the majority of the people are in favor of peaceful
protests. In fact, the riots are probably undermining the support
for the protests.”

Demonstrators defied a Monday curfew and gathered in the
affluent Las Condes neighborhood outside the heavily guarded
Military School in Santiago to bang pots, a traditional form of
protest in South America.

The nation of 18 million people has won worldwide acclaim for
its low poverty, inflation and unemployment, rarities in a region
still struggling to leave behind economic dysfunction. But Chile’s
rate of inequality is among the worst in Latin America.

“You can argue that there’s a middle class, that we decreased
poverty, that today we don’t have inflation, that the macro economy
is in control, etcetera, etcetera,” Marta Lagos, director of the
polling firm Latinobarometro, told the Associated Press. “And all
those arguments will be worthless to those people who don’t make it
to the end of the month.”