CHILE: Sebastián Piñera declares state of emergency in Santiago and Chacabuco.
- F Fontecilla Gutierrez
- Oct 19, 2019
- 3 min read
I woke up this morning to the president of Chile, Sebastián Piñera Echeñique declaring a state of emergency in the provinces of Santiago and Chacabuco and obviously got terrified by it. For years I have been talking about my fear of the military, and its power to oppress people. The justification of the government of controlling violence sounds absolutely ridiculous to me. If they truly wanted to reduce violence they would have halted the increase in the transportation prices, dialogued with civil society leaders, and made sure the protests did not escalate. But they did the opposite, they threatened students protesters with canceling their student passes and made the prince increase a "categorical" decision. They waited until discontent was greatest to release the military. I woke up to a WhatsApp video of a student being shot in the head.
Being far away from a land and a people that I connect with so dearly is not easy. And I feel deeply in my heart for all the world's diasporas, and especially those who come from places that are still in large unrest, conflict, and war. I include Lybia, Syria, Palestine, Ecuador, Bolivia, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Sudan, which are just a few places from where I have friends, but there are so many others.
Facing unrest in Chile, it was my turn to share. So I put together this little e-mail and sent it to my friend's political, social, environmental activists across the world.
I am sure you can find much better sources for this info, but I wanted to give my perspective on the matter.
Dear All,
I hope you are well. In the face of COP25 taking place in Santiago, I thought relevant to share with you what has happened there over the past few days. I send you this e-mail with the intention of sharing and with the hopes that you can take some of this info and pass it forward. I will first give you an account of the issues as I have seen them develop, and then below I link a few resources from international English media sources on the issue so you can fact check whatever you need to.
This past week, independent groups of secondary students called to massive protests against the rise of the costs for public transportation in Santiago. Protesters called people to not pay their tickets, jump over the tourniquets, and enter the platforms of Santiago's subway, the Metro. At first, it was isolated groups and metro guards did not use force to stop them. As more people joined the protests the government responded with the militarization of the stations and brought heavily armed police special forces to protect the Metro stations.
The unwillingness of the government to enter a dialogue with the civil society, or to negotiate transportation prices (which are directly linked to energy prices), led to greater discontent on the civil society part. In some of the more vulnerable municipalities of Santiago, protests took a more violent turn. In Maipú, one of the largest and poorer municipalities of the city, subway stations were set on fire.
Facing such civil unrest, president Sebastián Piñera declared a state of emergency for Santiago and Chacabuco. This state of emergency (which lasts for 15 days unless its appealed and approved by congress) gives the executive the right to limit freedom of assembly and transportation. Piñera has designated Javier Iturriaga del Campo as chief of national security. Del Campo is currently militarizing the areas with more violent protests. In a country with open wounds from Pinochet's dictatorship, putting the military out the streets against protesters is a bold move, even more so when the chief of national security is the nephew of the former director of national intelligence directory (DINA) the secret police of Pinochet dictatorship charged with numerous violations to human rights.
Piñera's government has thrown the military to a few issues, including the militarization of indigenous land in the Araucanía region. Their methods are not new but with the ever-increasing social tension in the country, they are certainly scary. I think important to mention that the conflict is currently contained in Santiago, however, protests are being planned for next week across multiple regions of the country.
Thinking ahead of international political gatherings such as COP25 and the Peoples Summit I think relevant to look and question what the Chilean government is doing to Civil Society on these other action fronts because they bleed into their approach to Climate Action. The protection of the few (by whatever means necessary), the doom of the many.
I hope my words or the resources I link below can be of use. I'd be happy to chat further.
Thank you very much for your time, hope you have a good weekend.
Best,
Felipe Andres Fontecilla Gutierrez
Telesur
CNN:
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