argia.eus
INPRIMATU
"The people of Chile are in resistance; the mobilizations have not ceased"
  • Santiago de Chile, October 2019. A new price hike was announced on the Santiago Metro and the ticket price remained at 830 CLP (just over one euro in Chilean pesos) in the usual peak hours. In response, mobilizations were carried out mainly by high school students: they went to metro stations en masse and passed the entrance without paying, in activities called "massive getaways". As the days went by, these activities were on the rise and the people joined them; by then they were no longer limited to passing the metro without paying, but to occupy the station and open the doors so that everyone who was there could avoid paying.
ARGIA @argia 2019ko urriaren 24a

However, it is not only the rise in the price of the metro that woke up to Chile, but it was the drop that overflowed the glass and left it on the ground. From the dictatorship to today, to the "return to pseudodemocracy", at a time when it was believed that joy was going to come, natural resources, education, health and other laws of privatization began to be applied. The AFP (pension system) model was also applied to workers, which benefits only private workers, and where the military and police are not detained.

All these policies of consolidation of the neoliberal capitalist model were going unnoticed despite the demonstrations that were taking place, but at the moment the Chilean people have planted themselves. The most repeated motto in the protests is: "It's not 30 pesos, it's 30 years," he says, although the 30 pesos increase on the card may seem like a low, because for years they have passed over the village and the prices of all goods and services continue to rise as wages remain. For all these demands for social justice, and above all for dignity, the people have risen up.

On Friday, 18, several "mass escapades" were declared and most metro stations were destroyed, leaving the rest out of use. As a result of these events, there were violent incidents with the police and barricades at different points in Santiago de Compostela. He responded to the demands of the Government in the same way that he has done for years: repression. On the same day, President Sebastián Piñera Echenique, a member of the party who was under the orders of the military dictatorship of 1973, declared a state of emergency and appointed Javier Iturriaga del Campo, the son of a military man who at the time of the dictatorship handed over people to detention and torture centres, as head of national security.

The military took to the streets to suppress the demonstrations, which made the problem initiated in Santiago a national discontent: last Saturday demonstrations were held in all regions demanding an end to the state of emergency; the Government responded by imposing a state of emergency and a curfew on all the areas in which they were mobilized, as a punishment for the cessation of mobilizations. They have not yet succeeded, the Chilean people are in resistance; despite the fact that the military is on the street and they are forbidden from leaving their homes, the mobilizations have not been interrupted. While these lines are being drafted, on October 23, 2019, demonstrations continue in the country and according to data from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, 42 deaths, 12 raped women and 120 missing. According to data provided by the National Institute for Human Rights, as of 22 October, 1,601 persons have been arrested, including 185 children and adolescents, 132 persons have been wounded by firearms, 85 have been injured by other causes and 3 have been subjected to sexual violence, among other causes. Among other tests, the most serious are the evidence that the tunnels of the Santiago de Compostela Metro are being used as detention and torture centres in the area.

As independent media, we make these facts available to international opinion, in order to achieve the solidarity of the members of other territories, especially to denounce the serious violations of human rights that are taking place in Chile, where freedom of the press is restricted to the situation in our territory and which our media have censored in order to prevent the spread of these crimes and the protection that we transfer to our fellow combatants. Because beyond our communication work, we are part of this people in resistance, and our fighting weapons are means of communication that are not at the service of this state.

Health and Freedom! Thank you for your solidarity!

This news has been transmitted by the Chilean independent media Voz en Vac and the Association of Independent Reporters (ARI), who have denied the freedom of the press to disseminate information internationally.