Violent conflict rages in Chile’s streets

Talks between government and students leaders collapse.
Downtown Santiago turned into a war zone on Thursday morning as clashes between protesters and police reached a level of intensity that student leader Camila Vallejo described as “unprecedented.”
Photo by Sophie Rouet.
Chile’s federation of state university students (Confech) called for the march but were not given the go-ahead by the Santiago’s regional governor, Cecilia Pérez, whose permission is required for a public demonstration.
Pérez’s refusal made good on her statement last week that she was going to “re-evaluate” her relationship with student leaders after a march on Sep. 29 ended in violence .
Students began gathering at Plaza Italia, in downtown Santiago, at around 10 a.m. They planned to march down Santiago’s main street, the Alameda, to Metro station Los Heroes.
However a heavy police presence awaited them and dispersed the protesters before they had a chance to begin.
“We came to exercise our rights, our basic democratic right to assemble,” said university student Carlos Castañeda to The Santiago Times, “and wewere met with the full force of government repression: police on horses and motorbikes, water-cannons and tear gas.”
After the march was broken up, the area descended into chaos with pitched battles taking place for many blocks around the plaza.
“It was a war,” said Carlos Vasquez, the concierge of an apartment building along Bustamente Park, which witnessed some of the most intense violence.
“The kids came to gatherin the park,” he told The Santiago Times, “and it was quite relaxed beforethe Carabineros broke things up.”
“And then the ‘encapuchados’ came,” said Vasquez, referring to the people with covered faces who are blamed for causing mostof the vandalism at student demonstrations.
Groups of encapuchados-- some of whom looked no more than 14 years old -- roamed the area building barricades in the streets, starting fires,breaking car windows and tearing down street signs and traffic lights.
At the same time unmasked student protestors attempted to gather at various locations around the plaza, but were broken up by Carabinero police with tear gas and water cannons.
A group of around 20 mounted police patrolled Bustamante Park, riding down people who attempted to gather and sending the crowds into panic.
A high school girl was injured as she slipped running away from the police and was struck by a horse.
The conflict left the streets a scene of desolation, soaked from the water-cannons, splattered with paint, littered with empty tear gas canisters, broken glass and rubble, and everywhere wreathed ina cloud of noxious gas.
University campuses became a safe zone where students hosed down those suffering from the effects of the gas.
At the Universidad de Chile’s faculty of chemical science and pharmaceuticals, on Vicuña Mackenna Avenue, a group of students with gas masks and hoods protected thecampuses from gas canisters shot into the courtyards.
“Encapuchados are our army,” University of Chilestudent Gonzalo Acosta told The Santiago Times.
“While they are not all doing what’s best for society,” he said, referring to the vandals who even then were lighting fires, destroyingproperty, and throwing rocks at the police, “the majority are people whowant to protect the masses and protect the right to protest.”
“Violence is the last resort when people haverun out of tools to express themselves,” he said.
The violence came a day after the second meeting between student leaders and Minister of Education Felipe Bulnes ended with the student representatives withdrawing from negotiations.
“The government is trying to portray us as uncompromising,” said Fernando Amaya, a high school student at Santiago’s most prestigious public school, Instituto Nacional. “But at the endof the day it is they who aren’t willing to compromise when over 70 percent of the peopleagree with us.”
Constanza Espinoza, a high school student at Liceo 1 who said she initially thought it was fantastic that the government was talking to students, criticized the government for being duplicitous in the negotiations.
“In other countries he talks about the student movement here as beinga ‘noble’ cause,” said Espinoza, referring to an address by President Sebastián Piñera at the U.N, “and here he has totally different view.”
Acosta pointed to the government’s proposed law to criminalize student seizures of educational institutions -- or “tomas” -- as a reason for the collapse of the talks.
“We have an ideological difference,” said the self-described encapuchado, “but this is not an impediment to dialogue nor to the advancement of our society.
“They called for discussions with students and at the sametime criminalized tomas. So on one hand the government is saying that we are going to talkto you but on the other we are going to reprimand everything that you want to do,” he said.
“It’s doublespeak,” said Amaya of the government’s proposed “anti-crime” law, “and it complicates things because we won’t have spaces for discussion, if the government talks have collapsed and the tomas are illegal.
“And without tomas this movement can not exist,” he warned.