[rad-green] CHILE: ‘There has been a citizen awakening of historical proportions’

*https://www.civicus.org/index.php/media-resources/news/interviews/4186-chile-there-has-been-a-citizen-awakening-of-historical-proportions
<https://www.civicus.org/index.php/media-resources/news/interviews/4186-chile-there-has-been-a-citizen-awakening-of-historical-proportions>*

*CIVICUS          27 November 2019*


*Interviews *

CHILE: ‘There has been a citizen awakening of historical proportions’

*[image: soledad munoz]*
*Protests broke out in Chile in October 2019, initially led by students
rejecting an increase in the price of transport and quickly escalating into
mass demonstrations urging structural change. Protests were repressed with
savagery by security forces. CIVICUS speaks about the protests with Soledad
Fátima Muñoz, a Chilean activist and the founder of a mentoring programme
and feminist festival, Current Symposium
<http://www.currentsymposium.com/>. (Photo by Kati Jenson)*

*How did something that started with a small increase in the price of the
metro ticket become a mobilisation of unprecedented dimensions?*

The first thing to clarify is that this was not caused just by an increase
in the price of the metro ticket, nor is it an isolated protest.
Mobilisations against the abuses derived from the neoliberal system have
been a constant occurrence in Chile over the years. Among these were mass
protests against the privatised pension system
<https://www.dw.com/es/chile-y-la-crisis-del-sistema-de-pensiones/a-19428732>
, against the Trans-Pacific Economic Cooperation Agreement
<https://www.telesurtv.net/news/chile-protesta-acuerdo-transpacifico-tpp-20190424-0023.html>
 and against the Fisheries Law
<https://www.telesurtv.net/news/chile-pescadores-protesta-ley-pesca-pinera--20190118-0013.html>
, feminist protests <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJ7xZe5s9WA> and
protests by the movement promoted under the slogan ‘Ni Una Menos’
<https://www.elmostrador.cl/braga/2017/10/21/a-un-ano-de-la-primera-marcha-ni-una-menos-ha-cambiado-algo-en-chile-con-respecto-a-la-violencia-hacia-las-mujeres/>
 (*not one less*), mobilisations about the historic debt owed to teachers
<https://www.biobiochile.cl/noticias/2014/11/29/que-es-la-deuda-historica-de-los-profesores.shtml>,
the student protests held in 2006 and 2011
<https://www.academia.edu/5893120/_Protest_and_proposal_participation_and_representation_the_Chilean_student_movement_2011_12_>,
and the more recent mobilisations by students against the so-called Safe
Classroom Law
<https://www.efe.com/efe/america/sociedad/estudiantes-protestan-en-chile-por-una-norma-que-facilita-la-expulsion-violencia/20000013-4011079>.
On top of this, there’s the outrage caused by systematic state repression
of the Indigenous peoples in Wallmapu, the deaths of Camilo Catrillanca and
Macarena Valdés, and the imprisonment of Machi Francisca Linconao and Lonko
Alberto Curamil, among other political prisoners. Combined with a
generation-long dissatisfaction with the impunity granted to those
responsible for the tortures, disappearances and killings of thousands of
people under the dictatorship led by Augusto Pinochet, this produced an
environment conducive to a citizen awakening of historical proportions.
After years of abuse, the Chilean people woke up and want a new
constitution, since the current one was drafted under the dictatorship and
was designed to promote social inequality.

The big difference between the current protests and all the previous ones
is the response they triggered from the government of President Sebastián
Piñera, who declared a state of emergency and a curfew, unleashing a police
and military repression against the Chilean people that is only paralleled
by the crimes perpetrated during the dictatorship.

The protests are not being centrally organised and are not guided by a
single political motto; there are many independent initiatives calling for
people to gather and demonstrate, through social media or through various
independent information channels. Some of the most widespread demands call
for a constituent assembly to write a new constitution. Frequently demanded
are the nationalisation of basic services and natural resources, including
copper, lithium and water. There are also demands for direct democracy and
binding referendums, the prosecution of political and economic corruption,
respect for Indigenous peoples and plurinational sovereignty, and for
health, education and decent pensions. On top of these there are also more
specific demands, such as raising the minimum monthly wage to 500,000
Chilean pesos (approx. US$650), reducing legislators’ salaries and raising
taxes on the richest.

These were the reasons why the movement began, but in the face of excessive
state repression, citizens are now also demanding the resignation and
prosecution of President Piñera and all the people involved in the
systematic violations of human rights that have taken place over the past
month.

*Twenty deaths have been reported during the repression of the protests, in
addition to large numbers of people injured and under arrest. Could you
describe the human rights violations committed against protesters?*

It is difficult to estimate right now the human rights violations that are
being committed by the Piñera administration, since – as was also the case
under the dictatorship – thousands of detainees are being kept
incommunicado. That is why, when people are taken away in the streets, they
shout out their name, surname and identity card number. The latest official
figures from the National Institute of Human Rights (INDH) account for 335
legal actions initiated, 489 victims represented, 6,199 people under arrest
– 726 of them minors – and 2,365 injured people registered in hospitals.
But it is difficult to confirm the veracity of these figures since the
institutions that disseminate them may have been pressured by the
government.

The INDH in particular partly lost its credibility when its director denied
the existence of systematic human rights violations in our country on an
open-air TV programme. That was simply a lie, since the institution itself
had submitted complaints in the face of arbitrary actions by the police and
the military. More than 200 cases of eye mutilations have happened as a
result of the excessive use of pellets by the police, and there have been
numerous cases of mistreatment, sexual violence and torture in detention
centres. Additionally, there was an instance of repression at a school,
Liceo 7 in Santiago, where a carabinero, a member of the military police,
fired against students who were inside the building. There have also been
raids on private homes and arrests made out of cars without police
identification.

On top of repression by the security forces, there is a group of citizens
who call themselves ‘yellow vests’ and say their mission is to maintain
civic order and protect the work of the police, but in reality they are a
violent far-right group. Among its members is John Cobin
<https://www.eldinamo.cl/nacional/2019/11/11/john-cobin-estadounidense-renaca-manifestantes-perfil/>,
who fired a firearm at a protester in broad daylight on the busy streets of
the Reñaca resort. He belongs to the League of the South, a white
supremacist organisation from California.

*What immediate actions should the Chilean government take to safeguard
civil rights and democratic freedoms?*

A month into the protests, the government has not yet listened to its
citizens, and instead has responded with increasing violence. In the early
hours of 15 November, lawmakers reached a political agreement behind closed
doors, named the ‘Peace Agreement’ which would lead to a new constitution.
The agreement guarantees a ‘blank slate’ for free discussion to take place
and establishes that the call for a constitutional convention is going to
be done through a public referendum. But part of the mobilised citizenry is
not satisfied with either the deadlines or the required quorum of two
thirds established for decision-making by the constituent body, since they
think it will redirect the current democratic process towards a system
designed to protect the political class and prevent minority voices from
gaining power.

I think what’s most important at this moment is the security of the
citizenry and, above all, of the communities at greatest social risk, which
are not only the most affected by the neoliberal system, but are also at
the epicentre of the undiscerning violence applied by carabineros and the
armed forces. An example of this happened in the community of Lo Hermida,
in Peñalolén. After the authorities announced that they would not build the
decent homes they had promised, inhabitants occupied the Cousiño-Macul
vineyard. `Police repression was not long in coming, and in just one night
200 people were injured, two of them with severe eye trauma. In addition,
carabineros broke in and threw pepper gas into homes with older people and
minors inside.

It is time for the Piñera government to stop the repression, release the
more than 6,000 protesters who are currently being held in detention
centres, take responsibility for the consequences of its actions, and – for
the first time in Chilean history since Pinochet – end impunity for the
systematic human rights violations that have been committed. The Piñera
government must respond before the law for the more than 20 people who have
been killed and the 200 that experienced eye mutilations, plus the torture
of minors and sexual abuses against women, men and non-binary people, since
all of these were consequences of the lousy decisions made by the
government, and would have been at least partly avoided if they had
maintained a direct dialogue with the public since the beginning. In this
regard, the slogan chanted on the streets is: "There is no peace without
justice."

*Do you think that the mobilisations in Chile are part of broader regional
trends?*

What is happening in Chile is structurally international, since it derives
from the austerity measures perpetrated by neoliberalism. Chile’s current
socio-economic system is rooted in European colonialism and was enshrined
by Pinochet’s coup d'état in 1973. Specifically, it came from a group of
students belonging to Chilean elites who studied in the USA in the
mid-1950s, where they absorbed the ideology of extreme monetarism and
neoliberalism, under the tutelage of Milton Friedman and Arnold Harberger.
These students – nicknamed the ‘Chicago Boys’ – served as finance and
economics ministers under the dictatorship and introduced extreme
privatisation measures. These measures were accepted and naturalised by a
citizenry that was in a state of shock and repression.

The consequences of this privatisation translate into abuses perpetrated by
multinational corporations that are enabled by governments around the
world. In Chile, a good example of this is the case uncovered by journalist
Meera Karunananthan in an article
<https://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2017/jun/12/chile-water-privatisation-canada-teachers>
published
by The Guardian in 2017. The author explains that the Ontario Teachers'
Pension Plan is the largest investor in Aguas del Valle, Essbio and Esval,
which control 41 per cent of the water and sanitation system in Chile. This
is possible because the constitution allows for the private ownership of
water, which has left entire communities in a drought situation and
unprotected by the law. However, in 2010 the United Nations’ General
Assembly passed a resolution <https://undocs.org/es/A/RES/64/292> recognising
access to water and sanitation as a human right. This means that in Chile
human rights are violated not only through police repression but also
through the maintenance of an unfair and abusive economic system.

The example cited above is just one within the great chain of international
abuses perpetrated by corporations, including by the Canadian company
Barrick Gold and the Norwegian state company Statkraft, which continue to
abuse the policies of the Chilean subsidiary state and threaten our planet.
That is why we must raise awareness at an international level so that the
decisions of the Chilean people are respected and protection is provided to
Indigenous peoples, without blockages or political interventions protecting
foreign capital and perpetuating the destruction of our environment.

*What support does Chilean civil society need from international civil
society in this process?*

At this time, it is important to recognise and create international
awareness about the abuses committed against the working class, Indigenous
peoples, Afro-descendant communities and sexual minorities. I personally
have learned a lot in the course of these mobilisations. One of the most
subversive things that citizens are doing is rejecting the right/left
binarism that has so severely affected Latin American societies and that
has been used by neoliberal governments as an excuse to repress working
people. The prevalence of citizen politics that do not identify with any
dogmatic position on the right/left spectrum meant that the government
could not identify an ideological enemy and ended up declaring war on its
own people.

Mainstream national and international media are misrepresenting the facts
and building a narrative against the mobilised population. But unlike what
happened in the past, we are now equipped with phone cameras and can report
directly. I invite people around the world to get informed through
independent media and civil society channels to really know what is
happening.

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