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Chile president to lift state of emergency at midnight, protests continue
SANTIAGO, Oct 28, 2019 (AFP) – Embattled Chilean President Sebastian Pinera
on Sunday announced a state of emergency that has lasted more than a week
amid mass protests would be lifted at midnight, but demonstrations continued
nonetheless.
The decision, just two days after more than a million people took to the
country’s streets demanding economic and political change, comes after the
equally unpopular week-long nighttime curfews ended on Saturday.
Authorities imposed both the state of emergency and curfews last weekend
after Chile was rocked by its worst civil unrest in decades.
What originated as a student protest against a modest hike in metro fares
quickly got out of control as demonstrations turned deadly.
A message on the presidency’s official Twitter account said the state of
emergency, which had seen 20,000 soldiers and police deployed on the streets,
would end “in all the regions and towns where it was established.”
This measure comes a day after Pinera said he had “asked all ministers to
resign in order to form a new government.”
“We are in a new reality,” Pinera said on Saturday. “Chile is different
from what it was a week ago.”
– ‘Peaceful and constructive’ –
But demonstrations continued on Sunday as thousands of people marched to
the seat of Congress in Valparaiso, 120 kilometers (75 miles) west of the
capital Santiago.
“The strength of the social movement that has taken over the streets has
been its transversality, and peaceful and constructive character,” said Jorge
Sharp, Valparaiso’s mayor.
The government has been struggling to craft an effective response to the
protests and a growing list of economic and political demands that include
Pinera’s resignation.
A group of around a thousand cyclists stopped outside the presidential
palace in Santiago on Sunday, chanting: “Listen up Pinera: go to hell.”
Around 15,000 people, according to police, gathered peacefully in the
capital’s O’Higgins park.
The breadth and ferocity of the demonstrations appeared to have caught the
government of Chile — long one of Latin America’s richest and most stable
countries — off guard.
Demonstrators are angry at Chile’s neo-liberal social model, low salaries
and pensions, high health care and education costs, and a yawning gap between
rich and poor.
Billionaire Pinera, who assumed office in March 2018, had already shuffled
his cabinet twice in 15 months as doubts grew about a slowing economy and his
leadership.
MORE/MSY/0936 hrs
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He offered a raft of measures earlier this week aimed at calming the public
ire, including an increased minimum wage and pensions, some reductions in
health care costs, and a streamlining of parliament.
“These measures aren’t enough, even though they’re an important step in the
people’s demands,” said electrical engineer Eduardo Perez, 49.
– Volunteer clean-up –
By Saturday afternoon, the military presence in the capital Santiago had
been already visibly reduced.
The week of unrest began with an initial burst of violence as protesters
and looters destroyed metro stations, torched supermarkets, smashed traffic
lights and bus stops, and erected burning street barricades.
At least 20 people died — half in fires started by looters — in the worst
political violence since Chile returned to democracy after the Augusto
Pinochet dictatorship from 1973-1990.
The police and army troops have been accused of using unnecessary force in
putting down the protests. The United Nations is sending a team to
investigate allegations of abuse.
The national human rights institute INDH said 584 people have been injured
and 2,410 detained during the protests.
Hundreds of volunteers on Sunday joined in a huge clean-up operation in
Santiago, washing down or painting walls that had been scrawled with graffiti
and clearing up broken glass and the remnants of burned-out barricades.
The street movement still lacks recognizable leaders, though, and was
mostly roused through social media, which analysts say makes it harder for
the government to negotiate any resolution.
There were fears that continuing protests could put at risk the Asia
Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) trade summit in Santiago from November
16-17, but the government said on Thursday it would go ahead.
US President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping are among
those expected to attend the APEC meeting.
BSS/AFP/MSY/0936 hrs