Chile today

If you read Spanish, Rebelión is a good source of Latin American news and analysis. http://www.rebelion.org/seccion.php?id=12

NDPP wrote:

US Diplomat Blames Russia For Protests in Chile

https://twitter.com/RT_com/status/1188586169031782400

"Guess who's stirring massive anti-government protests in Chile? Anybody? That's right it's the Russians, at least according to Washington's chief Latin American diplomat..."

He better hope this doesn't get reported on Fox and Friends, or Trump will fire him.

This story is so painful to read.

Hundreds shot and beaten as Chile takes to the streets

..been waiting for the transcript for part 2 but it doesn't look like it's gonna happen. in any case it's even more revealing than part 1.

A Fight Against Neoliberalism: Over A Million Chileans Protest Amid Violent Crackdown

We continue our conversation with Chilean activist Alondra Carrillo Vidal and Macarena Gómez-Barris, founder and director of the Global South Center and Chairperson of Social Science and Cultural Studies at the Pratt Institute.

..aahh! the transcript to part 2

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PRESIDENT SEBASTIAN PIÑERA: [translated] The protesters are at war against all good Chileans who want to live in democracy and peace. General Iturriaga, who is in charge of dealing with this state of emergency, has been able to deploy 9,500 men to protect your peace, your tranquility, your rights and your liberty. I want to express my gratitude to these 9,500 people of the armed forces, the military, who are confronting these violent people and criminals.

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ALONDRA CARRILLO VIDAL: Yes. Well, almost 100 people have lost their sight.

AMY GOODMAN: Have been blinded?

ALONDRA CARRILLO VIDAL: Yes. They have been shot in the eyes by the police.

AMY GOODMAN: So they’re using live bullets?

ALONDRA CARRILLO VIDAL: They’re using these like little bullets.

AMY GOODMAN: Rubber bullets.

ALONDRA CARRILLO VIDAL: Yes, yes. Oh, it’s not just rubber. It’s also—it’s some kind of metal. I don’t know the word in English.

AMY GOODMAN: Lead bullets.

ALONDRA CARRILLO VIDAL: Yes. But they have also taken out selectively people from their houses, mostly student leaderships. They have also exercised sexual political violence. They have raped people. Not just women; also men, gay men or men that are queer. They have tortured many, many people. They also occupied the central station of the subway, Baquedano, as a torture center that was discovered by the Institution of Human Rights here in Chile. They have deployed mass violence with of course the use of tear gas and contaminated water against the people and against the mass that is demonstrating on the streets. They have—yes, I believe they have used almost every way of political violence against the people.

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MACARENA GÓMEZ-BARRIS: Well, this discourse or this rhetoric of the enemy of the state is certainly one we know. It was used against social dissidents in a moment, against Salvador Allende supporters, and it was part and integral to kind of praxis of state violence. So this is rhetoric that has continued and it has resurfaced because in Piñera’s cabinet, and Piñera, and the military themselves, there’s a deep root that goes back to the Pinochet regime. This is a continuation in many ways.

So we talk about political transition and “la transición politica” in Chile, and the idea of a transition to political democracy. But this transition, which is now I think officially over, we can say, really never happened in the sense that the kind of infrastructures of the military regime continue to be there, as I discussed before, in terms of the Constitution, but also the kind of increased security state that’s happened in, as I said, indigenous territories. And we know this because there has been a kind of armament that is increased, buying and purchasing of weapons. If you look at the kind of suiting up of the police and the military, there’s a sense of a kind of expanded security regime and apparatus.

And so really this rhetoric of the enemy of the state is a kind of anti-terrorist rhetoric from the Cold War, and it has, of course, precursors in the colonial regime. And this has been used to criminalize a population, as your other guest said, who’s living in very precarious conditions. Forty percent of people—you know, the kind of most radical inequality in Latin America [inaudible].

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AMY GOODMAN: Professor Macarena Gómez-Barris, can you talk about the constituent assemblies, what they are?

MACARENA GÓMEZ-BARRIS: Yeah, I think this is a really important aspect, both the kind of privatization, deregulation of many sectors in society, the healthcare across the board in terms of Social Security, retirement, and these low pensions. So this has produced a kind of relative deprivation in society that wasn’t about these Metro 4% hikes and the kind of retraction of that. It’s a longer systematic dismantling of the social system. And what’s happened in the process has been a sense of loss of faith in political parties, loss of faith in the so-called transition to democracy, a kind of elite democracy that has not represented people’s interests and their economic, financial and basic interests or met their expectations of what a democracy looks like, in terms of supposedly an economic miracle, an oasis in Latin America, as Piñera put it.

Well, that oasis has not been true, and so people have turned to other sources of social power, other dimensions of political projects, and have created a number of different forums through constituent assemblies that has really thickened what we’d call civil society or a kind of alternative to the formal political parties. So let me give you an example. In 2006, you get the rise of the Pingüino movement, the movement of middle age children that, of course, have come to age now and are living this kind of new collective moment.

That school movement and that turn away from the kinds of formal education that were happening, the squeeze on the population, the ransoming of the future, the fact that university tuition was increasing, led to the 2011 protests that were a massive student uprising that you know and you saw certain kinds of leaders in motion there. Really important. Camila Vallejo, Jackson, et cetera. And that kind of massive student protest that was also at that key critical moment globally about debt, about student debt and against this kind of fast food universities that were privatized everywhere and increasing debt for the masses because of the tuition there, really created a texture of social movements, fomented social movements from the young people, the college age people, again, all who have come to age.

So by the time you get the feminist movements and the uprising that are happening in the south with indigenous peoples, you’re really getting a transversal, coalitional, anti-state movement that has been quite thickened in its radical democracy on the ground. And this is a kind of texture for what we see in the future potentially. This is not one leader that can be co-opted or a series of leaders that can be co-opted by political parties. This is a quite rich texture of movements that has actually been criminalized but in fact, we actually see real radical democracy in motion on the ground.

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AMY GOODMAN: And the significance of the United Nations sending a team to Chile to investigate the allegations of human rights abuses?

MACARENA GÓMEZ-BARRIS: Indeed. It’s no coincidence that Michelle Bachelet is at the head of that, former president Michelle Bachelet.

AMY GOODMAN: Who herself was imprisoned during the Pinochet regime. Her father killed, her and her mother tortured.

MACARENA GÓMEZ-BARRIS: Indeed. So the continuities there, and now at the center of the United Nations that has been seen by Trump and others as unnecessary, right? And the right-wing kind of rhetoric of this, trying to dismantle so many gains that have been had. So that Michelle Bachelet is taking this commission now, today, and that Piñera has decided to suspend the curfew and allow for a kind of openness, supposedly, and the rhetoric against—you know, that the state of emergency is over—it’s precisely because the world is now watching with Bachelet at the center to see what in fact is happening on the ground.

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ALONDRA CARRILLO VIDAL: Yes. Many people are gathering right now at the Palace of Justice to put forward reports of what has been going on. It’s really contradictory that Bachelet is the one that is coming now, not because she was tortured and, of course, she was a victim of political violence, but because she was president of Chile, and as a president of Chile, she was part of the administration of these precarious life conditions. And it’s one of the many presidents and political forces that are being held accountable of these conditions against which people are rebelling.

So it’s important not to disassociate the repression that is being conducted by the military and the police from what’s the content of this mobilization. So I believe for me and for many of the people that are on the streets, it’s really—at the same time it’s of course helpful to have this mission coming here and making visible what’s going on with people who are protesting and going to the streets, but it’s also really—it concerns us what this can make in order to, I don’t know, hide these deep reasons why people are protesting now.

..i found this to be an excellent analysis. 

A New People Is Born in Chile

Thanks to the ongoing protest movement in Chile, the legitimacy of the country’s neoliberal model is currently on trial — reason enough to feel hopeful. The huge revolts have been even larger than the impressive mobilizations seen earlier this decade in Chile, capturing the imagination of radical resistance movements around the globe. With the staggering popular turnout on the streets, covering almost all sectors of Chilean society, there is plenty of reason for optimism, but this opening also poses a number of serious challenges for the Chilean left.

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Filling the Void

This model may be losing its grip, and what we see emerging is a new popular consciousness with a broad social outlook. For better or worse, we are witnessing the birth of a new Chilean “people,” partly forged out of the neoliberal experience and of a different variety to its twentieth-century predecessor.

Chileans have been individualized under neoliberalism, but paradoxically, this individualization has also incubated a demand for authentic individual autonomy — an attitude that does not sit easily with the traditional Chilean left.

But street mobilizations are no less dynamic. In cacerolazos, we find not only expressions of rage directed toward the business class and government. We also find expressions of joy, of people dancing and singing, celebrating the power that comes with being united in common struggle. It is no accident that the most emblematic figure of the movement is none other than the Chilean flag: there, in all its heterogeneity, a new Chilean people is being born.

The Right’s Countermobilization

In the lingo of the Latin American left, the protests in Chile constitute an “inorganic” movement: it lacks a centralized leadership. There is no legitimate social organization that can represent it, although all of Chile’s political and social organizations, new and old, find themselves drawn into the mix.

Institutional politics in Chile have been completely thrown off-balance by the protest movement. The most conservative elements — sectors of the Democratic Independent Union (UDI), Opus Dei, and a series of powerful impresarios — won the initiative in responding to the movement. Indeed, the rentier class has long been lobbying the government to take a more interventionist right-wing approach. Economic deceleration has only emboldened this fraction of capital to double down on its strategy of accumulation by dispossession. Represented in politics by ultra-conservatism and backed by fractions of the military and the media, this sector will fight tooth and nail against any proposed redistributive reform.

These same groups have been promoting the imposed curfew and the state of emergency. Their aim is not to avoid violence, but rather to stoke it. Already desperate, small fractions of poor Chileans can easily turn to looting, and this in turn can feed the narrative of criminality that distracts from social demands.

Others on the Right — fractions of National Renovation (RN), like Senator Ossandón — know that the conflict cannot be settled only with violence, even if they are not themselves opposed to military tactics. This right-wing sector is actively trying to use the popular movement in the hope of neutralizing its radicalism. Rhetorically calling for law and order, and condemning the violence, they nonetheless attempt to profit from the generalized distrust of elites. It offers a demagogy of social redistribution, introducing the basic ingredients of a right-wing populist discourse.

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When the Third Way Is Not Enough

Once buoyed by a national-popular alliance that underwrote much of its legitimacy in the twentieth century, the Concertación — the coalition of Socialists, Radicals, and Christian Democrats that led the state from 1990 to 2010 — is undergoing a vertiginous decline. Serving for decades as the custodian of neoliberal policy, its historic social-democratic identity has been effectively buried. Over the years, the upper tier of the coalition party has been molded into an efficient conduit between the state and rentier sectors, a technocratic caste that saw enormous economic gains while in power. It has become, in a word, the elite.

Where once Concertación was ashamed to defend the neoliberal model, today, strands in the party openly support the most regressive, right-wing interests. In 2019, there are sectors that don’t even merit comparison with the Third Way neoliberal progressivism of Blair or Clinton. It is possible that they will join with Piñera in the name of forming a “national unity government.”

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Challenges for the Left

The protests also present a huge challenge for the Frente Amplio (“The Broad Front”), the new left-wing coalition party with parliamentary representation. What the street revolts make clear is that if the Frente Amplio is to have any future role in national politics, it will have to do more than replace the decrepit Concertación in the equally decrepit electoral contest, with a current abstention rate of 60 percent.

The entire political class wants to see the end of this popular uprising, and it will do everything possible to enlist the Frente Amplio to that end, be it militarization, demagogic populism, or “national unity.” And if this new left-wing force — originally inspired by an insurgent impulse to overcome the old ruling political caste — allows itself to be co-opted, it will likely become the next victim of the larger crisis of political legitimacy.

The challenge then is to transform the popular unity expressed in the streets into an effective political force. And this, of course, requires incredible political acumen and the forging of alliances, where the challenge, as always, is to join forces without being subordinated.

Chile’s new left will only be up to the task if it can abandon the temptation to invoke nostalgic left-wing identities and narrow electoral ambitions. It must put forward a new model, one that reconfigures the relationship between society, the economy, and the state. It must act in unison with, rather than behind the backs of, the protest movement. It must make the struggle for a constituent assembly more than propaganda.

To secure a meaningful place in Chile’s future, the Frente Amplio must act to protect the mobilization; without a mobilized society, there is no meaningful left in Chile. To that end, the Frente Amplio must reinforce the space won by protesters and help deliver further victories.

Chilean Government Bows to Protests & Agrees to Rewrite Constitution

The Chilean government has agreed to rewrite its Constitution in order to replace the one that was written during Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet’s brutal military regime. The rewriting of the Constitution has been one of the key demands of the massive demonstrations that have rocked Chile in recent weeks. The Chilean authorities have killed at least 19 people and wounded thousands more since the protests erupted on October 19 in response to a subway fare hike and quickly grew into a revolt against austerity and economic inequality.

Demands from the Workers of Chile

The uprisings that continue in Chile began as a student protest against a proposed fare increase for public transport. It quickly evolved into a general wave of protest against the government of Sebastián Piñera and all the mounting grievances of neoliberalism – horrible working conditions, social inequalities, privatizations, a negligible welfare state, and more. The government declared a state of emergency and curfew, deployed the military and unleashed a wave of fierce violence against the protests, killing many and detaining thousands. The Chilean national trade union movement, Central Unitaria de Trabajadores de Chile (CUT-Chile), has been part of broad fronts of groups aligned against the government. Its so-called Union Bloc has produced the following set of demands.

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10. New Political Constitution via Constituent Assembly

Chile’s debt to the workers is not just a debt over rights, it is also of minimum democratic guarantees. We are invited to participate in the electoral processes such as the great space to exercise our voice and sovereignty, but over the most relevant projects for the future of our lives – such as education, health, housing, pensions, salaries – we have no direct participatory space. Today it is necessary to deepen democracy with more rights, but also with mechanisms of effective participation, that enhances citizenship with politics.

To build a New Social Pact, it is not enough to achieve ‘agreements’. Discussing a New Social Pact is to build a new Constitution among all, considering the most wide participation. And the only mechanism that allows us to open the doors to all feeling called and challenged is through a Constituent Assembly.

We are aware that no actor, social or political, can and should not attribute the representativeness or spokesperson of the mobilized social majorities, but with that same clarity we point out that we will not allow agreements between four walls to be imposed, shielded in which there are no clear ‘proposals’ after social mobilization. 

Activist Dies in Chile’s Plaza Italia as Police Repress Medics

The rubber bullets, tear gas, and water cannons attacked the crowds with no mercy or compassion.

The paramedics tried to help Abel Acuña when he went into cardiac arrest. They almost saved him, but the repression was so strong they couldn’t continue their medical treatment and Acuña died. The Plaza de la Dignidad is in mourning today, but that pain is being transformed into anger and into hate against a regime that only a few hours after the repression was asking for peace. 

The magnitude of the repression suffered in the Plaza was outrageous. It was the audacity, rebelliousness, solidarity, and courage of the people that prevented the death toll from being even higher. The heroic youth confront the hated police, preventing them from continuing their slaughter. The vast majority of the population cheers on and appreciates the youth. 

The barricades are going up and people know those barricades are protection from the next police offensive against them, their sisters, and their brothers. In the Plaza there are no “violent” and “peaceful” protestors. In Plaza de la Dignidad people are resisting for their lives.

The entire Chilean regime has given a green light to repress. The hatred against the ‘pacos’ (cops) is so strong it creates a sisterhood and brotherhood of young and old that is changing the course of history....

Chileans Are Hungry for an Alternative to Neoliberalism

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The tentative peace agreement sets in motion two national referenda: one to start a constitutional process, another to approve the final version. The treaty agrees to a constituent assembly of people proportional to the number of congressional representatives.

Protesters were at first elated. But the euphoria of my hosts on November 15, at what seemed like a clear victory, quickly evaporated over the next twenty-four hours. In the morning, I saw people on the news celebrating in Plaza de la Dignidad, the downtown center of the protests. By the time I walked over to see it myself, the protesters had thrown red paint on a reporter who was broadcasting live on national television. This was a harbinger for interactions to come that day.

That afternoon, we attended a demonstration in downtown Santiago that had seen up to 1.2 million participants weeks earlier. Notably, attendance still remained in the hundreds of thousands. Despite the agreement, police continued their teargassing and the violence that led to the death of a young man later that night.

The multigenerational aspect of the rallies was gone. It was much younger and angrier. The Frente Amplio cadre noted that day that they were greeted negatively for the first time. In the beginning, I assumed this reaction came from more conservative forces, but it soon became clear that the social base that had initially supported the uprising was eroding.

But the discontent is deeper than feelings toward the ruling elite. It also stems from the social and economic demands of the revolt and the lack of clarity about the constitutional process. The progressive social and economic reform agenda will come with both a revised constitutional process and continued street pressure. But absent one majority-supported group or coalition to push this left agenda, people will feel unsatisfied and distrusting of any process. This could negatively impact the chances of a nonviolent resolution to the uprising.

Constituent Assembly and Its Discontent

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While the constituent assembly to write a new constitution offers democratic promise, it opens up many questions about democratic process. Currently, Chileans are able to vote for representatives to the Constituent Assembly only if those candidates are on party lists. Thus, unless independents are able to join a political party’s slate, they will be left out.

This greatly disadvantages the many Chileans unaffiliated with any party. Chileans already have one of the lowest levels of trust in Congress in Latin America, and more than half the country doesn’t vote. Mimicking congressional elections likely would only delegitimize the assembly. Besides independents, many are demanding gender parity (currently slightly more than one-fifth of Chilean federal elected officials are women) and quotas for indigenous people, who make up roughly one-tenth of the country.

The parity and quota demands come from the uprising itself. The demands of women and indigenous communities were ubiquitous during marches and could be seen in graffiti on the streets. Chile has some of the most restrictive laws for reproductive rights. A popular bandanna (used to counter the tear gas) demanded “legal, safe, and free” abortion. Flags of the Mapuche, the country’s largest native tribe, became a symbol of the uprising, too. Mapuche resistance has increased, especially on the one-year anniversary of the police murder of Camilo Catrillanca, a young Mapuche man, and the failed cover-up that followed.

At private meetings, I voiced concern that the hundreds of thousands of newly immigrated Colombians, Haitians, and Venezuelans seem to lack a concrete way to participate in the process as noncitizens who will also live under the new constitution. In general, activists understood this as an issue tied to the fact that social movements and labor don’t have the ability to elect their own representatives to the assembly.

Despite this uncertainty, it is impossible not to have some hope for a more progressive Chile. The left-wing social movements have not let up despite the treaty and still have representatives in Congress (although some elected officials in parties of Frente Amplio have resigned their memberships to support the agreement because their parties and formations opposed the accord). This tension within the uprising means that there is sustained energy for political and social reform, if not revolution. What is critical now is to maintain popular support for the mobilizations.

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This uprising coincides with popular and reactionary unrest in countries such as Bolivia, Colombia, and Ecuador. But its reflection can also be seen in the United States. Chilean activists are deeply moved by the recent New York City transit mobilizations against racist policies targeting fare evaders and unlicensed vendors, as their own uprising was sparked with an anti-fare-hike action.

The interconnectedness of the mass resistance throughout the continent reflects the hopes and fears of the socialist movement at the current juncture. Absent a coalition of social movements and progressive parties gaining legitimacy from the majority as its representative in the reform process, however, there is a real chance for continued instability. This could force an even worse violent response from the state and paramilitary actors not yet seen in this historic moment.

Thanks for the link, epualo!