Chile's Education March Heats Up

09 Agosto 2011

For about two hours, there was scarcely a frowning face in the crowd as they marched through the unseasonably warm day. Just after noon, things turned ugly.

Katie Manning >
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Tuesday’s education protest in Santiago started with a swarm of between 60,000 and 120,000 students, professors and onlookers jumping, chanting and hoisting up banners to demand a high-quality, free education for all of Chile. One said:

“Let education stop oppressing us and start liberating us.”

For about two hours, there was scarcely a frowning face in the crowd as they marched through the unseasonably warm day. Some dropped their pickets to snack in grassy areas or paint faces at the edge of the crowd.  

Just after noon, things turned ugly.

A handful of protesters stirred up trouble in Tarpacá Nathaniel, and police launched tear gas to disperse the crowd. The violence snowballed. Mounted police chased looters in Eleuterio Ramírez. Photos of overturned cars and blazing barricades began to surface.

 

President of CONFECH, a national group Chilean university students, Camila Vallejo tweeted minutes later, “We’re calling for this mass mobilization to be finished calmly, we know that we are not violent!"


But Chile’s interior minister, Rodrigo Hinzpeter, disagreed. “The results of the protests show that its leaders have no control,” he said.

As per usual, government authorities told students to keep out of La Alameda, for the “peace of the inhabitants of Santiago.” Protesters traditionally make their way down this street that connects Plaza Italia to La Moneda, which is President Sebastian Pinera’s office. They offered instead two other lower-profile options, saying that the neighborhood surrounding La Moneda needs a break from the students’ frequent and packed protests.

After a bit of haggling, the usually clashing sides compromised on a new route.

In the last unauthorized protest on August 4, students strode down La Alameda even though they didn’t have permission. The protest ended in approximately one billion Chilean pesos (about $2.4 million U.S.) of property damage and over 250 arrests in Santiago. 

On Tuesday morning, students demonstrated inside the lines of the designated path, but this didn’t keep the protests from ending violently.

Sol Mejias, 16, marched with her friend Paula Jaña, 15. Both have a bad taste in their mouths toward the violent police response at the demonstrations. On Thursday, the girls from Santiago said they coughed through clouds of teargas at the protest.

Jaña said, “Your nose is burning and your throat. It hurts a lot too. The police don’t help you at all (when you’ve been sprayed by teargas). They leave you there coughing in the street.”

“They do really bad things. They abuse the power they have. They are money-suckers from the state,” added Mejias.

Their disenchantment doesn’t keep them from  pounding the pavement in hopes that the government will allow them to access a high-quality, free education.

When asked about their school, Mejias and Jaña said simulaneously, “It’s really bad.” 

“On top of that we have to pay for it,” said Mejias. 

In the face of increasing pressure from the government, the students’ resolve seems to be holding strong. Matias Herman, a 16-year old from Santiago, squeezed through protesters  packed as thick as molasses to join the demonstration with two friends. Herman said, “I’m not afraid, and the teargas doesn’t matter... We just need to keep going.”

Today their effort gained momentum globally. Chileans took to the streets of Paris, France, and Buenos Aires, Argentina, to show their support for the students’ cause.

 

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