While we were in Santiago and Valparaiso, we saw a lot of evidence of what the Chilenos call the “Manifestations”. The manifestations are essentially large ongoing protests by the Chilean people about the inequality in their country. We have seen and heard so much about the situation here and it has really made an impact on me so I thought I would do a post about it. We haven’t felt like we were in danger here, but have seen a lot of evidence of violence that resulted from the protests. They began in October 2019 when the government raised the fare of the Metro subway in Santiago. They only raised the cost by about a nickel, but that’s a lot to a Chileno.

According to a Reuters article I found “. . . Chile remains the most unequal country in the largely-developed Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), with an income gap 65% wider than the OECD average. Half of Chilean workers earn $550 a month or less, according to the National Statistics Institute.  Here’s a link to the article:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-chile-protests-explainer/explainer-chiles-inequality-challenge-what-went-wrong-and-can-it-be-fixed-idUSKBN1X22RK

So the hike in the cost of the Metro ended up sparking an entire movement that doesn’t seem like it will end until changes come about. Our tour guide in Santiago told us that most of the people who are protesting have been peaceful, but that there is a relatively small group of anarchists (as she calls them) who have been causing some of the protests to get out of control. So the police have had to fight back and there has been a lot of violence in a lot of the larger cities since the Manifestations began. There have been at least 30 people killed and thousands have been injured. Also, over 3,000 people have been arrested. The crowds have burned down buildings and have taken to spray painting their messages on walls. The people who are protesting are both old and young. The older ones who are protesting are the ones who lived through the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. He ruled in Chile from 1973 to 1990. When the older generation saw how the police and military were treating the young protesters, I think it scared them and so many of them decided to join the protests. Also, the pension system evidently doesn’t pay older people enough to hardly survive. It’s something like $400 per month. Both young and old people are protesting for better pensions for the old.

Here is a statement about Pinochet’s years as The Chilean dictator from Wikipedia. He sounds like a really horrible man.

From Wikipedia: Pinochet assumed power in Chile following a United States-backed coup d’état on 11 September 1973 that overthrew the democratically elected socialist Unidad Popular government of President Salvador Allende and ended civilian rule. The support of the United States was crucial to the coup and the consolidation of power afterward.^{[8][9][10][B]} Pinochet had been promoted to  Commander-in-Chief of the Chilean Army by Allende on 23 August 1973, having been its General Chief of Staff since early 1972.^[11] In December 1974, the ruling military junta appointed Pinochet Supreme Head of the nation by joint decree, although without the support of one of the coup’s instigators, Air Force General Gustavo Leigh.^[12] Following his rise to power, Pinochet persecuted leftists, socialists, and political critics, resulting in the executions of from 1,200 to 3,200 people,^[13] the internment of as many as 80,000 people and the torture of tens of thousands.^[14][15][16] According to the Chilean government, the number of executions and forced disappearances was 3,095.^[17] Operation Condor was founded at the behest of the Pinochet regime in late November 1975, his 60th birthday.^[18]

The younger people of Chile are calling for socioeconomic equality and better social services. They have forced President Sebastián Piñera to promise increase benefits for the poor and disadvantaged and start a process of constitutional reform. The current constitution was written when Pinochet was the dictator.

I have taken a lot of pictures of the protestors’ graffiti messages. They have painted them in many areas around the city centers in Santiago, Valparaiso, Punta Arenas and other cities. They say that if they are successful in getting the things they want, that they will help clean off the graffiti. Some of the things they have written are pretty harsh. For example, one thing that is written everywhere is “ACAB”, which stands for “All Cops are Bastards”. One person told me that the reason they use English is because they want for their message to be worldwide. Protests are so much different these days because of social media. The protesters in different countries get ideas from each other via social media. The Chilean protestors have said that the police have used excessive force and there is a lot of evidence of the police beating people in the prisons and shooting people with their rubber bullets at them. There have been over 300 people who have permanently lost vision in one or both eyes from the bullets. There have been many stories of the police raping protesters in the prisons as well. Those are the reasons that the protestors have so much hatred towards the police. Most of the young people have protested in a completely peaceful manner, however many of them have taken to spray painting messages on public property. I talked to some young people who say they feel it’s their only way to get their message out.

Here are my pictures of some of the evidence of protests in Santiago, Valparaiso and Punta Arenas:

After we left Viña del Mar, we went back to Santiago for a night and then flew down to Punta Arenas, which is in the southern part of Patagonia. The flight took about 3.5 hours. So at this point, we are about 13 hours of flying time away from Atlanta! Patagonia is absolutely beautiful and we have had lots of fun and adventure here. More to come about that in my next post!