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((Pascua Lama - El Mostrador photo))

The Cerro Casale mine, the next Pascua Lama

[Translation of an article from El Mostrador of Santiago, Chile, for April 9. See original here. Like the Cerro Casale project, Pascua Lama is an open-pit gold, silver and copper mine being developed by Barrick Gold of Canada. High in the Andes, on the border between Chile and Argentina, it has sparked considerable protest, in part because of its proximity to glaciers.]

by Alejandra Carmona

Rosa Ahumada says everything was different at one time. That at least the first 35 of her 46 years were different.

“I know a farmer who had an 80-meter well to water his vegetables, but it went dry. He had lettuce, potatoes, tomatoes and onions. He used to plant more than 50 hectares. Now he has only enough for 18,” says Rosa as she rushes through the story because, she warns, this is only one of the stories that burden a region that is going dry. (more…)

((La Tercera photo))

[Translation of an article from La Tercera of Santiago for March 16. See original here and related articles here and here.]

by L. Ferraro y S. Labrín

After one of the coldest days in Aysén, following the breakdown of negotiations between the government and the Social Movement, La Moneda [the presidency] decided yesterday to invoke the State Security Law and to bring charges against some 20 participants in the violent incidents that have taken place in the region. These include the burning of a bus and a water cannon belonging to the Carabineros [the militarized national police], as well as the stoning of a police airplane that was to transport agents injured during the protests. (more…)

((El Mostrador photo))

Lorena Fríes says they were aimed directly at demonstrators

[Translation of an article from El Mostrador of Santiago for March 8. See original here and related article here.]

The director of the National Human Rights Institute has submitted to the Human Rights Committee of the Chamber of Deputies a report drawn up by professionals in the Institute who were in the Aysén region between February 22 and February 25 as part of the organization’s Police Violence Observation Program.

Fríes stated that, in drawing up the report, “We were able to confirm a disproportionate use of anti-riot shotguns, which apparently are not used to warn but are used directly on the bodies of the demonstrators, which is reflected in the large proportion of persons wounded; more than 50 percent of those arrested have superficial wounds from the pellets that are fired with these shotguns.” (more…)

((El Clarín photo))

[Translation of an article from El Clarín for Feburary 24. See original here and related article here. Aysén, in southern Chile, is one of the 15 administrative subdivisions, or regions, into which Chile is divided. Each region is headed by an intendant appointed by the president. Regions are further divided into provinces, of which there are 54, which are headed by governors, also appointed by the president. Puerto Aysén, the site of recent demonstrations, is a city in the region of Aysén. The sparsely inhabited region is physically isolated from the rest of the country, making the cost of living high and resulting in neglect by the national government and poorly developed infrastructure. Plans to build hydroelectric plants and transmission lines in the pristine region have in recent times met determined opposition from environmentalists and residents of the area.]

New confrontations were seen Wednesday evening at the  Ibáñez bridge in [Puerto] Aysén, where demonstrators are demanding better living conditions in the region. The confrontations are in addition to barricades set up by people in several other towns in favor of the demands of the citizen movement. (more…)

((Clarín photo))

Police attack after fire in Araucanía

[Translation of an article from the Venezuelan website TeleSur for January 8. See original here and related articles here, here, here and here.]

The Chilean carabineros [militarized national police] early Sunday morning raided the Cacique José Guiñón community, in the commune of Ercilla, province of Malleco (in the Araucanía region), after a fire in a rural parcel of land that is considered a Mapuche conflict zone.

“We are in the commune of Ercilla, 100 kilometers north of Temuco, where close to 100 members of the Carabineros de Chile proceeded to raid the Cacique José Guiñón community early this morning,” reported César Parra, the TeleSur correspondent in the commune. (more…)

[Translations of two articles from El Mostrador of Santiago, Chile, for January 6 and 8. See originals here and here. During an unusually warm and dry summer, fires in central and southern Chile have destroyed some 50,000 hectares of pristine forest since they started in late December. The regions of Bío Bío, Maule and Araucanía are particularly affected. The Mapuche indigenous peoples have struggled to regain their homelands in the area, opposing forestry and other operations, and opposition to construction of the HydroAysen hydroelectric plants in the region has been massive and strong.]

Firefighters in Carahue dispute Piñera’s explanation of how fires started

by Christian Buscaglia

President Sebastián Piñera announced yesterday a formal complaint invoking the Anti-Terrorist Law [which dates from the days of the Pinochet dictatorship] against those found responsible for the fires that have affected immense parts of Maule and Araucanía and have cost the lives of six firefighters working for a private company. “We have credible information that leads us to assume that there was a criminal intent behind these fires,” he declared from the La Moneda palace. (more…)

[Translation of an interview by BBC World with Camila Vallejo, a leader of the Chilean student movement, as published in El Mostrador of Santiago on October 18. See original here and related articles here.]

After close to six months of protests, the student movement, which is demanding free public education, continues shaping the country’s political agenda. A new 48-hour strike begins this Tuesday.

Students, professors, environmentalists and the Central Unitaria de Trabajadores, one of Chile’s principal unions, support the protest, which will include as its central event a demonstration scheduled for Wednesday afternoon.

On the day before these mobilizations, BBC World spoke in Paris with Camila Vallejo, president of the Federación de Estudiantes de la Universidad de Chile and one of the most visible faces of the movement.

Vallejo, a 22-year-old student of geography, has been in Europe since Friday along with three other Chilean student representatives to present their demands and to attempt to internationalize the movement.

You traveled to Europe to meet with international organizations and with intellectuals. Of the advise the intellectuals have given you, which do you like the best?

The philosopher Edgard Morin gave us confidence. He told us that higher education cannot be tied to the market, but that public education has to be guaranteed because countries need it in order to develop. (more…)

Priest calls for state of siege

[Translations of two articles from El Mostrador of Santiago for October 9 and 7. See original articles here and here and related articles here.]

Government claims student movement has been taken over by extremists

Press Secretary Andrés Chadwick charged on Sunday that the breakdown of talks is due to the Confederación de Estudiantes de Chile (Confech – Confederation of Students of Chile) being taken over by the most “extremist, intransigent and ideological” sectors of the student movement.

This was the executive branch response to the students’ decision to end talks with authorities on resolving the conflict, which has gone on for five months.

“It has become clear from statements made yesterday that Confech has been taken over and led by the most extreme, intransigent sectors, which will result in a student movement that is not concerned fundamentally with the question of education but with agitation,” the spokesman declared. (more…)

((Gabriel Salazar -- Brasil de Fato photo by Fábio Nassif))

The movement for public education in Chile gains strength, urges new constitution to counter legacy of the dictatorship

[Translation of an interview from Brasil de Fato for September 23. See original here and related articles here.]

by Fábio Nassif

This was a different kind of September 11 for Chile. The same script was used again but this time in a political climate that stresses more forcefully the ideas of the government that was interrupted in 1973. The march organized by human rights groups brought out close to 5,000 people, who walked to the cemetery where the monument to the executed and the disappeared is located. The colors of the political organizations moved gradually to the immense mural where the names of those to be honored are listed. At former President Salvador Allende’s grave, flowers were placed, songs were sung and his presence was remembered. The same for the singer Víctor Jara.

At a certain moment in the activities, the police, faced with young people who were setting up barricades on the avenue leading to the cemetery, began their repression. And, as a form of physical and moral intimidation, they made an incursion into the cemetery with water cannons, horses and all their weapons. More than 20 cars made their way through the midst of the homage. (more…)

The student movement and citizen protests against exclusion, neoliberalism and the lack of democracy

[Translation of an article from SubVersiones for August 25. See original here and related articles here.]

"This is our moment and this is our position: Free, quality public education" -- SubVersiones photo by Italo Retamal

by Claudia Villagrán Muñoz

Something changed in Chile on August 4. It was no longer only students who were mobilized but an important part of Chilean society actively joined in the students’ clear and concise demands: free, quality public education for all Chilean children and youths. The march, called by high-school and university students and by the professors, who on that day defied the authorities’ orders not to hold another march along the main avenue of Santiago, was brutally repressed by the Chilean police, who are under the command of the Ministry of the Interior.

There arose immediately a widespread indignation over the prohibition against the right to assemble freely to demonstrate, indignation against the police forces being used against minors who were not causing trouble, indignation over seeing downtown Santiago in a state of siege as in the worst days of the dictatorship, indignation because a just demand was not being listened to after three months of legitimate protest. When night fell, the most humble of the population, sectors of the middle class and even the well-to-do all over the country joined together for a cacerolazo [a noisy protest involving the banging of pots and pans] organized by the citizenry in a matter of hours, a massive spontaneous protest that had not been heard since protests across the country against the Pinochet dictatorship. (more…)

El Mostrador photo

[Translation of an article from El Mostrador of Santiago for August 19. See original here and related articles here.]

by Claudia Rivas Arenas

Despite the heavy rains falling on the center of the capital, the student movement did not slacken in its enthusiasm for demonstrating against the latest proposal by the chief executive. Similarly, President Sebastián Piñera sent a clear message that the government will not back down and that it is not willing to give in to what it considers the intransigence of the students, something the president made clear when he warned that “we remember that road from the past and it led us to the breakdown of democracy, to the loss of a healthy coexistence and it had many other consequences,” making a comparison with the climate of the days before ’73 [when the military overthrew Salvador Allende] . (more…)

El Mostrador photo

Santiago mayor says armed forces could be deployed if demonstrations escalate

[Translations of three articles from El Mostrador of Santiago for August 14 and 15. See originals here, here and here and related articles here.]

University students reject dialogue with Congress, call for another march

University students have rejected a dialogue with Congress on putting an end to the demonstrations for better public education that have been taking place since mid-May and have called for another march next Thursday.

Meeting in extraordinary session in the city of Concepción, the students explained their decision by pointing out that the government is not responding to their fundamental demands and has passed up a settlement by plebiscite. (more…)