A protest by secondary school students in Chile on Wednesday resulted in violent confrontation between demonstrators and police. More than 75 people were arrested and an estimated 49 members of the police force injured.
The Asamblea Coordinadora de Estudiantes Secundarios (ACES) organised the protest, in which an estimated 5,000 secondary school students participated.
Protestors echoed demands that have been raised in other student protests throughout the past year in Chile. Students have taken to the streets to call for free and high quality public university education. Yesterday’s protest is not the first of recent demonstrations to end in violence.
Yesterday’s protest, though mainly organised by and composed of secondary school students, also counted with the support of the Confederación de Estudiantes de Chile (CONFECH), a university student group. University and secondary school student movements have supported each other in repeated protests since May 2011.
On Wednesday, the secondary school students gathered in Santiago’s Plaza Italia, with the intention of marching down the Alameda – the principal avenue in Santiago – towards the Plaza Los Héroes.
Authorities had denied authorisation for a protest on the Alameda. They gave the ACES two alternative options for protest locations, but the organisation rejected both.
When students began marching on the Alameda, the Special Forces responded with water canons and tear gas. Tear gas was also released near the headquarters of the Federación de Estudiantes de Chile (FECH), another university student group that has been highly involved in this year’s protests and supported ACES’ mobilisation on Wednesday.
Students responded to police action by throwing stones and sticks. The police response forced protestors to relocate the demonstration to the Parque Bustamante. An estimated 49 members of the police force were injured, with at least one in serious condition. Injuries were also reported among protestors, and 75 of the demonstrators were arrested.
Protesters also barricaded streets and blocked traffic, and some damage to public buildings was reported. Private vehicles and businesses also suffered damages.
The destruction escalated when several, yet unidentified, persons – allegedly numbering near 40 – set fire to three buses. The Ministry of Transport stated that the protestors stopped the buses and forced drivers and passengers to exit the bus before lighting them on fire.
In a press conference, Santiago Mayor Cecilia Pérez estimated that the damages resulting from the bus burning will cost the city around US$834,000; no injuries were reported in connection to the burning buses.
Speaking for the protestors, ACES spokeswoman Eloísa González accused the Special Forces of staging the burning of the buses in order to be able to suppress the protest with more force. She stated, “There are infiltrations from the Special Forces, with the intent to interfere in the manifestations and to try to restrict the free will of the students.”
The student leader continued, “We do not have clarity about who are these hooded figures, and how these violent acts have occurred. I am very concerned by the attitude of the government to want to individualise, to stage set-ups, to take social and student movements out of focus”.
Minister of the Interior Rodrigo Hinzpeter labelled these accusations “ridiculous”. Santiago Mayor Pérez also criticised that “this is not a social movement that defends ideas, it is a political movement” and accused that student groups, “do not take responsibility, neither for legal marches nor for illegal marches”.
President Sebastián Piñera’s government has declared that some protestors will face charges. Government spokesman Andrés Chadwick stated, “the leaders that call these illegal marches know the results they are going to provoke… they cannot exempt themselves from the responsibility that they have”.
Chadwick further stated, “We [the government] are going to act with all the rigor of the law”.
Protests also occurred in other Chilean cities, including La Serena, Viña del Mar, and Valdivia. At least fifty other protestors were arrested in these demonstrations across Chile, and three other injuries have been reported.
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