By Elizabeth Milos, Chilean activist living in the Bay Area who was in Chile in March

Long before the worldwide pandemic arrived people in Chile had been living precariously in a relentless system of long work hours, mínimum wage, job insecurity, crippling debt and poor health outcomes due to privatized education and healthcare, and retirement pensions that are one quarter the minimum wage. Neoliberalism transformed Chilean society into a consumerist, individualistic and “apolitical” world which many Chileans stubbornly endured.

Since the “transition to democracy” in 1990, the indigenous Mapuche continued fighting for their cultural, political and territorial rights against extractive industries and a succession of Chilean governments (both “socialist” and rightwing). They bore the brunt of state repression with incarceration, frame-ups, police killings, raids, Pinochet-era Anti-Terrorism laws and mainstream media campaigns that depicted the Mapuche as a “problem” group that didn’t want “progress” for Chile.

Then came October 18, 2019 and the rest of Chile woke up. Initiated by high school students against a 30-peso metro rate hike, soon thousands were jumping over turnstiles, getting arrested and beat up by police. The battle cry was, “It’s not 30 pesos, its 30 years!” Thirty years since “democracy” had come but also more than 30 years of an economic system that was wringing the life out of the population. More than 50% scrape by on a minimum wage (US$426 a month). Retirees from the privatized retirement plans (AFPs) only get US$125 a month.

The social upheaval became an immediate danger to the Pinera government because it was a self-organized revolt not led by any political party, which could have been brought into the political fold of quasi power.

This self-organized movement was almost unanimously against any flags belonging to political parties but both Chilean and Mapuche flags were everywhere. It was a broad social movement, and the Social Unity roundtable (Mesa de Unidad Social), leaders of unions; student, professional and feminist organizations that came together to present a list of demands including higher wages, better job security, an end to the privatized retirement plans, and to privatized education and healthcare, a cancellation of all of the student debt, and of the transit toll debts (TAGS), an end to the privatization of water and all of Chile’s natural resources, an end to the industrial sacrifice zones which leave people and the environment sick from dangerous pollution, and to abolish Pinochet’s 1980 constitution and create a new one via a Constituent Assembly. Self-organized territorial assemblies started meeting to create one.

The social upheaval became like the ocean swallowing up the gigantic avalanches of snow and like the ocean, the waves of protests kept coming. Pinera declared a State of Emergency calling the military to the streets.

At the frontlines fighting the police and military were the “Primera Linea,” young men and women, even children, students, workers and youth from the poorest shantytowns, many of them brought up in the oppressive and sexually abusive Sename, Child Welfare Centers.  Medical students and nurses formed Medics Brigades to treat the injured. Millions marched peacefully during Chile’s largest marches, protected by the Primera Linea, which confronted the gigantic water cannons and armored police vehicles with slingshots and rocks, neutralizing tear gas with cones and water jugs.

Last November, Congress reached an agreement behind closed doors to hold a referendum on a new Constitution in April 2020. It was an agreement that didn’t include the Constituent Assembly option, which held more guarantees of true self determination. Congress acted quickly to tie the hands of this future convention by passing a “reform” law rendering the undemocratic Constitutional Tribunal untouchable and keeping privatized water and the retirement system beyond its scope. Youth under 21 couldn’t be elected as members, excluding the same high school age youth who had started Chile’s revolution. Negotiations continued regarding representation of Chile’s indigenous population and gender parity.

Congress passed laws prohibiting wearing masks during protests, banned protests that blockaded streets or occupied schools imposing five-year sentences; and laws allowing the President to call the military to the streets to protect essential infrastructure without a State of Emergency.

Each wave of protest was met with severe police repression costing dozens of lives and thousands of injured. The National Institute for Human Rights (INDH) kept an ongoing tally of cases also denouncing torture and cruel treatment and sexual violence. The tally also started showing that the police targeted protestors’ eyes with pellets and tear gas. The Primera Linea ingeniously used hundreds of laser pointers to try to prevent police from aiming their weapons.

Between October and March, more than 450 people had lost at least one eye and two people had lost both. It was the largest number of eye injuries during a social upheaval in any other part of the world during the past 25 years combined. Between 2,500 and 5,000 are now awaiting trials in overcrowded, unsanitary Petri dish jails during a pandemic. Three international Human Rights organizations presented reports of systematic violations of human rights.

March brought the half a million strong Women’s March and then news of the coronavirus began circulating. The government had been overplaying its preparedness level but as the number of infections and deaths increased worldwide, it took this opportunity to postpone the referendum. Throughout Chile, the same people and social organizations that had been protesting began making calls to stay inside and protect each other, even holding cacerolazos (pots and pans protests) from home demanding a total quarantine.  Government response imposed only partial quarantines, a curfew creating more crowding for workers on public transportation, and also created laws allowing corporations to lay off millions of workers. Meanwhile, hospital workers denounced lack of protective equipment and ventilators. Chile now has the highest new infection rate in the world.

In May, Pinera finally ordered a shutdown of all of Santiago and other major cities causing a siege of hunger for the poorest sectors who can’t work from home and have no income.

Also, in May, Pinera began releasing Pinochet ex-military/police prisoners, convicted of crimes against humanity, from their luxury jails using the pandemic excuse. A new National Intelligence Law passed to monitor and punish political and social organizing. Police arrested Mapuche vegetable market sellers and destroyed their goods in Temuco. Hunger protests have erupted in El Bosque, Villa Francia, La Legua, San Bernardo and Puente Alto.  Again, youth wearing masks and shields throw rocks at the newly purchased million-dollar police water cannons.

Throughout Santiago, traditional soup kitchens have begun sprouting up. It is the same soup kitchens that emerged in 1930 during the authoritarian regime of Coronel Carlos Ibanez del Campo (who organized the police force into Carabineros de Chile), and the same soup kitchens of the 1980s during the Pinochet dictatorship. Pinera’s civilian dictatorship targets soup kitchens, raiding, arresting and destroying food. In one social media video, a 15-year-old sharing food with neighbors explains that he works to support his little sister. The music in the background pleasantly surprises him and he begins to smile and chant to the song, “Con Todo Sino Pa’Que?” (Give it your ALL, there’s nothing left to lose). Hashtags on social media and on the walls of Santiago promise #Volveremos (We’ll be back).

Source: Task Force on the Americas, May 26, 2020.