
Hundreds shot and beaten as Chile takes to the streets - AndrewBissell
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/oct/27/chile-hundreds-shot-and-beaten-street-protests
======
croissants
I read this article and got the impression that the "19 dead" figure would be
military killing protesters. So I thought that this was another heavy-handed
putdown of _relatively_ peaceful protests.

But Wikipedia's breakdown [1] is quite different. By my count, 15 deaths don't
involve the military at all. These deaths are from protest-related fires,
looting-related shootings, and a citizen? who drove into a crowd of protesters
and killed two people. 5 more deaths were direct results of military activity,
so the apparent number is 20.

However, I can't judge the Wikipedia sources because many of them come from
Spanish-language news sources. And, as the original article says, the
government is actively impeding accurate statistics.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Chilean_protests#Deaths](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Chilean_protests#Deaths)

~~~
vcanales
This is pretty much it, as we’ve seen and heard from the media and the INDH
(National Institute of Human Rights)

------
wallflower
I think at this point we can agree that a subway price hike leading to tanks
in the street a mere week later is not the true issue. Something about
privatized pension companies taking way more than what would be their fair
share is the likely culprit.

[https://protectpensions.org/2016/08/23/chile-failure-
privati...](https://protectpensions.org/2016/08/23/chile-failure-privatized-
pension-system/)

~~~
rayiner
You’re linking to a left-wing organization. But you’re ignoring the fact that,
just two years ago, a decisive majority of Chilean voters (55-45) voted in the
center-right, pro-market party and Presidential candidate:
[https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/dec/17/chileans-
cast-...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/dec/17/chileans-cast-their-
ballot-in-decisive-presidential-runoff)

> Months of campaigning exposed deepening rifts among the country’s once
> bedrock centre left, an opening former president Piñera leveraged to rally
> more centrist voters around his proposals to cut corporate taxes, double
> economic growth and eliminate poverty in the world’s top copper producer.

The current President ran on corporate tax cuts and won. The majority
obviously did not do so under the belief that Piñera was going to nationalize
the pension system. The protestors evidently are mad about that.

~~~
danharaj
Voter participation was 50%. Decisive indeed.

~~~
rayiner
That’s not atypical for elections in Switzerland, Japan, or the US. That
doesn’t invalidate the outcome of elections.

------
vector_spaces
"The latest protests follow grievances over the cost of living, specifically
the costs of healthcare, education and public services. Unsatisfied by partial
reforms following widespread education protests in 2011, the metro fare rise
has proved the spark that has awoken Chile’s formidable student body,
according to psychiatrist and writer Marco Antonio de la Parra.

“Over the past decade, the Chilean state has lost touch with these problems,”
he said. “The places that have been targeted tonight are deeply symbolic:
transport and energy represent the success of the state and the model it
upholds.”

On top of social discontent, anger has also been directed at the Carabineros
national police force, once one of the country’s most respected institutions
but whose reputation has been eroded by corruption scandals and a reputation
for brutality, whose heavy-handed repression of protests has also come under
the spotlight."

[https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/oct/19/chile-
protests...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/oct/19/chile-protests-
state-of-emergency-declared-in-santiago-as-violence-escalates)

~~~
ahbyb
"over the past decade"... don't they have elections to solve these issues
instead of acting like monkeys? Or is this the usual case of a minority making
a mess because they don't like what the majority of the country has chosen?

~~~
meerita
Because it's an organized strike by the extremist-left wing in order to take
over the goverment. They never win elections, so they organize chaos.

~~~
ahbyb
I see. I was suspecting something like this. I hope the government can resist
this and democracy is preserved.

------
knolax
When I see articles like this I ask myself some questions:

Have I ever been to Chile? No.

Do I know any Chileans? One.

Do I know Spanish? Probably less than the average Chilean gradeschooler.

Have I ever read any form of media, even entertainment, coming out of Chile?
No.

Given the above, how can I ever verify that the media reports I see on HN and
elsewhere are anywhere close to reality? Chances are the actual reality there
is completely different from what I'm reading in ways I can't even imagine. I
think before we make comments on Chile's or any other distant country's
situation we should all consider that maybe we do not have sufficient
information to have a valid opinion. Otherwise you're probably just
regurgitating the narrative your media is pushing.

------
undefined3840
It seems like there are dozens of massive anti-government protests all over
the world right now.

~~~
dgellow
Was there a time where that wasn’t the case? It’s a genuine question. It could
be that such situation has always been relatively common but that nowadays it
is way easier to learn about it without explicitly looking for it. because of
speed of information and the fact that everybody has a camera and platforms
where to share their voice.

~~~
undefined3840
I mean social media is not new and don’t recall a time in the last 15 years or
so when it seemed like there were so many happening simultaneously

~~~
dgellow
Events I personally remember from the past ~10 years:

\- arabic spring, ~2011, ~6 countries (from memory: morocco, egypt, tunisia,
yemen, lybia, syria), all in the same year

\- major greek protests (I believe 2009 or 2010, may be earlier)

\- ukranian revolution (~2014 IIRC)

\- major protests in Turkey around 2013

\- big protests in the US (Ferguson was around 2014 I think?)

\- massive protests in Spain in 2017

\- protests in Thailand before and after the military coup of 2014

A quick google search gives me a list of "crisis situations in Europe since
2000" with some dates
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crisis_situations_and_unrest_i...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crisis_situations_and_unrest_in_Europe_since_2000)
. That's only for the small part of the world I'm the more familiar with.

~~~
undefined3840
Key word is simultaneously.

~~~
dgellow
Sure, check a bit the dates I mentioned. If you look for big civilian protests
worldwide in let's say 2011 or 2014 you will se a lot of things happening
during the same year. Of course it depends what you consider to be
simultaneous or not. My point is that it isnt clear to me that the current
situation is unique. I feel that we are pretty bad at remembering the
zeitgeist from the past. But I only have a limited knowledge of protests and
conflicts around the world, I m sure that I missed a lot of things happening.

------
cuchoi
Chilean here, AMA.

~~~
croissants
The Wikipedia article on the protests [1] makes the run-up to the huge march
on October 25 seem pretty chaotic. In particular, the deaths and fires from
looting, as well as the destruction of public transit stations, makes the
declaration of emergency look like a reasonable response, even if the
subsequent shooting of protesters looks less reasonable.

So my question is, just how much chaos has there been, and where do you think
the situation lies on the spectrum between "peaceful protests receive
disproportionately violate suppression" and "military does its best to control
chaos"?

And if I can ask one more, what do you think the general reason is? The
claimed main reason, a ~5% increase in public transit fares, seems
implausible.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Chilean_protests](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Chilean_protests)

~~~
lemonpan
As someone living in a middle/lower class neighbourhood, I would say that
there's been some chaos. I myself saw two train stations being burned and a
supermarket being looted in front of me. However, as someone who's been to
these peaceful protests since October 18, I think that the treatment the
government and police have given to these protests is one of the big catalysts
for the chaos and violence. Peaceful payment evasion protests started on
October 14 and the government just decided to treat protestors as criminals,
sending police's special forces units to train stations, where violent
encounters between officers and protestors (at this point most protestors were
13-17 years old as the movement started with secondary students) which would
infuriate people and on Thursday of that same week protestors started to
destroy charging devices and opened gates to closed stations. From that point
violence only would escalate.

I think that both police and military forces have shown a disproportionately
violent response.

Last INDH (National Institute of Human Rights) report [1] says there have been
3193 detainees, 1092 injured in hospitals, and 88 lawsuits, of which 17 are
for sexual harassment (including rape).

It might sound "reasonable" for some to declare emergency state and send
military forces to the streets, but it's the first time that something like
this happened since the dictatorship. Police officers are throwing teargas to
kids and the elderly in the protests. There's also a big number of injuries
that will never get to be informed.

About the reasons, I would say inequality. The increase in train fares is
nothing more than a detonator. There's no organization leading the movement,
so the demands are scattered (pensions, health, social contract,
neoliberalism, concessioned highways, etc).

[1]
[https://twitter.com/inddhh/status/1188525375577645057](https://twitter.com/inddhh/status/1188525375577645057)

------
Zenst
Interesting how a story is told can influence perspective:
[https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-
america-50197673](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-50197673)

Equally, you can read one side from one perspective and ends up fueling it in
that direction or read it from another perspective and be more focused upon
the resolution and maybe fuel that tangent.

Just interesting how news is portrayed and how it can emotionally drive social
media ,which can only fuel the angst over solving it. At least, that is one
aspect I've become more mindful of over time.

------
rayiner
There is important context about Chile that people need to understand. Chile
is by far the freest economy in Latin America:
[https://www.heritage.org/index/ranking](https://www.heritage.org/index/ranking).
Chile also has the highest per capita income:
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_South_American_count...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_South_American_countries_by_GDP_\(PPP\)_per_capita).
And it has the highest human development index:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Latin_American_countri...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Latin_American_countries_by_Human_Development_Index)

Unsurprisingly, many people don’t want to rock that boat. The current center-
right government was elected in 2017 by a decisive majority. (The President
won 55-45 in the run off election).

The protests in Chile are largely socialists and labor movement that are
trying to get policies passed they couldn’t get through the democratic
process.

~~~
lemonpan
About 33% of that GDP is controlled by the richest 1% according to The World
Bank [1].

Yes, Chile's HDI is quite high for a Latin American country. The problem is,
in the same city (Santiago) you've got communes with HDIs above Norway's
(Vitacura, Las Condes, and Providencia got HDIs above 0.953) and then there
are communes less than an hour away that got an HDI lower than Panama's (San
Ramón HDI is 0.786) [2][3][4].

By OECD's data, Chile is the third country with the highest income inequality
amongst OECD members [5].

[1]
[http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/496131468228282235...](http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/496131468228282235/Chile-
Efectos-distributivos-de-la-reforma-tributaria-2014)

[2] Calculated with INE's data (2017)
[https://imgur.com/GKMcGw9](https://imgur.com/GKMcGw9)

[3]
[http://reportescomunales.bcn.cl/2012/index.php/Categor%C3%AD...](http://reportescomunales.bcn.cl/2012/index.php/Categor%C3%ADa:Comunas)

[4] [http://www.desarrollosocialyfamilia.gob.cl/informacion-
socia...](http://www.desarrollosocialyfamilia.gob.cl/informacion-
social/informes-de-desarrollo-social)

[5] [https://data.oecd.org/inequality/income-
inequality.htm](https://data.oecd.org/inequality/income-inequality.htm)

~~~
rayiner
Panama has the fifth highest HDI in Latin America. And you can bet that the
HDI in poorer regions of Panama are much lower than that of poorer regions in
Chile.

But besides that, these trade offs are for Chile’s voters to resolve. Those
voters decided that sticking with markets, even in the face of higher
inequality, was the way to go.

~~~
lemonpan
Yes, probably Panama's poorest regions are poorer than Chile's. However, is
important to take into account that Panama's GDP is not even half of Chile's
and Gini Index of Panama and Chile is almost the same [1].

Anyways, yes, that's something that voters should resolve. Sadly, there's a
big discontent towards the political class in Chile (against both left and
right-wing) and last elections had low participation (around 50%).

[1]
[http://documentos.bancomundial.org/curated/es/24225147670682...](http://documentos.bancomundial.org/curated/es/242251476706821424/pdf/109215-REVISED-
PUB-PUBLIC.pdf)

------
mikece
How typical: we Americans have to learn about this from foreign media because
our media is obsessed about Trump.

~~~
adventured
It has been very widely covered in US news since the protests / riots began.

CNN, CNBC, Bloomberg, CNN, WSJ, ABC News, CBS News, NBC News, Fox News, NY
Times, Washington Post, USA Today. All have had regular coverage of it.

6 days ago, USA Today:
[https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2019/10/21/chile-p...](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2019/10/21/chile-
protests-violence-looting-and-canceled-flights-santiago/4051262002/)

6 days ago, NY Times:
[https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/20/world/americas/chile-
prot...](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/20/world/americas/chile-protests-
riots.html)

6 days ago, Washington Post:
[https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/10/21/chile-
prote...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/10/21/chile-protests-
santiago-dead-state-emergency/)

6 days ago, CNBC: [https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/21/chile-protests-president-
ext...](https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/21/chile-protests-president-extends-
state-of-emergency-after-riots.html)

6 days ago, WSJ: [https://www.wsj.com/articles/protests-in-chile-leave-
three-d...](https://www.wsj.com/articles/protests-in-chile-leave-three-dead-
five-provinces-under-state-of-emergency-11571617543)

And so on.

~~~
WillPostForFood
Nothing on the homepage of the NY Times today, above or below the fold. NY
Times and other outlets did report on it, as you show in your links, but
attention has lapsed. It feels like it deserves more focus as it could be a
harbinger of more widespread unrest.

~~~
nostrademons
Says a lot about the NYTimes. I usually use aggregators like Google News,
Reddit, HN, etc, and heard about this over a week ago.

The "more widespread unrest" is already here - there's ongoing civil disorder
in Chile, Hong Kong, Lebanon, Iraq, Venezuela, Zimbabwe, Kurdistan, Palestine,
and Catalonia; ongoing civil wars in Syria, Yemen, Iraq, Libya, Mali, DRC,
Sudan; and endemic violence and state failure in Mexico and Central America.
India is a potential flashpoint that could go up in smoke at any time (they
have a demographic bulge that usually results in civil unrest, and I've read
many young people there believe Gandhi "should've been more violent"), while
the U.S. and U.K. both face potentially destabilizing internal conflicts. If
the U.S. goes up in flames the whole world likely will, as we've been a
deterring force for many regional conflicts.

