Juan Manuel Boccacci If a Chilean was told a year ago that in a few months he would find popular assemblies in his neighborhood to give his opinion and decide on the future of his country, he surely would not have believed it. But it’s happening. October 18, 2019, marked a before and after in…
Category: CHILE
Chilean Military Violence: A Legacy at Home and Abroad
Ramona Wadi Chilean human rights and memory organisations have long pointed out that the Chilean military is one main factor obstructing the course of justice with regard to dictatorship-era crimes. The pact of silence has provided impunity for the many officials, agents and soldiers involved in torturing, murdering and disappearing dictatorship opponents between 1973 and…
Urgent Call for Internationalist Solidarity with the Struggle of the Chilean People
Carlos Aznárez To the social and popular organizations, to the workers and intellectuals of Our America: It’s been three months since the great popular uprising that Chile is experiencing began. Since those days in mid-October 2019 when a noisy group of students decided to evade the fare in the Santiago Metro to protest the very…
Chile: “There is the Smell of Revolution in the Air”
Carlos Aznarez No one had predicted before that youthful irruption in the Chilean Metro, that this year was going to present us with the conflict scenario that we are now seeing. A scenario that demonstrates that after the agreed withdrawal of the Pinochet dictatorship from the government and the emergence of a pseudo-democracy overseen by…
Two Months of Chilean Resistance
Tanya Wadhwa Despite heavy police and military repression, Chileans stand firm in their demand for a new inclusive constitution. Photo: Frente Fotográfico December 18 marked two months since the Chilean people began their struggle against the neoliberal model which has made Chile one of the most unequal countries in the region. The neoliberal model has…
Chile: The Constitutional Scam
Manuel Cabieses The history of Chile is paved with scams, and torpid maneuvers to hide the crimes committed by the country’s powerful. Scams in politics, in public administration, in business, in the courts, in the army, in the police, in municipalities, in universities, etc. Until now we believed that the biggest scams are those committed…
REDH Chile: “Chile Must Guarantee the Exercise of Popular Sovereignty with a Constituent Assembly”
In a room full of students, academics, artists, social leaders and neighbors of the area took place the forum entitled “Constituent Agreement in Chile. Conditions for the free exercise of popular sovereignty”, organized by the Chile chapter of the Network of Intellectuals, Artists and Social Movements in Defense of Humanity, REDH. The forum took place…
UN Confirms Serious Human Rights Violations During Protests in Chile
UN Human Rights Office report on Chile crisis describes multiple police violations and calls for reforms GENEVA (13 December 2019) – The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, in a report on Chile published on Friday, says that during the recent mass protests and state of emergency the police and army failed…
Chile Bleeds in the Eyes of Gustavo Gatica, Blinded in a Protest
Andrea Guzman Chile’s capital city responded with a mass pot-banging protest when a local clinic revealed that Gustavo Gatica, 21, had permanently lost his two eyes after being hospitalized for 17 days. On November 8, the psychology student was taking pictures of the demonstrations at Plaza Italia, downtown Santiago de Chile, when his two eyes…
Chile: An Agreement Between the Elite, But Without the People
Juana A. “They’ve never had anything to lose, never until now. Now there is a family, “the people” they say. That it is not just a mass, there is organization, companionship, affection, security and love. Some say the hood “evolved,” I don’t think it’s right to say that. I think a group in society gave…
Chile: Caution Regarding a “Constituent Assembly” and “New Constitution”
Atilio Boron The Mysterious Chile of Vargas Llosa The tragic coup d’état in Bolivia momentarily separated me from the careful follow-up that I had been making of the heroic struggle of the Chilean people for a democratic and decidedly post-Pinochetist constitution and for the construction of a just and egalitarian society. But the ongoing massacre…
Chile: Reasons to be Suspicious
Ignacio Torres Excuse us for coming to put the bitter note to your “Agreement for Social Peace and the New Constitution,” but we recovered the historical memory and we are not willing to be passed over twice. There are people who do not remember it clearly, but there has already been an agreement of these…
