5 things the media doesn't tell you about the massive uprising in Chile (The Mind Unleashed)

You will see live, the bitter failure of neo-liberal doctrines of Milton Friedman What does Emmanuel Macron want to impose on us... (Additional information)

Elias Marat, The Mind Unleashed

Waking Time

Since October 14, the South American nation of Chile has been grappling with massive unrest that threatens to overthrow the right-wing government of President Sebastian Piñera.

The protests, which began with student-led demonstrations against rising public transit fares, quickly grew into a nationwide movement against the high cost of living, austerity measures and massive inequality in the world. a country that was once considered an economic success story in Latin America.

The unrest quickly turned violent as some protesters fought back against the country's heavily militarized police force, leading the president to hastily declare a state of emergency on Saturday while declaring curfews.

And while some protesters have clashed with police and military, many peaceful protesters have faced beatings and indiscriminate acts of violence - including the firing of tear gas, rubber bullets and of seemingly deadly weapons - from the police and the military. Others have reported that Chileans are being tortured by state security forces.

According to the authorities, at least 18 people were killed, including minors, hundreds were injured and more than 5000 were arrested. Independent groups and unverified reports have warned, however, that the official figures may be just the tip of the iceberg.

The mass violence is by far the worst the country has seen since the US-backed military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet ended in 1990, and coverage of the events has grabbed headlines across Latin America and in much of the rest of the world.

Yet in the United States, media reports on the protests have been hard to come by, with media coverage instead devoted to relatively mundane news like the endless drama surrounding the Democratic presidential primaries, Ukraine's "quid-pro-quo of Donald Trump, the British royals and the latest Star Wars trailer.

However, events in Chile could have repercussions throughout Latin America, with repercussions that could last for decades. Here are some of the reasons why the ongoing protests in Chile are one of the most significant events in the hemisphere in recent years.

1. Protests Prove Washington's 'Chile Miracle' Was a Neoliberal Illusion

The country has long been touted in US foreign policy circles as the "Miracle of Chile", with right-wing economists describing the country's development as a triumph of the market economy, even if it came at the cost of a brutal 17-year military dictatorship under the Pinochet regime.

Since the relatively peaceful transition to democracy in the early 1990s, however, Chile's "economic miracle" has led to one of the highest rates of economic inequality in the region and has the greatest wealth disparity among members of the OECD high-income group of countries. This, in turn, led to widespread desperation on the part of workers.

As the written Bloomberg:

   "Chile was considered the living embodiment of the economic policies implemented under Pinochet by the "Chicago Boys" - a group of economists, many of whom had received training in market economics at the University of Chicago... The fact that Chileans have revolted against the cost of living is therefore alarming, and suggests a similar situation which could more easily occur in the rest of the developing world. Many assumed that such insurgencies would follow soon after the Great Recession; instead, that moment seems to have been delayed in the middle of a decade of slow recovery, but also growing inequalities.

Economist Jeffery Sachs said so simply :

    "Due to very high housing prices, most people are far from central business districts and generally dependent on personal vehicles or public transport to get to work. A large part of the public may therefore be particularly sensitive to the evolution of transport prices, as evidenced by the explosion of demonstrations in Paris and Santiago."

As'said protester Juan Carlos Giordano in Democracy Now :

   “They talked about a Chilean economic miracle, until everything exploded. They raised the metro fares. There was a rejection, and the government overthrew. But the capitalist plans are terrible. people say they don't have access to water, electricity. Everything costs First World prices, and wages are in the Third World."

2. Extreme brutality towards protesters is a product of US-backed fascism and Israeli training

Since the protests began, Latin American social media has been flooded with heartbreaking images of police firing live ammunition at peaceful protesters, wantonly beating citizens, including children, throwing bodies from police vehicles at night and indulging in a frenzy of violence against Chileans.

Much of this violence is rooted in the country's dictatorship era, when US-backed dictator Pinochet locked up, disappeared, tortured and executed members of the leftist indigenous socialist, communist opposition and mapuche.

However, as has written Benjamin Zinevich of the Independent in a major report published on Tuesday, these tactics are also the result of Israel's training of Chilean security forces:

    "In recent years, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has apparently used a tactic of maiming Palestinian protesters instead of shooting them to death. For more than a year, Palestinian civilians have been marching towards the Gaza wall in protest against the Israeli occupation, and the IDF shot nearly 60% of these 10.511 civilians in the lower limbs, with over 90% of casualties coming from live ammunition.

    Over the past week, these Israeli tactics have been used against Chilean civilians on several occasions. A woman was shot in the thigh and reported in critical condition due to excessive bleeding. In another case, a 23-year-old man was shot in the leg before a military vehicle crushed him to death.

    These similar tactics are no coincidence and are part of what international activist groups like Jewish Voice for Peace have called "the deadly swap". In the United States, city police, ICE officers and other security agents regularly train alongside the IDF, sharing tactics and weapons that can encourage racial profiling, extrajudicial killings and surveillance. increase of the most marginalized groups in both countries."

3. Chile's protests may have averted a live war on Venezuela

Buried in the drama that has been rapidly developing in South America for the past few weeks, the country's foreign minister threatened to wage war on Venezuela the very day the crisis erupted in Santiago, the Chilean capital, and this, for the most part.

An October 14 Financial Times article reported :

    "The Chilean foreign minister has promised to work with his allies to cut Venezuela's communications, close its airspace and implement a naval blockade if Nicolás Maduro refuses to hold free elections.

    Amid an increasingly serious humanitarian crisis that is destabilizing the region, prompting the emigration of more than 4 million Venezuelans, "ever stricter" measures must be taken to pressure Caracas to comply. to the demands of restoring democratic order, said Teodoro Ribera.

    ... Chile's toughening stance on Venezuela comes as center-right president Sebastian Piñera assumes a stronger leadership role in the region and beyond."

However, in an apparent repeat of the 'Assad Must Go' memorandum - which has seen leaders call for the successive removal of the Syrian leader - Piñera now finds himself on the ropes and in a potentially weaker position than the beleaguered Maduro. .

All my solidarity with the noble Chilean people, who are in resistance against the criminal neoliberal policies implemented by capitalism. I advocate for the cessation of violence and the brutal repression that violates the human rights of the population. A Hug Chile! pic.twitter.com/fnFgVM5giU

- Nicolás Maduro (@NicolasMaduro) October 20, 2019

The Venezuelan president welcomed this turn of events, mocking Piñera as a Pinochet or "Piñechet" and saying:

You are told that it is no longer 30 pesos (price increase), it is 30 years! It's a question of education, health, electricity, gas, transport, work, wages, discrimination, inequality, that's what the Chileans say in Piñechet!"

4. Protestors once again denounced the hypocrisy of the United States towards human rights and democracy

The extremely violent force that fell on the protesters was widely welcomed by the silence of Piñera's allies in Washington.

This has not gone unnoticed in countries like China or Venezuela, which have faced sanctions or the threat of sanctions for their actions to quell unrest in their own countries.

Speaking to reporters on Monday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said that the response of Western countries to the protests showed how their concerns about democracy and human rights "are just a hypocritical cover" for their interventionist pressures in places like Hong Kong. She added poetically:

    Judging by developments in recent days and by the performance of some Western politicians, more and more people realize that 'human rights', 'democracy' and the "beautiful views" preached by certain Western politicians are only mirages in the desert or the song of the Sirens on the sea, illusory. "Those who cannot tell right from wrong and stand firm will eventually perish and be destroyed."

5. It proves that the workers and the poor of Latin America are still a major force to be taken into account

While the protests began with the rejection of a 30 peso increase in the price of public transport - and the concerted escape or #EvasionMasiva of the students - the working class and poor Chileans are now protesting against the shortage of water, college debt, bad health care, bad pensions, destructive mines, miserable wages, and every other social grievance you can imagine.

This has manifested itself in tens of thousands of people protesting, fighting against the state, loot over 100 Walmarts, and the country explodes into full-scale rebellion.

President Piñera is now at his wit's end as the protests show no sign of ending. President apologized and proposes raising pensions by 20 percent, covering the cost of medical treatment, taxing those with higher incomes while offering new subsidies to improve living conditions, alongside other social reforms.

But that will be far from satisfactory for Chile's radicalized poor, who are demanding Piñera's resignation. And like the reports The Iguana TV, social movements and unions are also forming a Constituent Assembly that would be tasked with drafting a new constitution that would replace the post-Pinochet one that opened the door to the militarization of the streets.

And a general strike shutting down the country's economy could lead the Chilean people to win their demands.

Ultimately, it was the government's failure to consider the needs of poor Chileans that triggered the current crisis. Addressing the Clinical, a retired citizen summarized succinctly popular mood:

    "Unfortunately, during World War II, to defeat Hitler's people, cities had to die, right?

    "If we don't mess things up, we don't exist for them."

source: wakingtimes

Further information :