“Chile’s president condemns police ‘abuses and crimes’ after month of violent civil unrest”, South China Morning Post”
Agencies, Hong Kong, 18, Nov, 2019
- Protests have rocked Santiago for a month in the biggest crisis to hit the South American nation since its return to democracy in 1990
- Public prosecutors in Chile are investigating more than 1,000 cases of alleged abuses – ranging from torture to sexual violence – by the police and military
Riot police officers detain Camila Miranda after she was shot with six rubber bullets, four of which pierced her skin during a protest in Santiago. Photo: Reuters
Chile’s President Sebastian Pinera condemned for the first time what he called abuses committed by police in dealing with four weeks of violent unrest that have rocked the South American nation.
“There was excessive use of force. Abuses and crimes were committed, and the rights of all were not respected,” the president said in a speech to the nation Sunday as it marked a month of turmoil that has left 22 people dead and more than 2,000 injured.
Furious Chileans have been protesting social and economic inequality, and against an entrenched political elite that comes from a small number of the wealthiest families in the country, among other issues.
Accusations of police brutality and human rights violations have been levelled since the protests broke out, prompting the United Nations to send a team to investigate.
Amnesty International has also sent a mission.
Felipe Berrios, who claims he was injured in his eye by a riot police officer, receives first aid during a protest in Santiago. Photo: Reuters
“There will be no impunity, not for those who committed acts of unusual violence, nor for those who committed excesses and abuses. We will do what is best for the victims,” Pinera said, referring to protesters first and then the security forces.
The massive demonstrations have been mostly peaceful, but it’s common to see hooded protesters infiltrate the gatherings, hurling rocks, raising barricades and confronting police, who clamp down with violence.
Last week, Chile’s main medical body said at least 230 people had lost sight after being shot in an eye with lead or rubber projectiles while participating in demonstrations. Of those, at least 50 people will need prosthetic eyes.
“We are facing a real health crisis,” said Dr Patricio Meza, vice-president of the Medical College of Chile.
Police clash with demonstrators during a protest in Santiago. Photo: Reuters
“In three weeks, we have had the highest number of cases involving serious ocular complications due to shots in the eye.”
At demonstrations, it’s common to see police firing pellet guns at crowds. Often, “they’re firing at 90 degrees, which is to say, directly at the face,” Meza said.
He said most of the injured say it’s the national police force – known as the Carabineros – who are the ones firing.
Chile’s embattled president asks ‘all ministers to resign’ amid massive protests
Police have also been accused of stopping rescuers helping a dying protester.
Chile’s independent human rights watchdog said it would file a formal complaint for murder against police officers who allegedly prevented paramedics from attending a heart attack victim amid a protest last Friday.
Security forces firing tear gas, rubber bullets and water cannons made it impossible for rescuers to properly treat the victim, Chile’s publicly-funded National Institute for Human Rights said.
Twenty-nine year old Abel Acuna died shortly after at a nearby Santiago hospital.
Demonstrators aim laser pointers are a police armoured vehicle in Santiago. Photo: AFP
The case joins more than 1,000 others currently under investigation by public prosecutors. Accusations of abuses by security forces ranging from torture to sexual violence have multiplied during weeks of anti-government unrest.
President Pinera, a billionaire businessman-turned-politician, is now Chile’s most unpopular leader since the return to the democracy, according to pollster Cadem.
He exhausted much of his political capital at the start of the demonstrations when he
on the protesters and called on Chileans to choose sides
Pinera backtracked within days and apologised, but it is hard for many Chileans to accept his new caring, compassionate note. No march goes by without calls for his resignation.
1 million Chileans take to streets of Santiago to demand president’s resignation
On Sunday, Pinera also praised an agreement reached last week under which Chile will draft a new constitution to replace the current one that dates back to the rightwing dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, who ruled from 1973 to 1990.
Many in Chile see this step – getting rid of a charter that smacks of a dark, repressive chapter in the country’s past – as a way to help end the crisis.
“If the people want it, we will move toward a new constitution, the first under democracy,” Pinera said in a speech from the presidential palace.
Pinochet’s government killed or tortured thousands of suspected leftists while imposing a rigid free-enterprise model that privatised a large share of social services such as health care, pensions and education, an approach embedded in the constitution.
Even though Pinochet left power in 1990 after losing a referendum to extend his term, succeeding centre-left governments found it impossible to replace his constitution – in part because the document itself created such difficult standards for passing amendments – though some reforms were made in 2005.
Lawmakers in Chile’s National Congress agreed to hold the vote in April 2020.
Agence France-Presse, Reuters, Associated Press, Bloomberg