Chilean Protests Against Nonsense Education System

[rekil]

A protest by parents and students against Labbe yesterday was broken up with water cannon etc.

TheClinic.cl article about Labbe's role in the dictatorship. Googletrans but readable.

New poll. Support for student demands 89%. Pinera support 22%. Report.

89% of Chileans support the demands of students. A cross support in Chilean society, as revealed by the latest survey by the Center for Studies of Contemporary Reality (CERC), for the month of August.


According to the study, 71% of respondents are in favor of a plebiscite to find a solution to the student problem. Meanwhile, 37%, believes the government is not interested in solving the problem, another 37% believe that it just wants to "win the battle" against students, while only 27% say the government wants to solve the problem.


In that sense, the analysis emphasizes that the country's main problem is education, an increase from 24% in May to 73% in August.

 

[rekil]

The Dario Salas school students ended their hunger strike today. 71 days for two of the girls. Report.

More demos tomorrow.

 

[rekil]

Mayhem today. Masses of tear gas.

Dockers went on strike in several ports in support of the students.

 

[rekil]

Santiago Times report on 29th September demo.

“At 12:30 the police launched tear gas bombs into the middle of the crowd,” Andrés Aravena, research engineer at the Universidad de Chile, told the Santiago Times, “essentially pushing people out of the protest area.”

Televisión Nacional aired footage of hundreds of tear gas bombs landing in residential patios and journalist Scarlett Cárdenas described the air at the scene as “unbreathable.”

“There were no incidents, the violence of the Carabineros was what initiated the disturbances,” said president of the student federation of the Universidad Catolica (Feuc), Giorgio Jackson.

The last one's not from the 29th, but it's a bloody good photo.

More on the poll by CERC here.

Despite the long gap since the beginning of the protests, the vast majority of Chileans think that students are winning the battle, 72%. Even among the voters of the UDI and RN, this view prevails, 55% and 54% respectively.

 

[rekil]

Chilean government to criminalize school seizures.

If approved by Congress, the legislation would modify article 269 of the Penal Code to incorporate new crimes and strengthen current penalties for public disorder, including looting, obstruction of transport, interruption of public services, disrespecting police officers and wearing a face covering.

Under the proposed changes the current school takeovers by student protesters will now be criminalized, and students will face a jail term of up to three years.

School seizures -- or ‘tomas’-- have been one of the key forms of protest that students have employed to pressure the government into reforming Chile’s education system.

Over the the last five months hundreds of high schools and university campuses have been taken over by students, who maintain a constant presence in the buildings and put a stop to regular academic procedures.

More demos on Thursday.

 

[rekil]

Some criminals yesterday.

 

[rekil]

Anita Tijoux tune. Words in forrin here. Sort of translatable using usual means.



Video of students on 300 mile march from Concepcion to Santiago.

Two weeks ago, students pelted (PS) deputy Sergio Aguilo with coins during a march in Talca.

A group of students was upset by the presence of MPs such as Christian Democrat Senator Ximena Rincón, who chose to leave the square. Deputy Sergio Aguilo was heckled by a group of youths who threw coins, forcing him to leave the demonstration.

Report. I dunno anything about Aguilo, I think he resigned from the party around July, but too little too late apparently. This is indicative of how much disdain there is for the political class. The opposition leaderships are all in a flap about it.

Someone hit by rubber bullets and watercannon burnt out in Concepcion yesterday. I was wondering when they'd succeed in destroying one of these yokes. Pics.

 

[rekil]

Demo attacked before it's even started today.

10:54 | Police disperse demonstrators outside the headquarters of the U. de Chile.

10:51 | Students had gathered peacefully in Plaza Italia

10:49 | Tear gas launched, resulting in the disbanding of the demonstrators.

10:48 | Police begin to disperse the students located in Plaza Italia

10:46 | So far, the demonstration takes place in complete calm.

10:45 | Students fill the area of Plaza Italia in the presence of police, who cut the passage of the demonstrators to Alameda.

10:44 | In the area of Republic, students cut traffic on the Alameda.

10:43 | Students of the Faculty of Law at the U. Chile's Pio Nono fill the street to go to the Alameda.

One woman knocked unconscious. Link.

Camila Vallejo suffered an allergic reaction after being watercannoned and/or teargassed.

This bloke (from Pinera's party) has a gloat about it and repeats the Pinochet 'kill the bitch' line.

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.
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Girl hit by tear gas canister.

Whopping flag drop at the congress building in Valparaiso by opposition MPs. UDI deputy Enrique Estay tried to stop it and ended up with minor injuries. Pics.

 

[rekil]

Student HQ under attack now according to the JJCC. Teargas chucked inside.

TV crew attacked/detained early in the day.

 

[rekil]

Whopping flag drop at the congress building in Valparaiso by opposition MPs. UDI deputy Enrique Estay tried to stop it and ended up with minor injuries.

The communists and their satellites are the axis of a conspiracy.

The 6 weeks pregnant secretary of a communist MP lost her baby because of this cunt. Report.

Student HQ attack report.

Camila Vallejo points out today that chucking stuff at the cops is ok in self defence. Report. She has to be careful here.

Characteristically shoddy report from BBC's Gideon Long here.

Quality report by Joe Hinchcliffe of the Santiago Times here.

While all this was going on, Pinera and other bigwigs were at an official ceremony to mark the enactment of a new law enabling 6 months maternity leave or support or something. It should've been a good bit of pr but it went a bit wrong when the light entertainment, first the clowns, then hugely popular 21 year old mariachi/ranchera singer Maria Jose Quintanilla, used the opportunity to call for free and quality education for all. Report.

"If we celebrate, we must also remind people that there are things missing. I try to be a spontaneous woman, this comes from something I've been feeling for some time. There is a pain not only for me but for 80 per cent [of the people]. It hurts to have people who can not study for lack of money," said the singer.

Plebiscite being held today and tomorrow.

 

[rekil]

I feel that this thread lacks a certain amount of balance so here's a vid showing some conservatives celebrating Pinera's election victory last year outside a lefty's house.



An absolute shower, especially Mr.Shooty at 7:55.

 

[rekil]

More slack shit by a somnambulant Jonathan Franklin in the Guardian.

Chilean girls stage 'occupation' of their own school in education rights protest
For five months, girls demanding free university education for all have defied police to occupy their state school.

For five months Guardian hacks have defied calls to bang out a half decent article documenting in no nonsense fashion what the bejabers is going on over there. Why is it so hard.

Five months in and there's nothing here about the antics and past of Cristian Labbe, or the hunger strikers, or the shooting of Manuel Gutierrez, or Pinera bullshitting the UN about how 'beautful and noble' the students' cause is, or the all round intransigence/incompetence of the government, or the police's incessantly provocative and illegal behaviour, or the bill to criminalise occupations, or the plebiscite, or the UDI MP whose violence resulted in a woman losing her baby and practically nothing about the precise details of the students' grievances, "demanding a return to the 1960s" my arse.

But we do get made up stuff about "smashed cars" on Thursday, some mendacious bollocks about how "frequent violence which accompanies the street marches has outraged many Chileans who see their cherished stability now on the edge of social chaos", and a total fantasy about how "the government is now moving incrementally towards meeting their demands" thrown in for the sheer fuck of it.

(I sound more surprised than I actually am.)

 

[skitr]

More slack shit by a somnambulant Jonathan Franklin in the Guardian.

For five months Guardian hacks have defied calls to bang out a half decent article documenting in no nonsense fashion what the bejabers is going on over there. Why is it so hard.

Five months in and there's nothing here about the antics and past of Cristian Labbe, or the hunger strikers, or the shooting of Manuel Gutierrez, or Pinera bullshitting the UN about how 'beautful and noble' the students' cause is, or the all round intransigence/incompetence of the government, or the police's incessantly provocative and illegal behaviour, or the bill to criminalise occupations, or the plebiscite, or the UDI MP whose violence resulted in a woman losing her baby and practically nothing about the precise details of the students' grievances, "demanding a return to the 1960s" my arse.

But we do we get made up stuff about "smashed cars" on Thursday, some mendacious bollocks about how "frequent violence which accompanies the street marches has outraged many Chileans who see their cherished stability now on the edge of social chaos", and a total fantasy about how "the government is now moving incrementally towards meeting their demands" thrown in for the sheer fuck of it.

(I sound more surprised than I actually am.)

Cheers for all this Copliker.

 

[skitr]

Bit of a bigger effort by G, front page with Vallejo's image. Still fucking patronising though.

 

[rekil]

Bit of a bigger effort by G, front page with Vallejo's image. Still fucking patronising though.

They've chosen the most sinister looking pic they could find as well. It's shabby but at least he managed to get out of bed for this one. No sign of the "smashed cars" funny enough.

Curious story here about a chap, who was pepper sprayed and beaten while taking part in a cacerolazo, and was then taken to hospital by the police. He's the son of one of those still missing after being abducted during the dictatorship. Googletrans Report.

Unedited footage of October 6th. Watercannon at 4 mins in.



Reuters footage.
Telesur footage.

Seducere on flickr.

Reporteos on flickr.

 

[rekil]

Internationalizing the student movement - Santiago Times

"Confech is thinking about internationalizing (Chile’s education) conflict and the first step will be the trip of some of our representatives to Europe," said José Ancalao, leader of the federation of Mapuche students.

The delegation to Europe is a continuation of previous Confech efforts to collaborate with student and labor organizations in other countries of Latin America.

Vallejo has called on students to start taking the student movement in new directions, away from the marches, strikes and occupations of schools that have characterized the campaign for the last five months.

“This movement, this fight, is not only for this year,” she said. “It has to continue and obviously we can’t be on strike for three years, so we are going to have to look for an appropriate way to continue demonstrations.”

Slowly slowly catchy monkey.

But in the meantime, there are more demos on October 19th.

From August, a 13 year old supporting the hunger strikers at his school during some sort of ceremony. Probably got a right bollocking. Video of this bloody hero here.

Also from August, youngsters occupied their school in a remote area for 5 days in protest at the abysmal condition of the place.

Rubbish toilets, cable munching mice, no computers, drinking water problems, teachers constantly making repairs to prevent a collapse, 19 points in total. Their rep was a 9 year old girl called Claudia Llancalahuén Nehue but she played her role down. "They asked questions and just chose me." Her mam said that "since childhood she's always been like that, has never liked discrimination (...) And she's just fighting for their rights for their school." Vid here. You don't have to understand any forrin to see what a fantastic child she is. Dunno how this is going. She gave the mayor two weeks to respond otherwise they'd continue the occupation. She wants to be a vet. Report.

Another tune, a jaunty number with a cracking chorus.



Live version,with words.

Mapuche demo (Columbus Day). Got a bit fighty afterwards. Police antics.

 

[rekil]

The bloke up there with the gun in his pants is a photojournalist from Valparaiso. I think he said that he was taking pictures of one particular copper that's always firing tear gas canisters at people's bodies rather than in the air, and they didn't like that.

Unauthorized demo yesterday by secondary school students. Tear gas etc. 80+ arrests. Must be well over 4000 since May now.

In response to interior minister Hinzpeter's banging on about how they won't accept the streets being ruled by looters, Camila Vallejo said that "the biggest looters are ruling the country." She's in Europe with Giorgio Jackson atm.

Jackson answered questions about the campaign from El Pais readers, reasonably readable googletrans here. There's a vid of him being heckled and interrupted by gremialista cunts from his university (one of the most posho ones, if not the most posho) here. The leader one, reeking of an unshakeable sense of entitlement, decides to start yapping at the camera. Best bit at 3:50, when they cut him off.

 

[rekil]

Says here that the Communist Youth office was broken into last night. Info on members stolen, while valuable stuff (computers, bikes, the safe) all left untouched.

 

[rekil]

Oct.15th pics. nerraz on flickr, prensaopal.lacoctelera.net and veritoch on the twitter machine.

 

[rekil]

Quotes from an article about last month's attack on the CP offices. Original source here.

We believe the key to success for the student movement is to put the student federation in a vanguard position at a national level, interweaving social networks with townspeople, workers, social organizations, and unions.

We must break with that university bubble that instills individualism, competition, and personal success as a guide for our behavior over fundamental ideas and concepts like solidarity, community and collaboration among ourselves.

Our eyes are open enough to realize that there's a whole world to conquer, that this world requires our commitment, our effort, our sacrifice.

Calm down dear.

From 28th Sept.

Demos/strike on Tuesday and Wednesday.

 

[GEN.Eccentric]

Thanks for these updates, disgusting the MSM ignoring this, will be looking out for what happens Tuesday/Wednesday

btw the se mata la perra quote was something Pinochet said about assassinating Allende.

 

[gavman]

I feel that this thread lacks a certain amount of balance so here's a vid showing some conservatives celebrating Pinera's election victory last year outside a lefty's house.



An absolute shower, especially Mr.Shooty at 7:55.

where's a chamber pot when you need one?

 

[rekil]

Thanks for these updates, disgusting the MSM ignoring this, will be looking out for what happens Tuesday/Wednesday

The guardian and BBC are bang up to date with the protests against Morales I see. Not a peep about huge anti-privatisation protests in Colombia either. Jonathan Franklin's reporting is so piss poor, he got the most basic facts about Vallejo wrong.

The Universidad Católica de Chile would hardly be the place Camila Vallejo, as a communist and atheist, would choose to lead the student union, as we claimed in "Commander Camila – Latin America's 23-year-old new revolutionary folk hero" (In Focus). She studies at the University of Chile and is president of the FECH (Federación de Estudiantes de la Universidad de Chile).

btw the se mata la perra quote was something Pinochet said about assassinating Allende.

Yeah, I thought I mentioned that.

Chile military drafting 50000+ teenagers for national service.

Nearly 57,000 18-year-olds have been called into possible active military service, the Chilean government said Sunday. The announcement comes on the heels of government reports of a 30 percent decrease in military volunteers since October 2010.

Gen. Gunther Siebert, head of the Directorate of National Mobilization (DGMN), told El Mercurio, “Volunteers this year have dropped substantially, there is no clear interest in military service, especially due to the national situation with education.”

This will go well.

Argentinian magazine interview and feature on Vallejo. The google trans is a bit of a mess but to summarise, in the interview she talks about how she's been threatened, speculates about who's behind it and how she's worried about other students who've also been threatened and attacked but don't have her profile. She also says the education protests are part of a campaign against the Pinochet era constitution and the whole governmental model. The feature examines some of the abuse she's received from ruling party officials, the origin of the 'kill the bitch' phrase, says she read Bakunin but opted for the CP, and goes on about her feminism.

 

[rekil]

Skirmishes yesterday. 260+ arrests. BBC report. They don't mention that the teachers union bloke was delivering the results of the plebiscite to the Moneda. 1.5 million votes. Around 90% in favour of each of the four proposals. There's a bit about how there's anger over "broken government promises on reforms", which is just made up as there's been no such promises, not by Pinera's government anyway. The evacuated kindergarten is in Providencia where there's been barricades, copper-bricking and so on for the last few days, a consequence of Cristian Labbe's antics. There's some funny looking editing near the end, showing Vallejo having a laugh while the reporter repeats what she said about dialogue with the government being broken.

Scab student rep up to no good, trying to get the constitution changed to further criminalise occupations.

Photographers and cameramen union statement about attacks by police on its members.

More tunes keep popping up. Lighters in air version of Cuban folkie Silvio Rodriguez number. Lots of interesting footage, eg. fishermen near the end.



Mowat - Librando A La Mañana Ambienty stuff.

Los Sudacas - La Chispa. Salsa rock or something.

Today's demo should be big but the government has created a very tense climate so there'll almost certainly be nasty scenes.

 

[rekil]

Big turnout. Used old, well a couple of months old, photo by mistake. More on today later. Busy at the mo. At some point I'll post up the sources I use for stories, pics and so on.

I don't suppose anyone knows the tune used in this vid of a ballsy dancer lady filmed at a protest against the 'bombs case' earlier this year, a massive fit up. Enquiries have drawn a blank.

 

[rekil]

Summary of yesterday's demo.
Scenes from same island/area the little girl above is from. Lads used a ladder to storm the local government offices.
CNN Chile report.
CNN Chile fighty report.
Ana Tijoux.
Wank BBC report. Gideon Long. What kind of name is Gideon anyway.

Santiago Times Report.

In perhaps the most dramatic stand-off of the day, a single elderly woman armed with only a Chilean flag held off an armoured police vehicle and water-cannon as she was pelted with tear gas.

“I am Chilean, I am a patriot, and they cannot damage this flag, it’s prohibited,” she told The Santiago Times. “But they do, they shoot water at us, they shoot tear gas just as they did to me, and I’m only here with my flag.”

The woman, a primary school teacher named Louisa Espinoza, was clear on which side was to blame for the violence.

“They are the aggressive ones, they are the ones that seek violence,” she said, pointing at the Carabineros. The young people are only defending themselves against aggression.”

“They are oppressing the people, when they should be looking at what is causing this movement, social inequality and poverty,” she said. “That’s what they should be concerned with, but they are only concerned with repression.”

20 secs in on CNN fighty report.

 

[rekil]

Former national congress offices occupied. Education minister Felipe Bulnes forced to beat a retreat (and nearly fell over)



Report here.

 

[rekil]

Hmm.

21:10 | A human rights observer in the parliament building said he met with police, who assured them that there will be no beating of demonstrators.

21:20 | About a thousand people remain outside the parliament building in support of the protesters occupying the premises.

21:38 | MPs offered to leave with them and be arrested, but protesters dismissed this agreement.

21:46 | The MPs have signed an agreement with social organizations to establish "urgently" a constitutional amendment that establishes the plebiscite.

21:47 | The protesters said they will walk from the venue.

21:55 | Police dispersed protesters in the vicinity of the Senate. Tear gas etc.

 

[rekil]

BBC on the ball for once. Chile students disrupt Senate meeting to press demands.

Much better report. Santiago Times.

Photos of those outside, Vallejo, watercannon etc, on flickr.

 

[rekil]

Chacarillas 77. - Article about the Chacarillas Act, a procession and ceremony in 1977 by 77 devout Pinochet fans including govt spokesman Andrew Chadwick and former education minister Joaquin Lavin.

Stats report.

5,658 recorded protests nationwide, compared to 2,348 in 2010 and 1,569 in 2009.
The report also stated that the use of tear gas had already more than doubled from last year, which saw 15,321 canisters deployed.

New police unit called Hunters. Ffs.

David Harvey lecture in Chile on Monday.

Andrew Chadwick - There will be a social explosion.

"This country has gone through very difficult times in the past, and is aware of what political polarization meant and the high price paid for it.

New march on Sunday.

Occupied school pics. Sentidos Comunes on flickr

'No right turn.'

It's the man with the duck again.

'By reason or by force.'

Ana Tijoux - Shock - Record company keeps removing the first one so another was made.

Las Bases Gritan Lucha - Hiphoporganizado. Another pop at the reps for not being radical enough. Gawd, they should get a load of the Irish student union wankers.