Latam ‘oasis’ shaken by worst unrest since dictatorship

Bloomberg

Just weeks before the worst civil unrest since Chile returned to democracy 29 years ago, President Sebastian Pinera described the country as “a true oasis” amid Latin American turmoil.
The billionaire investor-turned-politician isn’t alone in his glowing assessment of a country that regularly tops regional prosperity metrics.
However, the deadly upheaval of the past four days shows the chasm between the Andean exemplar’s elite and those who feel abandoned.
Eleven people have died and about 1,500 have been arrested in a wave of arson and riots that’s brought cities to a near standstill and seen security forces fire on masked looters. Local markets slumped as the violence seemed poised to persist.
What began as a protest against a 4-cent subway-fare hike quickly became an outpouring of broad discontent over economic inequality, pensions, health and education. While Pinera back-pedaled on the fare increase, his efforts to crack down on violence merely intensified it.
The protests, organised organically on social media, have no real leaders and encompass a spectrum ranging from the disgruntled bourgeoisie to black-clad anarchists.
“The signs were there all along — no one knew how to read them properly,” said Robert Funk, politics professor at the University of Chile’s institute of public affairs. “In the academic community for years we’ve been saying that something’s got to give. It’s not just inequality. It’s also what Chileans call abuse.”
After an initial bellicose
reaction to the protests, the president adopted a more conciliatory tone. In a televised address, Pinera called for dialogue and said the government was working on a reconstruction plan to rebuild the country after the violent protests. The government is also working on
social measures including lowering the price of drugs, improving healthcare and the pensions system, he said.
The protesters are giving voice to long-festering frustration with Chile’s institutions, economic model, inequality and inadequate social safety net.
Political scientists who study Chile say the discontent has been years in the making.
They point to poor results from Chile’s privatised pension system, in which many retire into poverty, and crushing personal debt. The strength of the dollar this year has also meant hikes in prices of regulated services such as electricity and transport.
But it was the peak-hour subway fare hike that set it all off. A study this year showed many people in Santiago face commutes as long as two hours. The situation devolved rapidly after Economy Minister Juan Andres Fontaine suggested workers should just get up a little earlier if they didn’t want to pay higher prices.
“Blame goes all round here,” Jennifer Pribble, associate professor of political science at the University of Richmond in Virginia. “The political class has been completely resistant to opening up politics and engaging responsibly with citizen discontent and discussing a more fundamental shift in the social and economic model. If institutions aren’t capable of channeling demands, then politics tends to spill over into the street.”
Hundreds of protesters filled Plaza Italia on October 21. Most were university students banging pots and wearing scarfs over their mouths and noses, chanting for the military to leave the streets and carrying banners calling for Pinera to resign. Armored vehicles sprayed tear gas to disperse demonstrators, and officers fired at the crowd.