The confrontation soon caused injuries to several people. Amongst them Alejandro Canales Santibañez, a 4th year journalism student from Usach (Santiago de Chile University) School of Journalism, photographer for Pressenza, best graduate student of his class and of the entire Humanities Faculty. Alejandro was hit in the head while covering the students march; he is now hospitalized in the Posta Central hospital waiting for the closing of his wound.
He is the first volunteer from our agency to be subjected to such an aggression.
However, other people suffered from serious or minor injuries, all of them students and victims of the tactics of violence used one more time by the police.
Between mounted police, “zorrillos” *(Chilean teargas vehicles, wordplay with the Spanish word for “skunk”)*, water cannons and bullet-proof buses, a dense gas cloud started to form in central Santiago. Meanwhile, water cannon vehicles were in action to deter the groups of protesters who broke up and ran away in every direction, scattering in the neighboring parks, seeking refuge in the nearby universities (Law School, Architecture School, Chemistry and Pharmacy School, headquarters of the Student Federation of the University of Chile) and in secondary schools such as The National Institute. A tactical dispersal allowing them to gather again in smaller groups, while new reinforcement troops in marching columns scoured the capital’s streets.
Dozens of thousands of secondary schools and university students, teachers, leaders and citizens had turned up to manifest in Plaza Italia, answering the call of the educational system actors, after they withdrew the night before from the talks they had been holding with the government.
The uncompromising attitude of the government led to the organization of this protest and march which was not authorized by Santiago Administration. *“Everybody in Plaza Italia at 10.30 am, we won’t be deceived, the government is trying to counteract our demand for free education”* wrote FECH president Camila Vallejo on twitter.
The strong repression unleashed by the special police forces made the protesters spread the manifestation to several blocks around Plaza Italia, bringing chaos to the city centre for several hours.
The government’s decision is obvious: they won’t really negotiate or listen to the popular clamor for the end of profiteering in the education system, and while the Congress was sending the draft legislation which categorize the occupation of educational institutions as a crime, any protest against it is crushed with pure brutality.
These are the vagaries of a government with 22% of approval rate only and that 70 % of the population are clearly rejecting.
*Translated from Spanish by Pauline Goetghebeur*
