I love Chile.

I visited it the first and only time (yet) in July 2010 and really fell in love with it.

Ever since I tried to stay up to date with what was happening over there, because I really feel a connection to the country and the people.

Now the situation in Chile forces me to write about what is going on and to get the word out.

As many of you probably dont know, there is a lot of shit going on in Chile at the moment.

The youth is protesting for better education, cheaper studies and a fair educational system, and the state tries to get them off the street by using violent force, gas and brutality. There are even huge riots happening on the street.

In the last weeks there have been more than 200.000 people demonstrating, and Eduardo Pavez Goye, a very good friend of mine and an awesome photographer, is covering these events from the beginning on.

I asked him to answer some questions, and tell a bit about what is going on in Santiago de Chile and the other big cities, and what this is all about.

Eduardo allowed me to showcase some of the photographs that he took in the riots, and I am very thankful for being allowed to use them. All of the photographs are property of Eduardo Pavez, if not stated otherwise.

INTERVIEW

Eduardo, can you introduce yourself? My name’s Eduardo Pavez Goye. I’m from Chile, and have a degree in acting, but I work as a writer (television and theatre). I’m also a self taught photographer and videographer.

The Situation

What is happening in Chile at the moment? It’s a long story, but to sum it up as accurate as possible: in 1973 we had a dictatorship, in wich (besides of killing 4.000 people and torturing over 30.000) a new constitution was written, in wich was stated that the educatioal system was now payed by the users, and not by the State. So now you had to pay big amounts of money to access a decent school, and huge amounts to get into the Universities. The politicians (all parties) became aware that making investments into Universities and schools was a big bussiness because they got their money back quickly, getting a lot of profit. So after 20 years of democracy, all the politicians have money invested into the educational system, wining millions in profit, and literaly destroying the hopes of becoming a profesional for the most people in Chile. The reason for that is we have almost no “technician” job offers that can give you enough money to survive. Only Jobs for profesional graduated people. The problem is, once you finish your studies, you’ll have a debt with the State (because of the loans system) of over $20.000.000 pesos, wich is enough money to buy a house. Most people don’t find a job after finishing their studies, so they can’t pay the debt and ge tinto the system as “unwanted” person for the Banks, and therefore, can’t have bank accounts, can’t buy anything and, if they get a job, the State (and the Banks) take their money to pay for debt for the studies he did and was never able to practice in real life. Besides, it’s stated in the constitution that you CANNOT profit with education, but they’ve been doing it for many years.

What are the students protesting for?



They want a free Educational system, payed with taxes (if you make more money, you pay more money, if you make less, you pay less), and guaranteed by the State. They want for Chile to take the cooper mines back (nowadays, part of them was selled to international corporations at low cost by the richest elite of the country, so global enterprices are using the cooper that belongs to all chilean people). They want a new constitution (the constitution we have today was written in dictatorship, asking to anybody, just designed to work for the elite of the country).

What is your opinion on the situation?



My opinion is that this is getting more and more complicated and nobody know how it will actually develop. Anything can happen. My opinion is that this is getting more and more complicated and nobody know how it will actually develop. Anything can happen. On one hand you have the richest elite of the country (who are now on the governement) who are mostly from the extreme right wing. You also have many moderate right an left wing parties involved, and all of them have no interest in creating a free-of-charge educational system, because they all have money invested in this. On the other hand, you have 80% of the people who have to pay huge amounts of money and are even forced to quit their studies because they cannot pay for them (there is no “full scholarship” in Chile, even if you have a “full scholarship”, you have to pay, at least, 150 euro a month for 25/30 years). At the same time, inside every hand there are people who are more extremists (as allways). The governement is the most extreme of all: they have made ilegal profits from investing in universities. This is important, because the Chilean Law says you cannot profit with an university: everything has to be reinverted into infrastructure, better teachers, and such… but in reality, the owners of the universities created fake enterprises (construction enterprises, mostly) to wich the univeristy have to pay (as in, rents) to stay where they are. So they pay themselves though another enterprise, that way they can say “we are renting the space to another company”, and avoid to reinvert into the university. This is fairly common and the former Minister of Education, Joaquín Lavín, got pretty famous for doing this. That was the main reason they moved him to another charge in the Governement, and was moved away from the Education ministry, because he was about to face a trial. So, in the end, the Governement does not want to give free education (because there is no bussiness in there for them) and the people want free education (but not all of them, some believe in the governement, and just call the students “communists” for asking a free educational system).

Can you describe the atmosphere on the streets? It’s intense. Everybody is talking about this. For three months, it’s the only subject you talk about with other people in meetings.



In the streets there is a lot of fear because when there are massive protests, a lot of violent people appear and want to destroy multinational corporations (such as McDonald’s and Burger King) and throw bottles and even molotov cocktails to the police. So if you are a normal citizen, there are some days when you find a fire barricade outside your work or your house. Not all days, but it happens.

How will this situation develop? How will this go on?



I have no clue and, to be honest, nobody knows. I have no clue and, to be honest, nobody knows. The students won’t stop protesting and the Governement won’t give them what they want because they lose their illegal investments, so it’s a dead end. Once of the forces has to be destroyed. The State has spend millions on campaigns about how bad the students are, how much they destroy the city (creating fake researches and such), and using the news media to show the students as violent vandals. Even the president says “they want to destroy our country”, so it’s pretty obvious they just want to keep the money in their pockets.

Covering

What were the ugliest, saddest, most interesting, most frightening and funniest things you saw during covering them?

August 25th, the second thay of National non-working-day (the Unified Central of Workers, CUT, called the citizens not to work for 48 hours) they were HUGE incidents. The first day, there were no people on the streets, and the Government sayed the national strike was a failure. The next day, over 350.000 people arround the country marche don the streets. On Santiago alone, they were 200.000 people. It was massive. So, in the second day, on this massive manifestation, some people was so pissed of with the police, they only wanted to hurt them. So hundreds of cops were standing on a square, and some people start throwing rocks and bottles at them. Some other people yelled “don’t do this, this is what the news media want us to look like: vandals”. So they stood in front of the cops, getting hitted by bottles and rocks. They had their hands up in the air, showing they had no weapons, but it was too much. After 30 minutes of recieving rocks and bottles (and many citizens that were standing got hit) the police went insane and start throwing tear gas all over. I almost went unconscious with the gas. It was really strong that time. I even bled from my nose. Now, funny things: huge manifestations look like happy carnivals. The massive manifestations lasts for four ours usually, and in that time there are people dancing, bands playing music, costumes, mimes, people with masks, children… it’s really beautiful. Once, the created huge puppets of the former presidents with devil horns. I’m talking about five meter puppets dancing on the streets. Really nice. It’s only at the end that sometimes it ends with violence.

Why did you decide to cover the events? I’m a politically active citizen.



I usually go and cover this kinds of events, mostly for myself. Aside from the student’s manifestations, this year there were massive manifestations against “HidroAysén”: a project presented by the last governement, and aproved on this one, that plans to sink the most beautiful part of the south of the country (the Patagonia) in order to create a Hydroelectric power plant to supply energy for the mining industry.



Only 4% of that energy is for the people, and the rest is for this huge macroeconomic lobby that (as I said before) takes the cooper and other minerals from Chile to be sold in other countries, leaving no more for Chile, thanks to the constitutional reforms done during the dictatorship… so we, citizens, have now become aware that we need to change the constitution, we need to heavily tax the macroeconomics conglomerates, and keep marching on the streets until some light can be seen at the end of this tunnel.

Are you planning to continue covering such events? Absolutely.

What equipment are you using while covering such extreme situations?

I’m now shooting mainly just film and not digital, because the police repression has become more and more violent, so digital cameras can be broken with the waterguns or get hitted by pólice officers. I’m now just carring either a Minolta X-700, a Canon A-1 or a Hasselblad 500c (and a light meter). I’m now shooting mainly just film and not digital, because the police repression has become more and more violent, so digital cameras can be broken with the waterguns or get hitted by pólice officers. I’m now just carring either a Minolta X-700, a Canon A-1 or a Hasselblad 500c (and a light meter). That way, I’m shooting less, but getting more and more into the center of the action. No big lenses, no zooms. Just some old manual 50mm, hold your breath and close the eyes when the tear gas comes in like a sandstorm.

Last words? I just want to let you know that a Young 14 year old called Manuel Gutiérrez was shot dead with a bullet in his chest while he was on the streets, carring his brother (that has to move with a wheelchair). That happened the night of August 25th, the sencond night of the 48 hour non-working-day in Chile. This happened in one of the most poor and vulnerable places in Santiago. Witness say the pólice shoot three times. One missing bullet, one killed Manuel and another got into the eye of another child, who’s now on serious health risks. The pólice said they didn’t do it and they won’t investigate this facts. Many parlaments and citizens said “this is enough” and asked further investigations. This is being done as I speak, so there is no conclusive results. Wheter it’s true or not (we will know in a few days), just the simple fact that the people are unsure if the police can actually kill a 14 year of child pushing a wheelchair just for mantaining the status quo of the actual economic system, is a red alert for all of us. Not only in Chile, but throughout the world.

A big thank you to Eduardo for taking the time to answer and explain what is this is all about.

More of Eduardos photos can be found in his Flickr photostream, its more than worth clicking.

Thank you for reading.

yours

Crazy Ivory