'We are at war': 8 dead in Chile's violent protests over social inequality

Riot police detain a demonstrator in Santiago, Chile, Sunday, Oct. 20, 2019. Protests in the country have spilled over into a new day Sunday, even after President Sebastian Pinera cancelled the subway fare hike that prompted massive and violent demonstrations. (AP Photo/Esteban Felix) less Riot police detain a demonstrator in Santiago, Chile, Sunday, Oct. 20, 2019. Protests in the country have spilled over into a new day Sunday, even after President Sebastian Pinera cancelled the subway fare hike ... more Photo: Esteban Felix, Associated Press Photo: Esteban Felix, Associated Press Image 1 of / 11 Caption Close 'We are at war': 8 dead in Chile's violent protests over social inequality 1 / 11 Back to Gallery

"It's not about 30 pesos. It's about 30 years."

That was one of the loudest rallying cries coming from protesters in Chile over the weekend, as demonstrations against a transit fare hike erupted into violent clashes over economic inequalities - which many say have been brewing in the three decades since the country's repressive military dictatorship.

Since Friday, clashes between authorities and protesters have resulted in at least eight deaths and hundreds of arrests, as well as looted supermarkets, burning buses, and charred subway stations. The headquarters for an electric company and a major bureau for a national newspaper have both been lit aflame.

For the first time after the end of the Pinochet regime in 1990, the government has called the military onto the streets of Santiago, the country's capital, as that city emerges from its third consecutive night of a government-imposed curfew.

"We are at war against a powerful enemy, willing to use violence with no limits," Chilean President Sebastián Piñera said at a news conference late on Sunday, in comments that only seemed to spark more furor among protesters. He said protesters had only one goal: producing as much harm as possible.

While Piñera said on Saturday he would revert to a metro fare increase, that appears to have done little to satisfy crowds. A state of emergency declared in six cities is expected to expand around the country on Monday.

"This was an economic pressure cooker that's been building for decades, and it exploded," Rodrigo Booth, a professor at the University of Chile, said in an interview with The Washington Post. "This had little to do with public transit. It became a situation about brutal inequality."

Over the past three decades, Chile's neoliberal policies have made it one of South America's wealthiest countries, with inflation under control and easy access to credit.

But those policies have also created stark economic disparities and strapped many Chileans into debt. Many basic utilities, from water to highways and the current pension system, have been privatized.

That extends to Santiago's metro, a modern transit system that's the largest in South America and a point of pride for many Chileans. But repeat fare increases have jumped far ahead of wages, critics say, such that a family making minimum wage would have been forced to use one-sixth of their income on transportation alone.

Since last week, hundreds of students flooded into several stations around Santiago to hop turnstiles in protest of the fare increase. The hike raised subway tickets from the equivalent of $1.12 to about $1.16, a record high in the region. By late last week, mobs of young people were destroying stations and leaving graffiti behind.

"The fact that the Chilean people are protesting in a way that's so spontaneous and potent means we have to seriously consider that there's a deep wound that hasn't healed, not even been discussed, in these past few decades," Amalá Saint-Pierre Aguadé, a theater producer in Santiago, said in an interview with The Post.

The country's constitution, she noted, has remained the same since the Pinochet regime.

The protests also reflect a stark generational divide between those who old enough to remember the repressive military dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet - a 17-year-period when dissidents were imprisoned, tortured, and in many cases, "disappeared" - and younger Chileans, who were born after its end and who have taken to the streets with far less abandon.

As subway service was suspended Friday and Piñera imposed a curfew on Santiago, things only seemed to escalate. Over the weekend, his government dispatched 3,000 members of the military and 5,000 members of the national police force to quell demonstrations.

Videos on social media showed military officers yelling, as protesters waved signs showing photos of those who disappeared during the Pinochet dictatorship. Prominent Chileans have taken to the streets too, with one well-known actress getting shot in the face on Friday with rubber pellets. That night, Piñera was photographed having dinner at a pricey restaurant away from the crowds.

Confrontations with tear gas, water cannons and rubber bullets continued through the weekend. By Sunday, Chilean Interior Minister Andrés Chadwick, said that 62 police officers and 11 civilians had been injured in the latest clashes, while nearly 1,500 people had been arrested.

Booth, the University of Chile professor, said the situation was encapsulated in a scene he saw Sunday in the city's central Plaza Baquedano, where public buses stopped moving as they reached dense crowds on the streets, clouded in tear gas. He went to go participate by banging on a pot - a traditional form of protest across Latin America known as a "cacerolazo" - and armed himself with lemon wedges to fight the effects of tear gas.

Within minutes, he had dispensed his wedges to pedestrians who were getting off the bus or otherwise needed to walk through the square to get home: a mother with her son, about 8 years old, an elderly woman and a young couple with a toddler who had burst into tears.

Chile's protests follow weeks of political unrest in many other Latin American countries, with Ecuador, Peru and Honduras all erupting into demonstrations protesting stagnant economies and ineffective governments.

Saint-Pierre Aguadé said it represents a kind of "Latin American spring," like the protests that took over the Arab world starting in 2010.

"The government is blind to believe that it's happening only because of the fare increases," she said. "They're not seeing is that this is not just because of one policy. It's the fault of every government we've had, from the left and the right."