From Reuters Online
Chile sacks police official after student riots
Wed 31 May 2006 3:11 PM ET
By Pav Jordan
SANTIAGO, Chile, May 31 (Reuters) - Chile’s chief of police sacked the head of his special forces on Wednesday amid rising public indignation over the unit’s use of force after officers beat and tear gassed student demonstrators to quell a massive protest.
In what was seen as Chile’s largest student demonstration in decades, nearly a million students were involved in marches in cities across the Andean nation on Tuesday to demand the government spend more on education.
Smaller protests continued on Wednesday.
In the streets of the capital Santiago, students as young as 12 were met by police armed with tear gas and water cannons, a level of force viewed as excessive by many Chileans, who questioned the government’s handling of the protests.
“I have ordered the removal of the prefect for special forces,” Police Chief Jose Alejandro Bernales told reporters at the government palace on Wednesday.
He said police found to have participated in excessive violence during the protests also would be sanctioned.
Images of police wrestling with young teenage protesters and beating media photographers to the ground were splashed across local newspapers on Wednesday, eliciting statements of indignation from regular citizens, parents and from Chilean President Michelle Bachelet.
“We have expressed our indignation against these acts where journalists, photographers and students suffered from excesses, abuse and unjustified violence,” Bachelet said in a statement broadcast from the government palace.
Amnesty International Chile also expressed its concern for the level of police repression.
Bachelet, Chile’s first woman president, was criticized by citizens for taking too long to sound off on the protests.
“Too passive, too passive,” said Julian Gonzalez, a street vendor. “Everybody says she should have got involved earlier.”
“I don’t think they realize this is a national issue,” said Carolina Gutierrez, 26, a bank executive.
Student representatives and government negotiators were to meet on Thursday and Bachelet said she was confident of short-, medium- and long-term solutions to their demands, which she said were reasonable.
Hundreds of students demanding free bus fare, free college entrance exams, more teachers and improved secondary school buildings were arrested in the capital and across the nation in the protests that saw both civilians and police injured.
Protests began two weeks ago when students took over a few schools in the capital. But the movement spread quickly across the country, becoming the biggest street protests faced by Bachelet’s government, which took power in March.
“Everybody was surprised by the strength of the student movement,” said Fabian Pressacco, a political science professor at Alberto Hurtado University in Santiago.
“This was not easily foreseeable three weeks ago.” (Reporting by Manuel Farias, Antonio de la Jara and Rodrigo Martinez)
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From Monsters and Critics Web News
Hundreds arrested, dozens injured in student protests in Chile
May 31, 2006, 17:17 GMT
Santiago de Chile - Police used teargas and water cannons to disperse about 800,000 students demonstrating across Chile Wednesday in the country’s largest student protests in decades.
About 730 people were arrested and at least 26 people injured, including a number of journalists, as police resorted to heavy tactics to break up the crowds, the daily El Mercurio reported.
Talks in the national library in Santiago between government officials and school representatives had to be broken up as teargas made its way into the conference rooms.
Students from schools and universities, including some parents, were protesting for a reform of the education system, drastically altered by the country’s former dictator Augusto Pinochet, as well as for reduced public transport fares and an end to school exam fees.
The protests, which began one month ago, present one of the biggest challenges to the country’s recently elected President Michelle Bachelet. Government spokesman Ricardo Lagos said ‘progress’ had been made in the talks, but declined to give further details.
Many Chilean families are made to devote a large portion of their income to education. Those who can afford it send their children to private schools in an effort to avoid the country’s public schools, which are suffering from a lack of resources and a very poor reputation.
School organizations say Pinochet granted private schools the right to make a profit, thereby subordinating the right to education to profit ventures.
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