The government and the Chilean opposition on Thursday adopted a package of urgent social measures to add to the pact of a possible reform of the constitution inherited from the dictatorship, in a new attempt to curb the popular response that continues to be reproduced in the streets of the country .
The agreement includes an increase in pensions that could reach up to 50% for those over 80 , a reduction in half of the cost of public transport for adults over 65 and a significant increase in health spending, claims that are part of the requests that are heard daily in street protests.
An hour ago, a reduction in 50% of the diets received by parliamentarians and high-ranking officials had also been approved, while another official institution presented a plan to reduce the price of medicines by 20 to 40% , popular demands that they have been stuck in the vericuetos of local politics for years.
In a meeting with foreign media correspondents attended by EL MUNDO.es, President Sebastián Piñera indicated that all these gestures are part of a "social plan" aimed at "alleviating" the "legitimate demand for greater social justice."
"It does not solve everything, but raising pensions, lowering the price of medicines, free transportation for the elderly ... all that is a relief," said the president. Piñera again acknowledged that the security forces have committed "some" excesses in the repression of the mobilizations and said those cases are in the hands of the courts.
"The law was broken and abuses and excesses were committed. Everything will be investigated by the courts and they will be sanctioned. Our democracy has gone through a very difficult time, but it has shown that it has deep roots."
In this sense, the organization Amnesty International (AI), warned that it is not "isolated or sporadic events" but respond to a pattern and show a "degree of coordination" that "leads reasonably to think about the responsibility of the command at the highest level. "
"There was an intention of the security forces to be clear: to injure those who demonstrate, reaching the extreme of using torture and sexual violence," said Erika Guevara, head of this organization for America .
The AI investigation accuses the agents of provoking at least one death due to mistreatment and several cases of sexual abuse such as the one suffered by José Osure Maureira , who was raped with a cane when he was detained and was beaten and insulted for his sexual orientation.
Altercados in Valparaíso
The measures adopted by the political class did not prevent new marches both in Santiago de Chile and in front of the local Parliament installed in the city of Valparaíso. In the latter, tens of thousands of people toured the center of the town until they reached the doors of the legislative chamber, where groups of extremists tried to tear down the fences that surround the building, local media reported.
The altercations that took place in Valparaíso found their replica in the capital, which woke up with barricades burning in several suburbs. The use of violence has generated a division between the opponents who go to the streets and during the day - in parallel to the altercations - groups of activists deployed white sheets with the word "Peace" in various locations throughout the nation.
"We are deeply convinced that all types of violence and violation of human rights by people, sectors and institutions must be renounced and condemned. Violence deepens our differences," said the group in a statement.
The crisis is also causing a deep catharsis within most of the legal political forces, divided in its interior on the attitude they must face to curb the clear social unrest . Hence the contradictory statements that multiply each day and that on Wednesday unleashed the controversy when legislators of the ruling coalition raised the possibility of maintaining the Magna Carta designed under the aegis of the dictatorship if the new constitutional text is not approved with the endorsement of two thirds required in the pact that was signed last day 15.
Deputy Gabriel Boric warned that if the possible constitutional reform is stuck now in the small print "everything falls". A discussion that reflects the distance between many of these parliamentarians and the population sector that continues to manifest itself in the streets, which considered that the constitutional reform was never enough to respond to their claims, more focused on issues of daily life such as wages , cost of transportation or health care .
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