• Latin America Thousands of protesters take to the streets of Chile on the second anniversary of the social uprising

  • Aftermath Three years after the outbreak, Chile is still in its labyrinth

"There are

nearly 700 people

who have taken to the streets not to commemorate anything, not to fight for any cause, but to

commit crimes that we reject

," says Manuel Monsalves, Undersecretary of the Interior.

"Right now those who are in the streets are not citizens who are demonstrating, they are people who are committing crimes," he adds.

The balance already entered the dawn of this Wednesday in Chile indicated looting and arson attacks, with a special predilection for the Carabineros, the Chilean militarized police.

More than 50 people were detained, 30 were injured, and looting and arson were reported in pharmacies, gas stations, supermarkets, and cars.

Three

years after the social outbreak

that changed Chilean politics on October 18, 2019, the government of

Gabriel Boric

lived all Tuesday in tension: a serious outbreak of violence would have questioned his ability to command the situation.

The center of Santiago saw much less movement than usual during the day, and by late afternoon the offices, schools, university centers and shops had already finished, for the most part, the day.

"Normality in public transport has been guaranteed. 96% of the metro worked and we only had to close three stations in the center of Santiago," celebrates Monsalves.

"The safe and peaceful return of people to their homes has been allowed."

Thus, in this abnormal situation, Chile was

holding its breath

.

In Puente Alto, a deprived area of ​​Santiago, a group of people hijacked a public transport bus and crashed it into a supermarket to loot.

The government made it clear that it

feared that the lack of control would be greater:

"We have been able to react and act before threats of significant looting."

At the beginning of the day, President Boric had tried to calm things down, aware that his policies very often irritate the leftist flank of his coalition, while the center-right and the right accuses him of having broad sleeves with certain violent groups.

"The outbreak was not an anti-capitalist revolution and neither, as they have wanted to install in recent days, a pure crime wave," Boric said.

"It was an expression of pain and fractures in our society that politics, of which we are a part, has failed to interpret or respond."

"The social outbreak expressed and brought with it a lot of pain and has left huge consequences. We are not going to allow it to be in vain," added the president, who at 36 is the youngest in the region.

"We attacked each other. Things reached an extreme that they should not have reached. Social protest cannot be synonymous with violence."

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