Statement in support of the legitimate demands for social justice of the Chilean population

Chile has awakened. The mobilizations of the last two weeks in the country have stirred consciences about the enormous inequality and injustice produced by the neoliberal policies established during Pinochet's civic-military dictatorship, and later perfected by democratic governments.

The inability of the Chilean economic model to guarantee and fairly distribute decent incomes for the majority of the population; the privatization of basic services and social security; the general disrepute of the political and economic elite, have filled the discontent of a majority of the population.

The government and mainstream media have responded to the mobilization by criminalizing the protests. During the first ten days of the crisis, a state of emergency and a curfew were declared, and military personnel were deployed to repress the population. “We are at war,” President Piñera stated. Twenty deaths, five thousand arrests, and nearly two thousand injuries attest to the actions of state agents, which have been highly criticized by human rights organizations.

As the Working Group, we declare our rejection of the repressive violence used by agents of the Chilean State; we express our support for the legitimate demands for social justice of the Chilean population; we call for a broad and democratic discussion to establish legitimate political bases for the actions of public and private institutions in Chile, guaranteeing the country and its people a better and fairer distribution of wealth, greater social rights, legal recognition of their cultures, and a decentralization of resources for the benefit of each of their territories.

Images from film, photography, and stories from the memory of other times are seen today as a daily occurrence of time that we must continue to problematize in these actions of oppression against the people and their uprising. 

 November 2019
CLACSO Working Group
Art and politics