Chileans go on strike as protest death toll hits 18

[sandensea]

Chile has braced for more protests and a general strike by state workers, despite President Sebastián Piñera’s pleas for forgiveness and announcement of ambitious reforms to quell unrest that has rocked the country and led to 18 deaths.

Thousands of Chileans flooded the streets of Santiago and other cities Wednesday on day one of a general strike, upping the pressure on President Piñera after days of social unrest.

Students, professors and state workers walked off the job at the urging of the country's largest union, ignoring a package of measures announced by Piñera aimed at quelling the violence.

In an address to the nation late on Tuesday, Piñera apologised for failing to anticipate the outbreak of social unrest.

"I recognise this lack of vision," he said after a meeting with some of Chile's opposition leaders.

Beyond the dead, another 269 people have been injured and about 1,900 have been arrested, according to the National Institute for Human Rights (INDH).

At: https://www.sbs.com.au/news/chileans-go-on-strike-as-protest-death-toll-hits-18

[Judi Lynn]

1. It didn't take long at all to produce so many victims from the people protesting in the streets.

Starting to look very ugly now that the man who has supported the tyrant Pinochet to open up hostilities upon the leftists in his second term, just like his favorite Chilean "politician" who left an enormous number of tortured, murdered, and disappeared students and other protesters, and who continued his war on dissent years after he seized office with the help of Richard M. Nixon, Henry Kissinger, and the CIA.

Learned reading a year-old article in the last week:

Chile president-elect reveals hardline cabinet with ties to Pinochet

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jan/23/chile-president-elect-sebastian-pinera-andres-chadwick