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| Caribbean-Latin America |
| Chile imposes emergency after riots over fare hikes |
| 2019-10-21 |
| [DAWN] SANTIAGO Residents of Chile’s capital awoke on Saturday to a ravaged city as burned-out buses, bikes and garbage littered the streets after a day of violent protests that prompted the government to declare a state of emergency and call out soldiers to maintain order for the first time in decades. The stunning spasm of unrest was triggered by an increase in metro fares but reflected a much broader anger over economic and social conditions, including a yawning gap between rich and poor in a country considered one of the most stable in Latin America. Hellloooo Venezuela! “It is sad, but this destruction was people’s way of demanding they be heard. Chile was a pressure cooker, and it exploded in the worst way,” said a civil servant who gave her name only Maria, waiting to catch a bus amid the detritus of Friday’s protests. Soldiers patrolled some parts of the city on Saturday in their first such deployment since Chile returned to democracy in 1990 after the Augusto Pinochet rightwing dictatorship. |
| Posted by:Fred |