Chile: from a Friday of fury towards the general strike. Stopping the raises and the repression

The call for massive evasions led by high school students led to a Friday of strong clashes on the streets with broad social support: metro station occupations, barricades on the streets and protests with pots and pans throughout Santiago. A spontaneous organization despite the lack of transport in the capital city, a paralysed Santiago.

The guideline of the government is intensifying the repression of the previous days, but this time applying the Law Of Homeland Security, a policy against an “internal enemy” inherited from the dictatorship that, despite its enactment by Piñera and the Minister of Interior Andres Chadwick, has not intimidated the manifestations that forced the Special Forces to take a step back, joined by the announcement of the strike of public transport during the weekend. A true uprising that expresses the repudiation of the public transport raise, a measure that affects the living conditions of the working majority of our country, in stark contrast to those who get richer with the public transportation business.

Advancing towards a general strike: against the Homeland Security Law and to stop the raise

Piñeras response, marked by dictatorship nostalgia, is the tone used by the government that is taking steps towards anti-democratic policies. The outbreak of the Friday of fury opens an important path to put forward, that against the repression, the people are still mobilized, therefore showing their potential to confront the growing precarization of the life that affects wages and misery. There are enough social reserves to stop the government.

It is in the sense that this transversal rejection, expressed as a radical response to the rising cost of living of the working class, is the call that must find an answer in the main unions and student federations, in order to advance to a general strike with a massive mobilization to stop the raises and the repression, as well as the anti-democratic policies like the Homeland Security Law.

This short article was written in the middle of the demonstrations in Santiago.