[progchat_action] Mass protest in Chile
 
Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2007 08:13:24 -0500 (CDT)


Chile protest: hundreds arrested

SAPA/AFP
August 30 2007

Santiago - About 670 people were arrested and another 50 were injured in the
first major protest since Chilean President Michele Bachelet took office
last year, police said on Thursday.

Hundreds of people protesting the socialist government's economic policies
threw rocks at police officers who retaliated with water cannons and tear
gas during Wednesday's march in Santiago.

The clashes left about 50 people injured, including 33 police officers, 10
of whom were in critical condition.

Socialist Senator Alejandro Navarro, who supported the demonstrators and was
hit in the head by police, while a prominent Chilean poet, Raul Zurita, was
also hurt.

Some businesses were looted in the capital while several streets were
temporarily closed by demonstrators who built barricades and taxi drivers.

The powerful Central Workers Union organized the demonstration to protest
the socialist government's failure to bridge the social gap despite the
country's strong economic growth.

Communist Party leader Guillermo Teillier called the protest "a great
triumph for the Chilean workers."

Interior Minister Guillermo Belisario Velasco described the demonstration as
an "atypical mobilization" that did not stop the country from functioning
normaly.

Central Workers Union chief Arturo Martinez had said he organized the
protest - which was also extended to the cities of Valparaiso, Rancagua and
Concepcion - as a challenge to Bachelet.

Martinez said the president was mishandling the economy and had failed to
keep her campaign promise of shrinking the gap between the haves and
have-nots, which according to UN figures is the region's second largest
behind Brazil.

Ten percent of the population in Chile holds 47 percent of the country's
wealth, the United Nations Development Program has said.

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