SPORADIC clashes between demonstrators and police took place in the Chilean capital Santiago on Sunday as the country marked the 49th anniversary of the 1973 Pinochet coup.
Police fired tear gas and water cannon at angry youth who replied by throwing rocks and firecrackers, interrupting the mass demonstration on its way to to the statue of President Salvador Allende outside the Presidential Palace.
Allende was killed in an airstrike on the day of the coup.
Left-wing parties, with key political figures and members of the government, paid homage on Sunday.
Participants laid flowers at Allende’s monument as well as at the entrance of the palace where he used to enter while president.
Musicians and dancers – known as ‘The Red Devils of Victor Jara’ – were dressed as devils to protest against the arrest, torture, and murder of Chilean folk singer and political activist Victor Jara who was shot to death just days after the 1973 coup.
According to government figures, during General Pinochet’s dictatorship, at least 3,095 people were killed and tens of thousands more tortured or jailed for political reasons.
The current president of Chile, Gabriel Boric, has announced the launching of a search plan for the detainees who disappeared during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990).
On September 11, 1973, the Chilean army perpetrated a military coup to depose the Popular Unity government and installed General Augusto Pinochet in power.
On Sunday, at a meeting at La Modena palace to remember President Salvador Allende and to discuss the work to be carried out on human rights and on all the detainees who disappeared during the dictatorship, President Boric said:
‘There are 1,192 disappeared detainees that we still do not know where they are. It is not acceptable, it is not tolerable, we cannot naturalise it.
‘Forty-nine years ago President Salvador Allende and his collaborators (…) gave us a historic lesson of loyalty, consequence (and) above all dignity.
‘In his last words he reminds us that he will always be with us and that quiet metal of his voice continues to resonate to this day.’
Boric alluded to the events that are marking Chile’s history, as is the case of last weekend’s plebiscite in which Rejection was overwhelmingly imposed, and ended up rejecting the proposal of the reformed Constitution elaborated by the defunct Convention.
In this sense, he appealed to the continuity of the constitutional process, expressing his confidence that, during his term, the country could have a new Magna Carta, drafted democratically and in accordance with the institutional framework.
‘I am deeply convinced that during our period we will have a Constitution of which all of us, beyond our legitimate differences, can feel proud,’ he said.
However, repression in the streets of Santiago prevented the march by citizens marking the coup against President Allende, who were met by a heavy police presence and water cannons.
- Last week, Chile’s Escondida copper mine workers announced plans to strike.
Of the total 2 426 members of the Escondida Workers’ Union, 96.07 per cent approved the strike.
The mining company, BHP, is being accused of anti-union practices and safety violations, so with the strike, the workers intend to ‘claim and resolve recurring violations of safety and labour laws’.
Without specifying a date for the start of the action, the workers agreed to initiate a 12-hour warning strike for each shift and a subsequent ‘definitive strike’ if their demands fall on deaf ears.
The Workers’ Union said in a statement: ‘As of this moment, our contingency plans are activated, both to prepare in a first action the shift stoppages and then the indefinite strike.’
According to the workers, the mining company fails to provide safe working conditions, putting ‘at risk the physical integrity of those who work on the sites’.
The company’s anti-union practices and labour law violations are also criticised by the workers, who complain about the constant violation of their rights.
The private Escondida copper mine, located in the Antofagasta region of northern Chile, is the world’s largest copper mine.
With Anglo-Australian BHP (57.5%), Rio Tinto (30%) and Japanese Jeco (12.5%) as owners, it is responsible for the production of some 1.1 million tons of copper per year.
- Another trade union leader has been murdered in southeastern Colombia.
He is Sibares Lamprea Vargas, 42 years old, who worked as a security guard at Ecopetrol, and was Secretary of Administrative Affairs of the union USO sub-directorate.
On Sunday, the Unión Sindical Obrera de la Industria del Petróleo (USO) confirmed his death in Barrancabermeja, a port city located in the western part of the Colombian department of Santander.
According to a union statement, Lamprea Vargas, a security guard at Ecopetrol and a USO union leader, on Saturday night was intercepted by two assassins who were riding a motorbike near Camilo Torres park.
From the back of the vehicle, one of the men opened fire repeatedly at Lamprea Vargas, mortally wounding him.
Witnesses called an ambulance, but minutes after arriving at the health unit, doctors confirmed his death.
‘We learned of the attack on our colleague who was a leader of the watchmen, a contractor worker.
‘We demand that Ecopetrol and the authorities of Barrancabermeja carry out the respective investigations so that this crime does not go unpunished,’ urged the vice-president of USO, David Gómez.
The killing is under investigation by the police authorities, as it is not known if the union leader had been threatened with death recently.
The leaders of the USO called an extraordinary security council on Sunday, in order to analyse any event that may affect the work of the unions in the region.
Lamprea Vargas was also a member of the Association of Security Guards of Barrancabermeja and Magdalena Medio, so his murder has shocked the whole community.
- On Saturday, in Venezuela, a thermoelectric plant was sabotaged.
However, the electric service in the peninsula of Paraguaná, has now been fully restored after the attack.
The Minister for Electric Energy, Nestor Reverol, said that in the early hours of last Saturday morning, two individuals committed acts of sabotage at the Josefa Camejo Thermoelectric Plant, which is located in Punto Fijo, Falcón state, in northwest Venezuela.
Reverol told a local television station that two people had been arrested and that they suffered serious burns. Their condition is still being monitored, but there is no diagnosis as yet.
Repair work was immediately carried out by the Fire Department, Security agencies and workers of the National Electric System (SEN).
In the early hours of Saturday morning, the governor of the state of Falcón, Victor Clark, also reported on the attack.
Through the social network Instagram, Clark said that in the plant ‘individuals who attacked the high power line and auxiliary services system have been found in flagrante delicto, they are injured with serious burns due to the strong explosion they caused.’
He added that three of the Josefa Camejo Thermoelectric plant’s turbines had been damaged, leaving the region temporarily without an electricity service.