Hundreds of Chileans, mostly students, protested in Santiago on Tuesday, setting up burning barricades to mark three years after a social uprising they say has yet to bring the societal change they want.
Protesters wearing goggles and face masks to protect against tear gas halted car traffic on central Alameda Avenue, and several subway stations were closed.
Police deployed 25,000 officers to keep the peace and used water cannons in at least one location to disperse disruptive protesters.
Many shops closed early or didn’t open at all, while schools sent students home early in a country where demonstrations in recent years have often been marred by clashes with security forces.
“We have accomplished nothing in the three years since the movement began,” said Andrea Gomez, a 43-year-old social worker who was among those who gathered.
The protests came exactly three years after a mass revolt against an increase in subway fares began in 2019, which quickly escalated into a general call for better conditions and social equality.
The government suspended price hikes, but protests continued and dozens were killed in months of clashes. Hundreds of people were injured.
The demonstrations sparked reforms, including the government’s approval of drafting a new constitution to replace the pro-market constitution inherited from Augusto Pinochet’s military dictatorship.
Last December, Chile elected a leftist president, Gabriel Boric, who supported the constitutional process.
But last month, despite the renewed revolutionary sentiment, nearly two-thirds of voters rejected the proposed draft, fearing parts of the document were too far-reaching.
A constitutional provision legalizing abortion was a key stumbling block in the conservative, majority-Catholic country.
Boric, a former student leader who supported the 2019 protests, on Tuesday called for a new social dialogue to shape much-needed welfare reform.
The 2019 uprising, he said, “was an expression of pain and fractures in our society, which failed to interpret or respond to the politics of which we are a part.”
Boric took office with a promise to transform the deeply unequal country into a greener, more egalitarian “welfare state.”
