Chile: clashes between students and soldiers in Santiago

Hundreds of students, mostly from secondary schools, demonstrated this Tuesday in the great avenue of Santiago (Chili), around the Palace of La Monedawhile the president, Gabriel Boricwas preparing to announce his first major change of government.

(Read here: Chile: the challenges facing Gabriel Boric after rejecting the plebiscite)

The march, which began peacefully, ended after noon in clashes with security forces and riot policewho used tear gas and trucks with pressurized water hoses to repress the most violent groups, who threw stones at the authorities.

(See also: Chile: Boric makes his first cabinet change after the constitutional plebiscite)

The demonstrations by high school students, who demand improvements in education, scholarships and access to university, have been repeated throughout the almost six months that the Boric Government has been in office, but without the virulence and without the massive degree of convocation that they had the protests that in 2019 led to the “social outbreak”.

Boric himself participated and was one of the animators of the student protests in 2011and has declared on several occasions that the demonstrations in the street are a thermometer so that the Government does not forget its responsibilities.

On Tuesday, the president undertook a profound change in his cabinet, with a turn towards the center-left, the result of pressure from the opposition and the overwhelming victory of the “rejection” option in the mandatory plebiscite on the change of the Constitution held on last Sunday.

A restructuring that has been planned for weeks due to the criticism and errors of some of the most prominent ministers and due to the tensions that exist in the ruling party.

EFE

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