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An anti-government protester flashes victory signs at a cordon of Chilean police during in Santiago
CHILE’S opposition has reacted angrily to billionaire President Sebastian Pinera’s announcement of new police powers and harsher sentences for “vandalism” in the wake of weeks of protests against his neoliberal government.
Despite adopting a conciliatory tone last week after 1.2 million people marched in the capital, Santiago, against his government’s brutal suppression of demonstrations that began in response to a rise in Metro fares, Mr Pinera said on Thursday that he would boost “aerial surveillance and police intelligence” and pass legislation through Congress bringing in longer penalties for looting and destruction of property.
This would help “Chile overcome these difficult three weeks and restore social peace, unity and progress,” he declared.
Far-right forces are rising across Latin America and the Caribbean, armed with a common agenda of anti-communism, the culture war, and neoliberal economics, writes VIJAY PRASHAD
Communist Party presidential candidate JEANNETTE JARA challenges the Chilean left to stop talking only among comrades and reach out to angry voters abandoned by politics in the race against the far right this November
