Three years after the social outbreak, Gabriel Boric asks Chileans for union

Chile celebrates three years since the social outbreak without a new Constitution, one of the main calls of the protests that shook the country.

From the Palacio de La Moneda, President Gabriel Boric reflected on what that day meant for the nation and its consequences.

“Today, three years after October 18, 2019, we have a new opportunity to build the foundations of a fair, less unequal, dignified society, and we cannot miss it,” said the president in a 17-minute speech without the company of his ministers.

The head of state asked to put aside ideological “trenches” to achieve consensus and the necessary solutions that citizens require, as evidenced in the massive protests of 2019.

“Three years ago, thousands of people demonstrated expressing long-standing discomfort, calling for greater Justice, equality and an end to abuse (…) October 18 should challenge us all, and instead we have used as a reason to reaffirm what we already thought before. Three years after the social explosion, it is time for us to leave our comfort zone to interpret what happened there, the lessons that we must draw from this process and act, ”he emphasized.

Boric made it clear that for his government the social outbreak was not an expression of violence or a pronouncement against capitalism, but the accumulation of social problems and claims in what was considered the most stable country in Latin America.

“The outbreak was not an anti-capitalist revolution and neither, as they have wanted to install in recent days, was it a pure wave of crime. It was an expression of pain and fractures in our society, that politics, of which we are a part, has not been able to interpret or respond,” the leftist leader remarked.

Although Boric defended the right to demonstrate, he was also emphatic in pointing out that violence is not valid and condemned those who commit crimes under the umbrella of legitimate petitions.

“From the left, we must be more categorical than anyone in putting a dam on these behaviors, in confronting them without complexes, denouncing them and punishing them (…) We cannot build a more just country by burning the buses in which citizens are transported, or leaving people without traffic lights to cross the street, or entrepreneurs and workers without their source of income. It’s just not acceptable,” he asserted.

In addition, the president categorically reproached “the human rights violations” against the protesters, as he denounced at the time before the United Nations Organization.

“Social protest cannot be synonymous with violence, it cannot shelter or justify it, because it goes against its principles and purposes and against its majority vocation (…) Nor is going to attack policemen, who are, after all, State officials who are fulfilling a service entrusted to them by the democratic system”, he remarked.

A new Constitution, the pending debt after the outbreak of Chile in 2019

The third anniversary of the protest recalls that the outbreak led to the installation of a convention that drafted a new Constitution. However, it was rejected a month and a half ago by the electorate in a plebiscite.

Last August, 62% of the votes rejected the constitutional proposal drafted by a leftist convention. The text was the response to 78% of Chileans who in October 2020 voted for a new Magna Carta to replace the one imposed by the military 41 years ago.

It was expected to be the most progressive Constitution in Latin America and that it would make the Chilean State the guarantor of more than 100 rights. The text focused on social rights, the environment, gender parity and the rights of indigenous people.

However, supporters of the right and some sectors of the left described it as sectorized and as not attacking the political blockade in the country.

Today, the main citizen demands for improvements in health, education, retirement and more housing remain unanswered.

33 people died in the midst of the wave of protests, more than 400 suffered eye injuries and more than 3,100 complaints were filed for human rights violations due to police repression.

“The social outbreak expressed and brought with it a lot of pain and has left huge consequences. We will not allow it to be in vain. We cannot be the same as a society after this experience”, urged the Chilean president.

Now, the text must be reconsidered, as promised by the Government of Gabriel Boric, who after the result at the polls was forced to make changes to his cabinet after only six months in power.

Boric, whose approval fell this week to 27% according to the pollster Cadem, prompted Congress to initiate a new constitutional process through an agreement between the political parties, which hope to hold another Magna Carta by the end of 2023.

Meanwhile, the country is experiencing growing insecurity due to the increase in crime, an inflationary escalation that has reached 13.7% per year, uncontrolled irregular immigration in the north of the country and a wave of arson attacks in the south, while the economy it is slowing down, and according to the International Monetary Fund, it will contract 1.0% next year, which will affect employment.

With EFE, local media and AP