Chileans grapple with legacy of 2019 protests 5 years later 

Hundreds of protesters marched in Santiago, Chile, on Friday, to mark the five-year anniversary of the 2019 uprising calling for broad-based, social and economic reforms. 

They amassed in Santiago’s Plaza Baquedano, which was ground zero for the 2019 uprising. Like in the past, they were met with tear gas and water cannons from the military police. Some responded by throwing bottles and rocks. Sixty-five people were detained across the country.

Ramona Salfate, a human rights observer with the NGO, Blue Helmets, said that it was discouraging to see the same repressive tactics being used once again to silence people at the demonstration. 

“The great majority of the people are frustrated,” she said. “This place should be packed, but the people don’t go out because of fear, because we haven’t achieved anything.”

In October of 2019, public backlash against transport-fee hikes soon grew into the largest protest movement in the country since democracy was reinstated after the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet from 1973 to 1990. 

Following the protests, the country tried to rewrite the constitution twice to make it more inclusive, but Chileans voted down both attempts in 2022 and 2023, rejecting the first effort as too leftist, and the second, as too conservative. So, Pinochet’s 1980 constitution remains in place; it locks in a free market economic model that many say caters to the elites and the businesses. 

“Five years ago, there was a moment when the country realized that the elites who dominated in power perpetuated a system of discrimination and the huge inequalities in salary, in health and education. And this has not changed today,” said Mónica Bustamante, a former union leader. “This awakening lasted a very short period of time.”

The problem is that none of the reforms that were called for during the 2019 protests came to fruition. 

Nick MacWilliam, British director of the documentary, “Santiago Rising,” about the 2019 protests, said that a lot of Pinochet’s policies can still be seen in everything from education to legislation against Mapuche activists. 

In fact, the UK-based MacWilliam said that when he visited Chile last year, things had gotten worse.

“The bread had doubled in price,” he said. “The rents had skyrocketed.”

Alexis Garay, a 24-year-old electrician, agreed.

“Everything is worse. Everything is more expensive: rent, food prices. It’s hard to find a job. Everything’s worse. Much worse.”

President Gabriel Boric, a former student leader and congressman, rode the protest wave to power with the promise of rewriting the constitution. But many progressives say he’s turned his back on them. On the anniversary of the 2019 protests two years ago, he defended the military police crackdown on protesters.

This year, he only mentioned the 2019 protests in passing. Instead, he held an hourlong press conference to respond to sexual assault allegations against a former member of his Ministry of Interior.

Some analysts say that he’s found that his most successful path now is the middle ground. 

And, more than a third of the country now remembers Pinochet in a positive light, according to a 2023 poll. 

Like street vendor Iris, who declined to give her last name, who’s been running a kiosk downtown for more than four decades. 

“The armed forces have to take power again. They can clean up this mess,” she said, referring to the protesters, crime and the country’s woes.

A recent poll also shows that less than a quarter of the country looks favorably on the 2019 uprising, down from over half in late 2019.

But Chilean media professor Jorge Saavedra said that this is, in part, due to the continual demonization of the uprising by political leaders, influencers and the press.

“They say that we are where we are because of the uprising,” Saavedra said. “That the protesters just caused violence, that they destroyed everything, that they are nothing more than vandals. But behind this, there’s a hidden message. They are telling the people to never again rise up, because you’ll hurt the country.”

Saavedra said that a more honest question would be: do you believe the social conditions that led to the 2019 protests still exist? He said that a majority of the population would respond yes.

But the country is divided about how to respond to that. Regional and municipal elections are later this week, with presidential elections on the horizon late next year. But there’s no clear road ahead.