Santiago Chile is Burning
November 9, 2019
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| Burning Metro Ticket Office |
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As we (son Jimmy, his wife Shenda and I) were planning our trip to Patagonia in South America, I suggested that we go through the international airport of Santiago, Chile rather than Buenos Aires, Argentina. My reasoning was that there is always some danger when traveling and that we could minimize our risk in Chile compared to Buenos Aires. Chile has had the reputation of being one of the safest countries in South America, whereas Argentina was less safe. So, we flew from Houston to Santiago and spent a day exploring that wonderful old city.
It was then that we heard that their modern, well-functioning Metro needed funds for upgrading and maintenance, so the ticket price was increased by about four cents to pay for it. This was the announced reason for the city riots -- and we were in the big middle of it all. Oops!
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| Burned City Bus |
Taking a taxi around the downtown area, we encountered college-aged folks in the streets banging pots -- or whatever would make noise -- in a particular rhythm with two long bangs followed by 3 short ones. It sent a familiar code that they understood was a part of the Marxist movement protesting this new ticket cost. Some wore masks but most did not. The ones we saw appeared to be fairly clean-cut youngsters of both sexes who were protesting this apparent ticket-hike injustice.
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| Fire set in the street |
Our cab driver had to take a couple of detours around a burned bus, fires in the street, students marching, military vehicles and clouds of tear gas.
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| Tear Gas Cloud close to us |
When our taxi driver saw a tear gas canister shot from a police truck and it landed in front of us, he pulled a quick U-turn so none of us would be exposed. Way to go Mr. taxi driver! I questioned him about the identity of the political organization behind this riot. My interpretation of what he replied, was that it was not a political demonstration, it was a spontaneous eruption triggered only by ticket price hike. Hmmm.
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| Maybe One Million in Crowd |
A couple of days later, the protestors held a march along the Mapocho River parkway in downtown Santiago. Estimates were that there were one million folks in attendance.
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| Jim and Shenda celebrating their 31st anniversary on same parkway |
Before that massive march, we had hiked along this parkway to the tower in the background so we could take the elevator to the top to get a great view of the surrounding city. But, because of the turmoil in the city, the tower was closed. Bummer.
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| Arson rampant |
We were becoming more and more nervous about the situation as we watched the local TV stations. The riots were being shown on many of the channels and clearly, this was no spontaneous riot. Thugs had set fires to many local stores, especially targeting Lider stores which are owned by Walmart. People died in those fires. At least 11 people have died -- most in the burned supermarkets. Some of these amateur and "innocent" protestors had now turned into arsonists and murderers.
Was this a political message being sent to the USA? Of course, I claim no expertise on the political battles of Chile and I cannot know all the characters in this drama. But, often, when well-meaning kids start a protest like this one, some bad actors join in and the thuggish behavior begins. Or, it is also possible that socialist thugs planned this action and the kids who joined functioned as "useful idiots" -- a term used to describe non-ideologues who provide assistance to the bad guys because it has suddenly become the popular thing to do.
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| Cancelled Flights |
Anyway, as we checked our flight leaving Santiago, it became obvious that many flights had been cancelled and we began to worry about our flight to Patagonia. We had no desire to spend another night in this city that was looking more and more like a war zone.
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| Santiago's Crowded Terminal |
This huge Santiago Airport was crowded with folks trying to get out of town, and many found their flights cancelled. Over 200 domestic and international flights were cancelled by our LATAM airlines.
That's when Shenda took over for us. Being the expert traveler that she is, she found her way through the dense crowds to the boarding pass machines and found that our flight had somehow not been cancelled. Hooray! With great relief, we boarded our flight and could finally relax as we flew down the Andes mountains to Patagonia.
Interestingly, when President Pinera of Chile rescinded the four cent hike on the price of a Metro ticket, the rioting did not stop. The armed forces were mobilized and the local jails began to be filled with the rioters. Now the goals changed. If the President would resign, maybe they would stop rioting. Chile, which has been a model of stability and prosperity in Latin America, now appears to have a shaky future. The modern Communist Che Guevara is out there somewhere and destined to turn a march into a full scale revolution. So sad!
