A Bullet to the Eye Is the Price of Protesting in Chile

My job is blind rehab. Purposely shooting protesters in the eye to blind them is an atrocity. Legal blindness is based on poor vision in both eyes. There is no such thing as "legally blind in one eye." However, people with only one functioning eye are far more likely to die from things like being hit by a car on the blind side. Blindness in one eye may cause debilitating problems such as lack of depth perception that impacts their ability to drive or walk safely. This is a grotesque violation off human rights.

I lived in Chile six years. I had retinal detachment surgery at Las Clínicas de las Condes, a private hospital from which the minister of health usually comes. There is no waiting. I had two retinologists trained in Canada do the surgery. I got to go to the private hospital because I had private health insurance. The doctors told me only 12 students per year are allowed into the training program. Those that work in the private hospital try to work as many hours as they can in the private hospitals where they earn ten times as much. Chile is so under the thumb that at the hospital you have to pay parking even in the emergency room. Fishermen is Chile about ten years ago paid bribes to politicians to gain hereditary rights to 95% of the fishing harvest, like dukes or nobility. You should write about Walgreens and CVS. One of them bought 1/3 of the drug market there. Drug prices are very high and there is collusion between labs and the sellers to keep generics off the shelf.

The interior minister's denial shows why people continue to protest.

I've always been perplexed with large segments of the middle class (petit bourgeois?) preoccupation with "law and order," including the "protection of property," and with their obsession with differentiating "peaceful" vs. "violent" protests. In a way, it is predictable that the dwindling middle class(es) may have concerns about whatever is left of their assets, and their retirement accounts, their retail business facade (for business owners) and glass windows; which is what makes it so depressing. At the end of the day it goes back to the bourgeois' preoccupation and focus on materialism. Neoliberalism (where Chile was born with a bang, pushed by the "Chicago Boys") is a especially brutal and depraved form of capitalism.  It inflicts indescribable violence on the citizenry.  At some point that daily, drip-drip-drip violence becomes intolerable and guess what, people react; and they react in many forms, including by protesting "peacefully" and "violently." I would argue that instead of focusing on whether protests (against the dehumanizing brutality of Neoliberalism) are "peaceful" or "violent," the real metric should be this: any time a people rise up against the ruling regime (class, government,etc.) whether peacefully or violently, it means said regime/government/ruling class failed. I think that's a better and more accurate focus.  So if you see violent protests, your first question should be: how and why the system failed.

Right out of the Pinochet book of "counterinsurgency"? Marked for easy future identification? Chile is another glaring example of the problem with "the people" being outgunned by "the state"--it is also yet another resistance movement that many of the NYT's stock readers support, while these same readers somehow continue to carry on about disarming America's poor, working, and minority populations...

Death is the price for protesting in Bolivia against the usurpers.

Holy, well good Photos those almost creeps me out

Police, almost universally in the world, are enemies of the people. Yes they only carry out orders from above in most cases, but they decide to follow immoral orders, and they abuse, beat, murder, rape, and steal on their own. Most cops are at war with civilians.

The political class has unfortunately failed Chile since the return of democracy. The continuing looting is hard to understand, but many Chileans, myself included don’t understand the pathetic low penalties handed out over the last ten years for corruption uncovered in business and in the police force. The demands of the protesters are fairly clear. Increase minimum wage, increase pensions, improve health services and improve educational opportunities and employment opportunities. These issues have been simmering for decades. The political class has not yet offered real solutions or offered any substantial leadership. They’re hoping that Christmas holidays will change the focus. Let’s wait and see. A new constitution will take years to write and adopt. Chileans want substantial change and an improvement in their quality of life now. An immediate reduction in politicians’ remuneration would go a long way to rebuilding trust in the political class.

Purposely shooting people in the eye is so clearly heinous that even omnipresent gangs of vandals looting and terrorizing with arson do NOT excuse such a horrific and inhumane policy. Protesters eyes should not be the target -primary or otherwise-of the state's response.

Chile prides itself for it's civility, but the not so distant horrors of Pinochet's dictatorship, and the continuation of his anti-democratic measures, including a mostly private education, and a persistent odious inequality,show otherwise. Pinhera is a plutocrat that has no business as leader of a country so deeply divided. The daily protests show the unhappiness of the people. And police abuse remains a disgrace,no matter how much the authorities try to disregard the evidence.

Blinding people by spraying rubber bullets is a heinous crime, whether in Chile or in Kashmir. But at least in Chile the president acknowledged the excesses of his police, but in Indian occupied Kashmir, where hundreds of school going children have been blinded by the Indian occupation forces, there is no apology, no remorse or regret. The Indian authorities have not only blinded the school going children but also taunt the civilians after these barbaric actions. Shame on the " biggest " sham democracy, India.

When I think I cannot be shocked, once again, by a human’s inhumanity to his or her fellow human, an article like this shocks me all over again. When one thinks crimes cannot go any lower, get any worse, some slimeball thinks up something more heinous than anything a normal human being, obviously a higher life form, couldn’t think up in a million years. And I am shocked once again. When will such insanity and cruelty stop?

I'd like to thank the NYT for its coverage to the atrocities being committed in Chile. Here there have been a series of outrageous violations of human rights by police and the military, which most of Chilean national media has concealed. Chile is OCDE's most unequal country and everything here is privatized, including water. Differences between poor and rich individuals are simply disturbing. Chilean people have fair demands and are protesting for basic social rights, such as a good public health care system, access to a quality public education system, better pensions and a more affordable life. Although there have been violent demonstrations, most occur in a peaceful manner, despite people being violently attacked with tear gas and bullet rubbers by police. Those claiming demonstrations here are all violent are plain wrong. The recent announcement of a constitutional referendum is a huge advance for Chilean society, but it will not stop people from demanding social justice and a more equitable country. This all shall end once a real social agenda is settled, president Piñera resign and those who committed human rights violations are judged.

There have been many instances of the violations of human rights here in Chile, from these grave eye wounds to outright murder by the military, and the reporting on that is very good. However, the biggest lacuna here is a faithful description of the protests. In Chile, along with the peaceful protesters march a band of young men, masked and ready for violent confrontation. Along the way, they burn whatever they can, tear down everything that they can, and loot whenever they have a chance. So while the vast majority of the protesters are peaceful, violence and arson follow in the wake of the march. Looting, arson, and destruction are now a daily part of Chilean life. The police are given an unsolvable dilemma: they must protect property from arson and looting, but they also have to let the march proceed peacefully. The masked "protesters", usually young men, take any chance they can to confront the police with rocks, slings, and Molotov cocktails, hardly the accoutrements of peaceful protesters. What is heartbreaking is that the government has agreed to completely re-write the Constitution, something remarkable and potentially exciting. But the violence continues, and toward what end? Toward what goal? It seems just for the sake of destruction. Just to be a young man and at "war". Just so these young men might be able to make out with a pretty girl at the party after its all over and the firemen are putting out the flames. It is a very sad time to be in Chile.

Rubber bullets are, unfortunately, still a common technique used by riot police. Chile is not an exception. They are often used in countries within EU. In recent years there have been several cases of people losing their eyes to rubber bullets in Catalonia, Spain.