Protest against the Michelle Bachelet "capitalist approved socialist regime" in Chile have been underway for weeks now. The focus being the proposed educational system reforms which will effect mostly secondary level students.
Those same students have started to take to the streets, where indeed their future leadership will meet. As has been noted and made apparant, we may no longer look to the recruitment human resources of corporations or even the three dismal university faculties of law, economics and journalism for the qualities which are required to bring our planetary inter-connected peoples to a sustainable and just future.
And during today's nation wide stoppage of all secondary schools these teenagers found themselves facing tear gas, water cannon and brutal police repression. None of them can remember Pinochet.
They're learning...
chile has 3 indymedia centres, because its a very long country :-
http://valparaiso.indymedia.org/
photos
marches
http://valparaiso.indymedia.org/news/2006/05/7464.php
police brutality
http://valparaiso.indymedia.org/news/2006/05/7449.php
at Santiago imc there are many links to articles and photos in the central column under the title "PARO NACIONAL DE SECUNDARIOS
MARTES 30 DE MAYO" = national stoppage of secondary schools 30/5/06
http://santiago.indymedia.org/news/2006/05/49379.php
commercial / state coverage english text.
http://www2.swissinfo.org/sen/swissinfo.html?siteSect=1...33000
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/5032012.stm
For her part, Michelle Bachelet the president of the state, (which is in certain terms the most economically sound and richest on the continent) has condemned the chief of police for the brutality seen today. & appeared to ally herself with their demands.
http://actualidad.terra.es/articulo/bachelet_legitima_d...8.htm
http://www2.eluniversal.com.mx/pls/impreso/noticia.html...notas
We may like to compare & contrast these incidents and campaigns with that of French young people earlier this year protesting precarity, or the French nihilism which saw in the last days the highest number of cars burnt since the autumn of 2005. But that's another story..........
last article on Chile which focussed on the popular landslide election & nature of Michelle Bachelet :-
http://indymedia.ie/article/73802