September 11th Riots in Santiago

On September 11th, 1973, General Pinochet launched a coup, with backing from the US, and took over the government of Chile. Twenty years ago, in 1990, the military dictatorship transitioned peacefully to a democracy, in which much of the old guard remained in power, and none of the neoliberal economic changes forced through by US-trained economists under the dictatorship were reversed.

Every year on September 11th, people again take to the streets throughout Chile to show that the struggle against capitalism has not ended. During the day, in Santiago, there is a march from the city center to the cemetery, where many victims of the Pinochet regime are buried, and at night many of the poblaciones, the peripheral urban ghettos which were major sites of struggle during and after the dictatorship, throw up barricades and riot. In past years, police stations have been attacked, and both police and people have been killed.

This year’s march convened at 10 in the morning. Thousands of people were gathered behind a multitude of banners. Hundreds carried red flags with the initials of various communist parties, including the FPMR, a Marxist guerrilla group that engaged in armed struggle against the Pinochet regime. Many Mapuche flags and banners were also present, whereas the anarchists seemed at first to have a smaller presence this year, due to the heavy wave of repression that has been directed against insurrectionary anarchists and that culminated in a wave of raids and arrests on August 14.

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