Former President Tries to Turn the Tables on Powerful Bolivian Leader

John Otis. Wall Street Journal. October 28, 2019

LA PAZ, Bolivia—The politician leading the opposition against Bolivian President Evo Morales is well-schooled in the power of protest.

Carlos Mesa himself was forced to resign as president in the face of protests in 2005. That time, the one leading the marchers in the streets was Mr. Morales, who was elected in a landslide six months later.

“It was a very educational experience,” Mr. Mesa said.

Now he is attempting to use similar street tactics and international pressure to force Mr. Morales, one of the longest serving leaders in Latin America and a fierce critic of U.S. policy, to face him in a December runoff. The incumbent is claiming he won a fourth term in the first round of voting on Oct. 20, though electoral monitors say the process was shot through with irregularities.

Mr. Mesa has a steep hill to climb. The ruling party, Movement Toward Socialism, controls all branches of government, including the Supreme Electoral Tribunal, which counted the votes.

Pressure from Washington, Europe and the Organization of American States has made little difference in Venezuela, Nicaragua and Honduras where presidents have clung to power through fraud-marred balloting, said Eduardo Gamarra, an expert on Latin American elections at Florida International University.

“Where there has been fraud, the outcomes are always basically frozen,” he said.

Tall and bespectacled, Mr. Mesa, a 66-year-old historian who has written books on everything from Bolivian cinema to soccer, seems more at ease behind a desk than on a stage whipping up crowds.

“He’s more a man of letters than a politician,” Gonzalo Mendieta, a lawyer and newspaper columnist in La Paz, said of Mr. Mesa.

Mr. Morales, by contrast, grew up herding llamas in the Andes mountains. He was an outspoken union leader before jumping into politics. An Aymara Indian in a nation with a huge indigenous population, Mr. Morales says that white, upper-class politicians like Mr. Mesa have misruled Bolivia for centuries.

Mr. Mesa was elected vice president in 2002 but broke with then-President Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada after he ordered a deadly crackdown on protests led, in part, by Mr. Morales. When the president resigned in October 2003, Mr. Mesa was sworn in as head of state.

Mr. Morales continued to organize strikes to demand the nationalization of Bolivia’s natural-gas industry. Unwilling to use force to break them up and with the country paralyzed, Mr. Mesa announced after just 18 months in office that he, too, was stepping down.

“This is as far as I can go,” he said in his resignation speech.

Ironically, it was Mr. Morales who resuscitated Mr. Mesa’s political career.

In 2015 he asked Mr. Mesa to represent Bolivia in a case before the International Court of Justice. In a dispute dating back to the 19th century, landlocked Bolivia wanted neighboring Chile to grant it access to the Pacific Ocean. Bolivia lost the case, but Mr. Mesa’s arguments were seen as passionate and patriotic.

That caught the attention of Bolivia’s opposition, which had lost at least three straight elections to Mr. Morales. Mr. Mesa was recruited to run against him.

At first “he didn’t want to be a candidate and would wake up at night sweating” over the decision, said Diego Ayo, who briefly served as Mr. Mesa’s spokesman.

Once he launched his campaign, Mr. Mesa faced new challenges. The Morales government, which controls many TV and radio stations, saturated the airwaves with campaign ads and vastly outspent Mr. Mesa’s bootstrap operation, according to Mr. Ayo.

The opposition failed to unite behind Mr. Mesa, with the most radical sectors chastising him for assisting the Morales government in the case against Chile. As a result, Mr. Mesa was just one among eight opposition candidates on the ballot. Some who voted for him did so with little enthusiasm.

“It was more about stopping Morales,” said Iván Arias, a community organizer in La Paz, who cast his ballot for Mr. Mesa.

Still, early returns as well as an independent quick count indicated he would receive enough votes to force a runoff against Mr. Morales. That is when the Supreme Electoral Tribunal suddenly stopped publishing results for nearly 24 hours.

When the vote-counting resumed, the president’s lead gradually increased to 10 percentage points, the amount needed for outright victory. OAS observers questioned this sudden shift in the voting trend and recommended that the winner be decided in a runoff.

Since then, Mr. Mesa has grown more impassioned—and indignant. Flanked by more than a dozen opposition figures in front of a large Bolivian flag, a frowning Mr. Mesa on Thursday declared: “The ruling party has carried out massive electoral fraud. But we will not allow them to mock the will of the people.”

For his part, the president claimed a clean victory and accused Mr. Mesa of trying to steal it.

“We all knew he was a coward, but now it turns out that he’s also a delinquent,” Mr. Morales told reporters.

On Friday, for the fifth-straight day, thousands of Bolivians heeded Mr. Mesa’s call to take over the streets of La Paz and other cities. One of the protesters, political consultant Krupskaya Oña, said Mr. Mesa has finally risen to the challenge of leading the movement.

“He used to be bookish and timid,” she said. “But now he’s icon of democracy because he’s the only one left who can challenge Evo Morales. ”

Bolivian opposition candidate invited to vote audit: government

Vivian Sequera, Daniel Ramos. Reuters. October 28, 2019

LA PAZ (Reuters) - Bolivian opposition candidate Carlos Mesa is invited to participate in an audit of votes cast in the recent presidential election, Vice President Alvaro Garcia said on Tuesday, as protesters prepared for another day of street blockades.

Bolivia has been convulsed by protests since Oct. 20, when its Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) abruptly suspended publication of results from an electronic count that eventually gave President Evo Morales a fourth term, leading to accusations of fraud from Mesa and his supporters.

Morales, who has been in office nearly 14 years and is Latin America’s longest-serving leader, has said the Organization of American States (OAS) will audit the election and that he will go to a second round if irregularities are found.

The TSE and Morales, 60, both deny any election fraud.

“We, in the most transparent and secure way, confident in the sovereignty of the people, have invited an international audit,” Garcia told reporters in the early morning.

“We have called on the OAS and brother countries so they can clear up any doubt with respect to the malicious campaign of the losing candidate, who refuses to accept the decision of the Bolivian people,” Garcia said.

“We want to ask Carlos Mesa, the losing candidate, to join the audit,” he added. “We await a speedy and affirmative response.”

Mesa, who has said he is confronting authoritarianism and will either end up in prison or the presidency, did not immediately respond to Garcia’s invitation.

In middle-class southern La Paz, opposition protesters were preparing street barricades of rope, wooden boards and sheets of metal.

Five protesters were injured by gunshots on Monday in the industrial city of Santa Cruz. The police have said they are investigating the incident.

Vote for mayor of Bogota breaks a Colombian ‘glass ceiling’

CHRISTINE ARMARIO. AP. October 28, 2019

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — Months before her history-making election, Claudia López was butting heads with a local television anchor over his description of her character.

“You talk sometimes like you’re arguing,” he quipped on a live segment.

“Don’t come at me with that condescending chauvinism,” she shot back.

Now the 49-year-old politician with a doctorate from Northwestern University in Chicago will take her decades-long fight against corruption and inequality to the big stage as the first elected female mayor of Colombia’s largest city.

The analyst-turned-politician’s victory is being hailed as an important advancement in a nation where women made up just over 10 percent of all candidates aspiring to become mayors or governors in Sunday’s regional elections.

“This is a small step for me,” she said before a cheering crowd after her triumph. “But for Colombian women this is a huge step forward.”

Though her headline-making achievement is how many in Latin America will begin to know her, López has been making waves in Colombia for years, starting from her days as an analyst shedding light on corruption in the highest echelons to power. In her personal life, she’s been equally upfront and transparent, sharing a passionate kiss with her partner Sunday as the election results came in that has gone viral on social media.

The daughter of a schoolteacher will also become the first openly lesbian mayor of a capital city in Latin America, a region slowly advancing in improving LGBT rights but where long-standing cultural biases and inequality remain barriers.

“It’s a good signal that we’re sending from Bogota to the rest of the nation and Latin America,” said Jorge Gallego, a professor at Colombia’s Rosario University.

The eldest of six children, López likes to remind voters that unlike plenty of Colombian politicians, she bears no famous last name or inherited riches. Through scholarships and loans, she worked her way through college, first studying to become a doctor before discovering a passion for public service.

As a researcher at the Corporación Nuevo Arco Iris, or New Rainbow Corporation, and a non-profit electoral observation mission, López investigated voting abnormalities that led to the uncovering of the so-called para-politics scandal linking scores of high-profile politicians to violent far-right militias.

López’s work was among the pieces of evidence the Supreme Court cited in eventually bringing charges against numerous politicians, a feat that brought her both acclaim and death threats, forcing her on at least one occasion to abruptly leave the country.

Renata Segura, a longtime friend and fellow researcher, recalled how López handled the dangers of her work in stride, even finding humor in it.

“She has done all of this at a very high personal cost,” Segura said. “But I never sensed doubt about continuing the investigation or withdrawing from politics.”

In 2009, she was fired from her job as a columnist at El Tiempo after criticizing the paper’s coverage of a government loan program scandal, in what supporters characterize as one more example of her fearlessness in holding the powerful accountable.

Her critics - among them former president Álvaro Uribe - say that she has at times crossed the boundary between free speech and slander.

“Claudia has maintained a critical stance against certain powerful sectors,” said Patricia Muñoz Yi, a professor at the Pontifical Xavieran University in Bogota. “For some that position has exceeded the limits of dialogue. For others, it’s the reflection of an independent personality.”

Throughout her career, López seldom made LGBT or women’s rights her sole or main issue, focusing instead on a wider array of topics from improving public education and transportation to leading the charge against corruption.

But those issues have inevitably come up both in politics and her day-to-day life.

When López became a senator in 2014, Segura recalled how one fellow legislator took to dismissively calling her “Señor Lopez” - or Mr. Lopez - a phrase that can still be found in homophobic posts criticizing her on social media.

“I think Congress was really difficult for her, having to go there every day and face those people who were really so openly aggressive and unwilling to work with her in any way,” Segura said.

But her victory Sunday may be a sign that those attitudes are slowly changing.

“The great majority of Bogotanos finally said, ‘We don’t care,’” said Antonio Navarro Wolff, a fellow Green Alliance politician who supported López’s bid for mayor.

López will have her work cut out for her: She won with about 35 percent of the vote, far less than a majority, meaning she will need to work to unite disparate political sectors and gain the backing of a wider segment of the population.

“That’s not going to be anything easy,” Gallego said.

Several voters who cast ballots for López said Monday they believe she has the best shot at delivering on issues like improving the city’s deteriorating public education system and fulfilling longstanding promises to bring a metro to Bogota.

“Claudia said she’s going to change this city,” said Luis Ramirez, 35, a guard at a private business. “Hopefully she does.”

‘This charge is 100% false’: Grayzone editor Max Blumenthal arrested months after reporting on Venezuelan opposition violence

Ben Norton. Grayzone. October 28, 2019

Max Blumenthal, the editor of the news site The Grayzone, was arrested on the morning of October 25 on a fabricated charge related to the siege of the Venezuelan embassy in Washington, DC that took place between April and May.

A team of DC police officers appeared at Blumenthal’s door at just after 9 AM, demanding entry and threatening to break his door down. A number of officers had taken positions on the side of his home as though they were prepared for a SWAT-style raid.

Blumenthal was hauled into a police van and ultimately taken to DC central jail, where he was held for two days in various cells and cages. He was shackled by his hands and ankles for over five hours in one such cage along with other inmates. His request for a phone call was denied by DC police and corrections officers, effectively denying him access to the outside world.

Blumenthal was informed that he was accused of simple assault by a Venezuelan opposition member. He declared the charge completely baseless.

“This charge is a 100 percent false, fabricated, bogus, untrue, and malicious lie,” Blumenthal declared. “It is clearly part of a campaign of political persecution designed to silence me and the The Grayzone for our factual journalism exposing the deceptions, corruption and violence of the far-right Venezuelan opposition.”

The arrest warrant was five months old. According to an individual familiar with the case, the warrant for Blumenthal’s arrest was initially rejected. Strangely, this false charge was revived months later without the defendant’s knowledge.

“If the government had at least told me I had a warrant I could have voluntarily surrendered and appeared at my own arraignment. I have nothing to fear because I’m completely innocent of this bogus charge,” Blumenthal stated. “Instead, the federal government essentially enlisted the DC police to SWAT me, ensuring that I would be subjected to an early morning raid and then languish in prison for days without even the ability to call an attorney.”

Background to the embassy siege
In April and May, Washington-backed Venezuelan coup leaders began taking over properties in the United States that belong to the internationally recognized government of Venezuela’s democratically elected President Nicolás Maduro, in violation of international law.

A group of activists responded by keeping a vigil inside the Venezuelan embassy in Washington, DC, in order to protect it from an illegal seizure by the US-supported coup leaders. The activists formed what they called the Embassy Protection Collective. The internationally recognized Venezuelan government gave them permission to stay in its embassy, which is its own sovereign territory under international law.

In response, hordes of violent right-wing activists who support the Venezuelan opposition launched a de facto 24/7 siege of the embassy, preventing people, food, and supplies from entering the building.

The Grayzone reporter Anya Parampil and Alex Rubinstein, a contributor to The Grayzone, were embedded in the embassy with several peace activists.

Parampil and journalists including Blumenthal documented the right-wing mobs lashing out with racist and sexist invective as well as violence at Venezuelan solidarity activists who gathered outside the embassy to show support for the protectors.

‘This ginned up claim… is simply false’
Court documents indicate the false charge of simple assault stems from Blumenthal’s participation in a delivery of food and sanitary supplies to peace activists and journalists inside the Venezuelan embassy on May 8, 2019.

The charge was manufactured by a Venezuelan opposition member who was among those laying siege to the embassy in a sustained bid to starve out the activists inside.

“I was not party to any violent actions around the Venezuelan embassy,” Blumenthal reiterated. “This ginned up claim of simple assault is simply false.”

According to court documents, Ben Rubinstein, the brother of journalist Alex Rubinstein, also participated in the non-violent and legal food delivery. Rubinstein was arrested over 12 hours later after the food delivery by Secret Service police officers.

He spent 20 hours in jail, alongside Gerry Condon, president of Veterans for Peace, who was arrested after being brutalized by Secret Service officers for attempting to toss a cucumber inside an embassy window.

“The opposition members made up these lies about Max and I know they’re lying, and they are obviously using the government and police as tools to get revenge,” Ben Rubinstein told The Grayzone.

Retaliation for The Grayzone’s reporting on the violent Venezuelan opposition
Max Blumenthal reported extensively from outside the Venezuelan embassy in May. He filed a story explaining how “the pro-coup mob outside turned violent, physically assaulting embassy protectors, and hurling racist, sexist and homophobic abuse at others.”

Blumenthal documented an opposition activist breaking into and subsequently vandalizing the embassy, in violation of international law. He also reported on opposition members destroying the embassy’s security cameras, while the authorities stood idly by.

The Venezuelan coup regime’s supposed ambassador to the United States, Carlos Vecchio, who is not recognized by the United Nations and the vast majority of the international community, helped to lead this aggressive mob as it besieged the embassy.

The Grayzone’s Anya Parampil exposed Vecchio to be a former lawyer for the oil corporation Exxon. The Grayzone has documented his close links to the US government, and has reported at length on accusations of corruption. Vecchio was a regular presence outside the DC embassy, appearing with his gaggle to stage manage the situation.

The Grayzone has also published numerous exposés on Venezuelan coup leader Juan Guaidó, who was selected by the US government to be the so-called “interim president” in Caracas, detailing his extensive ties to Washington and his notorious corruption.

Blumenthal was arrested literally hours after The Grayzone published an article on USAID paying the salaries of Guaidó’s team as they lobbied the US government.

“I am firmly convinced that this case is part of a wider campaign of political persecution using the legal system to shut down our factual investigative journalism about the coup against Venezuela and the wider policy of economic warfare and regime change waged by the Trump administration,” Blumenthal stated.

If this had happened to a journalist in Venezuela, every Western human rights NGO and news wire would be howling about Maduro’s authoritarianism. It will be revealing to see how these same elements react to a clear-cut case of political repression in their own backyard.

Venezuelan state imports surge despite sanctions, central bank data show

Reuters. October 29, 2019

CARACAS, Oct 29 (Reuters) - Venezuela’s public-sector imports, which include subsidized food for the poor, surged in the first quarter of this year despite U.S. sanctions that President Nicolas Maduro describes as a full blockade, a recent release of central bank data shows.

Government-linked entities handle the bulk of international trade in the crisis-stricken socialist country, and both imports and exports have declined dramatically since 2014, when a drop in oil prices sent the OPEC nation’s economy into a tailspin marked by hyperinflation and shortages of food and medicine.

But in the first three months of 2019, non-oil, public-sector imports rose to $955 million, up 16.5% from the same period last year and the highest quarterly figure since 2017, according to the data released earlier this month by the central bank, which does not regularly publish economic figures.

To be sure, that does not suggest the South American country’s humanitarian crisis - which has prompted some 4.5 million people to flee since 2015 - is coming to an end. The same data showed the economy contracted 26.8% year-on-year in the first quarter, and inflation hit 52.2% in September.

Still, the rise came as Washington sanctioned state oil company PDVSA - whose crude exports provide the bulk of the government’s foreign exchange - as part of its effort to oust Maduro, who is accused of corruption and rights violations. Maduro blames the sanctions for Venezuela’s economic problems.

“Every time there’s a new sanction, they look for a way to get around it,” said economist Asdrubal Oliveros, director of the Caracas-based Ecoanalitica consultancy.

The central bank data did not show where the additional imports came from, but figures from import-export database Import Genius show goods like flour, tuna and beans have arrived from Mexico and as far afield as Turkey and China, two of Maduro’s diplomatic allies.

The import increase was partly financed by a 155% gain in public sector non-oil exports to $2.3 billion, by far the largest in a central bank series going back to 1997. The surge came as the central bank sold off gold reserves, largely to Turkish buyers, to generate cash for the government.

“The government got around the sanctions with its allies,” Oliveros said.

That still paled in comparison to the $6.1 billion in public sector oil exports, the lowest level since 2003.

Private sector imports fell 25% to $498 million, in line with the overall economic contraction.

The Reality in Chile

Andrew Conca-Cheng. NACLA. October 25, 2019

Last Friday night, in response to widespread protests, tanks rolled down the streets of Santiago, Chile, a country that is widely described as the strongest democracy and most developed economy in Latin America. Even for Chileans paying attention to decades of protests, the broad national eruption of the people’s dissatisfaction was unexpected.

The conflict started in Santiago earlier last week with peaceful protests in metro stations against an increase in transportation fares. For a person making minimum wage, a week’s worth of transportation to and from work and necessary travel on the weekend would cost about 21 percent of their salary.

But the protests are not just about the rise in fares, which has been called the “drop that overflowed the cup.” The added expense to an already impossible cost of living pushed citizens’ frustration over the edge. Workers, students, feminists, anti-fascists, and Indigenous activists, among others, have spent decades fighting for justice. The protests are about extreme inequality, inefficient and unjust healthcare systems, increased electricity prices, privatized water, assassinations of environmental, workers' rights and Indigenous activists, unequal education, and a privatized failing pension system left over from the dictatorship—most retired teachers are receiving less than $300 a month causing many to continue working into their 80s.

The protests—which included marches, evading metro fares, performances, and barricading streets—were met with an increasingly violent response from the state, including teargas, pellet guns and rubber bullets, violent arrests, and beatings.

At Santiago’s Estación Central metro station, a woman was shot with a pellet gun and was hospitalized with serious injuries, leading to an angrier and more energized response from protesters. Protesters began setting fire to metro stations, increasingly frustrated with the state for not hearing their concerns or opening dialogue.

As protests continued on Friday night, President Sebastian Piñera, who has been accused of dodging millions of dollars in taxes over 30 years, called a state of emergency, sending the military to the streets of Santiago.

For Chileans, seeing the military in the streets draws eerie parallels to the 1973 coup, which led to a 17-year dictatorship under which tens of thousands were killed, disappeared, and tortured.

"How come when you want to protect the citizens, you send to the streets the same institution that never told us where they threw the bodies?” tweeted Chilean author Daniel Villalobos on Friday.

Additionally, the general that Piñera put in charge of the state of emergency is the son of a general who, during the dictatorship, was responsible for torturing thousands in Colonia Dignidad, a torture center linked to Nazis.

This is the first curfew in Chile since the dictatorship ended nearly three decades ago.This response solved nothing, and violence escalated. On Saturday, the state of emergency spread to other major cities, and Piñera announced a curfew starting at 10 PM. This is the first curfew in Chile since the dictatorship ended nearly three decades ago.

For many, the curfew and military presence are not the only reminders of the dictatorship. The violence and human rights violations have reached shocking levels, exceeding that of all conflicts since the end of the dictatorship. The police and the military have been documented beating children, running over protesters, shooting to kill with live ammunition, dropping teargas canisters from helicopters, entering people's homes, and starting fires to worsen the protest’s image.

Police and military, dressed as civilians and without identification, have arrested individuals without reason and forced them into private cars, sometimes in trunks. Some state forces even forced protesters to do jumping-jacks and pushups to avoid being beaten. Military forces were also documented forcing captives and accused looters to strip naked in the streets before being beaten. On Wednesday, Chile’s National Human Rights Institute began investigating the use of metro station Baquedano as a center for torture. Blood and ropes were found on the scene.

On social media, hundreds if not thousands of injuries have been reported. Many people have been reported missing. At least 18 people have died and more deaths are expected as the violence continues.

Pundits, local politicians, and citizens have criticized Piñera for not opening dialogue. The president, whose term is until 2022, has opted instead to declare martial law and further polarize the country by stating “we are at war.” He has branded the protesters “a powerful enemy [...] that is willing to use violence and delinquency without any limits.”

Buildings are on fire, tanks are in the streets, water is shut off in neighborhoods across the country, streets are barricaded, and most of Santiago’s metro remains closed with only sections of one out of six lines running. A common sentiment has been that Chile and its people “awoke,” as more protesters of all social classes joined the movement to show Piñera they are not at war. Starting Friday night, sounds of “cacerolazos”—a traditional Pinochet-era form of protest that involves drumming pots and pans from the safety of one’s home to avoid repression in the streets—rang throughout Santiago.

As the country continues towards an increasingly uncertain future, the people of Chile are calling for reform, a social revolution, and an end to the Piñera regime.

Andrew Conca-Cheng is a graduate from American University where he studied International Studies and Spanish with a focus on Human Rights and Development in Latin America. He previously lived in Santiago, Chile where he interned for Casa de la Paz, taught English in a public school in Cerro Navia, and worked on a photography project documenting feminist student protest. He is also a former intern at Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA). Andrew is currently working on youth development and empowerment in Central America.

Chile: protesters light bonfires and clash with police despite cabinet reshuffle

Jonathan Franklin. The Guardian. October 28, 2019

Fresh street battles and fires have broken out in downtown Santiago just hours after Chile’s embattled president, Sebastían Piñera, fired hardline members of his cabinet in an attempt to defuse the country’s biggest political crisis since the return to democracy in 1990.

Bands of protesters lit bonfires along the central Alameda Avenue and clashed with riot police as clouds of teargas and smoke engulfed the centre of the city. In cities ranging from Antofagasta and Copiapo in the desert north to Osorno and Valdivia in the south, looting, fires and mayhem broke out during the afternoon and evening. Videos of bands of youth looting trucks on the nation’s primary north-south route circulated on social media while in Santiago the wail of sirens carried into the night.

Earlier on Monday, Piñera announced that the interior minister, Andres Chadwick – an outspoken supporter of Augusto Pinochet during the 1973-1990 regime – would be replaced by Gonzalo Blumel, a young lawyer. Blumel immediately declared that “something has broken in our country” and called for a nationwide dialogue to heal the deep divisions.

The finance minister Felipe Larrain was replaced by Ignacio Briones, an economics professor.

“These have been very difficult days. We have lived between pain and hope,” said Piñera, whose approval ratings are nearing single digits. “Chile changed and the government also has to change to confront these new times and new challenges.”

But after more than a week of often violent unrest over economic inequality, few expected that the reshuffle would end the upheaval: even as the president spoke, fumes from tear gas rolled into courtyards of the presidential palace, as protesters outside called for Piñera to resign.

“More than a change of faces, we need a change of politics. The government ought to proceed with an ambitious social agenda that takes charge of the citizen’s demands,” said Alvaro Elizalde, the president of the Socialist party.

Fresh demonstrations have already been called for Tuesday, but in addition to public fury, Piñera now faces efforts by opposition lawmakers to charge him for violating the constitution and permitting human rights violations during the street protests which have left least 17 dead, and led to the arrest of more than 7,000 people.

On Monday, Piñera deplored the loss of lives and welcomed the arrival of a UN human rights team to Chile. “We have nothing to hide,” he said.

The new interior minister Blumel repeatedly welcomed human rights investigations, and also reached out to the hundreds of thousands of immigrants recently settled in Chile – in dramatic contrast from the hardline authoritarian rhetoric of his predecessor Chadwick.

Social media streams have been full of images of security forces beating protesters after Piñera declared a state of emergency and deployed the army last week. Human rights groups on Monday demonstrated outside the supreme court and demanded stricter limits to the crowd control tactics used by security forces which thus far have led to more than 1,000 Chileans injured and more than 100 partially blinded after being shot in the eye.

Heraldo Munoz, the president of the progressive PPD party called on the new interior minister to investigate abuse allegations. “We hope to see an openness and real changes, not just staged scenes with applause,” he said.

In an open letter published on Monday, 150 Chilean law professors condemned serious human rights violations across the country.

“We demand that the right of protesters be respected,” said the letter, which called for “an active and responsible dialogue, in good faith, to create pathways to solutions”.

Police commanders have noted that hundreds of police officers were also injured – including those burned by Molotov cocktails thrown by protesters. Outnumbered officers have been unable to stop mass looting and vandalism which has left more than 100 supermarkets in ruins, alongside numerous subway stations, pharmacies and banks.

Despite the widespread fury with Piñera, Chile’s progressive opposition has failed to harvest political capital from the crisis, said Pablo Zeballos, the founder of iTask consulting, a Latin American risk analysis firm with headquarters in Chile.

“For the people who are marching, the entire political class from right to left is guilty. They are seen as the ones with all the privileges. Thus, they are invalid,” he said.

“The challenge for the government will be to maintain ‘normalcy’ in the next few days, to advance with a new social contract and a political solution,” said Zeballos. “These massive marches create a unification of those who feel rejected and the time to find a political solution is closing.”