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Editor's Note: Pedro Brieger is an Argentine journalist and sociologist, author of more than seven books and collaborator in publications on international issues. He currently serves as director of NODAL, a portal dedicated exclusively to news from Latin America and the Caribbean. He collaborated with different national media such as Clarín, El Cronista, La Nación, Página / 12, Perfil and for magazines such as Noticias, Somos, Le Monde Diplomatique and Panorama. Throughout his career Brieger won important awards for his informative work on Argentine radio and television. The opinions expressed in this column are exclusive to the author.
(CNN Spanish) - This March 11, 2020, Chile commemorated 30 years in a row of democracy after almost 17 of the dictatorship commanded by General Augusto Pinochet, who led the coup d'etat of September 11, 1973.
On the streets of Santiago and in other cities throughout the country, what prevailed least was a climate of democratic celebration.
Paradoxically, there were tanks throwing water and tear gas at protesters calling for the resignation of President Sebastián Piñera and the deepening of democracy. Through the plebiscite on April 26, they propose that a Constitutional Convention draft a new Magna Carta. It is not very common for a country to commemorate the democratic return with tanks in the streets.
Surely the day Piñera decided to launch his candidacy to be elected president of Chile for the second time, he thought that his new term would not be much different from the first, between 2010 and 2014. Except for the 2011 student protests, those were four years of relative tranquility , with Chile presented as a "model" of economic success and without major turbulence like those experienced by several of its neighboring countries.
Piñera took office again on March 11, 2018 and was heading to close 2019 with two major international events that would serve to show that - in his own words - "Chile was an oasis" in a troubled Latin America.
But on October 18, 2019, surprisingly, everything exploded into the air. Thousands of people took to the streets to question the "model", demand profound changes and repeal the Constitution drafted during the dictatorship. With much pain, Piñera made the decision to suspend the scheduled United Nations Conference on Climate Change and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum, which justly damaged Chile's image as an "oasis" of stability.
This March 11, the president spoke at the Palacio de La Moneda and acknowledged that on October 18, 2019, “a powerful citizen demand arose to move forward with greater intensity and a sense of urgency towards a fairer, more inclusive society, with greater equity and with less abuse and privileges ”. These words sounded very different from those he uttered on October 20, when he assured that "we are at war against a powerful, implacable enemy." Finally, he had to admit that the demands expressed on the streets were legitimate.
Chile is no longer the country that Pinochet left on March 11, 1990, but neither is it the country that Sebastián Piñera would want to leave.