Police clash with protesters in Chile
Santiago, Mar 29 (EFE).- Chilean police arrested 36 people Wednesday during protests on the Day of the Young Combatant, which commemorates the 1985 murder of two militants by agents of the Pinochet dictatorship.
The largest demonstration took place here in the capital, where a crowd comprising mainly high school students marched down La Alameda, the main thoroughfare, erecting barricades and hurling Molotov cocktails at police.
Some protesters attacked a news crew from Mega television.
Three people were detained in Santiago for possession of materials to make incendiary devices, while 30 others face charges of disorderly conduct.
Arrests also took place in the Santiago suburb of San Bernardo and in the southern city of Concepcion.
The nearly 2,400 police deployed in the Santiago Metropolitan Region used water cannon to disperse protesters.
After meeting with the command of the Carabineros – Chile’s militarized national police – and prosecutors, President Gabriel Boric’s delegate to the Metropolitan Region identified 120 locations as requiring special police vigilance.
The hot spots were designated based on experience from previous Young Combatant mobilizations, delegate Constanza Martinez told the media.
The Day of the Young Combatant commemorates the deaths of brothers Rafael and Eduardo Vergara Toledo, leftist militants killed by the security forces on March 29, 1985, in the Santiago neighborhood of Villa Francia during a protest against the late Gen. Augusto Pinochet’s 1973-1990 military dictatorship.
Violence is not unknown at demonstrations marking the occasion and merchants in some areas of Santiago tend to close early on March 29.
EFE
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