"We want justice": Chilean protesters with police-caused eye injuries organize

[Judi Lynn]

November 29, 2019 Sandra Cuffe Americas, Story

Eliecer Flores has been out in the streets of Santiago protesting Chile’s political and economic model since day one. He had to take a break, though, after one of the pellet projectiles fired by police hit him in the right eye.

“My eyeball burst,” Flores, 30, told Toward Freedom. “I got to keep the eye, but not any vision.”

A father of a nine-month-old baby and proud stepdad of a 13-year-old, Flores is originally from Cañete, a city of 34,000 in the Biobio region, 400 miles south of the capital. Growing up in poverty, Flores witnessed injustice and theft by the government, he said.

“I always promised myself that if I had the chance to do something about it, I would,” he said.

Flores got his chance last month. Secondary students in Santiago engaged in mass fare evasion and other actions to protest a metro fare increase. Within 24 hours the whole country erupted in protests against inequality, education and health care privatizations, low pensions and wages, and the neoliberal model itself.

More:
https://towardfreedom.org/story/we-want-justice-chilean-protesters-with-police-caused-eye-injuries-organize/