50,000 protest neoliberalism in Chile. posted by Richard Seymour

From the Santiago Times :

Santiaguinos returned to work today after three days of mass protests and violence in the Chilean capital that saw 189 arrests and numerous injuries.

On Friday, hours before some of the world’s most powerful leaders – including U.S. President George W. Bush, Russia’s Vladimir Putin and Hu Jintao of China – arrived for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit, 50,000 people took to the streets for a march organized by the Chilean Social Forum under the slogans “another world is possible” and “Santiago is ours.”

The protesters walked along a predetermined route lined with Carabineros from Parque Almagro to a rally in Parque Bustamante.

The march turned violent when a small group of protesters began to throw rocks and glass bottles at police. Organizers called for calm but, as the park filled with gas from helicopters, marchers fled onto the surrounding streets and into Plaza Italia, where masked demonstrators threw Molotov cocktails, smashed shop fronts and tore up benches, and police in riot gear responded with water cannon and baton charges.

...

Muslim marchers protested the Russian presence in Chechnya and called for an independent Palestine.

Abdul Gafari, a Chilean Muslim, told The Santiago Times, “We are here against the terrorists Bush and Putin. We don’t want to see more Muslims killed – not just Muslims, all the innocent people who are being killed. The powerful can just do what they like, that’s the problem.”

At 500,000, the Palestinian community in Chile is the largest outside the Middle East.

Behind the Muslim group marched a contingent of Franciscan monks.

“We are here to protest the dehumanization that goes hand-in-hand with globalization … to promote the value of the human being,” said Brother Julio.

Further protests, peaceful and otherwise, took place throughout the city. A series of events organized by the Chilean Social Forum explored the alternatives to neoliberalism; outside the Espacio Riesco center, where APEC delegates convened Saturday, a group of Falun Dafa practitioners denounced human rights abuses in China and what they describe as the persecution of their fellow practitioners by the Chinese military.

Inside the conference centers, the voices of dissent were few.

Peruvian economist and development expert Hernando de Soto told a meeting of businessmen that 65 percent of the 21 APEC economies’ populations are excluded from the benefits of globalization, giving the lie to the “trickle down” theory of free trade economics.

“Of the 2,600 million people in the APEC countries, 1,700 million have not managed to join the international market and are not globalized. It doesn’t matter how much talk there is about the World Trade Organization and the Doha Round Table … We’re talking about two thirds of the population – as much as 80 percent in some countries. This is the problem,” De Soto said.

Despite the violent end to its march, the Chilean Social Forum will continue its work, said Luis Sepúlveda, the Chilean writer and one of the Forum’s leaders

Asked whether a mass demonstration could influence the APEC leaders, Sepúlveda was not optimistic. He told The Santiago Times:

“This won’t change anything. It’s the political climate in Chile that has to change. The people marching are calling for the country to take a different route, for leaders to take them into account when taking the big decisions. Chileans want a Latin American vocation, and the majority wants to see better relations with the other countries of the region before free marketeering with the economic superpowers.

“We will carry on our work after today. This is a process that will shape the actions of the political class of tomorrow. All the young people who are here – they’re going to decide the future.”

Now, is it my imagination or does this 'small group of violent protesters' appear in just about every demonstration of this kind across the planet? And, in almost every case, doesn't it lead to the police attacking the demonstration and conducting mass arrests (usually unlawfully)? No matter, just imagine the sight: Franciscan Monks and Palestinian Muslims marching together for a cause that is global - no, universal.