Security & Strategic Review August 2011 (ISSN 1741-4202)

CHILE | Pause in wave of unrest. Protests by students demanding an end to for-profit education, which began in May, did not cease when President Sebastián Piñera replaced Education Minister Joaquín Lavín (as part of a broader cabinet reshuffle) in mid-July. Instead, they escalated in August, with a series of demonstrations, some of them held in defiance of bans, that attracted hundreds of thousands of participants. The presence of hooded agitators who engaged in looting, the torching of vehicles and attacks on the police and public buildings resulted in harsher police repression than would otherwise have been the case. This in turn led members of the middle classes to take to the streets banging pots and pans in support of the protesters.

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