Camila Vallejo – Latin America's 23-year-old new revolutionary folk hero
source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/oct/08/camila-vallejo-latin-america-revolutionary
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The government response has reminded many older Chileans of that same dark era. Three days ago, on Thursday, Chilean riot police ambushed Vallejo and a group of fellow student leaders just after a press conference in downtown Santiago. "They [police] targeted the leadership with violence," said Ariel Russell, a University of Chile student who witnessed the attack. "We had not even started the march and the police apparatus was upon us."
Vallejo, a 23-year-old geography student, was singing and marching with a handwritten sign when a squad of military vehicles closed in and attacked her with jets of tear gas. A pair of trucks mounted with water cannons unleashed a barrage of water fierce enough to break bones and scrape a person across the pavement. Vallejo was soaked, a cloud of tear gas was then blasted on to her body. With her skin wet, the chemical reaction was massive and incapacitating. Vallejo was paralysed. Her body went into an allergic reaction and welts from the gas erupted over it.
"At first, we resisted, but it was intolerable," she told the Observer. "You could not breathe, it was complicated, we had to run away from the carabineros [police] then another water cannon hit us in the face with a different chemical, this was much stronger … my whole body was burning, it was brutal."
Over the next four hours, journalists were beaten and 250 people arrested. Twenty-five police were injured as masked youths with paint bombs and handfuls of rocks counter-attacked. All Thursday afternoon, downtown Santiago was awash in running street fights between heavily armoured police units and hundreds of protesters decked in shorts and tennis shoes, with scarves to shield them from the gas.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/oct/08/camila-vallejo-latin-america-revolut...
Vallejo, a 23-year-old geography student, was singing and marching with a handwritten sign when a squad of military vehicles closed in and attacked her with jets of tear gas. A pair of trucks mounted with water cannons unleashed a barrage of water fierce enough to break bones and scrape a person across the pavement. Vallejo was soaked, a cloud of tear gas was then blasted on to her body. With her skin wet, the chemical reaction was massive and incapacitating. Vallejo was paralysed. Her body went into an allergic reaction and welts from the gas erupted over it.
"At first, we resisted, but it was intolerable," she told the Observer. "You could not breathe, it was complicated, we had to run away from the carabineros [police] then another water cannon hit us in the face with a different chemical, this was much stronger … my whole body was burning, it was brutal."
Over the next four hours, journalists were beaten and 250 people arrested. Twenty-five police were injured as masked youths with paint bombs and handfuls of rocks counter-attacked. All Thursday afternoon, downtown Santiago was awash in running street fights between heavily armoured police units and hundreds of protesters decked in shorts and tennis shoes, with scarves to shield them from the gas.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/oct/08/camila-vallejo-latin-america-revolut...
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ampersand
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Chileans and their children haven't forgotten how the US fostered an assassination of its elected President, and a repressive military coup that destroyed 100 years of democracy in Chile.
They will fight on this time and never again surrender to repression. - 8 months ago
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ampersand
