Chileans Call for New Protests Even as Piñera Changes Cabinet

Monday, 28 October 2019 23:17

Chileans Call for New Protests Even as Piñera Changes Cabinet

Written by RHC

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Despite President Sebastián Piñera's cabinet reshuffle, Chileans angry at inequality called for more demonstrations this week in the biggest political crisis since the country's return to democracy in 1990.

Santiago de Chile.- President Piñera replaced eight cabinet members Monday including his interior and finance ministers, a house-cleaning aimed at taming the biggest political crisis since Chile's return to democracy in 1990.

Piñera sacked interior minister Andres Chadwick, his cousin and longtime confidant who came under fire last week for calling protesters "criminals." He replaced Chadwick, a right-wing politician, with Gonzalo Blumel, a presidency minister and liaison with the legislature.

Piñera also appointed Ignacio Briones, an economics professor, to replace finance minister Felipe Larrain.

"Chile has changed, and the government must change with it to confront these new challenges," Piñera said in a televised speech from the La Moneda presidential palace. However, protests in different cities around the country continued to take place with police deploying repression tactics of water cannon and tear gas.

Piñera, a billionaire businessman, has promised higher taxes on the rich to help boost the minimum wage and pensions, lower the prices of medicines and assure proper health insurance.

But a new Cadem poll found that 80 percent of Chileans did not find his proposals adequate. On social media, Chileans were calling for more protests over the coming week.

Support for Piñera has plunged to just 14 percent, the lowest approval rating for a Chilean president since the country's return to democracy three decades ago.

U.S. DIPLOMAT CLAIMS RUSSIA IS BEHIND CHILE'S POPULAR UPRISING

Washington.- A top U.S. diplomat with extensive experience in Latin America has made the surprising -and some observers say rather bizarre - claim that Russia is behind the massive anti-government protests in Chile.

Speaking before a congressional committee hearing on Capitol Hill, State Department diplomat Michael Kozak suggested that "foreign actors" were stoking protests in Chile. Pressed on the statement by reporters following his testimony, Kozak elaborated further. "We have identified on social networks false accounts that emanate from Russia, which are people who pretend to be Chilean, but in reality, all the message they are doing is trying to undermine all Chilean institutions and society," he was quoted by Chilean media.

Observers said that Kozak didn't provide evidence because there is no evidence of such claims. Accusations of Russia's social media meddling have been thrown around Washington for nearly three years now, and the best that social media "bot hunters" have managed to come up with are lists of meme posting accounts that they "believe" are "potentially" Kremlin-backed, based on the claims of NATO-backed think tanks, professional "Russiagaters" and Democrat intelligence officials.

Michael Kozak has a long history of interventionist actions in Latin America. He once served as the chief of the U.S. Interests Section in Havana -- from 1996 to 1999 -- during which time the Cuban Five were arrested in the United States. (RHC)