Chilean police meet student protest with tear gas

[struggle4progress]

By Fiona Ortiz

SANTIAGO, Chile (Reuters) - Police used tear gas and water cannons to try to break up Chile's biggest student protests in decades on Tuesday as thousands marched to demand the government spend more of its budget surplus on education.

Dozens of students were arrested in the capital and protest leaders said half a million students occupied hundreds of schools all over Chile calling for free bus fare, free college entrance exams, more teachers and improved school buildings.

"We are protesting on behalf of our school. The bathrooms are disgusting, you can't even take a shower in the locker room, and they don't do anything about it," said Bernardo Ferrada, 15, his nose and eyes burning from tear gas ...

Officials said more than 700 people were arrested during Tuesday's protests across Chile, and some nine police and five civilians were hurt in the capital Santiago ...

http://www.swissinfo.org/eng/international/ticker/detail/Chilean_police_meet_student_protest_with_tear_gas.html?siteSect=143&sid=6765187&cKey=1149043094000


Chile Government Meets With Students to End Strike (Update1)

May 30 (Bloomberg) -- Chile's education minister met with high school student leaders in an effort to end a seven-day school walkout as police, using tear gas and water cannon, arrested 373 protesters in downtown Santiago ...

``They've got money to buy things for the military,'' said Rosillo Salinas, 16, a student protester who joined the student movement last week. ``They keep the students down, but they've got a lot of money.''

In demonstrations across the country, students marched, shouted and flew banners urging the government to help cover the cost of transportation, college entrance exams and other expenses, and to improve the quality of secondary school education, representing the first real political challenge to President Michelle Bachelet.

``We've never seen this kind of coordination among high school students across the country,'' said Jose Miguel Izquierdo, a political science professor at the Universidad Diego Portales in Santiago. ``Clearly, the government's negotiators underestimated the student's capacity to mobilize.'' ...

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000086&sid=a7G2GVEX5y1Y&refer=latin_america


Chile's students protest school conditions
Bus fares, exam fees among issues

Tuesday, May 30, 2006 Posted: 1852 GMT (0252 HKT)

SANTIAGO, Chile (Reuters) -- A massive student protest over bus fares and exam fees shut hundreds of high schools in Chile on Tuesday as more than 300,000 students stayed away from classes and forced the government to promise to improve education.

The school occupations and marches have gathered strength since they began more than two weeks ago in the capital and then spread to provincial areas, where students complained of classrooms with broken windows, too few teachers and bathrooms with no toilet paper.

Police used water cannons and tear gas to disperse students marching in downtown Santiago on Tuesday morning ...

http://edition.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/americas/05/30/chile.students.reut/

[gordontron]

1. that is f****** awesome!

I wish our highschools had that kind of drive...

[xchrom]

2. students in chile rock!