Anti-immigrant march in Chile ended in violent incidents

Xenophobic threats and fires of the precarious goods of undocumented Venezuelan migrants, a march of about three thousand people ended on Saturday in the city of Iquique, in northern Chile, the day after the expulsion of a crowded place of families with children adrift in South America.

“Unacceptable humiliation against particularly vulnerable migrants, affecting them in the most personal way,” wrote on Twitter Felipe González, UN special rapporteur on the human rights of migrants. “The xenophobic discourse, equating migration with crime, which has unfortunately become more and more frequent in Chile, fuels this kind of barbarism,” González added.

In a climate of open rejection of the Venezuelan immigrant, protesters waved Chilean flags, as well as the Whiphala, a colorful flag of the indigenous Andean peoples, to express their opposition to undocumented migration, associated with crime with rumors citing all types of platforms.

From Plaza Prat, in the historic center of Iquique, the demonstrators gathered on a Pacific beach, where the riflemen were to control isolated skirmishes caused by Chilean residents who came to attack Venezuelans in the streets. They, since Saturday morning, sought with their children in arms or in cars to hide in other districts of this seaside resort to avoid the demonstrators, confirmed AFP journalists.

Other radical demonstrators went to a few small camps for Venezuelan migrants – who were not there – and burned their few possessions in a barricade: stuffed animals, bicycles, tents, mattresses, bags, blankets, toys they received. in donations.

“I was born, I grew up and I was spoiled in Iquique and I have always lived in this northern region and what we are going through is terrible, because the problem is that in Venezuela they have opened their prisons. and some of those people came to Chile, “he told AFP Veliz Rifo, a 48-year-old farmer from La Tirana, a town located in a sort of desert oasis 72 km away. east of Iquique, echoing a false rumor.

“The worst part is that this government of Chile has allowed this to grow and those who have arrived are not political refugees or immigrants who contribute with their work, many criminals have arrived here”, added Rifo, deploring, like many demonstrators, the increase in settlements created by immigrants with cardboard and tin houses on the outskirts of this port, nearly 2,000 km from Santiago.

Other demonstrators called on the most violent to respect the peaceful action, while in restaurants in the historic center, Venezuelan waiters and Chilean diners saw from afar something they called “sad”.

– “Mismanagement” –

The protest took place a day after the eviction from Plaza Brasil, where the poorest and undocumented migrants who cannot reach Santiago spent the night and survive by selling sweets, begging or cleaning windows to city ​​traffic lights.

In the police operation, condemned by local authorities and humanitarian organizations, Jeremy, a 4-year-old Venezuelan boy found safe and sound on Saturday morning, disappeared for more than 24 hours. “Fortunately they have found the child, but that sums up the mismanagement of all this humanitarian drama, the government considers that it is only a question of expelling some and expelling them from a place”, s’ complained Franklin Pérez, administrator of a building in the center of Iquique.

The governor of the region of Tarapacá, José Miguel Carvajal, and the mayor of Iquique, Mauricio Soria, have blamed the government of President Sebastián Piñera for the migration crisis in northern Chile. No one was alerted to Friday’s eviction which encouraged xenophobia in part of the population.

“The 100 families of Plaza Brasil, today (Saturday) were walking in different public spaces; they move in with close friends, with whom they will again stay in tents on the beaches of Iquique, and others settle in the “outlets” of Alto Hospicio, the industrial zone on the outskirts of Iquique.

The Venezuelan community is the largest in Chile, with more than 400,000 people, although a much longer date is estimated given the increase in income from illegal crossings since 2020, when Chile closed its borders due to of the pandemic.

In addition, the Chilean government has reversed its policy of migratory solidarity with Venezuelans, defended by President Piñera in 2018, even offering exclusive visas so that Venezuelans “have opportunities in Chile”. Since then the approval of any visa for those traveling from Venezuela has been drastically curtailed, then came border closures due to the pandemic and many Venezuelans have started arriving after living in Colombia for a few years, in Ecuador and Peru.

Incomes of people arriving in Chile through illegal crossings stood at 23,673 until July, almost 7,000 more than for all of last year, according to the report of the Jesuit Migrant Service (SJM) for the month of September.

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