Chile's second largest city has suffered from plenty of looting in the last 72 hours. Last night another 7,000 troops were ordered into the city to "restore order" (gov't phrase) after one particular incident caught major headlines. A four-storey Alvi department store in the city centre was set on fire by looters (by throwing a molotov through the window) after being sacked as an attempt to cover their tracks and the whole thing went up in flames, spectacular-style. Five other large stores were attacked in the same way, but those fires were brought under control.
There have been calls from some quarters (amazingly enough, the biz community) that say the looting hasn't amounted to much. This may be, but it doesn't explain why populations are now grouping together at night, lighting bonfires in their neighbourhoods (for lack of street lighting) and forming what amounts to vigilante groups to protect their properties from the looting gangs. The need for food is one thing, but there are no empty bellies in the earthquake zone of Chile, unlike that of Haiti. The "need" to steal a laptop or an iPhone from a department store comes from a different level of the human psyche.
This corner of cyberspace has made mention on more than one occasion that the GINI coefficient of Chile is the second highest in all LatAm (the highest being Paraguay), which indicates that the gap between the 'haves' and the 'have nots' in Chile is very large. Yes for sure the country has grown economically, but there's clearly a large section of Chileans that haven't been included in the franchise. All this came to mind when reading this report in Clarín this morning that smacks more of truth than a lot of pro-Chile rah rah supporters would like it to. Here's an extract, translated:
There have been calls from some quarters (amazingly enough, the biz community) that say the looting hasn't amounted to much. This may be, but it doesn't explain why populations are now grouping together at night, lighting bonfires in their neighbourhoods (for lack of street lighting) and forming what amounts to vigilante groups to protect their properties from the looting gangs. The need for food is one thing, but there are no empty bellies in the earthquake zone of Chile, unlike that of Haiti. The "need" to steal a laptop or an iPhone from a department store comes from a different level of the human psyche.
This corner of cyberspace has made mention on more than one occasion that the GINI coefficient of Chile is the second highest in all LatAm (the highest being Paraguay), which indicates that the gap between the 'haves' and the 'have nots' in Chile is very large. Yes for sure the country has grown economically, but there's clearly a large section of Chileans that haven't been included in the franchise. All this came to mind when reading this report in Clarín this morning that smacks more of truth than a lot of pro-Chile rah rah supporters would like it to. Here's an extract, translated:
"New sackings and the later arson of a supermarket and store in the city of Concepción and thefts in broad daylight in coastal towns affected by the tsunami such as Talcahuano and Coronel, saw (president-elect Sebastian) Piñera demand more hardline actions. "Re-establishing public order is primordial", he said soon after hearing that the army had not yet mobilized the 10,000 soliders that President Bachelet had ordered in.
"What this tragedy has laid bare is the profound social divisions that still exist in Chile despite all the efforts of the last 20 year of successive Concertación (centre-left, pro free-market) governments. The first government of Patricio Aylwin managed to raise nearly 30% of the population out of the poverty brought on by the Pinochet dictatorship. The work continued to greater or lesser effect in the successive governments of Frei, Lagos and Bachelet. Above all, Chile has seen substantial macroeconomic growth that has allowed large amounts of lower middle class socioeconomic groups to be included in the formal economy. But it has not been enough. In the last three days thousands of people from the most unprotected social classes, who mostly voted for the Concertación according to polls, have started an previously unheard of pillage. Piñera will assume the presidency next week with the enormous challenge of facing a collapsed country with material damage estimated at U$30Bn and a social division that had not expressed itself in such a crude manner until the ground began to shake a little before 4am on Saturday."