By IANS,
Santiago (Chile) : At least 30 people have been injured and 234 arrested during nationwide annual demonstrations denouncing the military coup of 1973 that launched the dictatorial regime of Augusto Pinochet and to honour its victims, EFE reported Saturday.
Most of the violence occurred Friday in Greater Santiago during the show of protests that was intended to denounce the dictatorial government and its flagrant rights abuse, deputy interior minister Felipe Harboe said.
The government headed by Pinochet, who died in late 2006, killed more than 3,000 people, tortured nearly 30,000 others and forced tens of thousands of Chileans into exile.
Hooded protesters armed with sticks, stones, Molotov cocktails and firearms set up barricades, set bonfires and threw chains on power lines, knocking out power to some 200,000 people in the capital.
The governor of the Metropolitan Region, Alvaro Erazo, said the violence on the anniversary of the Sep 11, 1973, military coup that ousted elected leftist president Salvador Allende and brought General Pinochet to power deserves “total condemnation”.
Officials said a police vehicle was struck by gunfire in the Santiago neighbourhood of Pudahuel, while in the southern district of Hermida, some 200 demonstrators armed with handguns and rifles clashed with security forces.
Outside the capital, the most serious incidents occurred in the southern region of Bio Bio, where police arrested two individuals who had barricaded a road and two vehicles were set on fire.
Chile’s National Human Rights Assembly is expecting some 18,000 people to turn out Sunday for a march in Santiago to honour the victims of the military regime.