Placeholder Image

Subtitles section Play video

  • Since mid-October,

  • this has been the scene on the streets of Santiago, Chile.

  • Protesters say they're fed up with growing inequality.

  • Most come out in peace but they're met with force,

  • and the situation quickly escalates.

  • Chile is supposed to be one of Latin America's more

  • stable democracies, a model for success since the country's

  • dictatorship ended in 1990.

  • But this brutal crackdown suggests

  • the security tactics haven't changed all that much.

  • Police have fired pellets and rubber bullets.

  • These rounds are often shot at close range, hitting people

  • where they can do maximum damage: the eyes.

  • More than 180 protesters have been partly blinded.

  • And the numbers continue to rise.

  • I follow Carlos Puebla

  • into the eye trauma unit of a public hospital.

  • The waiting room is full of people

  • who tell me a similar story.

  • I'm back with Carlos Puebla.

  • Dr. Carmen Torres,

  • who removed his eye several days ago,

  • tries to insert an implant.

  • But the pain is too intense.

  • Dr. Enrique Morales is tracking

  • what doctors see here as an epidemic of eye trauma.

  • The government denies any wrongdoing.

  • Later, my official request to the minister and to the police

  • were also declined.

  • International human rights groups

  • are investigating allegations of abuse.

  • But that process rarely succeeds

  • in bringing the powerful to account.

  • After all, it was Chile's president, Sebastian Piñera,

  • who set the stage for the violent clampdown.

  • Since then, at least five deaths,

  • more than 180 severe eye injuries,

  • 1,800 hospitalizations,

  • 5,000 arrests,

  • plus allegations of torture

  • and sexual violence.

  • Many of the victims say they were not acting aggressively

  • when they were shot.

  • All they can do now is file a lawsuit and wait.

  • The police violence hasn't deterred people

  • from coming outto the contrary.

  • A few days after I met him in the hospital

  • Pablo Verdugo is back on the streets,

  • taking care to protect his face and eyes from tear gas.

Since mid-October,

Subtitles and vocabulary

Click the word to look it up Click the word to find further inforamtion about it