Ex-Ante has just published an extract from an account of the day the government nearly collapsed during the 2019 estallido, when the mob almost reached La Moneda :
..Overwhelmed by the circumstances, a police officer called (then-)Diputado Mario Desbordes to let him know they had no choice but to give way to the mob.
“Diputado, we’re thirty minutes away from opening.”
“You’re crazy,” the parliamentarian replied incredulously.
Desbordes immediately cut the conversation short and called a colonel who had once been his subordinate to conduct a cross-check. He needed to make sure the risk was real and not the isolated idea of a desperate officer. The response wasn’t what he wanted.
“We have to open… we have thirty minutes of tear gas left, the water cannons are out of action, and we’re in hand-to-hand combat.”
But..
..Curiously enough, with Carabineros’ stock of tear gas almost depleted, and with their victory almost assured, the Primera Linea began to tire and made a coordinated retreat.
.
They didn’t know it at the time, but if they had pushed for a few more minutes, they would have managed to breach the last security ring and assault La Moneda Palace. Had that been the case, the palace gendarmes wouldn’t have had the slightest chance of repelling them. Neither in numbers, nor in preparation, nor in weapons.
Had the Primera Linea succeded in taking the emblematic seat of government with Piñera fleeing, or worse, captured by the mob, the government would have collapsed.
Chile came that close to a Communist 1917-style revolution.
Interesting times…