The estallido that nearly succeeded

[feargle]

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…

[feargle]

A seis años del 18 de octubre: cómo cambió la percepción del Estallido...

And re the estallido, the latest Critera poll shows that the majority of Chileans now consider that it was a Bad Thing.

Its only taken six years for the penny to drop.

I knew it was going to be a disaster the morning after the mass rioting of 18-O , and said so soon afterwards.

The results show a profound shift in public opinion: the positive view of the Estallido has steadily declined. In July 2020, nine months after the start of the protests, 67% of those surveyed considered it a positive sign for Chile. However, that figure has progressively fallen, reaching only 37% in 2025.

The decline has been steady: 64% in 2021, 55% in 2022, 45% in 2023, and 44% in 2024, showing a downward trend that has been consolidated this year.

Conversely, the negative perception of the effects of the Outbreak has shown a sustained increase, going from 33% in 2020 to 63% in 2025.

But the public here has a short memory, so in a few years the commies will start whipping up discontent again - if they are allowed to.

[Mendoza]

Ugh, I really hated the “Primera Linea” they seem to have faded away thankfully.. Did anyone ever make a coordinated effort to get them (i.e. convict them of any crimes they committed)?

Thanks for sharing this. Not sure taking the palace would have collapsed the government, hard to say. Maybe it would: or maybe it would have led to people backing military in the streets.

I do recall a similar situation at congress if I’m not mistaken, a disturbing number of people outside, and some of them trying to climb the walls. That was when I did wonder if the government might fall.

[Findes]

I’m calling bullshit on that invented story.

There is and was a rapid reaction force at La Moneda perfectly capable of handling the Red October mob that might have tried to breach the facility. At the time I visited, the guards inside had Uzis – yes, that’s a Girl Gun (we did familiarization with them when I was in service) but all it takes is one or two gut-shot flaites flailing on the ground to turn those idiot children around and running so fast that the hounds couldn’t catch 'em.

Kids, this isn’t 1917 Russia. These are brat children, bereft of real courage, all mouth and no trousers.

Naturally, these days it takes a lot to actually fire on the turba, but if there had been a serious attempt on the president’s life or safety, the gloves come off and things get ugly.

[feargle]

Whether you think this article is “bullshit” or not, your idea that the palace guard would have started blasting away with Uzis to protect Piñera is perhaps “wishful thinking”, to use a kinder phrase.

Thanks to the weaponization of Human Rights, Carabineros had stopped using even rubber bullets, being restricted to Tear Gas and Water Cannon as dissuasive measures. And according to that article, after a day’s rioting both were in short supply.

The armed forces, from the most senior army General down to the humblest Carabinero are well aware of the punitive treatment that Chile hands out to militares who step out of line: Punta Peuco serves an example. Not for nothing did General Iturriaga, the national defence leader declare at the time that he “wasn’t at war with anyone”.

And Piñera himself was terrified of being brought to trial by an international Human Rights tribunal, one of the reasons that Martial Law wasn’t declared with armed soldiers on the streets. This has led to accusations of cowardice as a more determined President could have quickly quashed the estallido by shooting a few of the rioters. (Spare me the shocked responses, please)

Instead he allowed it to fester, and his legacy is not one to be proud of.

[Mendoza]

When Pinera sent the military into the streets surveys showed it was unpopular with the public which is perhaps why he backed down. Shooting a few of the riotors would not have stopped anything, infact a lot of them were already being shot. But I think you mean more lethal shooting. Even that might not have worked - using lethal force can sometimes lead to larger protests against a government as more people come out in support and that can take down a government. Using lethal force would also have harmed Chile’s reputation internationally. There were no easy answers at that point.

[feargle]

@Mendoza

Even that might not have worked - using lethal force can sometimes lead to larger protests against a government as more people come out in support and that can take down a government.

Try reading some Chilean history, the Revolución de la chaucha comes to mind, with a chaucha instead of 30 Pesos…it’s similar to 2019, but was forcibly and quickly put down with various fatalities.

I don’t endorse or approve of those actions, but many Chileans are naturally anti-authoritarian, and will seize on any opportunity for looting and destruction - if they can safely get away with it. Chile may outwardly appear reassuringly Westernized, but underneath it isn’t at all.

We are still suffering the effects of the 2019 riots whose destabilizing effects persist to this day.

[feargle]

Mario Desbordes afirma que «grupos anarquistas» estuvieron a 10 minutos de...

Returning to the “bullshit” accusation, that article simply repeated the statements that Mario Desbordes made in 2023. If they had contained the slightest falsehood the lefties would have jumped all over him:

Former Carabineros member and former Defense Minister Mario Desbordes addressed the events of the 2019 social uprising, stating that “anarchist groups” across the country were minutes away from burning down La Moneda.

..“I was talking to the Carabineros, and a non-commissioned officer called me that day and said, ‘We’re 30 minutes away from opening.’ I called a colonel, and he said, ‘Chief, we have 30 minutes of tear gas.’ (…) We’re in close combat,” Mario Desbordes explained.

“There was a demonstration of 170,000 to 200,000 people in Plaza Italia, and between 5,000 and 7,000 very violent anarchists broke away toward the La Moneda Palace area. They had come from all over Chile,” he added.

Along those lines, the former minister explained: “This group confronted a contingent of Carabineros Special Forces, who were preventing them from entering La Moneda, the Courts, and the former Congress. At one point, a carabinero officer said, ‘There are 15 minutes of tear gas left, and I have two options: shoot and kill 50 people and go to jail, or open the barriers, withdraw the carabineros, and (let the mob) set the Government Palace on fire.’”

“Thank God, those anarchists also began to tire, and when the Carabineros had 10 minutes left, the anarchists gave up and retreated. They could have pushed for 11 minutes and burned the Government Palace, the Courts, and the former Congress,” he concluded.

Notice how the officer in charge was well aware of the consequences of opening fire on the rioters.
And torching La Moneda would have been a potent symbol in the multi-homed attacks the communists and their allies had engineered to bring down the Piñera government;
That could have been the tipping point that precipitated the collapse - if it had succeeded. Luckily it didn’t.

[feargle]

Final thoughts on the 2019 shit show, whose “narrative” is even now being rewritten, a skill the commies are known to be good at.

When the Police are confronted by a much bigger mob of violent protesters, the only way they can respond is by using crowd control weapons.

But carabineros have always been pathetically underfunded, and under-equipped, and, like the rest of the government, was completely unprepared for the estallido.

The cleverly-orchestrated "ojos ciegos" campaign, part of an attack to discredit the Armed Forces, resulted in a ruling that prohibited the use of rubber bullets, leaving them dependent on Water Cannon and Tear Gas to confront the mob.
Curiously enough, the “collateral damage” caused by the widespread use of slingshots by the mob, often employing potentially lethal projectiles, is hardly ever mentioned.

The legalistic mentality of the Piñera administration decided that, as usual new laws were required to control the armed forces response, the RUF. The then-opposition steadfastly opposed these initiatives, as they wanted the chaos and destruction that would bring down the government. (A watered-down version is still slowly passing through Congress).

There was talk of eliminating and reestablishing Carabineros. The streets were completely covered with ACAB (All cops are bastards) graffiti and calls to burn “la Yuta” (Armed and Security Forces). All of this was accompanied by unacceptable public statements from those who are currently government officials:

The Minister of Culture, Arts, and Heritage, Julieta Brodsky, tweeted: “puta, maraca, pero nunca paca”, while the current Minister of Economy, Nicolás Grau, posted: "“Pacos asesinos. El pueblo tiene todo el derecho a odiarles”.

Not forgetting that the symbol of the October Revolution was the so-called "perro matapacos", the canine cop killer.

But in the end, the gullible pueblo tragó el cuento del merluzo y sus compinches.

And its impossible not to suspect that many Carabineros harbour a resentment against the nation which treated them so badly not too many years ago.