Over 150,000 March in Chile

Santiago de Chile, Aug 29.- More than 150,000 students and workers marched at the Alameda in demand for free education and other structural changes. Today, most of the people ifs fighting for a common purpose, which is recovering our right to quality, free public education for every Chilean, stressed the student leader Camila Vallejo.

Chile University Students Federation VP noted the large number of sectors that responded to the call for a national strike in education the teaching guild convened. "We know that the students on our own will not achieve those changes; that’s why the Central Unitaria de Trabajadores is welcome", she said in mentioning the bloc that led its new Secretary Barbara Figueroa.

Vallejo underlined that social fights in Chile goes beyond education to recovering democracy; warning that, although we’ve recovered unity and social support for better education has branched out, there is plenty ahead to be done. "There is no need to split our demands sector-by-sector."

The movement is growing radical and so are its pressures to be listened to, said the leader of Coordinacion National de Estudiantes Secundarios, Moisés Paredes.

At the protest, a group of intellectuals and artists sent an open letter to Education Minister Harald Beyer asking to listen to the petitions from the students, professors and the common citizens.

In assessing the national protest, government spokesman Andrés Chadwick called it peaceful and significant: "The march has been important and significant in terms of massiveness, and because it was a peaceful and violence-free march. (Radio Cadena Agamonte)