Protests and terrorism in Chile: Examining the data and what to expect in the coming year
03 May 2021 Carla Selman
A major wave of civil unrest broke out in Chile in late 2019, leading to the most violent protests seen in the country since the end of the military dictatorship 30 years previously. The following months saw many billions of dollars of property damage and losses from business interruption. While protest levels receded in 2020, partly due to COVID-19 restrictions, elections and a re-write of the Constitution in 2021 will provide further drivers of unrest.
Meanwhile, the campaign of violence over land rights by elements of the Mapuche indigenous group in four southern provinces escalated in 2020. We noted more frequent and comparatively more sophisticated incidents of arson, crude Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs), and shootings. With no sign of a joined-up policy approach to this issue from the government, and with splinter groups emerging and seeking to make their mark, the upward trend in violence is likely to continue.
Analytics using metadata from a large set of security incidents helps to shed light on the contrasting nature of these twin pillars of political violence risk in Chile, and aids analysts to better forecast the future risk environment.
Unrest: Timeline
Protests were triggered in mid-October 2019 by a Metro fare increase in Santiago and quickly escalated to encompass widespread social grievances such as inequality and poor basic services, with demonstrators demanding a change to the country's neoliberal economic model and a new Constitution.
More:
https://ihsmarkit.com/research-analysis/protests-and-terrorism-in-chile-examining-data-forecast.html