SANTIAGO: Fresh clashes broke out Thursday in the Chilean capital a day after student leaders broke off talks with the government over education reforms in the latest development in a five-month protest movement.
At least eight people were hurt, including six police officers, as security forces used tear gas and water cannons to break up an unauthorized demonstration of several thousand students.
Some 28 people were arrested, many of them minors, for "public disorder, destruction of property and assault on police," said Santiago municipal official Cecilia Perez.
City officials had authorized a demonstration, the 37th since the start of the movement, but it was for a route on the western end of the capital, and protesters decided to take a different route.
Each side blamed the other for the latest incidents.
"The government is to blame, because it opposes everything," said Camila Vallejo of the Confech student federation. "We wanted permission to demonstrate (in downtown), they refuse. We ask for free education, they refuse that, too."
Santiago Mayor Pablo Zalaquett said the student demonstrators "are going too far" after five months of demonstrations.
Student leaders broke off talks on Wednesday, accusing the government of failing to do enough to maintain funding to guarantee free, public education.
The student groups want free public education through university-level studies. At the moment, only about 40 percent of students qualify for free education based on parents' income.
Classes have been on hold in many schools and universities during the long-running demonstrations, which routinely draw tens of thousands of students into the streets, representing the largest protest movement in Chile since General Augusto Pinochet's military dictatorship ended in 1990.
Copyright AFP (Agence France-Presse), 2011
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