Chilean students break negotiations

Following months of violent protests, university student leaders in Chile on Sunday decided to break their talks with the government and threatened to cancel classes for the upcoming semester.

"We must prepare for difficult times," said David Urrea, one of the leaders, after a 10-hour meeting at Santiago's

Universidad Arturo Prat. The issue over free education was the major point that convinced students and teachers to pull out of negotiations.

The government is willing to give scholarships to poor students and a combination of grants and loans to the middle

class. But the students want guarantees that the entire system will be funded by the state.

They have proposed three ways to accomplish this: through the nationalization of large foreign mining firms, major tax reforms and reductions in defense spending.

"We have to demand that everyone has access to the same free education, even families with higher means and resources," said the president of the Federation of Catholic University Students, Giorgio Jackson, who has become one of the top leaders of the movement.

For the past five months, the conflict has semi-paralyzed classes at both the high-school and university levels. If the protests continue, within days the movement could break the record of student protests held in Chile's history by surpassing in size those that took place in 1967.

One of the main concerns of President Sebastián Piñera's government has been that a lot of people will miss out on the academic year. After Sunday's assembly, there is a good chance of that happening. A confederation of 36

student groups from Chile's 25 state universities made the decision to abandon government talks during the lengthy meeting.

Piñera urged the groups to restart discussions and to resume their studies. The students have called for a

second general strike and are expected to be joined by unions in a two-day stoppage on October 18 and 19. The last general strike in support of the students' demands in August led to violent clashes between protesters and

police.

Students also have demanded that the center-left, which governed Chile for 20 years, assume some responsibility for the situation. At the University of Chile, the country's main public university, signs have been posted asking for explanations from former presidents Ricardo Lagos and Michelle Bachelet about the crisis in the education system.

The former president and current leader of UN Women, Michelle Bachelet, spoke Friday about the conflict from New

York. It was the first time in seven months she has addressed the issue because she said she didn't want to compromise her UN position.

Speaking on a radio station, Bachelet supported the demands of students and defended her administration.

"Chile has a huge opportunity to improve the educational system. During my term, the government tried to do it but we did not have the support of all sectors," she said.