Each year on the 29th of March, people from the poor neighborhoods of Santiago de Chile (and especially its working class youth) commemorate the murder of Rafael and his brother Eduardo Vergara Toledo by the hands of the police during a demonstration against the Pinochet regime 1985 on what came to be known as the Day of the Young Combatant. On this day, barricades sometimes burn from dust till dawn and the polices has to fear for their lives.
Most notably, the Day of the Young Combatant took up pace in the most recent years. In 2016 police was fully chased out of several working class and poor neighborhoods of Santiago. Setting ablaze barricades, engaging them with Molotov cocktails and live ammunition the police was prevented to enter these neighborhoods again over hours. Last year, the police was lured into ambushes and attacked from a points of vantage. This year, the activities were flanked by an impressive campaign that was conducted by Chilean comrades to support and mobilize the many young people who have all the reason to engage in militant actions against the state and its repressive forces.
