Season Ends on a Background Strike

Published on 17.01.2011 - General Info

Strikes are everywhere in Chile

It is on a labour-political note the Antarctic expedition season is finishing on this occasion; a major strike in Punta Arenas is indeed preventing ALE’s Ilyushins from taking off and going to collect the tourists who are blocked in the Antarctic.

Once in a while does no harm; it is indeed not the weather conditions that are keeping ALE’s Ilyushins on the ground and preventing the TO from repatriating its customers on to Chilean soil, as is sometimes the case at this time of year. But rather some unprecedented strike movements that are blocking not only the entire city centre of Punta Arenas, but also the accesses to the city’s airport. And more widely, the whole of Chile.

This is what Ignacio Galllegos, the correspondent of MercoPress, the news agency specialising in South Atlantic news, is saying about it: "... Wide scale protests that began just before midnight on Tuesday have shut down much of the Magallanes Region in southern Chile, cutting off exits from the regional capital of Punta Arenas and freezing most traffic within the city. Though the indefinite strike organized by the Asemblea Ciudadana Magallanes was officially scheduled to begin early Wednesday morning, protesters began assembling roadblocks as early as Tuesday afternoon. Through the afternoon hours hundreds took to the streets with pots and pans to protest the national government’s decision to cut back gas subsidies for the cold-weather region... " Read the full article here.

In ALE’s base camp, Union Glacier, several dozen tourists have therefore been blocked for several days and nobody over there sees the situation getting any freer in the next few days. While Chris Foot is still regretting having had to abandon his project once he had arrived at the South Pole and is making a date with all concerned for a new attempt in eleven months time, Willem ter Horst is describing the situation in situ. Extracts from his diary of 14 January: "... . There is still no change in the Punta strike situation. We are hearing reports that the Chilean president might be on his way to help mediate. In the mean time the road blocks are still there, and there is an area of at least 10 km on the airport road, that can only be passed on foot. This all means that there won't be any flights to Antarctica today and we are not getting picked up here. It's not such a big issue for most of us here, but some have started rebooking their flights, including me. I have been succesful in changing my flight date. It's now booked for Valentine's day, but I am hopefull some upgrade will become available before that time. I at least managed to keep the ticket valid. If I hadn't managed to rebook today it would have been cancelled. The flights are continuing by the government operated LAN chili, eventhough there are hardly any passengers aboard. This conveniently cancels the tickets of all the no-shows. We are all hoping for good news and resolvement of the crisis in Southern Chili so we can go home. ..."