A pile of ashes is allegedly all that remains of $500 million of student debt in Chile. On Thursday, police in Santiago confiscated a heap of ashes that are allegedly all that remains of US$500 million in “pagarés” — or debt paper — stolen and burned by artist and activist Francisco Tapia.
Activist artist Francisco Tapia aka “Papas Frita” who reduced $500 million of actual student debt contracts to an ashen art exhibit.
The Santiago police confiscated the ashes of the debt obligations from the Centro Cultural Gabriela Mistral where they were being displayed as part of an art exhibition. The destruction of the student debt documents occurred during a student “toma” — takeover — of the campus and means the embattled university owners must now individually sue each of its students to recover the debt payments, which will reportedly be a costly and time-consuming process for the university.
Photos of the ashes art exhibit have been showing up on Twitter.
El arte que avanza junto a las luchas del pueblo, es una arma cargada de futuro. http://t.co/SR6T3eaQbY #PapasFritas pic.twitter.com/pL49d7vW8B
— Fabián Navarrete (@Rusiohead) May 14, 2014
A video went viral last week by Francisco Tapia, aka “Papas Fritas,” in which he confesses to burning the legal papers that certify debt owed by Universidad del Mar students.
“It’s over, it’s finished,” Tapia said in his impassioned five minute video. “You don’t have to pay another peso [of your student loan debt]. We have to lose our fear, our fear of being thought of as criminals because we’re poor. I am just like you, living a shitty life, and I live it day by day — this is my act of love for you.” [Translation via The Santiago Times]
Last year, authorities began shutting down Universidad del Mar for financial irregularities and were encouraging students to seek out alternative universities. But the university is still collecting on its student loans.
The “Papas Fritas” video and art action comes in the wake of a student march last week involving tens of thousands of students protesting that Education Minister Nicolás Eyzaguirre is not carrying out his legal responsibility to crack down on for-profit educational institutions in Chile.
Also last year, tens of thousands of students had flooded the streets of Chile demanding education reform. And now tensions are escalating once again.
Incoming President Michelle Bachelet, who was elected in a landslide victory in Decempber, had promised free university-level education and to end state subsidies for private, for-profit colleges, which have put higher education out of reach of the poor. But estimates range that anywhere from 40,000 to 100,000 students took to the streets on Thursday in their first major protest since Bachelet took office, repeating the same demands they had rallied for over the past three years.
The financial burden on the average student and their families for higher education in Chile is one of the highest in the OECD countries. While the burden on U.S. is considered quite high with families shouldering 40% of expenses from their own pockets, Chilean families bear 75% of the expenses from their own pokcets. By comparison, those families in Scandinavian countries pay less than 5% of the costs.
Legal counsel for Tapia say that Chilean law calls for a one to five year jail term for this type of theft, but that his self-admission opens the door for probationary sentencing. Meanwhile, attorneys representing the students of Universidad del Mar’s are seeking to void all the loan debt, arguing that the contracts were fraudulent to begin with.
In a related protest and art action, The Santiago Times also reported on Thursday, several students at Universidad Acris stripped down to their underwear and leapt into the fountain outside the presidential palace in a protest that garnered much attention on social networks and in mainstream media. The students revealed writing scrawled across their skin drawing attention to the “crisis” at their university and warning that it was on a path to becoming the “next Universidad del Mar.”