Demonstrators run from police launching water cannons and tear gas as a state of emergency remains in effect in Santiago, Chile on Sunday. Picture: Esteban Felix/AP

Santiago – At least eight people are dead, 200 injured and more than 1,500 detained as Chile, long a beacon of stability and prosperity in South America, has become the latest Latin American country to erupt in violent protest. Protesters have called for a general strike on Monday, and the president says the country is at war.

“We are at war against a powerful enemy, willing to use violence with no limits,” President Sebastián Piñera said Sunday evening.

The youth-led demonstrations, sparked last week by an increase in subway fares in the capital, have grown and spread even after Piñera rescinded the rate hike. Protesters have shut down public transportation, ransacked supermarkets and pharmacies and set fire to subway stations and government buildings.

Piñera, who was returned to the presidency last year after serving from 2010 to 2014, has responded by declaring a state of emergency and deploying more than 10,000 troops in the largest operation since the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet more than three decades ago. Security forces have fired tear gas and rubber bullets at the crowds.

The chaos follows protests against austerity and corruption in Haiti, Ecuador, Peru, Argentina and Honduras, among other countries. But Chile was supposed to be different. The country tops South America across virtually all tables: Per capita GDP, the U.N. Human Development Index, multiple freedom rankings.