© Provided by Agencia EFE
Santiago de Chile, March 26 (EFE) .- Nearly a thousand soldiers began to withdraw this Saturday following spending six months in an area in southern Chile where there has been a conflict for decades between the Mapuche indigenous people, the State and large foresters , which has intensified in recent times.
The State of Exception decreed in October by the previous Government, presided over by the conservative Sebastián Piñera, and extended since then by Parliament, comes to an end on March 26, which implies the demilitarization of the area.
One of the first decisions of the current president, the leftist Gabriel Boric, was not to prolong the measure any longer, considering that the military deployment further complicates the conflict and does not eliminate the violence.
Not extending the State of Exception “does not imply that the Government does not have a concern and does not have the task of guaranteeing the safety of all citizens,” said this Saturday the Undersecretary of the Interior, Manuel Monsalve, who traveled to the area to coordinate the police deployment that will replace the military.
The militarization affected four southern provinces: Biobío and Arauco, in the Bíobio region; and Cautín and Malleco, in the region of La Araucanía, more than 500 kilometers south of the capital.
The new Administration defends the opening of a dialogue with all the parties involved in the so-called “Mapuche conflict”, which confronts the Chilean State and the country’s main indigenous group over the lands that the latter inhabited for centuries and that now belong mostly to to large agricultural and forestry companies.
Arson attacks on machinery and property occur almost daily in the context of a conflict that has cost the lives of both Mapuche community members and police officers.
The new Minister of the Interior, Izkia Siches, traveled to the area on March 15 to initiate rapprochements with the parties, but had to be evacuated from a rural road in the town of Temucuicui, more than 500 kilometers south of the capital, because he suffered an ambush, with bursts of gunfire into the air and the placement of a burning vehicle in the middle of the road.
“The government is not going to go back on the plan, seeking dialogue and encounters in the territory. We understand that what is happening here is violence, but also a lack of state,” Siches, the first woman to attack, said at a press conference following the attack. occupy the powerful position in Chilean history.
The right-wing and extreme right-wing opposition is in favor of extending militarization and describes the violence perpetrated by different radical groups as “terrorism”.
(c) EFE Agency
