The repercussions within the Christian Democracy continue after the appointment of Marcelo García as coordinator of the Good Living Plan in La Araucanía, thus becoming the third Falangist to join the Government of Gabriel Boric, along with Mario Venegas and Víctor Torres. This occurs in the context of a fragmented party, after the recent emergency election of deputy Alberto Undurraga as the new helmsman of the community.
Now it is Senator Francisco Huenchumilla who referred to the Executive’s decision, which triggered a confrontation between Undurraga himself and the Minister of the Interior, Carolina Tohá, when the parliamentarian reminded the Secretary of State that the DC is not part of the Government . In this regard, Huenchumilla assured that his party “has never cared about what happens in La Araucanía,” adding that “it was agreed today regarding a regional appointment. He never remembered the serious conflict we have and that has its roots in the nineteenth century, when the State crushed the Mapuche people and usurped their lands.
In this sense, the parliamentarian for the Araucanía region made a harsh diagnosis of the role that his party has played in the attempts to solve the conflict between the State and the Mapuche people, assuring that the community “has remained silent” before authorities such as the Historical Truth and New Deal Commission, chaired by former President Patricio Aylwin. In addition, he accused his community of keeping silent when, in his opinion, his comrades “colluded to throw me out of the position of Mayor of La Araucanía, for having had the serious audacity to have presented a proposal for a solution to the conflict that afflicted us and afflicts as a region”.
Defending the nomination of Marcelo García in the Plan Buen Vivir, Huenchumilla assured that “without having candles in this funeral, some deputies, without shame, tear clothes for this regional appointment that will help the development of the poorest region of Chile, and whose overcoming I have dedicated my entire life as a Christian Democrat, without paying attention to the beam of his permanent negotiations with the right and the extreme right, the last of which was his attempt to place a DC in the presidency of the House, in collusion with those”.
Finally, the former mayor concluded that the DC “does not have the moral authority” to get involved in the politics that take place in the area “because it has never cared what happens here.” “The only one who has the authority to talk about negotiations with the current rulers is Fuad Chahín, as with the right-wing government of Sebastián Piñera, he empowered his friends in different public services as party president; and his friends they are still there. He who knows, knows,” he closed.
