The State of Exception decreed by the government of Gabriel Boric in the provinces of Biobío and Arauco in the Biobío region and in the entire region of La Araucanía, came into force on the night of Tuesday, May 18, after its publication in the Official Gazette .
The measure decreed by the Executive is limited to routes and highways. Similar to what was proposed in the project of the “intermediate state” government, which finally did not have consensus in the ruling party.
President Gabriel Boric ruled out that the application of the State of Exception in the conflict zone with the Mapuche People represents a defeat for his government. When asked about it, he answered with a succinct “no”.
Previously there had been talk of a division within the government coalition regarding the measure. In fact, the senator of the Christian Democracy (DC), Matías Walker, announced on May 14 that they had decided to suspend the session of the mixed commission where the proposal would be discussed, precisely due to lack of time to reach an agreement.
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The helmsman of the Communist Party (PC), Guillermo Teillier, ruled out that there have been internal disputes in I Approve Dignity, regarding this issue. And he explained that “all the party presidents agreed to support the measure.” In interview with The Mercurypointed out that “all of us who support the Government knew that something had to be done in the southern macro zone. We could not fall into stagnation.”
Teillier specified that the State of Exception that was imposed in the previous government “did not solve anything.” Therefore, “a variant was sought”. “First a bill was chosen, which later the Government itself, and also us, decided that it was not necessary to continue, because it was going to denaturalize, to transform into something else. That is why, when the Government raised the possibility of using the tool of the state of exception, in a limited way, we agreed,” said the president of the PC.
“Now, we have to see how it turns out,” added Guillermo Teillier, revealing that they hope that the State of Exception will be used to carry out the agenda that the Government is proposing for the south of the country. “What is wanted with this is to maintain security, so that the State reaches all the peoples,” he said.
The communist helmsman added that their original intention was a State of Exception with a civilian command. And that could not happen. But the important thing, he assured, is that everything was limited to the roads. Now, he said, “the Armed Forces have to fulfill their role there, not towards the territories, not in the communities, because that would already be very different and would condition the dialogues that are taking place.”
Asked if the PC won or lost with the government’s decision, Teillier stated that “we lost and we won.”
“No one likes to establish a state of exception. It is difficult when there are such open wounds and things that have not been clarified. However, we cannot accept that a situation that could lead to misgovernment continues. That is why we are working on this point medium,” he concluded.
It is worth mentioning that, according to Palace sources, before the decree, on the one hand, the PS-PPD bloc supported the strategy promoted by President Gabriel Boric, while the PC and sectors of the Broad Front resisted the use of the Armed Forces in tasks internal security.
