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President Sebastian Piñera said that the army is being sent to two areas in the south that have been violently attacked recently.
President of Chile Sebastian Pinera A state of emergency has been declared and troops have been deployed to two areas in the south, where conflicts broke out between the Mapuche aborigines and security forces.
Mapuche ask for restoration Their ancestral land And self-determination.
In a speech on Tuesday, Piñera said, “We have decided to declare exceptions in the four provinces of Biobio and Araucanía’s southern region,” and deploy troops to help control “serious disruption of public order” there. .
this 71-year-old leader He said that the four provinces concerned had “repeated acts of violence related to drug trafficking, terrorism and organized crime committed by armed groups”, and innocent civilians and policemen were killed in the violent incidents.
The Mapuche are the largest indigenous group in Chile. Of the country’s 19 million people, they are approximately 1.7 million, mainly living in the south.
Their leaders demand that the land currently owned by farms and logging companies be returned to them.
The lack of solutions to their requirements prompted Armed group Attacks on trucks and private property in the past 10 years.
On Sunday, security forces clashed with protesters fighting for Mapuche’s autonomy in the capital Santiago, resulting in one death and 17 injuries. The event is to commemorate Dia de La Raza, formerly known as Columbus Day.
Al Jazeera’s Lucia Newman reported in Santiago that in the past few months, armed Mapuche groups “become more and more bold”, “carrying out arson, sabotage, [and] Take over the land”.
Newman said: “For months, the president has been under tremendous pressure from conservatives in his party and other groups, including truck drivers, to call for a siege in Araucania, but he has been reluctant to do so until now.”
She added that the conflict in the Araucanía region has been intensifying and “many people would say that the Chilean government has actually lost control of most of the region.”
The exceptional status was initially due to the last two weeks in the provinces of Biobio and Arauco in the Biobio region and the provinces of Maleco and Cotan in Araucanía.
“Today we are living in a very complicated situation where the police are overwhelmed by groups with large-caliber weapons,” Luciano Rivas, governor of Araucanía, the governing party, told CNN Chile to support the deployment of troops. Rivas said there is a “very serious security crisis” in the region.
However, political analyst Lucia Damerte criticized Pinera’s decision and told AFP that the deployment of the army risks aggravating the conflict and may lead to “escalation of violence.”
“The government has been unable to formulate effective and fair policies to solve the problems of Araucania,” said Dammert, a professor at the University of San Diego.
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