The mea culpa remains pending in the round of media interviews that the managing general of Carabineros Ricardo Yáñez has deployed, despite the insistence on cases of human rights violations in which the institution has been involved since the social outburst.
Yesterday, El Mercurio published an interview with the police chief, where he noted that while “we must make, as an institution, a mea culpa, without a doubt,” he avoided at the same time condemning a priori the action of the uniformed who marked two milestones of national interest, such as the Pius Nono case that ended with a young man on the bed of the Mapocho River , and Talcahuano, which resulted in two minors shot in a police operation.
Interviewed on CNN Chile today, Yáñez was specifically consulted on the cases of people who became victims of eye trauma, as happened with Gustavo Gatica or Fabiola Campillai during the social outburst.
Asked if he is available to visit them, as an institution gesture towards them, Yáñez noted that “I have no problem interviewing them”. But when asked if I would apologize to them, the replacement of the questioned Mario Rozas was erratic in noting that “I cannot apologize for situations that are being investigated and have to be resolved with the courts.”
“I can deeply regret and I can empathize with the pain they and their families feel, I can do everything on my part to bring peace of mind to all those people who were affected in a context that was very but very complex,” complemented the general who took over on November 19.
In the same interview, Yáñez noted that the entity has done its best to collaborate with justice. “As an institution we have cooperated in everything and have made efforts to deliver all the background we have available,” he said.
In taking stock of the state in which he found the institution, carabineros’ new managing general assumed that “when there is much questioning and permanent situations affecting decisions, there is a sense of wear and tear.”
However, he insisted – as Rozas had pointed out when he was in charge – in Carabineros “we were not prepared to live the levels of violence that occurred for more than 100 days.”
