Deputy Carmen Hertz (PC) addressed the recent events linked to fraud in the Army, such as the resignation of Commander in Chief Ricardo Martínez, then being summoned to testify as an accused by the visiting minister Romy Rutherford, for an edge of the case.
On the resignation of Martinez, the communist parliamentarian told Radio ADN that it was “inevitable so as not to sink the Army even more, taking into account what has happened with all the commanders in chief from Pinochet onwards, accused in various crimes of illegalities and frauds of various kinds.”
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“I think this is not an issue that has to do with the personality of the commanders-in-chief. I do not believe that those who have been imprisoned by the old system, or formalized by the new system, are some kind of dishonest characters given to commit illegalities,” he added.
“I believe that there is a system that allows this and that degrades Chilean institutions and the Armed Forces. We aspire to a real democracy and we cannot have this kind of factual and institutional autonomy on the part of the Armed Forces in which each command does what it wants. That organizational culture of autonomy is what needs to end,” he added.
He also pointed out that “all the defense ministers, since the transition, have been weak to exercise the political and oversight control that they should have exercised over the Armed Forces. It is not possible that this mega-fraud was committed in the Army.”
“There are situations of such an anomaly that it is impossible for the minister not to have been informed. If it hasn’t been reported, it’s because they just don’t take it into account,” he added.
