The Minister of the Interior, Izkia Siches, detailed a series of measures that will be implemented by the Government of President Gabriel Boric to solve the conflict that remains in the southern part of the country. This plan includes the declaration of a state of emergency in La Araucanía and in the province of Arauco and Biobío, which will allow the presence of the Armed Forces for the protection of roads and routes in the sector.
“We want to emphasize that our government is committed to an agenda of recognition of our indigenous peoples, with which we have a centennial debt between the State of Chile and particularly, the Mapuche people,” Siches said.
In that regard, the first part of the plan consists of a new mechanism for land restitution and reactivating the processing of the draft law on the creation of a Ministry of Indigenous Peoples.
“As a government, we have mandated the new authorities of Conadi to reactivate the purchase of land by doubling the allocated budget. In addition, we will implement new mechanisms to make this restitution more agile. Additionally, we will reactivate the processing of the bill that creates the Ministry of Indigenous Peoples, to strengthen the capacity of the State to meet the needs of our peoples,” said Siches.
The second axis of this plan consists of the establishment of “territorial parliaments”, where dialogues between the State and representatives of the Mapuche people will be promoted.
“We will resume the old tradition of parlamenting between the Chilean State and the Mapuche people, to reach agreements that respond to political and territorial demands, among others. For the promotion of these intercultural meetings, we have already requested the accompaniment of the United Nations system, and we will begin these dialogues in July,” said the Minister of the Interior.
In terms of security, Siches indicated that he asked the Public Ministry to appoint “a prosecutor with preferential dedication for the investigation of criminal organizations that are dedicated, among other things, to drug trafficking and the theft of wood, to give guarantees to all parties that crimes will be prosecuted as the law mandates,” as well as special attention to the protection of routes and roads.
“It is evident that in recent times we have had an increase in acts of violence on the roads. We have witnessed cowardly attacks, such as the one suffered by Ciro Palma. We have also seen extended road closures that put free transit at risk and cut off supply chains, increasing the cost of living in the most lagging areas of our country,” he said.
In this way, the Minister of Interior said that the State decided to make use of “all the tools to give security to our citizens, decreeing a state of emergency for the protection of the routes in the province of Arauco and Biobío, and in the region of La Araucanía, to allow the free movement of people, the supply and implementation of policies that can improve the quality of life of the inhabitants of these territories”.
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