Despite having received pifias on his arrival at O’Higgins Park by a group of adherents of the Chilean ultra-right, President Gabriel Boric said that “it was an honor” to have led his first Military Parade as Head of State, on the Day of the Glories of the Army. The President was proud and happy “to see this act of subordination of military power to civilian power, where the history of our homeland is honored.”
Regarding the demonstration against him, President Boric said that “expressions of opinion are always legitimate.” He recalled that he himself has been part of demonstrations many times in his life and, therefore, said he had no problem with “those who do not agree with us expressing their opinion.” Of course, in line with the subsequent statements of the spokeswoman of La Moneda, he asked them “not to disrespect the institutions of the homeland, the Armed Forces, the Carabineros and all those who have made an impeccable Military Parade that I believe has been at the height of the history of Chile.”
Gabriel Boric valued that the military parade had “a gesture of austerity in the deployment of force.” And, declaring that he has greater and greater appreciation for these republican spaces,” he defined the event held in Santiago as “an act that exalts the history of the Homeland and the Republic.”
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Who also addressed the demonstration against the head of state was the minister of the General Secretariat of Government (Segegob), Camila Vallejo (PC), after describing the military parade as exemplary, criticized that “the demonstrations of a small group of ultra-right adherents who convened to generate a protest against the President, but who ended up disrespecting all our institutions, are regrettable.”
The Spokeswoman for La Moneda pointed out that there were shouts, expletives and rudeness, including in the raising of the flag and in the parade. In his opinion, “those groups that move by hatred disrespected the Military Parade as a whole throughout the ceremony,” highlighting that most of the people witnessed the event peacefully.
In that sense, the head of the Segegob made a call, “especially to the republican sector and patriots who organized to shout throughout the ceremony,” waiting for the condemnation of the political forces of that sector. “As they always call for non-violence, today we had a violent action on the part of the groups convened. This is only a lack of respect for the presidential institution, also for our institutions such as the Armed Forces, order and security,” he said.
Minister Camila Vallejo also had words for the continuity of the constituent process, stating that “in politics we have to be guided by convictions and by what citizens express democratically at the polls. It’s not about weekly polls.”
The President of the Senate, Álvaro Elizalde (PS), who declared that he had a privileged view of both the “limited” group that demonstrated against President Boric and the huge crowd of people who came to witness the Military Parade, commented that the event “is an important tradition, it was impeccable, and accounts for the relationship that must exist between the Armed Forces and civil authorities. The performance was top-notch and there were an impressive number of people at a family party.”
Regarding the pifias to the President, Senator Elizalde said that “it was a fairly limited group that was located early in the morning in the park in order to have greater notoriety, but the number of people who arrived later was a lot.” And he maintained that “they are the same ones who a few days ago founded parliamentarians who are participating in the dialogue to advance in the constituent process, where UDI and RN parliamentarians are also included.”
“To some extent a tradition was tarnished and therefore represents a lack of respect for those who paraded today,” criticized the legislator and helmsman of the Upper House, stressing that in any case “in democracy there is freedom of expression.”
After the Military Parade, President Gabriel Boric said that he will first attend a toast with members of the Army and then travel directly to the United States in the company of the ministers of Finance, Defense and Environment, to attend the UN General Assembly. “We are going to give an account of the moment that Chile is experiencing, of how it iswe have been changing you as a society, our commitments to Human Rights (HUMAN RIGHTS) in the world, and certainly our commitment to respect international treaties,” said the President, about his participation in the UN, 50 years after Salvador Allende’s famous speech.
“We hope it will be a high-level trip. The President has an agenda that you already know and that is very intense. And we hope that dialogue will take place and that international collaboration will prevail,” Senator Elizalde added about the trip of the presidential delegation.
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