The Chilean president, Gabriel Boric, has branded on Thursday as «terrorists» the acts of violence registered in the region of La Araucanía at the beginning of his tour in the south of the country.
The president, who assured that these crimes will be «prosecuted to the full extent of the law», described the perpetrators as «cowards» and promised the creation of centers to attend to the victims of violence in rural areas.
Boric addressed the issue after holding a meeting with the authorities of the city of Temuco after meeting, in addition, with the governor of La Araucanía, Luciano Rivas, according to information from the news portal Emol.
He emphasized that his intention is to communicate changes and measures and recognized that the government «has not been able to find a path to peace». In this sense, he stressed that «the people behind the attacks will not be able to intimidate either the government or the people» of the region.
«They are very wrong, they are cowards. They are cowards and we will pursue them with the full weight of the law,» he stressed before pointing out that such acts are similar «to those of the Nazi regime or a military dictatorship.» «You know what the burning of the school and the church we saw today reminds me of? It reminds me of when in the 1930s the Nazis burned synagogues. It reminds me of when in September 1973 the dictatorship burned books in Plaza San Borja,» he said.
Boric also affirmed that «these people are going to be persecuted», while assuring that they will be victorious because «the great majority of those who live in La Araucanía and the immense and overwhelming majority of the Mapuche people want peace and we are going to dialogue with them».
However, he declared that the anti-terrorist law «is not the adequate tool to confront these situations» and admitted that it has brought «terrible results for the victims and the State».
«What we are doing is modifying legal bodies, in particular the law against organized crime, granting greater powers to the Carabineros, but do not forget (…) that this is something that we are going to pursue with all the effective tools that the law gives us», he concluded.
