PPD deputy Ricardo Celis announced that he will promote the creation of a investigative commission to review the “very worrying” events that occurred in the last hours in Curacautín, Ercilla, Traiguén and Victoria.
During Saturday night and Sunday morning, civilians evicted Mapuche community members that the municipalities of said communes occupied. The institutions were seriously damaged.
In a statement, Celis assured that those responsible for the situations of violence are the wrong policies taken by the State regarding the Indigenous villages.
“Underlying here is a theme that has to do with the history and installation of the State in La Araucanía. There are unresolved historical demands, pending even after the return to democracy, “he assured.
PPD and PS react
His party, the PPD, issued a statement indicating that the new interior minister Victor Perez prioritizes repression over dialogue.
“The ways of violence will never be effective in the fight for social justice. Neither does racial or instigated violence. The performance of a organized group of civilians seeking to replace the institutional and police paths, expressing racial hatred, they are totally contrary to a rule of law, “they pointed out.
For this reason, they called on the Government “to amend its policy towards indigenous peoples and summon the ancestral authorities of the Mapuche people to urgently develop the social and political dialogue that indigenous peoples have been demanding for a long time and that the authorities who have announced their emergency arrival in La Araucanía are bearers of a new deal with the Mapuche people. ”
Meanwhile, the Socialist Party released a statement demanding that Pérez “must respond to the procedure of Carabineros and armed civilians in the violent evictions of the town hall buildings, even more so when he visited the La Araucanía region on Friday, July 31 and made statements than tempers flared“.
“Given what has happened, we demand that the Government of Chile comply with its obligations with the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial discrimination“They added.
Officialist reactions
From the other side, the president of the UDI, senator Jacqueline van Rysselberghe, indicated that the seizures and damages in the municipalities are “pure vandalism” and questioned the reasons for the occupations.
“This is the world turned upside down. A group of people decides to defend a ruthless criminal who was sentenced for a terrible and treacherous crime of two defenseless elders (Celestino Córdova), and they do it by causing more violence, and destroying areas that are very important for those communities, such as the municipalities that were attacked, ”he said.
He added that “it must be said with all its letters. The honest people are tired of the violence in La Araucanía and they deserve to live in peace, without feeling threatened by violent groups that have no justification for what they do. ”
Meanwhile, from RN the senator José García Ruminot He noted that “the situation is unsustainable and no one has the right to deprive citizens of the use of the facilities of their respective municipality and the State has the obligation to return peace to the affected communities, it has the legal instruments and the powers.”
Meanwhile, the deputy Miguel Mellado He said that “people got tired of authorities failing to enforce the rule of law and they disagree with the violence exercised by groups protected in a cause that is no longer legitimate.”
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