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This Monday, they were summoned to the Senate Environment commission, led by the Socialist Alfonso de Urresti, Foreign Minister Andrés Allamand and the Minister of the Environment, Carolina Schmidt. The issue in question was the well-known one: the government’s refusal to sign the Escazú Agreement. In the instance, they repeated the same arguments that they made last week in the Foreign Relations committee of the Chamber of Deputies.
However, it did not end the same as last week, as it ended 40 minutes later than the deadline, which was at 2:00 p.m. And he was able to continue more, since the session ended because Allamand said that he had urgent and prior commitments.
Moods in the commission were tense at all times. The instance began with the intervention of the ministers and later continued Paulina Astroza, professor of International Law at the University of Concepción and doctor in Political and Social Sciences, and Valentina Durán, director of the Center for Environmental Law at the University of Chile. On the occasion, both academics refuted the points provided by the Government to support their position.
Afterwards, Senator PPD Guido Girardi spoke, harshly criticizing La Moneda’s arguments for not signing Escazú: “This meeting, it seems to me that what we have heard is very serious. Here there has been a lack of truth, deception, misrepresentation and there is a problem of probity of the experts in quotes, because they have pointed out things that are not. In addition, I believe that this Government is, I would say actively, interested in violating Human Rights ”, he said, adding that it considers“ regrettable that this commission is treated as if we were ignorant, because I believe that it is necessary to have an intellectual rigor ”.
“It cannot be said that all the aspects that are contained in the treaty are shared and then in an absolutely frivolous way, without foundation, say that it will not be signed because there is a problem of form. We don’t have to accept being insulted intellectually. Here is a set of arguments that, if they were as the Foreign Ministry has proposed, Chile could not have signed any treaty (…). I think that the Foreign Ministry is far from the level required to deal with matters like this and I highly value what Paulina Astroza pointed out, because I believe that it is a demolition, literally, of the false and fallacious arguments that the Foreign Ministry has had, “he added. .
“This government is going to go down in history as the worst environmental government of these decades. There has never been a government that had the level of lightness and political use on environmental issues. Finally, I think you have to have a bit of modesty If one does not have any commitment to the environment, what does not correspond is for the whole world to publicize that this Government has environmental leadership and that it has a commitment to the environment that is totally false, it is misleading advertising “, ended.
Allamand’s answer and the “Armonyl”
Girardi expanded on his speech, for which he was stopped by a fellow commissioner. The one who did not agree with what was stated by the PPD was the UDI José Miguel Durana, who dismissed Girardi’s statements as “unacceptable”. There everything exploded in the commission.
Another who criticized Girardi was Rodrigo Galilea (RN): “Senator Girardi’s verbal incontinence exceeded all the limits of what I had seen in the Senate.” Isabel Allende (PS), meanwhile, regretted “the climate, because I I think this is too relevant a topic that has aroused international interest and criticism ”.
Allamand later asked for the floor and described as “truly unpresentable” that Girardi, “under his leadership a space for insults and diatribes is opened. The expressions of Mr. Girardi, who speaks of deception, lack of truth, false arguments, all We already know that diatribe, it is when people have no argument. (…) How are we going to continue the session if this is going to turn into an exchange of insults? We are not willing to do that, we have not insulted to anyone and we don’t have to accept being insulted ”.
De Urresti, in his capacity as president of the commission, called for calm, assuring that they would ensure “the respect of each and every one of the guests and senators. I would ask colleagues to (take) a ‘Armonyl’, be calm, do not interrupt, the floor is going to be given to everyone ”.
After cardboard, Allamand said that he was retiring, but De Urresti counterattacked: “Minister, with a lot of respect and the frankness that one has, do not come to me with things. You did not come to the session cited by the Senate last week and now you have time problems. A minimum of respect ”.
Minister Schmidt, more succinctly, indicated that they have “a tremendously strong environmental agenda” and that “here the government’s environmental agenda is questioned and I find it unacceptable.” She also recalled that “it is the President of the Republic who has the power to determine if the signing of an international treaty is convenient for Chile “
Girardi requests special session in the Senate
Senator Guido Girardi later referred to what happened in the committee, indicating that he is going to request “a special session of Congress to see this issue because it really seems very serious to me that Chile allows human rights to be violated in environmental matters.”
The parliamentarian considered “what was heard at this meeting very serious. Here there has been a lack of truth, deception, misrepresentation and a problem of probity, particularly because the ‘experts’ say things that are not (…), they believe us ignorant and insult us with arguments without thickness or intellectual rigor (…). If it were as the Foreign Ministry has proposed, Chile could not have signed any treaty ”.
He added that “Human Rights are not only violated when indiscriminately triggered, but also when participation and access to information (on the environmental effect) of productive projects is denied.”
“This government is going to go down in history as the worst in this matter and it does not want to protect what the State of Chile itself proposed to the world as a civilizing minimum,” he lamented.
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