18 / O Preparations for a complex anniversary

Moderate optimism. This is how La Moneda authorities define the atmosphere that reigned last Tuesday, October 6, at the end of a coordination meeting between the Interior and Defense portfolios in which the contingency plans were updated due to the fear of a resurgence of social mobilizations on the occasion of the anniversary of the social outbreak of October 18 and the constituent plebiscite.

Until Friday, October 2, they recognize in the government, the scenarios that were being handled were much more reassuring. The coronavirus pandemic, which has claimed more than 13 thousand lives in Chile so far, forcing social distancing and strong restrictions on people’s mobility, had helped to drastically reduce the street protests that had been taking place since the social outbreak of the year past. In addition, the constituent process, which will have one of its milestones in the plebiscite on October 25, had also collaborated in opening paths for a non-violent solution to the social crisis.

Even so, from April to last week, 918 “events of public disorder” had been registered in the country, although all of them of a size and massiveness much smaller than those that the country experienced in the last quarter of 2019. With the arrival of October, they point out in La Moneda, it was logical to foresee an increase in protests and violence. At least that is what the police reports that the Carabineros send to the Interior Ministry daily indicated.

Every day, for several months, in the premises of the fifth floor of the National Police Directorate, located on Zenteno street, opposite La Moneda, the general director of the uniformed police, Mario Rozas, has met with a small group of members of the high command to take the pulse of the protests and incidents that are taking place. Appointment in which the director of Order and Security, General Luis Yáñez; the deputy director of the Carabineros, General Diego Olate; the person in charge of personnel, General Mauricio González, and the Director of Police Operations, General Jorge Valenzuela.

In recent days, disturbing elements emerged in the police analysis. An increase in attacks on police precincts in some towns in San Bernardo; in Lo Hermida, Peñalolén commune; the same as in La Pincoya, Huechuraba commune, and in Villa Francia, Central Station, totaling 544 attacks on Carabineros barracks since the outbreak to date. They also reported the resurgence of other violent events, such as the burning of Transantiago buses, as occurred on Monday 5 at Av. Grecia with Salvador, in Ñuñoa.

According to intelligence reports handled by the government, the most worrying dates were October 5 -anniversary of the increase in Metro fares that started last year’s outbreak-, Monday, October 12 -where demonstrations related to indigenous demands – on October 18, and what may happen on the night of the next 25, once the voting tables have closed and the vote counting process begins. In fact, that night is the one that arouses the greatest concern of the authorities.

From Defense, however, they assure that none of the scenarios that the Armed Forces were considering spoke of a “2.0 outbreak”, or of the fear of a radicalization of the actions at the level of those that were experienced last October 18, with the burning and destruction of a score of Metro stations and looting of supermarkets.

Hence, the alarms went off at sunset on Friday, October 2, last. That day, in the midst of incidents in the vicinity of Plaza Italia, among a group of protesters and Carabineros Special Forces, the youngest AA, aged 16, had a closed TEC and multiple fractures of his wrists and clavicle, when driven, According to the records handled by the prosecution, by the then Carabinero Sebastián Zamora to the Mapocho River, from the Pío Nono Bridge. A fact that inflamed the public and activated the opposition to demand the departure of Rozas from the Carabineros and the reform of the uniformed police.

The event also served as an excuse for the opposition deputies to finally present the constitutional accusation against the Minister of the Interior, Víctor Pérez, which had been drawn up since the truckers’ strike, without having achieved transversal support in the opposition until then.

“On Friday 2 there was a great frustration”, they recognize in Interior.

More than two months ago, the undersecretary of the Interior Ministry, Juan Francisco Galli, had been working with General Yáñez, Chief of Order and Security of the Carabineros, on the new police intervention protocols to face public disorder. These restrict the use of riot guns and tear gas, which were highly questioned last year by human rights organizations. While the action of infantry pickets is privileged, with the new shields -which now cover the whole body- and the new water-launching cars.

“There is no risk of zero in a police intervention, but it is very frustrating that changes are made and that they do not result,” says a source from the Interior.

The handling of the crisis that was unleashed after the Pío Nono Bridge incident also exacerbated the differences that have been occurring in recent months between Minister Pérez’s team and that of Undersecretary Galli, due to the more reserved way of working of the current head of the political team and the role assumed by some of Pérez’s closest collaborators at La Moneda, in particular Giovanni Calderón -ex-UDI deputy-, who has displaced the undersecretary in influence and in some of the decision-making.

The Undersecretariat of the Interior noted their annoyance at Pérez’s delay in reacting to what happened at the Pío Nono Bridge, and the fact that, despite the seriousness, the first intervention of the Minister of the Interior was on the television program by the comedian Checho Hirane on La Red. Something that was also internally noted by Secom.

In La Moneda they assure that President Piñera ordered to improve communication channels within the government and reduce reaction times to new incidents. Both the Armed Forces -because of the state of exception due to the pandemic they maintain a role in the control of public security- and the police the instruction was clear: “Immediately face any event that may occur with the complete truth ”, Add sources from the Interior portfolio.

Something that may seem obvious, but it was not necessary to reiterate after the string of versions that Carabineros gave in relation to the ex-uniformed Sebastián Zamora and that led the prosecution to open an edge for alleged cover-up, obstruction of justice and falsification of documents against other police officers.

In addition to the message to the uniformed officers, the President ordered the creation of a coordination body in communicational matters to face a complex month, as is expected this October. Group that was integrated by the ministers Víctor Pérez, Jaime Bellolio, Mario Desbordes, Cristián Monckeberg, Hernán Larraín, the undersecretary Juan Francisco Galli, the metropolitan mayor, Felipe Guevara, and the press officer of the Presidency, Carla Munizaga. This team already met for the first time last Tuesday 6 and will operate in parallel to the more operational meetings that will continue to be held by the Interior, Defense, the Undersecretariat of Crime with the high command of the police and the Armed Forces.

So far, Defense and Interior have met at least three times in recent weeks to plan and reinforce the measures that will be taken for public control.

Despite the fact that the critical infrastructure law has not yet been promulgated, in Defense they have already defined about 300 points that will be protected by military personnel. This planning does not include the Metro stations -the most hit last October 18-, which will continue to be controlled exclusively by the police. Of course, the Armed Forces will form “immediate reaction units”, with patrols that will travel according to the request made by the police. These units will not carry weapons of war, but rather deterrence devices, such as retractable batons and shotguns with the new three-pellet rubber ammunition, which has a lower penetration capacity and, therefore, presents a lower risk of causing severe injuries.

Precisely preparing for a more active October, the military commanders began two months ago to send back to the regions the troops who were transferred to Santiago to reinforce controls during the pandemic, aware of the wear and tear that their officials have suffered all these months. In June, during the so-called “Battle of Santiago” by Covid-19, 14,338 military personnel were deployed in continuous 12-hour shifts. At that time there were about 30 thousand daily checks.

On the other hand, in the coming days, an unknown number of military personnel assigned to the regions will reinforce security in Santiago, Valparaíso, Antofagasta, San Antonio and Concepción, among other cities.

The opposition, however, consider it counterproductive that the government seeks to instill in public opinion the fear of a resurgence of violence. “So far there have been no mass mobilizations, nor acts like those recorded last years. Positioning the issue now can end up encouraging radical groups, ”says a member of the Socialist leadership. They use the same reason to explain why they have been “cautious” in responding to government calls to reject violence.

From the DC to the PRO they have called to “take care of the environment” in which the campaign for the Approval in the plebiscite has been developed so far and to prevent acts of violence from giving arguments to sectors of the Rejection that demand the legitimacy of this constituent process .

“We all know that there will be mobilizations due to the proximity of October 18, but the idea is to give it content and that mobilizing spirit is with a view to winning approval in the plebiscite,” says PRO president Camilo Lagos.

Until now, the heads of the opposition parties have not discussed among themselves how to deal with an eventual upsurge in violence. However, in the coordination meetings of the commands for the approval, they have raised the possibility of calling a national cacerolazo for October 18 or in the previous days, as part of the closing of the electoral campaign. An idea that has caught on in the parties because, due to the restrictions due to the pandemic, it is completely ruled out to carry out massive acts.

In the PC they point out that they assume that on October 18 there will be many and diverse calls for mobilizations, but that these will be with respect to sanitary restrictions.

The PC will actively comply with the calls that arise from social organizations, but with safeguards. “We know that the right is looking for excuses to stop or prevent a massive vote in the plebiscite,” says a member of the communist leadership.

And although they do not say so, the fact of having one of their own, the mayor of Recoleta Daniel Jadue, in the first places in the presidential polls, is another of the factors they take into account to hope that there is no recrudescence of the violence.

Just this weekend, some social organizations, such as the Social Unity Table, hope to define the “commemoration and protest actions” that they will call for the next few days and, especially, for October 18.

The scenario is still uncertain.