Halting violence and insecurity requires a national alliance

Violence and insecurity in Chile have been growing. There are various causes. Recent events that made newspaper headlines and shook Chile’s inhabitants have led leaders to think that solutions cannot wait any longer.

Carmen Esquivel

In the early hours of 14th of July, four adolescents were shot dead in Chile as they left a party. They were between 13 and 17 years old and were next to a bonfire in the commune of Quilicura in Santiago Metropolitan Region when their lives were ended by a burst of over 40 gunshots.

Two days later, in the municipality of Lampa in the same region, five people, all foreigners, died in a shoot-out at an events centre. Following these events the Chilean president, Gabriel Boric, convened an urgent meeting of the Pro-Security Cabinet and announced various measures aimed at tackling crime, among them the construction of a jail for organised crime bosses.

In this interview with the press the political analyst and former interior ministry advisor, Juan Andrés Lagos, reflects on the phenomenon’s many causes, its scale and on proposals to tackle it.

Two slaughters occurred within a few days of each other in the Metropolitan Region. How would you evaluate the situation?

I think there is a huge crisis which has several causes and has been brewing for a long time. It is not recent.

How long are we talking about?

After the coup d’état in 1973, I’m talking about the end of the 1970s and the 1980s, there are statistics and books which show a strong increase in the amount of cocaine coming into the country.

The repressive apparatus of Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship, like the National Intelligence Directorate (Spanish acronym DINA) and the National Information Centre (CNI) were involved in the entry of drugs across borders, money laundering and the sale of narcotics around the country.

That business did not stop at the end of the 80s when the transitional pact began in Chile; it continued.

What happened in the following years?

In the 1990s the large cartels that operate on the continent and always take as their reference point the Unites States’ and now the European markets began a persistent movement and growth towards the Southern Cone.

That is how they got into countries like Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela, Chile, Peru and Bolivia.

Chile became an appealing ground for the cartels due to the ease with which they could go in and out across the borders and establish themselves around the country.

The government has implemented various programmes such as the Streets without Violence Plan to tackle the scourge of crime.

They have made a real fight of it which did not happen under previous administrations. For example, timber theft is being combated in the eighth region where loaded lorries passed along all the roads, arrived at ports, loaded their cargo onto ships and left for abroad. There important objectives have been achieved. With respect to the Streets without Violence Plan there are some results but if one considers all the aspects involved in this crisis, let’s say money laundering, banking secrecy, additions, organised crime in the territories, I don’t think the parties realise the depth of the crisis.

What would the solution be?

A national agreement is needed. My party, the Communist Party, has suggested it, as has the Central Union of Workers. It would imply everyone pulling in the same direction, I mean political groups, the executive and legislative powers, the churches, social, union and municipal organisations and the private sector.

It should be done now, not in a year or two.

But the scourge transcends borders. What do you propose at regional level?

There is an urgent need for us to deepen agreements firstly with our neighbours: Peru, Bolivia and Argentina. But we also need to increase agreements with other countries in the region like Colombia, Venezuela and Ecuador.

For example, with regard to migration in the Southern Cone, this is a phenomenon which won’t stop even if the borders are closed because it has multiple causes, the main one being that families seek economic opportunities.

In Chile’s case, there have been several migrations in recent decades: from Peru, less from Bolivia and Argentina, a significantly greater one from Haiti and from Venezuela, when President Sebastián Piñera went to Cúcuta and offered Venezuelans the so-called democratic responsibility visa.

These migrations did not just bring to the country those who came looking for socio-economic betterment. People linked to organised crime also came in, something which recent arrests have demonstrated.

Therefore, we need bilateral and multilateral agreements, exchange of information, co-operative working between different countries’ police forces. We have to clear up the distrust and move to another level.

What do you think of the proposal from some sectors to impose a state of siege in the Metropolitan Region?

Putting the armed forces on the streets will not solve the problem. There are specific situations where their experience can be helpful, for example with border control in the north, although it needs to be deepened and improved greatly. I think the urgent thing is to involve all the country’s institutions in that plan and, of course, the armed forces cannot be outside that.

One of the government’s proposals is to build a maximum-security prison in the Metropolitan Region but it has met with rejection from some mayors.

Indeed, a high security prison, meeting international standards, has to be built where there is total control.

In this situation, the real problem is that resources are needed. It cannot be resolved with what we have today, nor by diverting small percentages.

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