Increasingly criticized and pressured by the opposition, Chilean President Gabriel Boric announced on Wednesday a “National Search Plan” for those who disappeared during the Augusto Pinochet dictatorship, the start of which will be half a century in a few days.
The plan aims to clarify the circumstances of the disappearance or death of the victims, but also the access to information by the next of kin, as well as to guarantee reparation measures and the guarantee of “non-repetition” of the crimes of forced disappearance.
According to the government, at least 3,200 people were killed or disappeared during the 17-year Pinochet dictatorship (1973-1990).
The speech to present the plan showed a tense Boric. The political pressure on the youngest president of America, 37 years old, has been increasing since the draft of the new Constitution was rejected. The resurgence of the hard right centered around José Antonio Kast, whom Boric defeated in the December 2021 presidential elections, radically changed the political landscape, with a defensive president who recently had to part with Giorgio Jackson, a minister and very close friend. close, amid accusations of corruption.
The announcement of the “National Search Plan” marked the launch of events for the 50th anniversary of the coup, which took place on September 11, 1973. This week Hernán Chacón Soto, a former Army brigadier convicted of the kidnapping, committed suicide and murder of the singer Víctor Jara. The conviction of Soto, 86, and five other soldiers had been ratified by the Supreme Court, but when the Police went to look for the convicted person at his house, the former soldier took his own life.
Almost simultaneously, Guillermo Teillier, former leader of the Communist Party, died at the age of 79. Boric was part of the honor guard that carried the coffin and made some statements that unleashed a political storm: “(Teillier) died a dignified man, proud of the life he had lived. There are others who die cowardly so as not to face to Justice. There are human differences there”.
The center-right and right-wing opposition, which has a majority in the Constituent Convention that must shape the new Magna Carta, did not let those words go unnoticed.
“This comment is a shame. Ask for forgiveness, because not only does it not help the unit with which they brag so much, but it also denotes a total lack of awareness of the position he holds,” said the general secretary of National Renewal, Diego Schalper.
In the midst of that tension, Boric’s goals falter. No longer to move forward with a new Constitution of a social democratic nature, an unfeasible objective, but to achieve unity around a core issue: no more Coups d’état.
Boric proposes to all parties the signing of a commitment, “For democracy, today and always.” “We are going to invite all the political parties in Chile to sign a declaration precisely in this sense. There are always those who try to find justifications according to the context of the breakdown of democracy and I believe that the breakdown of democracy in a legally constituted government that exercised its functions democratically is simply unacceptable”.
The opposition will not sign that agreement and will redouble the pressure on Boric. “I believe that someone who abuses power, someone who uses a platform to insult someone, is a coward, he is a coward,” said Kast, who aspires to reach the La Moneda Palace in 2026.
