-There are security problems on the northern border, in the Mapuche area, organized crime, perhaps intentional fires. How would you face these problems, in what order of priorities?
-If one could put it in order, what is evidently a gigantic failure is the National Intelligence System. A national system that is capable of delivering processed information to the authorities in charge of receiving it so that they can make decisions, because what does intelligence provide? It provides analysis, prospects scenarios and allows the authority to make decisions. That is, act, not react. That is something that has not been addressed or has been addressed only halfway. The other is that the police have the material to be able to combat these criminal gangs. The other time they asked me about heavy caliber weapons. Well, how long have we been hearing that criminals, gangs, have this type of weaponry? What is being done to provide the police with this weapons? The same FAMAE that manufactures good quality rifles, in combination with a foreign factory. That is to say, there is a national industry that can perfectly provide, but I believe that this issue of security is also an issue that has to encompass the entire political spectrum and not be those who are adversaries of the government today, who worry about promoting all this is very good, but when the sign changes, we are all in a certain way rowing towards the same side.
– But what happens if the police are overwhelmed in one or more of these critical points that I mentioned? Do the Armed Forces have to participate? Are the Armed Forces capable of supporting the police, if they are overwhelmed?
– In the case of the land border I think the Army could be much more involved. Today the Navy has responsibility and supervision over the maritime border, the Air Force over the air border and the land border is only handed over to the Carabineros. I do not want to say that the Carabineros will be removed from the border. I believe that Carabineros has experience that has existed for many decades, but there may be a complement, but that complement implies that the Army has to be equipped as well and when I speak of equipped not only with war material or vehicles, but also of personal. The issue of the border is something that the Army has been doing, at least in 2014-2015, without anyone asking it. With respect to public order, I understand perfectly that when the State and the country suffer a situation of extreme crime, which in practice surpasses the police, the authorities have to make use of all the resources of the State and one of those resources are the armed forces, but for them to act in a field that is not their own, they have to submit the procedure and the procedure is called Rules for the Use of Force, which has to have a legal status, so that after having followed those provisions , and this produces a criminal case, the soldier is supported by the action of the State, because the soldier finally when he is deployed on the street or is deployed in a critical infrastructure is not on his own, he is there because the State itself ordered him , he didn’t ask him, he ordered him to be there.
-Do they have training in the matter?
-The Armed Forces do not receive training to organize or to operate against criminal gangs, criminal gangs where they mix with the civilian population, with the innocent population, precisely as a human shield, there is no preparation for that, because the center of the preparation of the Armed Forces is another, it is the defense of sovereignty, the defense of one’s own interests but not for this type of tasks, but when the State requires that the Armed Forces be, then everything starts with the Rules of Use of the Force.
When the military deploys, in the case of the Army, they are not all professionals. There is also a mix with non-professional soldiers who are conscript soldiers, who do their military service for one year. In COSENA, he explained it in a certain way, he said, look, when the military goes out into the street, they don’t go out with an order to harm the population, but the soldiers don’t want to be harmed either. So the situation you propose has to be an extreme situation and since it is an extreme situation that removes the military from this basic, primordial, fundamental task, from my point of view it has to be with the authorization of two powers of the State. The emergency situation, which by law the President can decree once for 15 days and to extend it he has to ask permission from Congress. I am in favor of having it with the help of Congress from the first time. I am not going to refer to the siege because obviously to be decreed it has to be supported by Congress and why is it so important that the military comes out with the majority support of two branches of the State and with clear rules on the use of force? Because they are going to see an issue on the street, in the civilian population. Today it is called crime, therefore it is easier for us to say black and white, but what is going to happen when it is a political demonstration, under certain objectives that have that nature, what is going to happen with a new October 18 of 2019? Here I am leaving aside those criminals who burned, who looted, what do I know, but when the military comes out on an issue that has to do with a political conflict with social roots, the political group on the street that is opposed to the government, government that removes the Armed Forces, sees the Armed Forces as another adversary because it is the quote-unquote “armed” arm of the Executive Branch to get it out. From my point of view, for the presence of the soldier on the street to be validated, it has to be approved not only by the President but also by Congress through the Chamber of Deputies and the senators.
Political power must be held responsible
-That is, a state of constitutional exception in form. So you don’t agree with this oblique exit or pulling the cat out of the Critical Infrastructure Law? Would that be for something else? Don’t you talk to this?
– When critical infrastructure refers to nuclear facilities, electric power facilities, water facilities, facilities that have to do with people’s basic daily living, critical infrastructure is not a problem, it is not a problem that there is a law that mandates the Armed Forces without a constitutional state of exception to provide protection to that critical structure, but the question they have to ask themselves when that type of task is given is: the military force that will be protecting, for example, a sector where water is collected, where water is gathered to distribute it to a part of Santiago or a part of Chile and a mob comes to destroy all that and there are soldiers, what is the level of defense that this critical infrastructure will have? ? Is it going to reach lethality or not?
-And what have they responded to you?
-They don’t want to ask you that question, they don’t want to ask it, I’m not saying just now, before too, because it seemed that for the looting it was better for the military not to intervene. That is why at the end of the day, everything means that if I finally make the military leave, since I am the political authority, I am the Executive Branch, President of the Republic or I am the legislative branch, Congress, I have to be responsible for that exit, but I have to take responsibility by telling the soldiers clearly what they can do and what they cannot do. When I leave it in the nebula, for me, there is a very ugly word for that. For me that does not correspond, for me that is part of a lack of conviction, even democratic, because then I want the soldiers to go to what, to make an appearance and that eventually the people will be dissuaded from carrying out their violent acts or I really want the military to leave empowered when they leave, and that the population also knows that when the soldiers leave, they leave empowered.
There is no worse thing for the soldiers to leave and for the population to know that they are not on one side. The Rules for the Use of Force that we have today, which I understand are the same as those approved in January 2020, are by Supreme Decree, not by a law that passed through Congress, by Supreme Decree, which is very different from let it be law. Notice that it was so relevant that in the end when we wanted to transcribe in those rules of use of force an article that is in the Penal Code and in the Code of Military Justice, that you will understand that the codes are approved by law, that we simply wanted to transcribe that articulated, in this booklet or in this decree of Rules for the Use of Force, there was a political opposition. So someone has to be responsible for this, in quotes, but what cannot happen is that in the end the costs for that nebula that is sometimes convenient are paid by the soldier on foot.
I am no longer Commander in Chief of the Army, but you will have to understand that after 46 years of having belonged to its ranks, I will always defend the members of the institution and not only the Army, but also the armed forces, but in the Army in a particular way, regardless of who the circumstantial commander is directing it. As commander in chief of the Army, to me, that is very important and I think I have simply made the point. What I am talking about now, I want to tell you that it was the same thing that I explained to the defense ministers in the meetings with the President. I mean, it’s not news to me. It is probably news for you, because you did not know the opinions that we gave internally, because if we had said it publicly you would have immediately accused us of being deliberative.
– Is there a risk of corruption in the Armed Forces if they take to the streets?
-Always, institutions as large as the Army, the Navy, the Air Force and other institutions, Carabineros, the PDI, the scourge of corruption is always present. The point is, are we then going to let the Army and the Armed Forces not be used on the street when in some circumstances of maximum attention, the Executive and the Legislature need the Armed Forces to help ensure the tranquility of the population? The answer is no.
If there is a risk of corruption, isn’t it the same risk that the Carabineros and the Investigative Police have of being corrupted by the same gangs? When they are the ones who are permanently in contact with the civilian population. And the Armed Forces, which are not permanently in contact with the civilian population, because they have another task, another training, I would say that they are the least likely, if they are used, to fall immediately or in the short term, in the medium term. term, in levels of corruption. The levels of corruption that the Army, the Navy, the Air Force have had, but I am going to talk about the Army, or that any organization can have, are the same that any human group can have, unless the municipalities say so.
– I am referring, not to corruption in general terms, but to corruption generated from or caused by organized crime, the definitive co-optation of officials, which is not the same as every human institution is exposed to corruption, because the human being is complex, and that is why laws exist and sanctions exist, and internal intelligence organizations exist.
– The thing about organized crime and here I return to part of the answer I gave you, is that the question you have to ask yourself is, who has the most chance of being co-opted? Those who are permanently on the street?
-That’s what I mean, that if the Armed Forces are on the street and remain on the street, they are more exposed.
-But it is temporary.
-There we come to a point, there are times when it is not transitory. You have to see what happens in the Mapuche area.
-Of course, but there the Armed Forces are not in the fight against crime, in quotes, the crime that is in the urban area, the type of drugs. You could say, look, what happens is that in the Mapuche part there is also some of all that, well, but in practice it is not in the urban area and the police are working in the urban area, not the Armed Forces.