The Armed Forces' Concern About the Intermediate State

El Mostrador, May 14, 2022

In Chile, it is time for politicians to take responsibility for the problems we face and support the actions of law enforcement and security institutions, for the judicial system, including the Public Ministry, to act effectively, for the police to fulfill their constitutional mandates without fear of taking action, and for the rule of law to prevail. If all of this happens and functions properly, the Armed Forces can be employed only exceptionally when necessary, rather than all the time as has been the norm in recent times. The idea is not to ask the cat to pull the chestnuts out of the fire with its paws, and since the cat has burned its paws on more than one occasion, it is reluctant to do so again, which is why it is concerned and expressing its worry.

It is said that the armed forces are concerned about the implementation of an intermediate state, something that in the minds of politicians and the general public is closer to what was once the critical infrastructure protection project raised by Alberto Espina when he was Minister of Defense, rather than a state of emergency, one of the constitutional states of exception available in the Lagos constitution, although it may seem to come from the four generals, as an important national authority reminds us.

And they are right to be concerned, but they are not necessarily worried about the existence of a new constitutional state. They are concerned because they are being asked to take on tasks that belong to the Carabineros, and in addition, regardless of whether it is a state of emergency, or in what would be the protection of critical infrastructure or in this new political invention, they do not have the legal framework that protects their members when they must act using their weapons; the rules of use of force are difficult to understand and complex to apply, and when the first problem arises, political authorities do not support their actions and leave the institutions and their teams alone. This is not fiction; it is enough to look at the evidence that exists every time the armed forces have had to act, whether under the governments of Sebastian Piñera, Michelle Bachelet, or the current one of Gabriel Boric.

The only constitutional state of exception applicable to cases like those experienced in the southern macrozone, under which the defense institutions feel somewhat comfortable, is under a state of siege, a state in which military justice code applies, which is designed for states like the one just mentioned or the state of assembly that applies in the case of external war.

The reality is that when there have been problems or military or naval patrols have had to act, they end up being judged by civilian courts, investigated by the Public Ministry, and what is worse, each of them has to pay for their own lawyers because the state does not allow the institutions to take care of their defenses. Just ask the marines who acted in Cañete, and the Carabineros, who are also affected by the same problem, a problem they did not choose and to which they are obliged to respond.

In Chile, it is time for the executive authority to act without fear and to call things by their name, for the police to do what is their own, for the armed forces to be employed only exceptionally in non-primary tasks and not as has been the norm in recent years, where they have been employed in the state of disaster due to the pandemic, supporting the police at the northern border, in states of exception triggered by the insurrection in the southern macrozone, and the uncontrolled immigration coming from Venezuela and entering from Bolivia.

In Chile, it is time for politicians to take responsibility for the problems we face and support the actions of law enforcement and security institutions, for the judicial system, including the Public Ministry, to act effectively, for the police to fulfill their constitutional mandates without fear of taking action, and for the rule of law to prevail. If all of this happens and functions properly, the Armed Forces can be employed only exceptionally when necessary, rather than all the time as has been the norm in recent times. The idea is not to ask the cat to pull the chestnuts out of the fire with its paws, and since the cat has burned its paws on more than one occasion, it is reluctant to do so again, which is why it is concerned and expressing its worry.

Richard Kouyoumdjian
Vice President at AthenaLab

Source: El Mostrador