Macrozone South: Insurgency, Terrorism, or Rural Violence

El Líbero, January 24, 2024

What we have in the Macrozone South is insurgency, and therefore all the good that is being done today has its limitations because the diagnosis is incorrect and the problem is far from being solved.

I congratulate Pablo Urquízar and the University of San Sebastián for publishing the book “X-ray of Violence and Terrorism in the Macrozone South: Current Problems and Challenges.” In the program Vía Pública, there is a good interview with Matías del Río where Urquízar’s opinion on the topic and what his book covers can be seen.

One of Pablo Urquízar’s main conclusions is that 2023 was a good year regarding the reduction of violence in the area and the arrests of individuals wanted for past crimes. It is indicated that finally, the State of Chile, including in that definition the Public Ministry, police, courts, Executive, Armed Forces, and local authorities, as a whole, has managed to improve its coordination and effectiveness, and as a result, the improvements mentioned in the press are being observed.

Also read Richard Kouyoumdjian: On the National Security Council and States of Emergency

2024 began with mixed signals such as the burning of a bus in Collipulli, or the conditional release of Celestino Córdova, later revoked by the Supreme Court. The first case shows the limitations of our preventive actions of the emergency state type, and the second indicates that we cannot take for granted that the past dis-coordination has been completely overcome.

Urquízar rightly points out that we are lacking in what pertains to the National Intelligence System, as the current one is inadequate for what is happening in Chile.Its law needs to be modernized, and the system as a whole is designed to be ineffective and is incapable of operating correctly in the Chile we have, apart from the problems in the Macrozone South, serious issues of urban organized crime, drug trafficking, and violence in the main cities of the country.

In the governments of Bachelet and Piñera, rural violence was discussed; now there is timid talk of terrorism, but we cannot treat it as such due to the operational limitations of the anti-terrorism law. We treat the problems of the Macrozone South as if they were common crimes, but without the appropriate tools if we believe it is terrorism.

Unlike many, I argue that what we have in the Macrozone South is insurgency, and therefore all the good that is being done today has its limitations because the diagnosis is incorrect and the problem is far from being solved. Clearly, there are improvements, and politicians are happy to show statistics that say we are better off, but I insist that we are eliminating the criminal symptoms and not addressing the underlying problems, and the insurgents know this; they are aware of the limitations of our actions and operate knowing that what we do will not neutralize them.

I say insurgency because we are facing several armed groups of Mapuche origin that seek to be sovereign in territories that are Chilean, where the authority of the State of Chile is not recognized, which have quite expansive plans and will do whatever is necessary to achieve their objectives. Just ask who governs in Temucuicui, and I assure you it is not the government of Chile, and that the State is not present in that territory.

Sometimes what the insurgents do resembles delinquency, rural violence, or terrorism, but that does not make them criminals, violent individuals, or terrorists. We must look at their motivation, as the thief seeks economic benefits, the terrorist seeks to instill terror and gain publicity, and unlike the former, the insurgent seeks territorial control to be the one who governs it, to be its sovereign. They will carry out criminal or terrorist actions if they need to for their purposes, and they will allow theft, drug trafficking, arson, and other bad practices if it enables them to finance their operations.

If we do not understand that we are facing insurgents, we will never eliminate the problem of the Macrozone South. Eliminating insurgency requires a joint action from the State of Chile, but with a greater emphasis on military solutions different from those we know, accompanied by economic and social actions aimed at improving the conditions of the people living in the territories that the insurgents seek to govern. It also requires a robust and effective intelligence system, as we must be able to detect their operational units, the names of their members, the communities that provide them protection and support, and many other things. We must also be able, on the day we neutralize them, to provide solutions to the problems that allowed the insurgency to arise, that is, to ensure they are effectively part of the State of Chile and not abandoned territories where the law of the strongest prevails.

More of the same does not solve the problem of the Macrozone South. Certainly, what has been done to date helps a lot, but if we want to eliminate or neutralize the problems, we must start by recognizing that it is insurgency and therefore provide the remedies that this type of phenomenon requires.

Richard Kouyoumdjian
Vice President AthenaLab

Source: El Líbero