Chile to deploy military to quell southern attacks

Chile's government declared a temporary emergency in four southern provinces plagued by spiraling violence.

The controversial constitutional measure allows the armed forces to support police in Bío Bío and Arauco provinces of the Bío Bío region and Malleco and Cautín provinces in the Araucanía region, where some radical indigenous Mapuche groups have long demanded autonomy from the Chilean state.

Although the conflict in the impoverished communities has churned for decades, attacks on forestry industry infrastructure and private property have escalated sharply in recent years, with criminal groups widely seen as exploiting the Mapuche cause to sustain illicit activities, including drugs trafficking, and theft of wood and farm animals using increasingly sophisticated weapons. Arson attacks have occurred nearly everyday for months.

Truckers today were blocking parts of Chile's main highway to protest growing security risks in the south.

Chilean state-owned Enap runs a 116,000 b/d refinery in the Bío Bío region, but the plant lies in the coastal city of Talcahuano outside the territory targeted by the new decree.

Bío Bío and Araucanía are the heartland of Chile's pulp and paper industry led by Arauco, the forestry arm of Chile's Angelini conglomerate which also owns the country's largest fuel distributor Copec and LPG distributor Abastible. The company runs numerous biomass power stations.

The two regions also host multiple hydroelectric plants.

Ballot box beckons

The new emergency decree — which will remain in effect for 15 days and can be renewed for another 15 days — is designed to "better confront terrorism, drugs trafficking and organized crime, and in no case is it oriented toward a community or a group of peaceful citizens," center-right president Sebastián Piñera said today.

Piñera, a wealthy businessman serving a deeply unpopular second presidential term, will pass the baton to a new leader in March 2022. A first round of general elections will take place on 21 November, with a run-off scheduled for December.

Leftist presidential frontrunner Gabriel Boric, a congressman from the deep south who leads a broad coalition with key support from Chile's Communist Party, has called for dialogue over "militarization" of the Mapuche-led regions. Among Boric's main rivals is arch conservative Jose Antonio Kast, highlighting political polarization in a long-stable country known for copper exports, burgeoning solar and wind energy and an aggressive green hydrogen campaign.

By Patricia Garip