War and Peace

Taking concrete steps to resolve the centuries-old conflict between the Chilean state and the Mapuche people has not been easy for this government. It's enough to recall the disaster of the morning of March 15, 2022, when then-Interior Minister Izkia Siches was shot at on the way to Temucuicui —just four days after President Gabriel Boric took office—and the escalating violence on highways and roads in the south that forced the government to declare a state of constitutional emergency , despite having expressed on countless occasions that it would not use this measure.

While the right and sectors of the former Concertación celebrated the decision as a defeat for the young and inexperienced Frente Amplio supporters, sectors of the Mapuche people and human rights organizations accused the government, and particularly the president's party, of failing to fulfill its promise to end the militarization of the Araucanía region. Of course, there were those who dismissed the New Left's political strategy for advancing a resolution to this conflict.

However, and not without difficulties, the government did not give up. Convinced that the state of emergency is not a lasting solution and that underlying issues, such as territorial demands, economic and social backwardness, and state neglect, needed to be addressed urgently, the Buen Vivir Plan was implemented and the Presidential Commission for Peace and Understanding was convened . The former was conceived as a development promotion strategy based on dialogue between the state and communities through authorities and government officials permanently deployed on the ground, with the necessary dedication of time to establish bonds of trust and continuity. In its years of implementation, the Buen Vivir Plan has achieved a substantial increase in public investment (projected to three trillion pesos over 10 years) in areas that were experiencing backwardness and neglect by the state.

The Peace Commission, the other pillar of the government's strategy, responded to the genuine conviction that there is no solution to this conflict that does not involve resolving the land issue , and to the realization that the current instruments for this task are not only insufficient but are part of the problem. To give you an idea: an estimate made by the Commission calculates that if we follow the current scheme, it would take between 80 and 120 years to execute the land purchases and transfers demanded, a timescale that would evidently strain even the wisest and most patient temperaments.

Among the many virtues that could be highlighted about this commission, the co-presidency exercised by Alfredo Moreno and Francisco Huenchumilla was one of the most significant. Placing at the helm of this effort two proponents of previous, and at the same time, truncated, efforts to build political solutions, which included constitutional recognition, reparations for victims, land return, and significant social investment, sent a powerful signal to society and, above all, to the political arena as a whole. It is worth remembering that the former Minister of the Interior during Michelle Bachelet's second administration, Jorge Burgos, asked for the resignation of then-Mayor Huenchumilla when he presented his proposals to advance the resolution of the conflict, and that Alfredo Moreno, leader of the ambitious Araucanía Plan, was removed from the Ministry of Social Development after the murder of Camilo Catrillanca by the Carabineros special forces group known as the "Jungle Command."

A public security strategy, which beyond the state of emergency included measures such as the timber theft law and the creation of the Ministry of Security; ongoing dialogue with communities; and the search for long-term agreements to resolve the land issue—these are key components of the government's strategy, and one of its most rapid results has been the substantial decrease in acts of violence. While 2021, the last year of Sebastián Piñera's administration and with the state of emergency in place, was the most violent, with more than 1,600 reported incidents, 2024 saw a 70% decrease. It is safe to attribute these results to the components of dialogue, state presence, and social investment.

The strategy deployed by the government to address the conflict between the Chilean state and the Mapuche people offers lessons that should not be overlooked. Lessons ranging from the need to recognize when conditions do not exist to immediately carry out what is considered correct out of conviction—in this case, demilitarization—to the courage to insist on the decision to create political solutions, with substantive dialogue, a permanent state presence, and the participation of the entire political spectrum. And it is fair to recognize that, despite the difficulties inherent in a centuries-old conflict, this government has been able to break the polarization and entrenchment and create spaces for cross-cutting dialogue at both the central and community levels.

At the antithesis of the path to peace that the New Left-led government is striving to cement, the extreme right is offering war. Recently, Representative Arturo Squella, president of the Republican Party—the same party that forced the resignation of Senator Carmen Gloria Aravena, a member of the Peace Commission—with a mixture of ignorance and irresponsibility, asserted that there was no other solution than to declare a state of siege due to internal war and apply the code of military justice. The Chilean right, as we know, has experience declaring war on its own people, so Squella's remarks, while regrettable, are not surprising. Meanwhile, Evelyn Matthei, who initially joined those who criticized the report before learning of it, has not said anything substantive since its publication.

Given this, it's hard not to think that the fate of this peace effort is intimately tied to the outcome of the presidential and parliamentary elections. Therefore, those of us who are part of the new left face this scenario with all the seriousness it represents: to consolidate what has been achieved and ensure its continuity, we must defeat both the war-mongering far right and the spiraling traditional right. The stakes are so high that there is no room for defeatism or petty accommodations.