2023-05-06 12:00:04
Police and municipal agents are busy around a low house, with a facade covered in graffiti, in the center of Santiago, the capital of Chile, on Thursday, April 20. Through the half-open door, we see a shoe dragging in the middle of a dark room, a sign of a hasty departure. A little earlier, twelve people were dislodged from this illegally occupied dwelling, under the television cameras summoned for the occasion. “It served as a base for drug trafficking, mainly basic dough [similaire au crack]which caused incivility and insecurity, with thefts, in the neighborhood”explains Kevin Diaz Henriquez, the director of prevention and security at the town hall of Santiago, held by the Communist Party.
“We are afraid to go out. Drug trafficking breaks the social fabric”, alarmed Leonardo Nuñez, a neighbor who chairs the Quartier Matta Sur association, created in March to denounce insecurity. According to the city, this has been progressing since 2020, in particular due to squatted houses serving as drug trafficking points.
In this same neighborhood, a policeman was killed on April 5 during a traffic check. He was the third law enforcement member killed in the line of duty in less than a month. So, today, the Matta district is on edge, like Chile. For several months, insecurity has been flooding the media, monopolizing public debate and occupying daily conversations. The “fear index”, measured by the Paz Ciudadana foundation, is at its highest.
The Chilean President, Gabriel Boric (left), had to take up this theme, which is unnatural for his camp, and harden the tone from the presidential election, at the end of 2021. “Citizens demand that we [les gouvernants] let us act to curb this delinquency”, launched Gabriel Boric on March 27. A few days later, on April 6, the government promulgated a law, approved urgently in Parliament, which broadens the concept of self-defense for police officers. According to its detractors, such as Amnesty International, this text risks increasing the “police abuse and [les] human rights violations”.
The law is named after two police officers killed in the line of duty. Criticized during the 2019 social revolt for their excessive use of force, the police now enjoy popularity at the highest level. In April, the government also unveiled its “streets without violence” plan involving, among other things, more police patrols in the most sensitive municipalities.
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