2024-02-16 09:09:11
By Paula BUSTAMANTE
The death of former president Sebastián Piñera when the helicopter he was piloting crashed in southern Chile shocked a country grieving for the Valparaíso megafires, which is now preparing state funerals for the first right-wing president since the return to power. democracy in 1990.
The cause of death of former President Piñera “is asphyxiation due to submersion,” said the regional prosecutor of Los Ríos, Tatiana Esquivel, in the city of Valdivia, 850 km south of Santiago.
In that city, the coffin was accompanied by some of his four children, several of the former president’s nine young grandchildren and his widow, Cecilia Morel, an AFP team observed at the scene.
The businessman was, at 74 years old, one of the most millionaire men in Chile, recognized for having managed to come to power in 2010 as the first right-wing politician democratically elected after the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. (1973-1990).
The president who governed two terms, 2010-2014 and 2018-2022, will receive a state funeral until Friday.
The funeral procession with Piñera’s remains left Valdivia amid applause from admirers who came to see the carriage pass.
Among people of all ages, Olga González, 61, left her house to say a final goodbye from the street: “He was a great president. “Someone who fought for his country always, he never had a ‘no,'” she told AFP.
His followers, and also his political rivals, have highlighted his capacity for dialogue and commitment to a liberal democracy.
“He was a democrat from the first hour, and he genuinely sought what he believed was best for the country,” highlighted leftist president Gabriel Boric, who succeeded Piñera in power in March 2022.
Among the management successes that marked Chilean society, the agility with which it promoted the reconstruction of the country after the 2010 earthquake stands out; the determination to rescue alive the 33 miners who were trapped for 69 days that same year, 700 meters deep, in northern Chile; and the rapid purchase of vaccines from China in 2020, which made their country one of the first to immunize the majority of the population from covid 19.
– Pending fires –
Piñera had traveled this week to his home in Lago Ranco, a place surrounded by forests next to the immense lake, located 920 km south of Santiago, where he managed meetings with his former ministers to help the reconstruction of Valparaíso, devastated by fires that have left 131 dead.
He was “a man who did not rest,” said his former minister Karla Rubilar when he said that last Monday he called them via Zoom from Lago Ranco, “worried about how to contribute to President Boric’s government in the tremendous tragedy we were experiencing.” in Viña del Mar, the center of the country and other regions in southern Chile, he told local media.
The former president had barely taken off piloting his helicopter – one of his greatest passions – after a lunch with friends and his sister Magdalena Piñera. He was traveling with her and two of her friends when they crashed in the middle of an afternoon of heavy rain and fog.
The other three passengers survived virtually unharmed, while Piñera was trapped. The fuselage was 40 meters deep, where the Chilean Navy was able to recover his body, indicated the General Directorate of Civil Aeronautics (DGAC).
– “Dismayed” from Biden to Maduro –
Governments and political leaders in Latin America expressed their regret over the death of the former Chilean president, highlighting his optimism and capacity for dialogue, despite the ideological differences that distanced him from some leaders.
“Peace to his soul!”, wished the Venezuelan president, Nicolás Maduro, in former president.
The president of Argentina, Javier Milei, of Uruguay, Luis Lacalle Pou and the former president José «Pepe» Mujica joined the messages of condolence; from Bolivia, Luis Arce, the Peruvian president, Dina Boluarte, and from Spain, the head of government Pedro Sánchez.
The president of the United States, Joe Biden, said that he greatly valued the time he worked with Piñera in the last decade: “I saw firsthand his dedication to the country,” he stressed.
The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Alberto Van Klaveren, explained that on Wednesday afternoon and Thursday the doors of Congress will be opened so that those who wish to pay tribute to the president can do so. On Friday he will be taken to the Metropolitan Cathedral to hold a mass in the presence of “those foreign leaders or presidents who wish to participate in the funeral,” he indicated.
For now, the foreign leaders who will travel to Chile to say goodbye to Piñera have not been confirmed.
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© Agence France-Presse