President of Chile, Gabriel Boricannounced this Thursday that it has accepted the resignation of the Minister of Social Development, Jeanette Vegathat one of his advisors had recently contacted the leader by phone after it was leaked. Mapuche radical Hector LlaitulHe was arrested the previous day.
“I have decided to accept the resignation of Social Development Minister Jeannette Vega,” the President said during a trip to the north of the country.
Vega, 64, is affiliated with the Social Democratic Party for Democracy (PPD). Boric government’s first female ministera resignation that took place five months after taking office and ten days before the plebiscite at which Chileans would decide whether to ratify the proposed new Constitution.
Local media outlet Ex-Ante released a report from the Chilean Investigative Police (PDI) this Thursday. A ministry official contacted Llaitul in May to arrange a meeting with Vega.
The communication took place the same morning when the leader of Coordinadora Arauco-Malleco (CAM), one of the main radical Mapuche organizations operating in southern Chile, called for “organizing armed resistance” in response to the militarization of Boric’s territory. It was decided.
“We must pay attention to its substance and its form. The facts we have learned make it appropriate to take on the minister’s political responsibility.‘, the monarch added, announcing that undersecretary Paula Poblete would take over the post on an interim basis.
It is not the first discussion involving Vega, who admitted on local television in May that there were Mapuche political prisoners in Chile, days after contact between his adviser and Llaitul.
His statements sparked a wave of criticism, including from the ruling party, and the former minister had to correct it hours later.
The court ruled on Thursday Preventive detention for LlaitulHe was arrested the day before for “wood theft, extortion and assault on authority” and transferred to Temuco, the capital of the Araucanía region, 700 kilometers south of Santiago.
For decades there and in other southern regions the so-called “map clash“A territorial dispute between the state, radical indigenous communities, and forestry companies that exploit the lands considered to be ancestral.
In this context, arson attacks and barricades occur against machinery and property, many of which are undertaken by CAM, and there are also periodic fatal shootings.
“The signs should be clear: yes to dialogue, no to violence. The task of those who do not understand this basic premise is to confront the rule of law institutions that we as the Government will defend,” Boric said.