Chilean President Gabriel Boric warned in Madrid this Saturday against attempts to restrict rights and freedoms both in Europe and in Latin America. “Today there are those who propose the curtailment of freedoms, the deprivation of the rights of others, censorship and denial as a solution to the problems of the present. Take away the rights of women, dissidents, migrants, the elderly or workers,” he listed. For the Chilean President, it is “an increasingly present threat both in Europe and in Latin America,” as he explained at a ceremony at Casa America, where he was warmly welcomed.
Boric has landed in Spain as the first stop before the summit that the European Union is holding next week in Brussels with the heads of state and government of the Latin American countries. After being greeted with cheers of “Boric, friend, the people are on your side,” the ruler delivered a speech in which he advocated more democracy as a solution to the authoritarian tendency.
The Chilean president, who won the December 2021 elections, claimed we were facing a “new world” in which countries should not repeat “the 20th-century recipes” that failed. The President specifically referred to the case of Nicaragua, whose President Daniel Ortega ended the country’s freedoms. “There are times, Nicaragua reminds us, when dressing as ‘red and black’ means nothing,” he said, referring to the colors of Sandinismo.
Using this example of a democratic revolution, Boric warned: “Regardless of the color it comes from, we must preserve, recreate and reinterpret the lesson we learned in dark times.” For Boric, the repressive model of government does not work and it must be done to respect human rights. “The values and principles that should move us are full respect for human rights at all times and in all places, and the fact that no difference justifies human rights violations.” And the awareness that democracy and its problems are solved with more democracy, not less. “
The event, organized to mark the 50th anniversary of the Chilean coup, was also attended by singer-songwriter Joan Manuel Serrat and former Spanish President José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, who commemorated the victims of the Augusto Pinochet and Francisco Franco dictatorships. Boric referred to Lumi Videla, a Chilean student and activist of the Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria. “She was brutally murdered, thrown like a rag in the Italian embassy in Chile, a fighter from another world, and in her I want to represent those who are not here today and shouldn’t have been,” he explained.
Boric referred to the historical ties between Spain and Chile and the shared experience of a dictatorship that also united them. “Our peoples share the experience of having endured autocratic and brutal regimes. However, through this tragedy Chile had gained a fortune that would sustain the enriching and vital flow of Spanish exile. “It reached our shores in decades that were critical to our productive, artistic, and intellectual development,” he said.
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In a speech full of emotion, the Chilean leader explained the fruits of these difficulties, “of our efforts to restore democracy and of the arduous, firm, difficult and unsuccessful efforts to build a regime of freedoms and greater equality”. And from an incipient welfare state,” he emphasized.
In conclusion, Boric explained that in his country, cooperation between the two nations is always taken into account. “Chile will never forget the lesson of solidarity and love that crossed the Atlantic, from Chile to Spain, from Spain to Chile, and that will always accompany us,” he concluded.
Before speaking at Casa América, the leader gave an interview to the SER network in which he anticipated some of his ideas: “The great challenge of current politics is to speak to those who don’t think so. “The best version of an opponent’s argument can add a lot politically,” he said when asked how to deal with the rise of the far right, a phenomenon he sees as “global”.
In his opinion, the main answer lies in a wealth of democratic uses. “We have decided to resolve our conflicts with more democracy, not less, which is not common in Latin America.”
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