MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Leak from military brass shows Chile's concerns over current issues

Chile's Defense Minister has to return to Santiago after the scandal broke out

Chile's Defense Minister Maya Fernandez was summoned back to Santiago at the earliest time possible after classified documents involving the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the relationship between President Gabriel Boric Font and his Argentine colleague Alberto Fernández went public.

According to Chile's military brass, Fernández has been labeled as a president who meddles in the internal affairs of neighboring countries. They also mention Argentina's reactions when former Interior Minister Izkia Siches spoke of “Wallmapu,” the territory Mapuche communities regard as their own and which includes parts of Argentina's Patagonia.

A classified report mentions a “46% probability of alterations to national security and to the normal development of bilateral diplomatic relations [between Chile and Argentina], due to an abnormal scenario.”

The document speaks of “a potential argument for the Argentine strategy on the Southern Ice Fields” amid Boric's statements that “in Patagonia, there are no borders.”

Chilean intelligence also underlined Alberto Fernández's support for Luiz Inacio Lula Da Silva ahead of next month's elections and how that enraged the incumbent Jair Bolsonaro and mentions meetings between Fernández and “opposition leaders of the Chilean left” under former President Sebastián Piñera.

Fernández's proposal to Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) to create an axis against social inequity together with a future Lula da Silva government in Brazil. “Such sequence of events, beyond being a possible custom of the Argentinean president, is also coherent with the Argentinean foreign policy,” the report was quoted as saying.

Boric's statements about Patagonia worried the Chilean military high command, it was also reported.

Chile's Joint Chiefs of Staff describes Peronism as a “nationalist movement with expansionist and hegemonic characteristics,” which could tactically use internationalism “for its strategy of regional hegemony and strategic projection in the South Atlantic.” The document also warns that the Armed Forces and the Ministry of Defense of Argentina are developing a plan to strengthen the military presence in Tierra del Fuego.

In this part of the document, reveals Bio Bio Chile, they point out ”the strategic redesign that seeks to solve the 'territorial discontinuity' of the continent with 'the (Fuegian) island' and of this one with Argentine Antarctica, highlighting the position of the Argentine military presence in Tierra del Fuego“.

The document also addresses ”the strategic redesign that seeks to solve the 'territorial discontinuity' of the continent with 'the (Fuegian) island' and of this one with Argentine Antarctica, highlighting the geographical position 'in front of the British military presence in the Malvinas'.“

They also point out the announcement of the Argentine government to create an air bridge between Río Gallegos and Tierra del Fuego with Air Force planes. And they warn of ”the consolidation of the logistic pole of Antarctic and oceanic projection, strategically revaluing Patagonia as a point of Antarctic projection”.

Chile's Armed Forces are also concerned about the deployment in Río Grande of a radar to monitor and control the air space, the plan to build military bases in Ushuaia, and the installation of an army unit in Tolhuin, Tierra del Fuego.

Minister Fernandez was to participate on Wednesday in a tribute organized by the Chilean government for her grandfather, the deposed socialist president Salvador Allende (1970-1973), for the 50th anniversary of his participation in the United Nations Assembly, but she had to return to Chile after the hacking became known.