Chile’s police will increase its deployment of agents several days prior to September 11, when 40 years will pass since the military coup against President Salvador Allende.
The top command of the institution announced that there will be agents on public transportation buses, the subway and points in the city where they have predicted that violent incidents could happen after four decades of the establishment of Augusto Pinochet‘s dictatorship (1973-1990), which left a death toll of more than 3,000 dead people in the country.
In recent days, five buses were burned in the capital, two of them in the commune of Peñalolen and three in Villa Francia, a locality where brothers Rafael and Eduardo Vergara were assassinated by police agents on March 29, 1985.
The police deployment increase was informed in a meeting headed by Police Director General Gustavo Gonzalez, in which representatives of Metro (subway), operators of Transantiago (buses), companies of the sector and officials of the Ministry of Transportation participated.
Piror to this meeting, Interior Minister Andres Chadwick said there will be land and air police reinforcement, complemented with intelligence work to prevent situations and be able to act in advance.
“We have been informed that these actions would continue,” said Chadwick, referring to the burn of buses, which he attributed to extremists.
In the anniversaries of the coup, especially at night, every September 11, several communes in the capital and the surrounding areas, are the scenes of fire-arm shootings, electricity cuts, barricades and clashes between groups of civilians and special police forces.
Usually, those incidents happen in Villa Francia, in the district of Estacion Central (Central Station) and sectors of the municipalities of Peñalolen, Conchali, Pudahuel, La Pintana, Pedro Aguirre Cerda, Lo Espejo and San Bernardo.