Police and Navy Break Sanitary Customs Barrier in Chiloé letting Salmon Farm Trucks Circulate
Workers in the salmon farm industry have demanded the standstill of activities and the citizens of Chiloé called for a sanitary barrier to be established in the Chacao canal, but the government sent special forces and the navy to break this sanitary barrier and to let the salmon farm trucks pass.
Ancud, March 24, 2020. (radiodelmar.cl)– The military police, together with Marines, broke the citizens’ sanitary barrier against the coronavirus, which social organizations established to halt the flow of vehicles and people in the Chacao canal, the northern entrance to the Chiloé island. According to leaders, after the police and navy action, several trucks from the salmon farm industry could pass on ferries, in addition to several other vehicles.
Juan Carlos Viveros, from Agrupación Defendamos Chiloé, told Radiodelmar that «there was an agreement to establish a sanitary customs barrier, where the canal would close and that the productive sector and the aquaculture industry would have to close as well. But today the marines arrived and said that the agreement was not signed and therefore does not exist.»
«Consequently, the special forces arrived and detained some of us leaders who were there and started to let the salmon farm trucks pass as well as those of the mussel industry and all sorts of vehicles, as such the sanitary barrier was practically torn down. Now there are various leaders arrested, among those Andres Ojeda, president of the Junta de Vecinos in Chacao, and Pablo Montalva from the indigenous community of Coñimo,» stated Viveros.
The sanitary barrier was established «because the authorities never fulfill the promises they have made, and never want to establish the measures that the people demand. As urban and rural organisations we are looking to ensure that they are taking the steps to complete quarantine level 2 that can pass to level 3».
