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"I Made a Mistake": Former Director of Senapred Araucanía Explains the Messages That Led to His Departure

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The departure of Alejandro Pliscoff as director of the National Disaster Prevention and Response Service (Senapred) in Araucanía, amid the battle against the wildfires affecting the region, sparked controversy.

Initially, the focus was on the authorization of agricultural burns. Later, the opposition and the Jewish community accused La Moneda of "antisemitism," and eventually, some controversial messages from Pliscoff on his social media came to light.

The authorized agricultural burns

In this context, the former director of Senapred in Araucanía spoke with BiobioChile and addressed his resignation, explaining that "the region was plagued by several wildfires this summer, at different times."

"But there is also a long-standing presidential decree that regulates the issue of burns. That region and its farmers need to burn, they need to create the conditions to sow," he added.

Thus, the former official stated that for the last burn, and due to pressure from farmers to carry it out, a Cogrid meeting was held at the Presidential Delegation, attended by "the presidential delegate, the three farmers' associations, Conaf, the head of national defense, Carabineros, and all the regional ministerial secretaries."

"At one point, I suggested, let's make it more organized and military-like, from 5 a.m. to 2 p.m., when there's fog," he said.

Regarding his proposal, he claimed the experts present at the meeting "told me, 'No, not at an unusual time' (...) They wanted to burn in the evenings because there's wind, after 5 p.m., overnight, and into the next day."

In that sense, he mentioned it was decided burns would only occur on Fridays and Saturdays, with Sundays being "strictly prohibited."

The messages that sealed his departure from Senapred Araucanía

On the other hand, Alejandro Pliscoff responded to and explained the controversial messages he posted on his social media, which ultimately led to his exit from Senapred Araucanía.

Amid those days, he detailed, "I saw a very harsh post on Instagram directed at a friend of mine—I don’t use other platforms (...) I checked it and saw a brutal post: 'Jews this and that, hopefully Hamas finishes the job, that short-mustached guy, and kills them all, turns them into soap, their whole families.'"

"It was the Diario Financiero, I think, posting a news story. A friend of mine put up a flag, and below, some guy commented this brutality," he added.

Along the same lines, he recounted, "I replied to the first one, where I called him out (and wrote) 'hopefully they get lead,' but regarding Hamas, I made it very clear."

Pliscoff emphasized that this happened on his personal Instagram account. He also reported the first comment on the same platform.

After the messages, he stated, "When I got to my office at 8:30 a.m., I had a telematics meeting, the post was already gone, and I deleted mine. But it backfired on me. And it was taken out of context, as if I had wanted to speak against the entire Palestinian community or all Arabs, and that’s not true."

In that regard, he affirmed, "I made a mistake, and I admitted it on the first day."

Following this situation, he recounted that the national director of Senapred called him and requested his resignation.

Source:BiobioChile