Soldiers participate in the Military Parade in honor of the Glories of the Chilean Army on September 19, the day almost 400,000 emails from the Joint Chiefs of Staff are leaked, Santiago (Chile). Elvis González (EFE)
Chile is on alert after the leak this week of almost 400,000 emails from the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the Armed Forces, a body that advises the Ministry of National Defense.
The Guacamaya hacker group has claimed responsibility for the cyberattack that also leaked information about the military and police systems of Mexico, Peru, Salvador, and Colombia.
The chief of the Chilean General Staff, Guillermo Paiva, presented his resignation this Thursday and the Ministry of Defense has appointed Vice Admiral José Luis Fernández this Friday to assume the position in the midst of a strong investigation to determine to what extent the published material can compromise the international relations and internal security.
Last Monday, September 19, the Day of the Glories of the Chilean Army, the Guacamaya group leaked 10 terabytes of documents from a series called "Repressive Forces", where information related to the military and police forces of five central and South of America.
The seriousness of the matter forced the Chilean Defense Minister, Maya Fernández, to return to Santiago early from New York, where she was accompanying President Gabriel Boric in the framework of the United Nations Assembly.
The leaked emails, with their corresponding attachments, cover communications between 2012 and May 2022 between members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (EMCO), an organization through which a large part of the information related to Army Intelligence and tactical decisions passes, the Force Air and Navy.
The Government is reviewing all emails to see how sensitive the published information is.
The main concerns of Defense and the Armed Forces (FFAA), according to
La Tercera
, are the disclosure of budgetary and logistical information that neighboring countries will be able to access and intelligence analyzes on the national contingency.
A report dated April and entitled
Neighborhood Strategic Political Situation
analyzes the economic, political and defense situation in Peru, Argentina and Bolivia.
In local matters, there are post offices where the migratory crisis in the north is addressed, about which an April report by the EMCO warns that, at the end of the state of constitutional exception in the area, the police "would not have the capacity to control and prevent the income of significant numbers of people, being surpassed in their efforts”.
Among the leaked emails there is also an analysis from April on the situation in the so-called Southern Macrozone, the heart of the conflict over the ancestral lands of the Mapuche people.
The EMCO reports that “there is a threat present”.
"There are organized groups that perpetrate criminal and terrorist actions, which have forceful firepower, generating a latent risk to those in charge of the security of the regions," reads one of the documents cited by local media.
“Both the Minister of the Interior [Carolina Tohá] and the Minister of Defense are working together with the Commanders in Chief to protect the national interest,” Boric said from New York.
After Paiva's resignation as head of EMCO, Minister Ferández appointed Vice Admiral José Luis Fernández for the position this Friday, who commissioned General Mario Grez Casanueva, commander of the Army Intelligence Brigade, to lead the summary investigation into the leak. mass mailing as a military prosecutor.
General Grez will coordinate the work of a team made up of intelligence chiefs from the other branches of the Armed Forces.
The Ministry of Defense informed this Friday through a statement that the work of General Grez is added to the administrative summary investigation within the EMCO, a letter to the Military Public Ministry to become part of the investigation, a complaint to the Second Military Court to the investigation of the facts and an official letter to the State Defense Council so that it assumes the representation of the Ministry of Defense in the investigations.
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