Carabineros de Chile

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Carabineros de Chile (Carabiniers of Chile) are the uniformed Chilean national police force, created on April 27, 1927. Their mission is to maintain the order and create public respect for the laws of the country. They depend on the Ministerio de Defensa Nacional (Ministry of National Defense) through the Undersecretary of Carabineros and the Ministerio del Interior (Ministry of the Interior). Chile also has an investigative police force, the Policia de Investigaciones.

Contents 1 History 2 Today 3 Aircraft inventory 4 Trivia 5 References

[edit] History

The origins of the Carabineros de Chile are found in night watchmen, such as Dragones de la Reina (Queen's Dragoons) (created in 1758 and later renamed the Dragoons of Chile in 1812) and other organizations that fulfilled functions such as the watch and local policing.

Later, cities such as Santiago and Valparaíso created their own city police forces. In 1881 the Policía Rural (Rural Police) was created for the rural areas of the country. However, the main problem with these police services was that they were dependent on local authorities for day-to-day decision making. This led to local officials abusing this power for their own political ends. In 1896 the Policía Fiscal (Prosecuting Police) was created to serve the cities.

The first policing organization with the name "Carabineros" was the Cuerpo de Carabineros (Carbineer Corps), formed in 1903 to bring law and order to the Araucanía Region of Southern Chile (then much larger than is geographically denoted today). In 1908 the Escuela de Carabineros (currently located in Providencia) was created as the commissioning organization of police officers. In 1927, President Carlos Ibáñez del Campo merged the Policía Fiscal, the Policia Rural (Rural Police), and the Cuerpo de Carabineros into one unified institution under the direction of the national government. The organization still carries the name Carabineros de Chile that Ibáñez gave it. Ibáñez became the Carabineros' first Director General.

In 1973 the Carabineros, headed by General Cesar Mendoza Duran, later appointed Director General, joined the Chilean coup of 1973 under the direction of General Augusto Pinochet that overthrew President Salvador Allende. As such, Carabineros was a formal member of the Military Government Junta (1973-1990), as well as members of the institution taking on administrative roles, such as being in charge of the Ministry of Education.

[edit] Today

The current mission of the Carabineros is to maintain or re-establish order and security in Chilean society through civic education, service to the community, the preservation of order and public security and, in a war situation, act like a paramilitary force (all their members have military training). Under the current Chilean constitution the Carabineros are integrated directly into the armed forces in a state of emergency to better guarantee order. Carabineros are commonly informally called "pacos", akin to English "cops". They also have a SWAT-kind special forces for counter operations called GOPE (Grupo de Operaciones Policiales Especiales - Special police operations Group).

[edit] Aircraft inventory

The Carabineros operates 35 aircraft in support of its operations, including 10 helicopters.

Aircraft	Origin	Type	Versions	In service[1]	Notes
Bell 206	United States	utility helicopter	206B	1
Cessna 182	United States	utility	182Q	1
Cessna 206	United States	utility		18
Cessna 208	United States	utility		1
Cessna 210	United States	utility transport		1
Cessna Citation	United States	VIP transport	550 Citation II	2
Eurocopter Bo 105	Germany	utility helicopter	Bo 105C Bo 105LSA-3	5 2
Eurocopter EC 135	European Union	utility helicopter		1
MBB/Kawasaki BK117	Germany  Japan	utility helicopter	BK117B-1	1
Piper PA-31 Navajo	United States	utility transport	PA-31 PA-31T Cheyenne	1 1

[edit] Trivia

• "Paco" and "green bean" are Chilean slang terms for any member of the Carabineros.

[edit] References