This statement comes from Mapuche political prisoner, Alberto Curamil, and speaks out against the farcical Indigenous consultation promoted by the Chilean government to allow capitalist extractive industries to take more Mapuche land. The original in Spanish was published by the Alianza Territorial Mapuche and can be found here.
It’s impossible for me to remain silent in the face of so much injustice that my people experience, in the face of the mistreatment and contempt that my people receive daily, when they come to different cities of the region to protest their legitimate discontent in the face of deception and lies, fraud and greed of the government-businessmen. This government-business seeks to forcefully impose the extractive model in the interior of our already spatially reduced territories.
I heard about the attack carried out against the people that I have fought side by side with to defend the territory in Curacautin. I have also been informed of the police repression and brutality in other areas of our Wallmapu. It causes impotence to not be there with you, with my family, with my community, protesting against a fraudulent consultation that seeks to incorporate the little land that we have left into the market, with capitalist investment reaching into the interior of our communities. At the same time, it fills me with pride to belong to a people who defend themselves, who continue existing, not allowing themselves to be overwhelmed, in spite of the gigantic communication and monetary apparatus that the business government uses to manipulate the people.
From prison, we have felt the multiple forms of resistance of our brothers and sisters outside: the more than 7,000 marching against the Plan Impulso this past September; the more than 2,000 marching against the fraudulent consultation in Temuco this past May 2nd that began right here in front of this prison; and all of the expressions of protest in the territories. We express our unconditional support and admiration for the overwhelming response of our people against the Chilean government by saying NO to this new fraud.
The Mapuche people of this territory are resisting in all of the districts. That must continue. The government with their media speaks of “people from outside.” Let’s be clear, no Mapuche is from outside of this territory. Piñera’s new ploy will affect each one of us and will seriously endanger our very existence. Power plays with precariousness leaving many to sell or lease their land, in order to have bread for a little while, and hunger forever, in the periphery of the city.
We have said it and we reiterate, we will not turn over the little territory that we have recuperated, when we have in our control less than 5% of our territory. Will we allow the capitalists to come and rent or buy this small piece of land? This process of consultation and change in the Indigenous Law is nothing more than a new invasion, now by private capital in the land that we have left. The government is even utilizing the military police to validate that process.
It is a total and absolutely delegitimized process, invalid and corrupt, where some uninformed people are being used in different municipal precincts to say that our people as a whole participate. The mayors, some of them Mapuche and many of them the “opposition”, should clarify for what they are trading in validating this farce. It is a disgrace that some get together to talk about Mapuche rights and in parallel negotiate these “crumbs of survival.”
I make an urgent call to the national and international public, in denouncing the Chilean government, and informing you all of this new practice of ecological, material, cultural and symbolic extermination of our land. In Chile, today a process of “Indigenous consultation” is being developed in bad faith, without freedom and with police repression, plagued with lies and aimed at misinformation.
Chaltumay, newentulerpuay, rumelmogelerpuayñ!!!!
We will continue to defend what is ours!
No to the Consultation!
In Chile, the governments have transformed the right to consultation into a fraud!
Marichiwew!