The most recent brutal acts in Wallmapu, or Mapuche territory, in the south of Chile, make evident the inability and unwillingness of the state and political class to provide conditions in which to recognize and resolve the legitimate demands of the Mapuche people: their recognition as a nation, the recuperation of their territory, self-determination and respect.
Along with the ongoing violation of the procedural and constitutional guarantees of the Mapuche political prisoners, forcing twelve Mapuche onto a liquid only hunger strike (the first ones since may 29th), we can add the assassination on June 10th of two youth in the community José Guiñon at the hands of a large landowner and ex-policeman. Furthermore, the brutal attack on June 14th by police on the rural school and health center of Temucuicui—another territory also of the community of José Guiñon, taking place some years ago during a process of territorial recuperation—left the children terrified, asphyxiated and crying, not only from tear gas that was shot into the buildings of the school, but because again they are the protagonists of violence. Afterwards, the president Bachelet asked for forgiveness for the errors, a gesture seen by Mapuche sectors as symbolic rather than the beginnings of real reparatory actions.
The violations carried out by the Chilean state against the Mapuche people began just after the establishment of the nation-state. The Mapuche people were not subjugated during colonization, but were victims of territorial reduction bringing them to precarious lives within their own territory. Today, the people of Chile have begun to understand—thanks to the brutal images made viral of the repression on the school of Temucuicui—that the denunciations of the Mapuche people are not a farce, are not inventions of the left or exaggerations of anti-systemic groups, but are a reflection of a state that cares more for the interests of forest harvesting and land-owning companies, than respect for the Indigenous peoples.
To better understand the recent acts of violence, we should return to January 4th, 2013, when in circumstances that remain unclear, Werner Luchsinger and Vivianne Mackay died in a fire at their large rural estate. Luchsinger and Mackay were a land-owning family in the area. The press and the entire political establishment argued that this was a terrorist attack carried out by the Mapuche people. In an irregular judicial process, eleven Mapuche were named guilty, amongst them two traditional authorities (Machi) Celestino Córdova and Francisca Linconao. After an excessively long trial that has kept the Mapuche prisoners in pre-trial detention, the judge of the case rejected all of the presented evidence, arguing that he had doubts over the manner in which it was obtained.
Prior to this, the Luchsinger-Mackay family decided to appeal to the Constitutional Tribunal (in a petition process created during the dictatorship) for what amongst other things could imply the suspension of the trial for a year, keeping the political prisoners in a pre-trial prison until the beginning of the new trial. Thus, at the end of May of this year, eight of the eleven imprisoned Mapuche began a liquid only hunger strike.
On June 7th, four others joined the liquid only hunger strike, those whom were detained on June 10th of last year in Padre de Casas. They were accused under the anti-terrorism law of starting a fire that destroyed an Evangelical temple in that municipality. They all have solicited a fair trial of reasonable length, the removal of the anti-terrorist law charge, and the disuse of faceless witnesses, denouncing the illegality of the form and substance in the processes they must face.
We should also return to 2010, when Luis Marilea, then a minor, was detained at his high school beneath the anti-terrorist law, for burning two trucks and other attacks. After a year of prison, he was acquitted, after it was verified he was setup by the police intelligence official blaming him and other community members. In this context, he wrote: “I denounce the violation of our rights as children and youth on part of the Chilean state and judicial system, depriving us of our right to study, to be with our families. Our family our those whom have been victims for years of harassment on part of this state, where our uncles have already been incarcerated, our mothers, grandmothers, and younger brothers poorly treated.” Luis also resorted to a hunger strike as a mechanism of pressure. Together with Patricio Gonzáles he died a couple weeks ago, in what the press immediately cataloged as legitimate defense by an ex-policeman. The self-defense was described against a supposed assault five Mapuches wanted to perpetrate against his large estate. His estate was before Mapuche territory and today is in process of recuperation. Furthermore, it was not reported that the workers of the large estate signaled that the youth were looking for horses they said were there on the territory.
Luis Marileo was eight years old when he lived through the first attack on his community, the same eight years that many of the kids had that June 14th when they suffered the tear gas attack on their school. The state justified the Special Forces police operation of Ercilla under the pretext that they were searching for Valeria Millaneo Palacio, in order to gather information from her regarding the whereabouts of other Mapuche community members. She denounced that in this attack, she was kidnapped for an hour and brought to the cellar of a municipal building, where she was intimidated, threatened (if she did not speak, something would be done to her daughter) and was forced to share information about other community members including Werkén (spokesperson) of the Autonomous Community of Temucuicui.
As is evident, this mode of operation is not isolated. Violence and the violation of law from an early age, criminalization of rebellion against conditions of poverty and violence subjected on the communities, invisibilization of basic demands, media stigmatization, judicial persecution, application of the anti-terrorist law…and finally death, and death and more death, protected by politicians and economic groups that refuse to bet on life and recognize the historic existence of the Mapuche Nation.
Photo: Felipe Durán
Translated from the original here: http://regeneracionradio.org/index.php/autonomia/pueblos-indios/item/4811-entre-balas-carceles-y-muerte-se-sigue-levantando-el-pueblo-mapuche
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