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Title: Ongoing Repression in Wallmapu Author: John Severino Date: June 15, 2013 Language: en Topics: Mapuche, repression, solidarity Source: Retrieved on June 23, 2013 from https://chileboliviawalmapu.wordpress.com/2013/06/15/ongoing-repression-in-wallmapu/
A continuation of
“The Intensification of Independence”.
See the former for a glossary of terms in Spanish and Mapudungun.
Awareness of repression should never be turned into a list of cases and
prisoners. Those who struggle must understand repression strategically.
If the essence of repression is isolation, this means intentionally
formulating our responses to overcome that isolation, both by connecting
them to the lines of our ongoing struggle, and analyzing and thwarting
the particular mechanisms through which the State seeks to isolate us.
In Wallmapu, that ongoing struggle is
, not as an alienated possession, but
as a whole relationship outside of and against capitalism
. Mapuche in struggle take over their traditional land, fighting with
cops and landlords to do it, and sometimes burning them out; they block
highways and sabotage the industries that would exploit their lands; and
they farm, graze, and common in those lands, build their houses there,
hold their rituals there, raise their children, marry, and bury their
dead there, making their relationship with that land a solid fact.
Chilean state repression against the Mapuche demonstrates two distinct
modes. One mode operates at a lower intensity, and is less likely to be
recognized within the format of the anti-repression list that pretends
to confront repression by reacting to its most obvious manifestations.
This lower intensity mode manifests in constant surveillance, in raids
that brutalize community members, traumatize children, and confiscate
tools needed for day to day existence (as nearly every farm tool is a
potential weapon). This mode levies psychological exhaustion, producing
a negative incentive which the NGOs, development funds, and charity
projects that offer a positive incentive away from struggle are always
waiting to take advantage of. The Chilean state specifically deploys
lower intensity repression to isolate Mapuche communities in struggle,
dissuading travel between communities and obstructing those from outside
who would visit Mapuche communities. Counterinsurgency in Wallmapu also
means protecting and promoting the capitalist development that molds the
landscape in the furtherance of social control: monoculture deserts of
pine plantations that suck up the water, ruin the soil, and supplant the
native plants and animals that make the Mapuche way of life—their
medicine, rituals, food culture—possible; megaprojects like dams,
airports, and highways that displace communities and accelerate military
and economic intervention into the territory.
The higher intensity mode of repression seeks a hostage for every
outrage against a democratic solution to the “Mapuche conflict” that the
weichafe commit. Sabotage and arson have been normalized at this point
that the police are unable to arrest a suspect for every illegal action
that is carried out, not without abandoning their pretext of legality.
But every time a cop or latifundista is killed, or a major
infrastructural project is targeted, the Chilean state selects several
influential Mapuche to take the fall.
The Chilean state highly values its veneer of legality as a tool for
achieving the consent of the governed by symbolically distancing itself
from the dictatorship that ended in 1990. This is a difficult task as
many Chileans remain suspicious of the government and many more are
armed than when the military government took over in 1973. Twice a year,
Chileans mark the continuity of their suspicions and in the poblaciones
they test out their weaponry, often on police. Many Chileans also
sympathize with the Mapuche struggle. (An excellent documentary that
explains this background is
).
The Chilean state faces the same limitations as any state that tries to
apply criminal law as a tool to repress a popular struggle. They have to
break their own laws if the tool is to have any chance of getting the
job done. This would not be a problem in a more sedated democracy, but
the Chilean state in particular is sensitive about the effectiveness of
its democratic image.
Generally, the only way the Chilean state is able to manufacture
evidence adequate for convictions that nominally follow legal rituals is
through the dubious figure of the anonymous protected witness. Mapuche
communities and their capacity for vengeance are strong enough that the
age old tool of the snitch could only be applicable to the Mapuche
conflict with heavy modifications: defendants are never allowed to know
the identity of the paid informants testifying against them, therefore
they can make no specific challenges to the informants’ veracity.
The Chilean state is attempting to stretch an already precarious legal
foundation to bring the repression against the Mapuche into the realm of
anti-terrorism. Three years ago, a disciplined hungerstrike backed by
committed and expansive support defeated the government’s previous
attempt to prosecute the Mapuche as terrorists. (See these articles
and
a statement by some of the hungerstrikers
).
Now, the government is trying again, pinning its hopes on the Quino
case, in which a dozen peñi face up to twenty years in prison. If they
succeed at the social level in applying antiterrorism law, they will
have achieved a powerful tool in capping the Mapuche struggle, isolating
those elements most committed to full independence and forcing the rest
on the path back to a democratic solution that does not challenge the
integrity of the Chilean state nor the capitalist ideas of alienated
land and alienated freedom on a global level.
What we can induce is the following: the Chilean state, predictably
enough, wishes to respond to every single major act of Mapuche
illegality by taking hostage people it has identified as valuable to the
struggle, utilizing the logic of collective punishment. The particulars
of its situation require it to protect the democratic pretext for
repression. Therefore, the success or failure of Chilean state
repression against the Mapuche is a function of the extent to which that
repression can be justified to Chilean society on democratic grounds,
grounds on which the ruling class and the ruled can be said to have a
unity of interests, because it is only within such a narrative that the
argument of public order and safety makes sense.
Domestically, the segment of the Chilean population which the state
fears has already demonstrated it will sympathize with the Mapuche
struggle even if they burn down logging trucks, construction equipment,
warehouses, developments, and mansions (something they frequently do).
But in the last year, with the deaths of a couple estate lords, Chilean
sympathy has waned. Although incoherence is a universal position under
the yoke of capitalism, still we must call out their position as
incoherent. These same people all sighed in regret when Pinochet died
peacefully in his bed, claimed by old age rather than an act of
vengeance. Why, then, do
they moan and fret when a Luchsinger
, one of the very bedrocks of Pinochet’s power,
dies at the hands of those who struggle
? If Chileans who are committed in their support of the Mapuche struggle
cannot convince their compatriots to resolve this incoherence by
shedding their civic qualms, then either the Mapuche struggle has
already encountered the outer limit of its available tactics, or the
Chilean state will successfully be able to apply antiterrorism law in
repressing them.
On the international level, the Chilean state wants to project itself as
a stable, developed nation that honors its business contracts and
respects the rule of law. The level to which international solidarity
can disrupt this projection is added weight to the other side of the
scale which prosecutors, governing officials, and businessmen have
brought out to see if they can successfully utilize this new tool
against the Mapuche.
An additional fact surpasses such calculations: successful international
solidarity would also serve as a bridge by which lessons of struggle,
and of the nature of capitalism, that are elucidated in the context of
the Mapuche struggle can be spread across the world and applied to our
own battles.
This is the situation which gives sense to our solidarity, and it is
only in this context that we present the following list of major cases
of repression. Below: the real people, the specific clashes. Above: the
lay of the land and the general motions of the war we are fighting.
On October 10, 2009, a group of Mapuche blockaded the highway at the
Quino toll station. On the sole evidence of a highly paid confidential
informant, the Chilean state arrested 10 peñi, accusing them under the
antiterrorism law of attempted murder, illegal association, robbery, and
arson. The accused are JosĂ© Queipul Huaiquil, VĂctor Queipul Millanao,
Camilo Tori Quiñinao, Felipe Huenchullán Cayul, Juan Huenchullán Cayul,
José Millanao Millape, Juan Patricio Queipul Millanao, Jorge Marimán
Loncomilla, Ernesto Cayupán Meliñán and Luis Marileo Cariqueo. The case
faced a series of legal setbacks as judges struck down the use of the
antiterrorism law, and later acquitted the defendants for lack of
evidence. However, the prosecutor, pressured by the government and local
business interests, continues to press new charges. One maneuver was to
break off the cases of two of the accused, who are minors. Even after
the others were acquitted, the two minors from the communities of
Temucuicui and Cacique José Guiñón were brought to trial separately, and
still under the antiterrorism law, in May 2013 (with results still
pending). There are also indications that others previously accused in
the case will be brought back to trial on new charges, again under the
antiterrorism law. Many of them have already been imprisoned in the
past, and some of them participated in the major hungerstrike of 2010
which ultimately caused the government to withdraw its use of the
antiterrorism law and release the accused with “time served.” This case
constitutes an attempt to lock up some of the most active and well known
participants in the Mapuche struggle, on the accusation that they have
formed an illegal network spanning multiple communities. Throughout the
investigation period, police have also harassed, interrogated, and in
some cases even arrested the children of those accused (though in the
latter case charges have always been dropped or resulted in absolution).
Shortly after midnight on January 4, 2013, the mansion of the major
latifundista and usurper of Mapuche lands Werner Luchsinger was set
ablaze at VilcĂşn, near Temuco. The bodies of Luchsinger and his wife,
Vivianne Mckay, were found inside. Werner was the cousin of fellow
businessman and latifundista Jorge Luchsinger. On January 3, 2008,
Mapuche weichafe Matias Catrileo was shot in the back and killed by
police guarding Jorge Luchsinger’s estate against an action to pressure
the latifundista with the longterm goal of recovering stolen lands.
Police opened fire on the crowd with automatic weapons. Catrileo was
killed while running away.
The machi of Lof Yeupeko-Katrileo, Celestino CĂłrdoba, was arrested and
accused of the arson and murder under the antiterrorism law. At the end
of May, the Chilean prosecutor filed a request for life imprisonment.
Supporters have organized many marches and religious ceremonies to aid
CĂłrdoba, whose health has deteriorated rapidly since his imprisonment.
According to the Mapuche, the machis do not often fare well in prison
when their connection with the land is broken. When the Mapuche culture
was more heavily repressed, the machis, or those who would have become
machis, were often locked up in mental institutions. CĂłrdoba is also
accused of the December 2012 arson of another latifundistas home, for
which the prosecutor is seeking an additional 36 years of imprisonment.
The leftist Mapuche organization CAM publicly denounced the arson. They
attributed what they saw as an irresponsible act to the Temuco prisoners
who split with them during the 2010 hungerstrike. Thanks to CAM’s
politicking and their attempt to avert the blame, a weichafe had to go
into clandestinity.
Lof Yeupeko-Katrileo, renamed in remembrance of Matias Catrileo, is
leading the struggle in the county of VilcĂşn for the recovery of stolen
lands. The Luchsingers are the primary usurpers of Mapuche land in the
county.
Wente Winkul Mapu, another highly active community on recovered land
near Ercilla, was the site of a violent police raid in April 2012. Such
raids are extremely common against Mapuche communities in struggle,
resulting in the terrorizing of residents, the traumatization of
children, brutality against the elderly, destruction of houses, and the
stealing of tools and money. However, in April 2012, things turned out a
little differently. One cop ended up dead. Apparently, the highly
militarized, intensively trained, armed-to-the-teeth GOPE opened fire on
themselves, killing one. Of course, the Chilean police are not about to
let their stupidity and ineptitude go unpunished. They are claiming that
someone inside one of the houses fired the shot, though they do not
explain how the shooter got away from the surrounded village.
At the end of April 2013, police arrested the werken of Wente Winkul
Mapu, Daniel Melinao, and accused him of complicity in the cop’s murder.
Melinao is a highly active, longtime participant in the Mapuche
struggle. It is not a coincidence that police arrested him at the bus
station in Collipulli as he was on his way to ConcepciĂłn to participate
in a panel discussion about repression against Mapuche communities.
At a court appearance shortly after Melinao’s arrest, police arrested
the longko of the nearby community of Temucuicui, Victor Queipul,
accusing him of disorder, a charge that could bring a couple years of
imprisonment. The longko had come to the appearance in solidarity with
Melinao. Melinao was denied provisional release and sent to prison to
await trial. The prosecutor revealed that they are searching for Erik
Montoya, also of Wente Winkul Mapu. Two anonymous paid witnesses claim
to have seen Montoya open fire on the cop during the raid. Montoya is in
clandestinity.
In June 2012, police raided Wente Winkul Mapu searching for Montoya,
entering houses without a warrant and smashing everything. When the
weichafe of the community forced the cops out, they opened fire with
tear gas and bullets. They shot one young weichafe, Gabriel Valenzuela
Montoya, in the back. Six others were wounded, including Gabriel’s
grandfather and three minors. Gabriel evaded arrest for the
confrontation by hiding until police left. He later denounced the
police. Perhaps in retaliation, in November of the same year he was
arrested and accused of a robbery-murder along with Luis Marileo of the
community José Guiñón and Leonardo Quijón of the community Chequenco.
Gabriel, who is being held in a juvenile detention center at Chol Chol,
is currently on hungerstrike to protest the frame-up, which he and
supporters say is intended to delegitimize the Mapuche struggle. QuijĂłn
carried out a hungerstrike in the prison at Angol shortly after his
arrest. Marileo is also one of the accused in the Quino case.
The people of Wente Winkul Mapu and supporters have organized large
protest marches to the courthouse to support Melinao, and in late May
they began communally cultivating a tract of newly recovered land in
protest of the use of the antiterrorism law and as a sign that they
would continue their struggle.
Communities along the river Pilmaikén, in the far south close to Osorno,
are fighting against the planned installation of a hydroelectric dam
that would flood the valley and destroy much land and many villages, as
well as the sacred ground of Ngen Mapu Kintuante. The Williche (Mapuche
from the far south) have proclaimed their right and responsibility of
self-defense and the defense of their territory against any further
incursions into the Pilmaikén watershed by the Chilean government,
Conadi (the governmental institution for the development of indigenous
peoples in Chile), and the company Pilmaiquen, S.A. The ayllu rewe of
Ngen Mapu Kintuante currently has four people facing charges for actions
against the dams, including the machi Millaray Huichalaf.
On May 19, 2013, the peñi Orlando BenjamĂn Cayul Colihuinca was remanded
to preventive detention pending trial for the arson of construction
equipment. Cayul is a member of the community Temucuicui Autonoma. The
longko Victor Queipul and werken Jose Queipul, as well as several others
of the same community, are also facing charges under different
accusations. And on May 23, police raided the community, evicting and
burning down several houses that had been constructed on land newly
recovered from a latifundista.
Mapuche from several communities in the area of Freire, south of Temuco,
are fighting against the construction of a new airport. In 2012, Chilean
justice convicted three people involved in the resistance: the werken of
the community Mawizache, for illegal possession of a firearm; another
member of the same community and the werken of the community Trapilhue,
both for public disorder. In March 2013, the communities of Mawizache,
Trapilhue, and Wilkilko had to release a public statement, refuting an
announcement by AyunMapu, a leftist Mapuche organization based in
Santiago that a deal had been made to go ahead with the airport. The
three communities asserted themselves as autonomous, contradicting the
organization’s claim that they were members. They emphasized that they
had participated in a handful of protests alongside but not under the
authority of AyunMapu.
In raids against communities in the area on April 30, police arrested
three peñi, Jorge Painevilo Loncomil, Miguel Painevilo Licanán y Segundo
Braulio Neculmán, and accused them of attempted murder, arson, and
illegal possession of firearms. Two weeks later they were released
pending further investigation. Their release was secured after a protest
of several hundred outside the Temuco prison, and other mobilizations by
communities hit with brutal raids in recent months.
On March 9, a large group of Mapuche blocked a major highway in the
region with tree trunks and burning tires to protest the airport. The
same week, a group of thirty temporarily seized the airport construction
site.
In February 2013, Juan Millacheo, longko of Lof Newen Mapu of Chequenco,
was arrested by Argentinian police in Nequén, Puelmapu, by Argentinian
police, and handed over to their Chilean counterparts. Millacheo had
been living in clandestinity for 9 years after being condemned in 2004
to ten years imprisonment for arson under the antiterrorist law. After
three weeks, the Chilean courts accepted the defense’s motion to have
the sentence commuted to one year of conditional liberty with monthly
sign-ins.
Puelmapu, the “Eastern Lands,” are the part of Wallmapu east of the
Andes, occupied by the Argentinian state since the 1880s. Although
repression and colonization after the invasion were more brutal in
Puelmapu, the Argentinian state has not succeeded in stamping out the
Mapuche struggle.
In July, 2011, a group of half a dozen armed men, associates of a local
latifundista, attacked the community of Lof Loncon in the Rio Negro
province, opening fire on community members. They then proceeded to
steal the community’s cattle, as police intervened to impede community
members trying to stop the theft. In February of 2012 in the province of
Nequén, nine families from the community Quintriqueo recovered a parcel
of land that had been usurped by area landlords.
In April 2013, Mapuche saboteurs damaged a railroad line, causing the
derailing of a logging company train with over 40 cars full of cellulose
and leading to the extensive destruction of the line. The next month,
masked weichafe blocked several highways with burning tires in and
around Temuco. Their communiqué read: “All political prisoners on the
street with no conditions! Down with the 28M frame-up! Expel the pigs
from the Mapuche communities!”
[The 28M frame-up is the new “Bombs Case of Temuco,” when several
anarchists in Temuco were arrested on March 28, as police planted
bomb-making material in the social center where they were arrested]