Image of Pablo Marchant Gutiérrez Courtesy of Werkén Noticias via Facebook
By Carole Concha Bell
Freedom fighters or terrorists? The Mapuche conflict is a huge headache for the Chilean government which has chosen to criminalise and persecute indigenous communities in defence of multinational interests.
In the early hours of July 10th this year, Hector Llaitul, leader of the Mapuche resistance group Coordinadora Arauco Malleco (CAM), was called by the Coroner’s Office in the southern Chilean city of Temuco to identify the body of his son, Ernesto Llaitul. When he arrived, he did not recognise the deceased as his son; instead it was Pablo Marchant, 24, a young man that lived in the Llaitul residence and was also a member of the CAM.
According to reports, Marchant was part of a group that had ambushed Santa Ana-Tres Palos farm in Carahue, 55km (35 miles) west of the regional capital, Temuco, that night. According to witnesses, the police shot Pablo at close range. The ambush was typical of land recuperation tactics employed by some Mapuche activist groups that include the CAM and the ORT (Orgánica Resistencia Territorial) who advocate the sabotage of equipment, but are adamant that people are never hurt by their actions. The retaliation on behalf of forestry company Mininco was the standard response of an industry that is increasingly employing paramilitary style methods to defend its interests, leading to a sense of lawlessness in Chile’s southern Araucanía region. Moreover, claims that the police who murdered Marchant turned up in a Mininco vehicle, denotes the collusion between businesses and the state.
Marchant’s fatal shooting caused consternation in Chile and an outpouring of fake news that leaked across global media. Al Jazeera reported the ‘death’ of Llaitul’s son, as did other newspapers, lazily repeating the distortion created by the Chilean coroner. Many speculated that this was no oversight, suggesting instead that Chilean authorities are gunning for Llaitul as a result of his revolutionary ideas about indigenous emancipation and land recovery initiatives. As Mapuche demand the right to live on ancestral land – a right enshrined in Chilean and international law via the International Labour Organization's 169th Convention on Indigenous and Tribal Peoples (signed by Chile in 2008) – the pushback from local landowners, multinationals and security forces is also reaching fever pitch.
Who are the Mapuche?
The Mapuche traditionally hail from an area that encompasses what we now recognise as Chile and Argentina. Their territory on the Chilean side of the border is called Wallmapu. They are the largest ethnic group in Chile making up around 12% of the population. Their language, Mapuzugun, and traditions have been badly hurt by centuries of repression. What marks out the Mapuche is that they have never been fully subjugated, resisting tyranny and dispossession since the arrival of Spanish colonisers in 1536.
During Salvador Allende’s presidency (1970-73), the Mapuche were able to restore some land rights, but under the military dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet (1973-90), who seized the country in a US-backed military coup, many of these rights were reversed. General Pinochet sold ancestral lands to national and multinational companies and removed their official recognition as a people group.
Today they have few rights and little visibility in Chilean public affairs and their colonial struggle has given way to confrontations with the Chilean state and with multinationals; namely the forestry, salmon and hydro-electric industries that produce a sizeable source of income for national and international investors, but that also pose a threat to the environment and the survival of the Mapuche.
A Short History of how Mapuche resistance became criminalised
The Pinochet regime shaped the hostile environment in which the Mapuche find themselves today. Evicted from their territory, many have been forced to seek their fortune in large cities such as Temuco and Santiago. Those who remain in Araucanía have little choice but to live as squatters on the land of their forefathers. No sooner do communities manage to establish themselves, than they find themselves violently evicted by either state security forces or private hire security firms employed by multinational conglomerates. Elders, women and children have been savagely beaten and shot, men detained arbitrarily and then tortured. All attempts to fight back are labelled as ‘terrorism’ under the state security laws enacted by Pinochet’s brutal dictatorship, and prosecuted as such. Today the southern prisons of Angol and Temuco are packed with Mapuche leaders accused of terrorism. These measures have been widely condemned by the international community including the United Nations whose special rapporteur, Ben Emmerson, noted Chilean police were guilty of "a systematic use of excessive force".
Plurinationality and the conflict
Much has been made of the inclusion of 17 indigenous representatives in the new 155-person assembly elected to write a new constitution for Chile. One of the members is Francisca Linconao, a Mapuche Machi (spiritual healer) and human rights activist. It was not that long ago that she herself was falsely accused of terrorism and imprisoned for a criminal act she did not commit. Linconao addressed the public in her native language, Mapuzugun, prompting an outcry from right-wing assembly member Teresa Marinovic who accused the Machi of ‘showing off’. Linconao swiftly responded:
“We defend our culture. I am no terrorist. There is no Mapuche terrorism in the region, we have been imprisoned and violated. We are here for the devolution of Mapuche land. It is the state that sows terror.”
The incident highlights just how deeply embedded the narrative of the ‘enemy within’ – employed during the Pinochet regime and then by successive governments during Chile’s thorny transition to democracy – is and how much it has tainted the public perception of the Mapuche struggle for autonomy. The open resistance of the use of the Mapuche language in public office is an undeniable rejection of their culture.
Beyond the giddy narrative around the inclusion of indigenous peoples via the constitutional assembly, the Chilean state has shown itself to be unwilling to heal the rift with indigenous communities. As drones, helicopters, lethal weapons and surveillance technology continue to replace policy and inflict terror on disenfranchised communities, repressive outdated laws are used to quash Mapuche activists while media narratives equate Mapuche liberation to terrorism. To many, then, it is becoming increasingly clear who the real terrorists are.
Carole Concha Bell is a freelance journalist specializing in Chile and in Mapuche human rights. She is a PhD student at the King's College London Department of Spanish, Portuguese & Latin American Studies and currently serves as Feature Editor for El Cortao’.
