The territorial reclamation of the Mapuche Peoples is a potential threat for the Winka [Settler] State, which impedes the advancement and development of Chile. The security apparatus of the State are in charge of the identification, prevention and control of threats, as well as the preservation of Winka [Settler] judicial order and the exercise of Winka [Settler] sovereignty in Wallmapu.

Peace as they call it is understood as democracy, the state of law and the free market, which includes the fundamental pillars of settler national development and national security; all of which within a strict capitalist framework that assures the expansion of the forestry, energy and large landed estate industries over the bodies of the Mapuche in Wallmapu.

In this sense, all of the actions by the Chilean State are part of a global strategy towards the extermination of our Nation. All of the settler speeches that talk about the democratization of the state, of justice, and of Mapuche rights only seek to distort our demands, and in the end represent the death of our People. They are speeches that legitimize and consolidate the occupation and plunder of our territory.

The Hunger Strike

Following this logic, the Mapuche hunger strike was touched on by the Chilean government from all the angles of settler institutionalism, including the Church, political parties and the security apparatus, which managed a huge victory in political terms; a triumph that was made to be seen as an opening of dialog; to which the Chilean government made a blind eye and a deaf ear.

These accounts are leaning towards the Chilean government’s favour, since the Mapuche movement openly showed the various divergent internal positions that the enemy used to feed its own leaders and spokespeople.

Moreover, the leader of the Arauco Malleco Coordinator (CAM), Hector Lliatul, through his spokespeople, was politically mistaken in the managing of the hunger strike in negating his own anti-settler rhetoric and opting for a feeble alliance with areas of the Left, the opposition coalition of government and the Church, pretending to handle Chilean institutionalism, leaving the Peñi [brothers] to simply make numbers and give the hunger strike more weight.

In this way, taking advantage of the hunger strike, the Government, the Opposition Coalition (“La Concertacion”), and the Communist Party, perfected the Antiterrorist Law, and generated more useful judicial tools for the interests of the State (compensated snitching, secret agents, among other things).

These reforms, for ignorance or negligence of the leaders of the hunger strike in Concepcion and their advisors are an easy goal made by government officials.

In this way the CAM prisoners, the State and the settler politicians together with the management of the mass media, ended the hunger strike, leaving aside the decision of the rest of the Mapuche Political Prisoners to maintain the mobilization.

Immediately everyone celebrated the accord as a triumph of dialog and promising that the negotiations would continue to solve the issues of the Mapuche People. As if the violent resistance to the genocide and oppression in Wallmapu would somehow end and the current political prisoners were to be the last.

Separate Point

Nonetheless, it should be noted that separate from any law or government, the Chilean Settler State will continue to be the enemy of the Mapuche People. Reason for which we should not think that the issues we face as a Nation can be solved in the Chilean Congress, through a law elaborated by settlers.

An example of this would be the use of undercover agents (infiltrators) and informant agents (snitches) under any law, which have acted permanently against the Mapuche communities and organizations, with the attributions made by the security apparatus. Only now with the modifications made to the Antiterrorist Law, these measures are valid unto the justice system, of course with better allocation of resources.

Beyond the political negotiations and reformed regulations, the Mapuche Political Prisoners of Angol, the three of the Rayen Mapu community in Temuco prison, and the minor Luis Marileo, gave their mobilization a sense of struggle for the Mapuche People in their entirety. “We sacrifice our life for those to come,” they said.

Those who continued the hunger strike recognized that the governments offer was insufficient, and together with the traditional authorities agreed to a solution to the issue of protected witnesses. “To apply Mapuche justice expulsing those people from the communities, in order to apply a severe sanction to those that betray the struggle of the Mapuche Nation.”

We are thankful to them in showing us that the issues that affect us as a Nation should be resolved in accordance to our Mapuche worldview; not with the ideas of those that say they know much about the settler world and are at the same time embedded within it.

País Mapuche

(See Spanish Version: www.paismapuche.org)

Distributed by:

The Women’s Coordinating Committee For a Free Wallmapu [Toronto]

Email: wccc_98@hotmail.com