Urgent Statement From Mapuche Lands! Declaration of the Comunidad de Historia Mapuche in Light of Recent Incidents in Mapuche Territory

With the present declaration, we denounce the nature of the political stunt of the recent repressive police operation executed by the Investigative Police of Chile (PDI, by its acronym in Spanish) and supported by the Temuco District Attorney of the High-Profile Unit, which has affected the Mapuche communities of Temucuicui, Pancho Curamil, Chacaico, Huañaco Millao and Butaco. This stunt was a politically repressive operation involving the deployment of 800 police officers brought from different parts of the country (including the Tactical Response Team known as the ERTA). These teams were duly armed and with aerial support (helicopters and drones) with the intention of raiding the mentioned rural communities (pu lof), and generating police violence of a scope that has not been seen since the Pinochet dictatorship. This well-orchestrated operation was carried out under the pretext of dismantling networks of narcotrafficking and “organized crime” in the Araucanía region. However, the police findings do not at all constitute evidence to support the existence of organized networks nor of large-scale weaponry. The facts reveal a crude and clumsy political and police maneuver backed by the Chilean government in order to legitimize a persistent policy of criminalization of the Mapuche Nation’s struggle to reclaim native territories, autonomy and self-determination. 

It is paradoxical that an operation of this magnitude and such a high level of police violence was carried out under the pretext of drug trafficking prosecution, since the PDI and other Chilean police organizations have not taken these actions in zones and regions where the statistics indicate a larger problem exists. These facts are public knowledge. We are dealing with repressive actions together with media aimed at delegitimizing the fair struggle of our People for their territories. All the while the Chilean entrepreneurial sector, fascists, and local landowners install the epithet of the “narco-terrorist” as part of their media strategy.

Furthermore, the January 7th operation was planned and put into action the same day that the Oral Criminal Court of Angol released the verdict on the case of the assassination of lamgen–peñi Camilo Catrillanca Marín. This community figure was a respected defender of our Peoples’ human and territorial rights and the grandson of Juan Catrillanca, a longko (traditional authority) of the Temucuicui Community. In this respect, the court’s verdict declared Carlos Alarcón guilty of homicide, the ex-carabinero (former police officer) who shot Camilo Catrillanca Marín in the police crime on November 14, 2018 in Temucuicui. In addition, the court assigned responsibility to another six ex-carabineros and a civil lawyer involved in the incident. Therefore, it is not by chance that the mega-operation of the PDI in the Temucuicui territory took place in parallel with the pronouncement of the verdict in the Court of Angol.

In light of these facts,

Kiñe (First): We denounce the serious abuses to the physical and psychological integrity of children, women and elderly people, such as the traumatic consequences of this repressive police operation. In particular, we recall that the family and community of the victim lamgen–peñi Camilo Catrillanca Marín have been victims of Chilean state terrorism and of the violation of human rights, for which the State has international responsibilities to protect the integrity of all who form part of the Catrillanca Marín family and their community (Lof), especially the parents, wife and children of Camilo Catrillanca Marín. In recent events, we have seen severe violations of international rights in this area, specifically violations of the “Basic Principles and Guidelines on the Right to a Remedy and Reparation for Victims of Gross Violations of International Human Rights Law and Serious Violations of International Humanitarian Law” (2005) and to the “Convention on the Rights of the Child” (1989) established by the United Nations. 

Epu (Second): We demand an investigation of the physical and psychological abuses to which each of the family members and the raided communities were subjected. The cruel and cowardly way in which police forces subdued, abused and separated Wakolda from her mother, a child that on that same day turned 7 years old and daughter of the murdered lamgen–peñi Camilo Catrillanca Marín, are condemnable. This atrocious act, in which members of the PDI kidnapped a child for hours, violates the most basic norms about treatment of children in human rights discussions, especially considering that Indigenous children constitute a special protected group according to international law. This incident is an illegal and arbitrary act that lays bare the systemic racism of the Chilean State, revealing the dehumanization and heartless cruelty inside which members of the Chilean State police apparatus are shaped. We demand that this police action be investigated and that those responsible be punished. Equally, we demand the immediate resignation of Héctor Espinosa Valenzuela from his role as director of the Investigations Police of Chile for supporting the inhumane actions of his employees against the grieving Catrillanca Marín family, especially the mother, the wife, and the daughter of the deceased. It is time that we effectively put into practice the existing international norms relating to the human rights of Mapuche children and adolescents. 

Küla (Third): We call on the Chilean government and the political elites of the country to accept responsibility in the preservation of these types of operations and stunts. The occurrences of January 7 have taken place in a context in which the government and its allied supporters of neoliberal capitalism have found themselves delegitimize and adrift in public discussion. We cannot be deceived in the face of a crude politically repressive maneuver against the Pueblo Mapuche. In the context of the election of constituyentes (representatives for the Constitutional Convention) and an eventual change of the Chilean Constitution, this grotesque and clumsy police operation intends to reposition a political desire to “legitimize” the continuity of state terrorism and protect the poorly named “Doctrine of National Security” created during the infamous civic military dictatorship. Today, the doctrine’s inheritors intend to ratify their ideology at all costs in order to protect the interests of the great capitalist Chilean businessman and the colonial structures of power established in the historic territories of the Pueblo Nación Mapuche.

Meli (Fourth): We insist that those who have the power to pronounce it, whether in Chilean society, Mapuche society, or in the international arena, make an explicit condemnation of this new operation, another piece of evidence of the continuity of colonial and racist violence against the Pueblo Mapuche. At the same time, in our commitment to fight for life, we lament the loss of a human life in this politically repressive operation. Finally, we invite the socially conscious and allied sectors to be attentive of new political and repressive maneuvers by the Chilean government and police, that only seek to delegitimize the just fight of our People for their ancestral territories, autonomy, and self-determination. 

¡No More Militarization in Mapuche Territory! ¡Bring an End to Political Stunts!  ¡Respect for Mapuche Children! ¡No More State Terrorism! ¡For a Free Wallmapu!

Comunidad de Historia Mapuche (CHM)-Centro de Estudios e Investigaciones Mapuche (Center of Mapuche Studies and Research)

Temuco, Ngulu Mapu/Chile. Wallmapu (Mapuche Nation) Mari Antü, Enero Küyen, 2021.