Mapuche Resistance

A backgrounder on the situation facing Mapuche people in Chile and a look at Canada's role

By Garson Hunter

While the media flooded the Canadian public with stories about the horrible situation of the trapped Chilean miners, another horrible situation in Chile was also occurring. Of this other event, the Canadian public heard little. At the same time as the mining accident, more than 34 Mapuche political prisoners in Chile had entered into a critical and possibly deadly phase of a hunger strike to bring attention to their struggle and force significant changes in the way the Chilean state treats Mapuche people.
The central demands of the hunger strikers and their supporters were that Mapuche people are tried in civil courts instead of in both civil and military courts, and that dictatorship-era anti-terrorist legislation not be used against them. Their struggle, at its roots, is in defense of their territory and culture, and in that way is similar to the struggles of Indigenous peoples around the world. On October 02, after 82 days, 26 of the Mapuche prisoners ended their hunger strike after the government agreed that charges brought against the prisoners under the anti-terror law will be withdrawn, and they will instead be brought to trial under standard criminal law. Those who are locked up in the prison at Angol are continuing their strike.
Indeed, the situation among the Mapuche people is dire. Their fight to maintain their freedom and independence dates back to the first Spanish invasion of their territory in 1541. Since then, their land base has been whittled down to a series of reserves, which were broken up into individually held lands under the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet.
Since the end of the dictatorship in 1990 laws have been passed that recognize the rights of Indigenous peoples to land, however these have not been honored and Mapuche people have continued to organize against transnational corporate activities in their lands.
Dams throughout Mapuche territory have flooded vast expanses of territory, and displaced entire communities. In the 1990s, Spanish owned Empresa Nacional de Electricidad (National Electricity Company, ENDESA) began a project of building six dams on the Bio Bio river in Pewenche Mapuche lands. Some of these dams were funded through loans from the World Bank's International Finance Corporation and the Inter American Development bank.
Also in the late 90s, in an earlier example of the criminalization of Mapuche resistance, forestry disputes flared up, and "in December 1997 the police fought Mapuche protestors from the communities Pichi–Lincoyan and Pilil–Mapu. The communities were claiming their lands, and this generated a conflict because the government ignored Mapuche demands.
Road building and airport construction have increased the incursions into Mapuche territory, and continued to threaten the survival of the Mapuche people. In a 2008 report, Amnesty International noted that unresolved territorial disputes related to the extractive industries and logging have caused "tension resulting in violence":
"Mapuche leaders have informed us that police officers have used excessive force, including tear gas and rubber bullets, and firing shots from moving helicopters, including lead shot, in order to suppress the protests, to the detriment of the physical and psychological integrity of people who are often not involved in these actions, particularly children, women and the elderly."
The hunger strike in Chile is a wakeup call to the world about the criminalization of Mapuche peoples who continue standing up to defend their lands.
Canada's relationship with Chile has long been based on mining and free trade, having signed a bilateral Free Trade Agreement in 1997. In 2008, Canadian outward foreign direct investment in Chile was measured at $8.346 billion. Canada's priority sectors in Chile are among those that have most aggravated the Mapuche conflicts, including "mining, forestry, fishing and agricultural industries."
Disturbingly enough, among other programs, between 2005 and 2008 the Canadian International Development Agency funded a program in Chile called "Ensuring the Rights of the Accused in Chile," which "transfers Canadian experience in the field of criminal defence to help strengthen the reformed Chilean justice system."
Notes:
1.With excerpts from “At the Roots of Mapuche Resistance: A backgounder on the situation facing Mapuche people in Chile and a look at Canadas’s role” by Dawn Paley available at http://vancouver.mediacoop.ca/story/roots-mapuche-resistance/4671