More property destruction, arrests in Chile's Mapuche heartland.
| Autor | Witte-Lebhar, Benjamin |
A spate of arson attacks and the roundup, in late March, of multiple suspects in a high-profile homicide case have turned new attention to long-standing antagonisms between ethnic Mapuches, the Chilean state, and non-indigenous landholders in the country's south-central Araucania, Biobio and Los Rios regions.
Adding to the uncertainty is the emergence of a supposedly new player in the conflict: a resistance organization calling itself Weichan Auka Mapu, Mapudungun for "Fight of the Rebel Territory." Mapudungun is the native language of the Mapuche, Chile's largest indigenous group and the victim, in the late 1800s, of a so-called "pacification'' campaign that cost the tribe most of its ancestral lands in and around the Araucania, some 600 kilometers south of Santiago.
Weichan Auka Mapu introduced itself to the public on April 21, claiming in a press communique that it is responsible for nearly 40 property attacks committed over the past three years. "In terms of resistance, we incorporate an armed element as an obligatory response to the systemic violence that the Chilean state has exercised against the Mapuche people," the statement read.
Targets of the arson attacks, or "acts of sabotage," as the group described them, include homes and summer cabins, as well as vehicles, farm equipment and other heavy machinery. In some cases the property belongs to large forestry companies that operate in the Araucania and adjacent Biobio and Los Rios regions. The group also took credit for a rash of recent church burnings, claiming five such attacks in the previous month. "The Catholic Church played a key role in the permanent occupation of our territory," Weichan Auka Mapu argued in its communique.
Early on the morning of April 26 -- less than a week after the group went public--another church was torched, this time in the municipality of Padre Las Casas, in the Araucania. Investigators told reporters they found Weichan Auka Mapu pamphlets at the scene of the crime. Local media also reported an arson attack, on April 18, at a Catholic university in Canete, in the Biobio region.
Pre-dawn raids
The church burnings and the Weichan Auka Mapu pronouncement bring a new sense of urgency to the so-called "Mapuche conflict," which has smoldered for years and is characterized by occasional property attacks on the one hand, and heavy police and judicial repression on the other. "We won't be cowed," Interior Minister Jorge Burgos told reporters in response to the...
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