Gov't Unleashes Anti-Terror Law on Mapuche Activist

By Pamela Sepúlveda

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=45861


SANTIAGO, Feb 23 (IPS) - "They burst in aiming machine guns at us. They
found him in the hallway, they grabbed him by the hair, they threw him
on the floor and they beat him up," Ida Huenulef told IPS, describing
the arrest of her son Miguel, the first indigenous Mapuche activist to
be charged under the Anti-Terrorist Law by the government of Chilean
President Michelle Bachelet.

Members of his family said that 11 members of the special forces and
"carabineros" (national police) raided their home in the district of Lo
Prado in the west of Santiago, without showing any identification or
producing a search warrant.

Miguel Tapia Huenulef was arrested in front of his entire family, who
were held at gunpoint and intimidated during the violent operation in
the middle of the night of Feb. 11.

"I went to get my daughter and they pointed a machinegun at her head,
and when she picked up her little daughter, another carabinero came and
pointed his weapon at her little head," said Ida Huenulef, describing
how the police treated her 20-day-old baby granddaughter.

Miguel Tapia Huenulef, 45, was arrested as a suspect in an arson attempt
perpetrated in January on an estate called San Leandro near the town of
Lautaro, in the region of Araucanía, over 600 kilometres south of Santiago.

He was also wanted for his alleged involvement in an attack on the
Public Defender's Office in Temuco, the capital of Araucanía, in
December 2008.

Rural Araucanía is the heartland of the territory claimed by the Mapuche
as their traditional land and is the centre of indigenous activism. (The
word Mapuche itself translates as "the People of the Land.")

The police reported finding weapons, including a nine-millimetre
submachine gun with two ammunition clips, as well as ingredients for
making bombs and several marihuana plants.

The Tapia Huenulef family and Mapuche organisations say Huenulef is
being harassed, and the weapons discovery was a staged event designed to
incriminate him, just because he is an indigenous person.

"No, nothing at all, nothing of the sort. They say my children had
assault weapons, what do you think, who would do such a thing, living
with their family and with children in the house, and keep weapons in
the home!" Miguel's mother exclaimed.

She added that the police did not find anything in the bedroom, "because
they left, the carabineros went away without having found a thing. And
later on I saw people passing by carrying backpacks and other luggage."

Enrique Antileo, a spokesman for the indigenous organisation Meli Wixán
Mapu ("The Four Corners of the Earth" in the Mapuche language,
Mapuzungun), told IPS that the raid on the house is an example of the
repressive policies of the authorities.

"It was a set-up, they planted the weapons, we can swear to that. We
will support the family through thick and thin. This is the continuation
of a policy to repress the Mapuche social movement," Antileo said.

THE ANTI-TERRORIST LAW

Interior Minister Edmundo Pérez Yoma told the press that the case had
all the hallmarks of a terrorist organisation, "consequently we are
going to apply all the appropriate measures; in fact, we are going to
invoke the Anti-Terrorist Law."

A week after his arrest, the Tapia Huenulef family had still not seen
Miguel, who was being held incommunicado and had been transferred to the
Araucania region, they were told by the authorities. They were not aware
of the Interior Minister's statements.

The Under-Secretariat of the Interior and the regional government of
Araucanía told IPS that a criminal prosecution under the Anti-Terrorist
Law, signed by Under-Secretary Patricio Rosende, had indeed been
presented in court, but they declined to comment further.

This is the first time the administration of socialist President
Bachelet has used the Anti-Terrorist Law against a Mapuche. The
controversial law was created during the military dictatorship under
Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990) in order to hound political opponents. It
extends the powers of the police and the justice system.

"During her electoral campaign, (Bachelet) promised not to use this law
in cases involving members of the Mapuche people," said Rodolfo
Valdivia, the co-director of the Observatory on the Rights of Indigenous
Peoples (ODPI).

The Mapuche people's struggle in support of their demands is not an act
of terrorism, Valdivia told IPS. "In actual fact, there is no
organisation for the purpose of sowing fear among the population, there
is no organisation that would commit those crimes defined in law as
terrorist crimes," he said.

"We are not surprised that the Bachelet administration, in collusion
with powerful economic interests, should resort to arbitrary laws to try
to contain the Mapuche protest movement," Antileo said.

The Anti-Terrorist Law is one of the legacies of the dictatorship
drawing the heaviest criticism from indigenous organisations and human
rights groups.

In recent years, the Chilean state has received recommendations for
reviewing its legislation and policies in relation to the demands of the
Mapuche people from a number of bodies, such as Amnesty International,
ODPI, and the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of
human rights and fundamental freedoms of Indigenous People, Rodolfo
Stavenhagen.

PERSECUTION AND HARASSMENT

"There is a growing trend to criminalise Mapuche protests in general.
The Mapuche people, when they protest, have historically been silenced
in the most violent ways imaginable," Valdivia said.

The government denies harassment, and does not acknowledge the existence
of Mapuche political prisoners, as indigenous organisations allege.
Human rights observers take the opposite view.

"From the point of view of human rights, of course there are (political
prisoners). They are in jail because of their way of thinking, because
they want autonomy and want the autonomy of the Mapuche people to be
recognised," Valdivia said.

Activists recognise and appreciate the steps Bachelet has taken toward
securing constitutional recognition of Chile as a multicultural state,
and the many education and health initiatives that benefit original peoples.

But the government's response to the historical demands of the Mapuche
people, including their territorial claims, remains lukewarm. Their
demand for autonomy - recognition not only as a particular culture
within the country, but as a Mapuche nation with political and
territorial rights - is disregarded, and when conflicts arise they are
treated by the justice system as criminals.

According to the Meli Wixán Mapu organisation, more than 40 indigenous
people are imprisoned, either pending trial or following conviction in
cases related to their collective demands. About 500 Mapuche have been
prosecuted since the country's return to democracy in 1990. In the
organisation's eyes, they are political prisoners.

"They are not criminals, they have not committed armed robbery or rape
or anything like that. All they have done is take action within the
framework of our people's movement to reclaim our rights," Antileo said.

In Valdivia's view, the recent acquittal by a court of Avelino Meñaco, a
"lonko" (traditional Mapuche authority) from the Pascual Koña community,
illustrates the flimsy grounds of the practice of bringing criminal
charges against Mapuche activists.

After eight months in jail, Meñaco was acquitted of the charge of
attempting to set fire to a lakeside cabin, thanks to expert defence by
lawyer and former judge Juan Guzmán, famed as the first judge to
prosecute Pinochet on human rights charges upon the former dictator's
return to Chile after over a year of house arrest in London.

"There is evidence of a certain amount of persecution, because the
authorities are seeking criminal convictions against Mapuche 'lonkos'
and leaders. But as soon as the criminal justice system takes over, it
finds that there is no proof on which to convict them, and so in several
cases they have been declared innocent," said Valdivia.

According to the 2006 National Socio-Economic Characterisation Survey,
1,060,786 people, equivalent to 6.6 percent of the Chilean population,
identified themselves as indigenous people. Of these, 19 percent had
incomes below the poverty line, that is, they were officially regarded
as poor or extremely poor. The Mapuche make up 87 percent of the
country's indigenous people.

(END/2009)