MORE VIOLENCE IN ARAUCANIA

El Mercurio Waxes Eloquent On Chile’s Indigenous Situation

(Ed. Note:  Violence is on the rise in southern Chile, home to the nation’s largest indigenous group – the Mapuches. 

On Wednesday national officials declared that the Terrorism Act will be used to determine who was behind the recent violence, most especially a raid on a Tur Bus traveling between Santiago and Puerto Montt.

The state’s Terrorism Act is much criticized by human rights groups, who call it a throw back to the Pinochet military regime and say it is inconsistent with democratic government. Among other things, the terrorism act allows extended incommunicado jail time, allows secret witnesses to give testimony at trials, and permits extra long jail time for offenders

After almost two decades of violence against police, two decades of  repeated occupations of properties in Araucania, of arson attacks on vehicles, buildings and homes — like the fires in Lleulleu, to name just one — and of a multitude of other crimes, it is evident that the so-called “Mapuche conflict” has significantly overstepped the bounds of state law.

Armed officers are not equipped with the necessary firepower to contain the attacks because it would require that all their resources be devoted exclusively to this issue. This has only encouraged more radical action by the Mapuche groups.

Whenever an arrest is made or police operations occur, Mapuche groups habitually “retaliate” with more land takeovers or additional arson fires.

After Llaitul’s recent arrest, for example, the violence intensified. This included six land takeovers including, for the 37th time, property owned by the now famous southern farmer Rene Urban. Most recently, hooded delinquents attacked police officers and shot them, wounding two of them.

A government spokesman labeled the above named act as “intolerable,” but the public has been hearing the same thing for two decades. Clearly, something is not working in the way the government has been tackling the problem since the 1980s.

Indigenous policy has failed: it has not managed to rid communities of poverty — despite the useless expenditures by the government’s indigenous agency, CONADI. Rather, the policy has created a scenario that is increasingly violent and that poses a risk to the development of the area.
In the long term, the nation’s indigenous policy must be changed so that descendants of all ethnic groups can be incorporated into the nation’s life, at the same level as all our other children, eliminating the unacceptable issues that are maintained through the Indian Act.
And in the short term, the terrorist organizations that unquestionably exist and operate should be countered with in the full force of the law.  Our 1984 Terrorist Law has been amended eight times since it was first enacted – beginning in 1991 and most recently in 2005.
It demands punishment for individuals or groups seeking to impose their ideological views through violence and breaking the law, especially when there are casualties and destruction of property. 
In Chile, however, its provisions have not been regularly applied and are resisted by certain groups which have an erroneous interpretation of respect for human rights. In fact, this Terrorism Law — in Chile like all mature democracies that have similar or more severe legislation of this type — looks to protect the basic rights of terrorism’s victims.
But compelling evidence and the autonomy of the Public Prosecutor’s office are helping overcome this prejudice regarding the use of the Terrorism Law and its effort to protect the rights of people who have been threatened.  
Just last May, after some 90 unsolved bombings in the Metropolitan Region over a five year period, an anarchist who was carrying a bomb (apparently to be installed at the School of Prison Guards) blew himself up. This allowed Santiago’s public prosecutor’s office to invoke the Anti-Terrorism Act for the first time since 2005.  Interior Undersecretary Patricio Rosende confirmed the existence of anarchists or neo-anarchists, but said there were no real links between them and the Mapuches. 
Still, raids on homes of these extremists have found common elements used by anarchists and Mapuches, which seems to confirm the existence of ties between them.
Most recently the Interior Minister sent an undersecretary to southern Araucania Chile where the violence has occurred to determine - on location - "exactly the right course of action to follow." 
The minister estimates there are at least “two communities, numbering about 2,000, where many have become violent.” If this diagnosis is correct, the lack of continued results in the region by regular legal means is much less understandable.
Translated by Maya Srikrishnan ( editor@santiagotimes.cl  .)