LLAITUL : "The Chilean Government Covers Up the Use of Torture"

Hector Llaitul, Mapuche Political Prisoner

"The Chilean Government Covers Up the Use of Torture”

Alvaro Hilario (Temuco)

 Hector Llaitul, leader of the Arauco-Malleco Coordinator (CAM), was imprisoned on February 21st, accused of “terrorist arson,” with testimony given under torture as the only evidence against him.  On April 13^th he began a hunger strike with two primary objectives: denouncing the case against him and forcing his transfer to Angol Prison.  On April 23^rd and 24^th I visited him the infirmary of Temuco prison where he was shut in due to isolation rules; in early May, having achieved transfer to Angol, he ended the hunger strike.

When I visited the Secretary of the Chilean Police in Temuco, 9^th Region, looking for the special permit needed to visit Hector Llaitul, the bureaucrat who spoke with me justified such a hurdle because of his condition as a “special prisoner.”  I asked if such status meant that he was a political prisoner.  After a significant silence she answered that they preferred to call them “popular prisoners.”  In fact, Llaitul is one of many jailed leaders of the Arauco-Malleco Coordinator, a group which joins Mapuche communities in conflict and which has been marked by the Chilean state and media as an “illicit terrorist association” and prosecuted as such.

Hector Llaitul was detained by the Investigative Police on February 21st in the city of Concepcion and imprisoned the following day, considered a “danger to society.”

“I’ve been hunted,” tells Hector, “and that’s why I was hidden in the mountains, since the cities, full of military and informants, aren’t safe for us.  But I made the mistake of going down to the city.”  Suspecting that the number he had called to arrange a meeting was tapped, he tried to cancel, but it wasn’t possible.  “Passing by the Acevedo Plaza I didn’t see anything unusual: a couple women stretching, a man on a mountain bike; when I realized what was happening I was on the ground, handcuffed, with all of them on top of me.”  Although initially jailed in Concepcion, he was transferred to Temuco after a few days, which he doesn’t doubt was a form of retaliation: “based on my record,” he says, referring to his six previous charges, “they consider me very dangerous; that’s why they have me isolated in the infirmary, the location indicated for people like me.  A jail within the jail.” 

Our conversation occurs here in a small cell, without sunlight, that contains only a small, generic table and bed.  “ They didn’t even have the dignity to give me a chair.  I’m not allowed to go outside, study or go to the gym,” he says, smiling.  “It’s also an economic punishment for my family: my wife has to travel six hours to visit me.  This is one of the reasons for my hunger strike: transfer to Angol; there, too, the Mapuche prisoners have individual cells that are open during the day, and are allowed to cook for themselves.” 

Another reason is to denounce the case against him: accusations of burning machines belonging to the Mininco Forestry Company in December of 2006, the case based on testimony from one witness, given under torture, sufficient proof to be condemned to a prison sentence of five to eleven years.  “The witness, Robert Painemil (currently in Lautaro prison), was detained and tortured by a group of civilians; they hit his head with an iron bar and applied electrodes.  He wasn’t taken to see a doctor, but forced to give testimony, not in front of a judge, as should happen in a case like this, but before the District Attorney.  He was also told that if he reported what had happened, his family would suffer the consequences.  We would like him to denounce the torture, but he feels alone and frightened.”  Overcoming this fear, this fence created by the government and the media, is critical for the denunciation to happen.  “We have confidence in the alternative media, in people like you, to get word out about these things.  The socialist government, which claims to be democratic, covers up the use of torture (frequent in their fight against the Mapuche Nation).  They say it’s something from the past, from the days of the dictatorship (of Pinochet).” 

As Hector mentions, the role of the Chilean media is critical: “the media is in the hands of the right wing and they act in complicity with the state; furthermore the owners of the media have the same economic interest as the timber companies, the paper plants and the energy companies.  It’s not just the use of torture that is silenced, it’s also the presence of paramilitaries and the use of ‘faceless’ witnesses, who are paid to say what the military tells them to say.”  Another role of the media is to criminalize the Mapuche struggle, looking to discredit them and weaken popular support.

The issue of lawyers is another that works against the defendants: “human rights lawyers don’t exist here today.  Anyone who offers to assist us is immediately threatened.  I have a lawyer assigned to me by the same state that persecutes me; he doesn’t want to know anything, doesn’t even want to denounce the issue of torture.  It’s a mere formality.”  In December he will have his first half dozen court hearings.

Hector returns to the fight against the timber companies to recover the Mapuche’s land: “The Mininco Forestry (together with the ENDESA hydroelectric company, one of our chief adversaries) has changed their policy.  It’s no longer merely about  the use of violence, the paramilitaries.  They are diversifying repression: they study the zones where they operate and create plans adapted to each area, often financed by the Inter-American Development Bank, with the goal of creating a ring of security around their properties.  They arm the share-crop farmers and the fishing and hunting associations to form vigilante groups (legal in Chile) to defend themselves from the ‘bad neighbors,’ the ‘violent neighbors.’  That’s how they attempt to isolate those who struggle.” 

The visit must come to an end.  Hector Llaitul has time to send a hopeful message: “Despite everything, what we’ve accomplished is that the communities continue fighting and the Arauco-Malleco Coordinator has managed to maintain its ties to them.  For us, the recuperation of our land is indispensable so that, from the land, we can rebuild the identity of the Mapuche Nation.  That’s what we’re doing.”