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In June 1992, Mapuches from Argentina and Chile met in Neuquén (central Argentina), for the first time, to discuss different approaches to the creation of a Mapuche autonomous territory. The new proposed entity, which would expect to command national and international recognition, would result from the recovery of lands that the Mapuche Nation traditionally occupied in both present states. Currently, the Mapuche Nation is divided between Argentina and Chile, which, following devastating nineteenth-century campaigns of genocide and land theft, forcibly relocated the Indians onto miniscule reservations with resources inadequate for ensuring their survival. Today, Mapuche ancestral territories are occupied largely by descendants of northern European settlers (the descendants of immigrants from Spain are a minority in Mapuche country) who were brought into the region by successive Chilean governments specifically to be agricultural role models that the Mapuches were expected to emulate, according to the ideology and policy of forced assimilation and ethnocide.
At the Neuquén meeting, Chilean Mapuches, headed by Aucan Huilcaman Paillama, an executive of the Mapuche Council for International Relations (a division of the Consejo de Todas las Tierras Mapuches), stated their intent to recover stolen land and to refuse to pay taxes to the Chilean state. The response from the newly elected government of Chile, now nominally under the leadership of President Patricio Aylwin, was rapid: on June 25, 13 people, including lonkos (chiefs) and women, were arrested when several Mapuche reservations were raided by the police. The Mapuches were charged with participating in an illegal organization, occupation of private land (the state of Chile is the guarantor of private property), and forming an organization dangerous to Chilean society.
Two weeks prior to the arrests, the Aylwin regime and the Chilean Supreme Court in Santiago had appointed a Special Minister for Investigation (Ministro en Visita) to conduct an inquiry concerning the Mapuche Consejo, its organization and power structure, and the function of each of its members. The Ministro ordered the Mapuche Consejo members arrested, prevented from leaving the country, and then remanded for trial and eventually imprisoned in the city of Temuco, from where they issued the following statement to national and international observers, human rights organizations and support groups, on July 18:
The fundamental rights of our Mapuche communities have always been denied, and our Mapuche communities have been neglected in the Constitution and Judicial System. Against this physical and cultural menace, we have started a process to recover the land that was taken from us and which is now in the hands of non-Mapuche people, private enterprises and the Chilean state.
The same Chilean Supreme Court had also, only a few months previously, ruled against the ancestral rights of Pehuenche Mapuches (of the Andean highlands) to control the Quinquen valley, in favor of the Sociedad Galletue lumber company which wanted concessionary rights to cut and remove trees from Mapuche territory for profit. The Pehuenches of Quinquen had fought a legal battle for 30 years to gain legal title to their valley and to prevent its deforestation and the cutting of their sacred Araucaria (piñon) trees. In response to the court ruling, Chilean President Aylwin sent a bill to Congress proposing an alternative to turning the Quinquen Valley into a national park; his plan would override the court decision and the claim of the lumber company and permit the Pehuenches to stay on a fraction of their lands. In March, after intensive negotiations between government officials and the lumber company, an agreement was reached in which the Chilean Government bought the lumber company's rights to the Quinquen Valley for $6.15 million. The Galletue Company was granted control of the river lands east of Galletue Lake. The negotiations resulted in the relocation of fewer Pehuenche families than otherwise would have been the case, but it also reasserted government priorities in development, not indigenous, issues. The entire succession of these events was central to the discussion at the Neuquén meeting, which eventually resulted in the imprisonment of the Mapuche Consejo leaders.
The Government's treatment of the Mapuches as "common criminals" reflects the repression inherent in the Chilean Constitution and the Judicial System. Both insitutions were shaped under the prior military regime of Augusto Pinochet, who still continues to control them, although the government is ostensibly under Aylwin's direction. The actions of the Chilean Supreme Court illustrate that the future of the redemocratization process is at a vital crossroads, creating what the Mapuche leaders call "a climate of violence and fear in the communities, occupying villages and imprisoning our people. This open form of repression confirms the political, ideological and cultural order we are subjected to. It proves that we are still a physically and culturally threatened people."
The London-based Mapuche Committee in Exile has called for international support for the Mapuche people and recognition of the injustice and repression they face today in their attempt to create a new reality for the Mapuche Nation. They call for autonomy within the Mapuche territories as an inalienable right that will not be renounced, despite the attempt of the Chilean state to crush the challenge from grassroots Mapuche organizations and communities.
Political rhetoric aside, there is presently a growing sense of despair among Mapuche communities, which, among all the people of Chilean society, suffer the highest rates of malnourishment, alcoholism, infant mortality, suicide, illiteracy, and school drop-outs. The estimated Mapuche income is $500 dollars a year. Mapuche land is exhausted from overuse and erosion. Such evidence of de-facto discrimination is not successfully disguised by the state's assimilationist ideology and policies. The Consejo de Todas las Tierras Mapuches appraised the situation as follows in their statement of July 18:
This violation of our fundamental human rights shows that in our country respect for democracy that the government proclaims simply does not exist, as they have shown no interest at all in a constructive dialogue. The government's only answer to our historical demands is repression and threatening to apply the "Law of Internal Security" in case the communities continue their actions.
Fourth World Bulletin • February 1993
Copyright © 1996 by the Fourth World Center
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