News Categories Human Rights & Indigenous News MAPUCHE CONFLICT FLARES UP IN SOUTHERN CHILE
| MAPUCHE CONFLICT FLARES UP IN SOUTHERN CHILE |
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| Written by Santiago Times Staff | |
| Sunday, 19 July 2009 | |
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In the wake of the arrest last week of a high-profile Mapuche leader, ongoing tensions between Chile’s largest indigenous group and government authorities are once again boiling over. Early Sunday morning, approximately eight hooded men burned a forestry industry truck near the town of Collipulli in Region IX. Also known as the Araucanía, Region IX is home to approximately 33 per cent of the country’s Mapuche.According to news reports, the attackers – presumed to be Mapuche activists – approached the parked truck at approximately 3 a.m., forced the sleeping driver to vacate the vehicle, and then set fire to the truck’s cabin. Two other drivers managed to escape the late-night parking area with their vehicles. Police are linking the attack to a series of raids they conducted in recent days on nearby Mapuche residences. Police claim they entered homes in search of eucalyptus wood stolen from a local tree farm. The arson attack also comes on the heels of last week’s arrest of Héctor Llaitul Carrillanca, a leader in a radical Mapuche organization called the Coordinadora Arauco Malleco, or CAM. Police seized Llaitul last Wednesday in his mother’s house in Osorno, Region X. Llaitul, 41, is accused of masterminding an ambush last October against Mario Elgueta, a public prosecutor in the Region VIII community of Cañete. The prosecutor, a specialist in Mapuche violence cases, was traveling with a police escort last year when several unidentified attackers, after blocking the highway with logs, opened fire on the convoy. Elgueta and several of the police officers sustained injuries. Llaitul is being held pending trial on terrorism charges. On Thursday he refused public representation, telling a court room in Concepción, Region VIII, he has no confidence in the state’s ability or willingness to properly defend him. The CAM leader called the case against him a “setup” and insisted the “Mapuche struggle will continue.” “As long as there’s poverty and misery in the communities, the fight for land and independence will go on,” he said. Llaitul, a social worker, was jailed in early 2007 for his alleged involvement in an arson attack on a tree farm near Temuco, Region IX. Later that year he and several other prisoners, including Patricia “La Chepa” Troncoso, participated in a high-profile hunger strike (PT, Jan. 10, 2008). Llaitul was released last year after being absolved of the charges by a Temuco court (PT, June 16, 2008). SOURCE: LA TERCERA, RADIO COOPERATIVA, EL MOSTRADOR By Santiago Times Staff ( This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it ) |
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