After a large protest yesterday, Mapuche prisoners announce that they will continue to fast despite force feeding attempts by authorities after 51 days of hunger strike. They were moved to a health facility last week after releasing a video earlier in the month.

“We know it is a serious health issue, but we will give our lives if necessary,” the prisoner’s statement said. “If they want to force feed us we will sew our mouths shut.”

An estimated 3,000 people protested yesterday in Santiago. Before the event ended, military police dispersed the crowd with tear gas and water cannons taking 16 detainees. Police say they were targeting a group of suspected infiltrators belonging to Corriente Anarquista (anarchist current).

Senator Eugeni Tuma asked Chilean president Sebastían Piñera to pay more attention to the Mapuche. Tuma said the convictions of the Mapuche prisoners is a “reflection of injustices being inflicted on the people.”

“Who else should contribute more than those with political responsibilities, they should assume a behavior that has to do with a fundamental solution not a publicity event that doesn’t solve the underlying issue,” Tuma said.

In addition to their incarceration, the Mapuche prisoners are protesting the militarization of Mapuche territory, the persecution of children, women and elderly, and the unjust holding of indigenous political prisoners.

More than 5,000 indigenous people marched today through the centre of the Chilean capital to defend their rights and to support the four hunger striking Mapuche prisoners in Concepción.

Four Mapuche prisoners have been on hunger strike for over 50 days, protesting against the implementation of the Anti-Terrorism Act legislation and against the absence of constitutional guarantees of the right to a fair trial.

Today the Mapuche people took to the streets to keep up the fight for their rights and to protest against the Chilean government’s lack of action. With ancestral dances and costumes, the column began in Plaza Italia and will culminate in a political-cultural in Forest Park. Taking part in the process are eight Mapuche children, who carry a canvas that reads “We are the children and grandchildren of those you could not kill.”

On Saturday a member of the EU Parliament, Ana Miranda, sent a letter addressed to Chilean president Sebastian Piñera Echenique, backed up by the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization (UNPO), begging the president to quickly take action and find a humane solution.

Miranda writes: ”The Mapuche people have expressed their outrage regarding the continuing discrimination and violation of their human rights by the government of Chile in various meetings with members of the European Parliament, non-governmental organizations and Civil Society in Europe, during visits in 2011 and 2012.”

Miranda means the protests have been left ignored for too long and “urges the Government of Chile to end the plight of the Mapuche political prisoners on hunger strike, whose health situation is now at a precarious stage.”

The prisoners were last Wednesday moved from the Angol prison to a hospital since their health after over 50 days without food was getting severely poor. Daniel Melinao, spokesman for the strikers, said to the Mapuche newspaper El Werkén: “they are being forced to eat in the prison against their will”. But they have assured that “they will keep striking until authorities are willing to considers their claims.”

A protester told the Chilean newspaper Nación.cl: “Since the state still does not answer our people on hunger strike, we must show that they are not alone, rather the contrary, we are mobilised and united and together we will fight for theirrights and ours.”

Four Mapuche prisoners participating in a hunger strike were moved to a hospital on Wednesday. The hunger strike has lasted 44 days thus far in the Agol prison in the south of Chile.

According to the Mapuche website, “the inmates have lost up to 13 kilograms and their physical state has deteriorated”.

The prisoners are demanding a revision of their sentences, immediate demilitarisation of the Mapuche land and the release of all indigenous political prisoners. They are from an indigenous community in an area of Mapuche conflict between the indigenous people and farmer and forestry companies over ownership of ancestral lands.

Paulino Levipán and Danel Leminao were sentenced to 10 years and one day for the attempted murder of a police officer. Rodrigo Montoya and Eric Montoya were sentenced to 541 days for illegally carrying a firearm and are awaiting trial.

Mapuche community members claim that the Gendarmerie are planning to force feed the protestors as they filed an injunction several days ago to protect the health of young people.

Chileans are reminded of the 2010 Mapuche hunger strike that ended by Church intervention after 86 days.

Mapuche representatives in Santiago marched on Wednesday demanding freedom for the prisoners. The crowd was broken up by police tear gas and water cannon trucks.

The four Mapuche men who have been on a hunger strike for 36 days while being held in the Chilean prison Angol have today released a video to calling for their people to reclaim their lands.

Paulino Levipan Coyán and Daniel Levinao were convicted of attempted murder against members of Chile’s militarized police and posession of illegal firearms during an incident in November 2011. Meanwhile, Rodrigo Montoya and Erick Montoya are still waiting for the completion of their trial.

Today is the 36^th day of their hunger strike in prison, with which they ask the Chilean Supreme Court to review and set aside their convictions. They also demand immediate demilitarisation of Mapuche territory and the realese all Mapuche political prisoners. In addition, they also claim an end to the torture of integral members during raids in Mapuche territory.

With a video issued from their prison cell, they called upon their indigenous community to reclaim ancestral lands currently held by coorporations and landowners.

Some of the men have lost about 10kg and Daniel Levinao was hospitalised last week for an electrocradigram scan due to a weak pulse.

Spokesman for the Mapuche organisation Wente Winkul Mapu, Luis Melinao, said in an interview with Radio Bío Bío that “after 30 days in hunger strike and still no rapprochement with the government or authorities it clearly shows that the conviction is racist, discriminatory. and unfair”. He added: “This is nothing but a political execution.”

The government has been unwilling to negotiate while the prisoners are still on hunger strike, but have now showed interest in a dialogue. They have offered to review their crimes based on common crime law instead of using the legislative system of anti-terrorism that dates back to the last dictatorship. “We will continue to discuss,” says the indigenous group Natividad Llanquileo’s spokesman Rodrigo Curipán.

On Thursday, Chile’s National Corporation for Indigenous Development (CONADI) submitted a proposal for an indigenous consultation law to the Human Rights Committee in the Senate. It comes after a series of recent protests arising as conflict has escalated between the Mapuche indigenous groups and police.

The law hopes to open more dialogue between the government and indigenous communities to improve land conditions as well as human rights abuses.

According to the Santiago Times, CONADI director, Jorge Retamal stated that the “document is very important for the country and for our native people”.

Social Development Minister, Joaquín Lavín, presented the proposal with Rematal on Wednesday at the UN’s International Labour Organisation (ILO) headquarters in Santiago. The proposal hopes to directly address land use, based on the ILO’s Indigenous and Tribal People’s Convention 169, which was ratified in 1991. The convention was originally created to ensure that natives could “exercise control over their own institutions, ways of life and economic development and to maintain and develop their identities, language and religions, within the framework of the States in which they live”.

The proposed law hopes to replace the current law, Decree 124, which has been said to not be up to Convention 169 standards. The current law was enacted in 2009, yet the indigenous communities and other groups claimed that they were never consulted beforehand.

This new law would address a wider range of social issues. The executive director of Amnesty International Chile, Ana Piquer, explained how “[these] policies range from the social aspects, to security to development” and also emphasised how the right to consultation was important in Chile especially with current projects that impact the land rights.

“For example, in the context of the Mapuche conflict, the right of consultation is crucial when solving conflicts such as the long term problems of land restitution,” she added.

This proposed law comes after last week President Piñera announced his “Plan Araucanía” which hopes to address the various challenges that face the Chilean Mapuche. The Plan includes a school, hospitals and compensation for indigenous members who were attacked by Carabinero police.

Today at 11am Chilean president Sebastián Piñera announced plans to address the challenges faced by the indigenous Mapuche. He was speaking after the social conference held in the capital Santiago which addressed development ideas for the region of Araucanía in the south of the country.

With help of the Ministry of Agriculture and the Ministry of Social Development, the Plan Araucanía hopes to address various challenges that the indigenous group faces, over the span of the next 30 days, with the long-term goal of ameliorating economic and employment issues.

The plan will address education by adding a new technical, multicultural school in Ercilla. The president also announced that there will be more scholarships for Mapuche students and will provide more incentives for the students to complete their studies.

Additionally, five new hospitals are to be built to address healthcare issues.

Piñera also confirmed that proper compensation will be made for those who were assaulted over a week ago.

On 23rd July, an on-going conflict escalated to violent proportions when an estimated 200 Carabinero police from La Romana and Montenegro forestry plantations attempted to evict 60 indigenous people from a plot of land in Ercilla. Accounts say that the Carabineros used tear gas and fired buckshot into the Temucuicui community’s peaceful protest. Ultimately, the police took 12 people into custody, of whom three were said to be minors. Of the total reported injured, five were said to be minors.

Although President Piñera reported to have fully supported the police attacks, he said there would be further investigations into the incident.

The Mapuche are Chile’s largest indigenous group with nearly one million members. There is a history of conflict between the Mapuche and police forces, including those based on “extractive” industries or logging companies. The indigenous groups have been battling for their rights to the land, which they consider ancestral property that was taken from them in the late 19th century.

A trial that could put ten indigenous Mapuche people behind bars for up to 40 years each on terrorism charges begins Tuesday in the Chilean Court on Constitutional Rights.

Indigenous leaders are describing the trial – set to take place in the municipality of Victoria – as a set-up.

The ten men are charged with “robbery with intimidation of a terrorist nature, terrorist arson attacks and illegal association with terrorist organisations.”

Two of the accused are minors, Patricio Queipul and Luis Marileo. Police have sought Queipul since he was 11. For his part, Marileo participated in two hunger strikes demanding respect for the rights of the Mapuche children.

Lawyers for both minors requested to start a separate process to review their situation. The move is also to prevent the minors to be tried under Anti-Terrorism Law.

The Mapuche members are being tried for acts that occurred in October 2009. It was after an alleged attack in the Chilean commune of Victoria. The local authorities are asking for the accused Mapuche to serve between 25 to 40 years in prison.

This trial has been criticised by indigenous authorities and by lawyers, because the prosecution’s main evidence against the Mapuche is from a “protected witness.”

This legal manoeuvre, which these groups are challenging, is protected by the anti-terrorism law that emerged during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet.

The spokesman of the Autonomous Community of Temucuicui, Jorge Hunchullán, complained that ”they are still using a law inherited from the Pinochet dictatorship” to try these cases.

The spokesman also described the trial as ”an assembly oriented to criminalise Mapuche people’s struggle,” adding that they are defending their land and ancestral rights.

The Mapuche community, Paichil Antriao, will be represented by a human rights watch association in the civil court case against Argentine NBA star Emanuel Ginóbili, announced the head of the indigenous group earlier this week.

The Indigenous Peoples Observatory of Human Rights (ODHPI) will represent the Mapuche community in the judicial row about 11-acres of property the basketball player bought back in 2004.

Problems arose because the Mapuche community is claiming ownership of the land the villa is built on, dating back to 1902. The property, located in Villa La Angostura, was purchased for about US$10 million in 2004, but the court case started only three years later. The werken (head of the community) of the Paichil Antriao group, Mario Railaf, accuses Ginóbili of displacing “more than 30 families” that were living on the land by the time of the buyout.

When the community refused to leave the land, the Argentine player filed a lawsuit against its members. According to the weekly newspaper Perfil, “the legal strategy has been that of denying the existence of the community to deny the indigenous people’s rights.” In 2011, the Court of Appeals urged the player’s lawyers to recognise the community as defendant part in the trial. The trial was then suspendend during the summer holidays and recently resumed.

The Mapuche community, along with the director of Indigenous Peoples Observatory of Human Rights (ODHPI), Juan Manuel Salgado, fears that if Ginóbili won the lawsuit, the next step would be eviction from the territory. Mr. Salgado claims that Ginóbili bought the land from Joseph Salamida, a local official appointed by the dictatorship, who in the past had seized various lots of land.

In April 2011, the InterAmerican Commission of Human Rights (IACHR) accepted a petition by the ODHPI and ordered the Argentine government to take “urgent measures” to “guarantee the life and integrity of the Mapuche community.”

Law 26,160, approved by the Congress in 2006, prohibits the eviction of indigenous peoples and orders compulsory land surveys in similar occasions.

The spokesperson for the Mapuche political prisoners, Natividad Llanquileo, spoke about the indigenous people’s territorial claims. She also talked about the implementation of the Terrorist Act in Chile during an interview with radio station Juan Gómez Millas.

Llanquileo said the Mapuche’s main demand is the recovery of their ancestral territorial space. She criticised the way the Chilean government applies the Indigenous Act.

According to her, the government has a policy of relocating the communities, generating its division.

She also reported that the community’s ancestral lands are being occupied by multinational companies, noting that the Chilean law “always favours businesses.”

On the other hand, Llanquileo referred to the implementation of the Terrorism Act and the double standards suffered by the Mapuche who defend their territories.

It is worth reminding that last 7 August the American Court of Human Rights filed a lawsuit against the State of Chile for implementing the Terrorist Act in a selective and discriminatory way against the Mapuche.

Despite the sanctions that the court may issue against them, the government keeps unresolved territorial issues with more than 300 Mapuche communities. Furthermore, they have militarised large areas of the country in Araucanía.

The Terrorism Act was passed in 1984 during the dictator Augusto Pinochet’s regime. Its policies enable penalties for common crimes, intercepting telephone calls and using faceless witnesses.

Since the return of democracy in Chile, the Terrorism Act has only been applied against the Mapuche. At least 220 people have been convicted or sued.

Members of the indigenous Mapuche tribe are filing a lawsuit to launch an investigation into the accident that left Julio Chewin, their community leader, in a critical condition. The leader was hit by a vehicle during student protests in Chile.

Family and friends of the victim, who are waiting for the Chilean justice system to take on their lawsuit, have criticised the authorities’ sluggishness.

They have likewise criticised media outlets that suggested Chewin was committing illegal acts at the time of accident, which occurred while he was participating alongside Chilean students, who had blocked off the motorway in Lo Hermida, a commune in the Santiago Province.

After the accident, protesters ran to his aid and took him to Accident and Emergency. Chewin is currently in a critical condition and will remain in the intensive care unit of El Salvador hospital.

His wife, Yvonne González, held the Chilean government accountable for violence against students and the country’s indigenous towns.

Chewin is a member of Radio Werken Kurruf, which broadcasts from the capital. His wife and daughter held an audiovisual interview, produced by the Interconexiones program which covers the everlasting conflicts endured by community radios in Chile.

Story courtesy of Agencia Pulsar (ALMARC) http://www.agenciapulsar.org/tapa.php