South of Chile engulfed in guerrilla warfare. Clashes between Mapuche Indians and local farmers continue. The intendant of the Bio-Bio region needed, so that the central authorities urgently send police reinforcements and military. Local law enforcement is failing to tackle the wave of violence, increasing since January 2021 of the year.
Protests are accompanied by road closures and attacks on trucks. 3 February, unidentified persons blocked the P-70 highway. Radical groups set fire 8 February administrative buildings in the town of Villarica, Araucania region. A 10 February in the province of Arauco burned 11 fur.
"Violence in the province of Arauco: one driver injured, damaged 15 Vehicle, civilians were fired at, roads are blocked, houses burned down and power lines attacked ", - write the media.
????????Violence in Arauco Province: An injured driver, 15 damaged vehicles, shooting civilians, impassable routes, burned houses and attack on the electricity supply. pic.twitter.com/4rL1iJ35Rn
- APRA ARAUCANíA (@aprachile) February 11, 2021
The author of the Telegram channel "Pinochet Bakes Cookies" tells, who is behind the attacks in the region, and why the right accuses "communist terrorists" of everything.
Fight for land
Even temples are attacked during the unrest - 4 February in Boroa, the parish church of the Immaculate Conception was burned by the mission of the catechist sisters. Farmers and truck drivers react to radical Mapuche attacks with demonstrations and road closures in the regional capital, the city of Temuco.
???????? This is the church burned by terrorists last night in Boroa pic.twitter.com/rb7KKZrJt7
- APRA ARAUCANíA (@aprachile) February 4, 2021
New protests and attacks coincide with Mapuche's verdict Cesar Miljanao, who was accused of setting fire to farms in 2016 year. He was sentenced to 9 years, the decision was taken 15 February.
The Mapuche struggle has been going on for over 20 years. The conflict between Indians and farmers goes back to the time of Pinochet, when in 1980-1988 years, his government implemented the Perquenco plan on Indian lands. According to this plan, the Mapuche communal lands, 500 thousand hectares, privatized and divided among the Indians. It turned out about 6,5 hectare per family. The resulting layer of smallholders had to be incorporated into the new neoliberal economy., which was actively built by the regime of the general.
There was a constant lack of money for the implementation of the plan and the Mapuche farms went bankrupt.. New Indian "farmers" were in a losing position in comparison with large latifundists and logging companies. In addition, part of the land was torn away during the time of Pinochet and ended up in the hands of loggers.
The rise to power of democratic governments after 1990 year did not improve the situation. Logging companies, supported by the authorities, continued to seize the Mapuche lands. At first, the Indians tried to protest peacefully - but their demands were ignored., and the protesters were imprisoned. TO 1994 year in prisons was 144 Mapuche political prisoners.
AT 1997 the year a political crisis erupted. Endesa Corporation Decides to Build Ralco Hydroelectric Power Plant on the Bio-Bio River. Mapuche lands were subject to flooding, who lived next to the future hydroelectric power station and refused to leave the territory.
Mapuche believed, that their lands are protected by the 1993 year law N19253. Chilean President Eduardo Frey thought differently - the territories were flooded, Indians evicted. And officials from the government agency CONADI who disagree with the president's decision, developing indigenous peoples of Chile, fired.
Logging companies have started to apply new tactics: they set fire to small areas of the forest on their territory, broke forestry equipment, and then blamed these actions on the Mapuche. The Mininco company is especially famous for this., whose truck during the Indian protests in March 2000 Years to death crushed the Mapuche of Alarcon Peña.
Fire to help
In February 1998 Coordinadora Arauco-Malleco was founded by the most radical groups among the Mapuche. (CAM) - a left-wing nationalist organization led by Hector Llaitul Carrillanca. SAM began to demand the return of the lands torn from the Indians, as well as the autonomy of Mapuche up to secession from the Republic of Chile. Nonviolent resistance and petitions have replaced the burning of farms, destruction of forestry and agricultural machinery, killing cops and taking over government buildings. The escalation of the conflict was on the rise.
AT 2002 year top CAM, eight people, was convicted under the new anti-terrorism law. It cooled the radical Mapuche groups for a while., but with 2012 years, the conflict between the Indians and the authorities began to reach a new level. AT 2016 year the radicals staged 15 church burnings in the Araucania region. At the same time, actions continued to seize the land of farmers and set fire to their property and equipment.. Despite the resistance, by the 2010 the Mapuche lost 140 thousand hectares of land.
To suppress likely Mapuche unrest 28 June 2018 years, the authorities created a specialized police unit. The training of its members took place in Colombia, which is why it got the name "comando Jungla" in the Chilean press. The unit distinguished itself with brutality in the suppression of Mapuche performances. 14 November 2018 of the year, during a special operation, police from comando Jungla killed Mapuche Camillo Catrillanca, going about his business on a tractor. It provoked nationwide protests..
COVID-19 epidemic only spurred Mapuche performances, poverty among which comes to 40% the population. From May 2020 Mapuche literally set the region on fire.
Araucania against "communists and drug cartels"
Chilean authorities perceived Mapuche as a problem, which can be solved either by assimilation of Indians, or their extermination. Only during the reign of the left president Michelle Bachelet at 2014-2018 years, amendments to the Chilean Constitution were proposed, who secured cultural and limited political autonomy for the Mapuche.
But coming to power in March 2018 year of the current president Sebastian Pinera, elected from the right-wing coalition "Chile, forward!», froze these initiatives. His program was aimed at the complete assimilation of the Indians.
The Mapuche lived on this land even before the arrival of the Incas. Now the right-wing press began to interpret their political actions as subversive actions.. Hector Llaitula Carrilliancu, AMU leader, still accused of having links with Chilean leftist groups Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria (ME) и Manuel Rodríguez Patriotic Front (FMPR), who were remembered for the armed resistance to the Pinochet regime. After the fall of the dictatorship in 1990 year, they gradually stopped any violent actions. The accusations were based on, that in his youth, Carrillian was a member of them. However, already in the early 1990s, he severed ties with his left-wing comrades., to fully devote himself to the interests of Mapuche.
Carrillanque is also remembered for the trip in December 2018 years to Venezuela, where he was photographed with local leaders. Among them was Diosdado Cabello, whom the right-wing press considers one of the founders of the Cartel of the Suns.
The CAM meeting with the head of the Cartel de los Soles. pic.twitter.com/AL7yOJZ5XP
- Patricio Fugellie I❤️???????? (@Patofugellie) June 22, 2020
Besides, Mapuche activists accused of collaborating with the Colombian leftist group ELN. Colombia's ultra-right Semana publishes document excerpts, which were allegedly found on the victim's computer 25 October 2020 years of ELN leader Andres Londoño, known as "Uriel".
"Another folder, found among 2 million Uriel files, contains very important information about interests THE Nin Chile and Argentina, countries, inside which have THE N there are connections, according to the messages found ", - writes Week.
Another folder found among the 2 Millions of Uriel's files contain valuable information on the ELN's interests in Chile and Argentina, nations where they have links, according to the messages found. #LosPlanesDeUriel → https://t.co/nQsJCYNL8Ipic.twitter.com/p2T9lLP1oi
- Semana Magazine (@Weekly magazine) January 31, 2021
The docs allegedly describe the links between ELN with MIR and FMPR. And that, that Héctor Carrillianca was once in them, serves as a sufficient reason to announce the possible supply of weapons and money from the left radicals of Colombia through intermediaries directly Mapuche.
The same "Uriel files" in Semana used, to accuse the Ecuadorian presidential candidate Andrés Araus of having links with left-wing militants. Due to the occasional cry of a bird, the further campaign against him fell apart..
However, the harshest accusations of Indians come from those who come from farming organizations in the Araucania region.. according to them,, Mapuche find themselves embroiled in a conspiracy against Chile, hosted by Cuba.
“There is evidence of AMU ties with representatives of Cuba, Venezuela, Colombian FARC and Peruvian Sendero Luminoso. Terrorist attacks on farmers and logging companies in the region are financed from the sale of drugs. ", - statedGloria Naveilan, ex-speaker of the Farmers' Union of the province of Malleco, political leader of the far-right APRA group.
Mapuche opponents accuse them of drug trafficking through the Andes, citing the incident in Temukuikui town. 7 January 2021 a police operation was carried out there in, during which it was withdrawn 40 kg and 1277 marijuana bushes, seven weapons and 12,3 million dollars in cash.
????UPDATE Drug seizure, money, weapons and ammunition in the Temucuicui community of #Ercilla : ▪️ 1.277 marijuana plants ▪️ 40 kg of processed marijuana ▪️ $12.320.640 in cash ▪️ 7 firearms ▪️ 148 ammunition of different caliber pic.twitter.com/vo3QYiDdwU
- Araucanía Prosecutor's Office (@FISCALIA_IX) January 8, 2021
Eight Mapuche Indians were arrested by the police. At the same time, they managed to shoot inspector Luis Balcazar, task force member, raid.
Conspiracy or coordination between Mapuche organizations, drug cartels, Cubans or ELNs were not found. But MPs from Chile's ruling right-wing coalition, e.g. Miguel Millado, insist on these accusations.
Araucanian police conspiracy
However, police reports, accessed by the investigative publication CIPER, paint a completely different picture. The conspiracy was deliberately fabricated by the security forces of Chile. Many perceptions of the right grow out of the investigation, which was carried out after the disastrous operation for the police "Hurricane".
At the beginning 2017 Chilean Police Chief General Bruno Villalobos created a special intelligence unit (YOU'RE BEAUTIFUL), which was supposed to deal exclusively with the investigation of Mapuche activities in the southern regions of the country. It was headed by a general Gonzalo Blue. For six months of his activity on charges of arson, attacks on farmers and land grabs were arrested 190 human. But that didn't stop Mapuche's performances.
The reason for the start of Operation Hurricane was the investigation of the attack and arson 29 Sotraser trucks, which happened near the city of San Jose de la Marikina in the Los Rios region near the borders of Araucania 28 August 2017 of the year.
Accused two people, one of which, Patricio Antiaga, was previously detained by the police and was under house arrest during the crime. Not satisfied with this, General Gonzalo Blu, at that moment supervising the investigation, decided to use the data, collected by police IT consultant Alex Smith.
Smith used Antorcha and Tubicación programs written by him to collect them.. The first allegedly allowed to intercept telephone correspondence, and the second tracked the geolocation of the phone. Collected data formed the basis of police reports, on the basis of which 23 September 2017 Operation Hurricane began. The arrests were carried out simultaneously in the Bio-Bio regions, Araucania and Los Rios. Eight Mapuche leaders, including Hector Llyaytula Carrillianca, accused of creating a terrorist organization, which was behind the attacks on farmers and the destruction of machinery.
However, the case brought to trial fell apart after a month and a half.. Even the prosecutor's office doubted the reliability of the evidence. All eight Mapuche accused were acquitted.
11 December 2017 years, the evidence and the contents of the telephone conversations were transferred to independent experts. It revealed, that they are all faked. In February 2018 the year the trial began, but against the police, and especially against General Gonzalo Blue and analyst Alex Smith, accusations of tampering with evidence and obstruction of justice were brought.
It revealed, what 23 September 2017 Police Captain Leonardo Osses, on the orders of General Blue, sent the file Llaitul.txt to Alex Smith's email. morning 24 September 2017 of the year the phone seized from Ljaytul Carrilianka went online using an external 3g modem. The file transferred to Smith was saved on the defendant's phone under the name text.txt. For some unknown reason, Smith did not remove it.. After that, Carrilanca's WhatsApp account was hacked.. The content of the file was embedded in his correspondence.. A similar operation was performed with the phones of two more accused., on which messengers WhatsApp and Telegram were installed.
It turned out at the trial, that in addition to Operation Hurricane, the Araucania police launched in November 2017 operation "Andes". The goal was to link the Chilean and Argentine left-wing groups MIR and FMPR with the Mapuche movement, primarily with Héctor Carrillanka. General Gonzalo Blue in this case oversaw the operation, and the evidence, the correspondence and geolocation of phones were forged by the same Alex Smith.
The situation was made easier by, that it was not necessary to seize and hack the phones of the accused. It was enough just to file the correspondence between members of the left groups unloaded from the Antorcha program into the report., which would mention the traffic of weapons through the Andes and its final recipient - Carrilanca.
Smith's gun traffic route literally drew on his knee. He allegedly received data on the movements of smugglers from the Tubicación program, which read the geolocation of their phones.
As the experts brought by the court found out, if Antorcha was unable to intercept messages, then the Tubicación program did not even exist in a working form. What Smith quite frankly stated at the trial.
The next court hearing on this case was postponed 28 January 2021 year. For Alex Smith, everything could end in 21 years of imprisonment.
As it turned out, all evidence of links between MIRs, FMPR and Mapuche were invented by the police, and the evidence is deliberately fabricated. The smuggling of weapons and money through the Andes for the needs of the Mapuche also did not exist..
Mapuche performances continue. Their demands have changed little over the past decades - the return of the seized lands, release of imprisoned activists, ending police harassment. Until the Chilean authorities start solving their problems, there is no reason to believe, that the performances will stop by themselves.
Author: Pinochet bakes cookies
