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MAPUCHE HUNGER STRIKE REACHES CRISIS POINT: POLITICAL PRISONERS FIGHT
FOR MADRE TIERRA  
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Andy Higginbottom
February 6, 2024
Monthly Review
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_ The prisoners are members of the Coordinadora Arauco-Malleco (CAM),
a movement that is involved in direct action to recover ancestral
lands in order to protect Madre Tierra from spoliation by logging
companies and big business latifundios. _

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The renewed hunger strike of fifteen political prisoners of the
Mapuche resistance movement in Chile has reached a highly critical
stage. The prisoners are members of the Coordinadora Arauco-Malleco
(CAM), a movement that is involved in direct action to recover
ancestral lands in order to protect Madre Tierra from spoliation by
logging companies and big business _latifundios_.

The _weichafe_ ecowarriors also identify by their Spanish acronym
PPM (Presos Políticos Mapuche). They have been in a protracted
struggle for political autonomy and protection of
their _wallmapu _homeland from destructive commercial exploitation.
But the Chilean state, under the supposedly leftist government of
Gabriel Boric, insists on criminalizing the CAM and stigmatizing any
action for national liberation as _terrorist_.1
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Four _weichafe_ commenced a hunger strike on November 13, 2023, and
have since been joined by two other groups of PPM. Their two central
demands are:

* The annulment of the political and unjust convictions without
evidence against CAM political prisoners and the right of due process.
Their conviction of at least fifteen years imprisonment was not based
on evidence but on racist profiling.
* Better conditions of detention, respecting their collective rights
as Indigenous people, including the implementation of communal modules
in prisons. The Chilean state should respect ILO Convention 169
regarding the cultural relevance of the deprivation of liberty of
Indigenous peoples.

Doctors advise that once a hunger striker goes beyond sixty days
without food, their internal organs begin to collapse and they are in
imminent danger of dying.  As at time of writing, January 29, 2024,
the first group of strikers are seventy-nine days into their protest.

The families of the political prisoners, especially women, have led
the resistance outside the prisons, called for demonstrations and a
week of protest.  They write:

“We confidently await the ruling on the appeal for annulment on
February 9 this year and we will be attentive to the political and
racist maneuvers of the Public Prosecutor’s Office and the
government of Gabriel Boric.”

International Solidarity Is Urgent

The _weichafe _are one the foremost contingents of the invisible
daily resistance of Indigenous peoples to capitalist extractivism. 
Their lives are on the line to resist criminalization and make visible
the Mapuche nation’s struggle.  Please support them by writing
urgently, calling on the government to respect the prisoners’ rights
as Mapuche people, to:

JAIME GAJARDO, SUBSECRETARIO DE JUSTICIA.
E-MAIL: [email protected]
MOBILE NUMBER: +569 4275 9326

Timeline

_October 4, 2023:_ Los Ángeles court, Bio-bío penitentiary. The
trial of Ernesto Llaitul, Esteban Henríquez, Nicolas V. Alcaman, and
Ricardo D. Reinao begins in a hybrid format. Many family members and
observers cannot enter.

_October 16, 2023:_ Pretrial hearing for Bastian Llaitul, José
Lienqueo, Axel Campos, Oscar Cañupan, and Roberto Garling.

_November 3, 2023:_ The five-week trial at the Los Ángeles court
ends. There is no jury. The three judges find Ernesto Llaitul, Esteban
Henríquez, Nicolas V. Alcaman, and Ricardo D. Reinao guilty.

_November 13, 2023:_ These four PPM commence hunger strike in
Bio-bío penitentiary.

_November 16, 2023:_ The Los Ángeles court passes sentences of
fifteen years at least.

_December 11, 2023:_ Six PPM held at Bio-bío join the hunger strike:
Hector Llaitul, Pelentaro Llaitul, José Lienqueo, Axel Campos, Oscar
Cañupan, and Roberto Garling. Graffiti, murals, and civil resistance
roadblocks appear across _wallmapu_.

_December 13, 2023:_ Five more prisoners held separately in Temuco
prison join the strike: Bastian Llaitul, Axel Campos, Roberto Garling,
José Lienqueo, Oscar Cañupan. They further demand forest companies
and military out of _wallmapu, _and an end to state persecution of
the Mapuche resistance to land grabbing.

The court in Lautaro hears a motion to improve conditions of four PPM
in pretrial detention: Pelentaro Llaitul, Luis Menares, J.C. Mardones,
and Jorge Caniupil. The court refuses to lift the punitive measures.

_December 19, 2023_: The forestry company Minimco attempts entry into
the Santa Ana farm in Coi-Coi, which has been retaken by the
Indigenous community with CAM’s support. They are repelled.

_December 26, 2023_: Government spokesperson Senator Camila Vallejo
rejects a proposal by the Human Rights Institute to set up talks with
the CAM.2
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_January 3, 2024:_ A protest by the Families of the Political
Prisoners on the highway is brutally attacked by armored police with
water cannons.

_January 11, 2024: _The Concepción Court of Appeal denies the appeal
for annulment of the convictions of Nicolás Alcamán, Ernesto
Llaitul, Esteban Henríquez, and Ricardo Reinao. They refer the case
back to the Los Ángeles court.

_January 13, 2024:_ The Los Ángeles court states that it is not
possible to hear the appeal as the relevant judges are on holiday.

Minister Monsalvo assures that the government has transferred extra
funds 32 million dollars to both police forces
(_gendarmería _and _caribineros_).

The National Institute of Human Rights arranges for a team from the
Medical Association to assess. They report that Esteban “requires
urgent and comprehensive medical attention.” He is in urgent need of
hospitalization. “If he does not receive this assistance, there is a
high probability that he will suffer a serious decompensation,
deterioration of multiple organs and multi-organ failure, which could
lead to his death.”

Esteban is transferred to Concepción regional hospital due to his
acute state of health.

_January 16, 2024: _The gendarmerie return Esteban to Bio-bío
prison, ignoring the doctors’ concerns.

Families of the PPM take direct action in the Presidential Office in
Bio-bío. Their banners read “65 days on Hunger Strike” and
“Defense of the Land Is not Terrorism or a Crime. Free the CAM
Political Prisoners!”

_January 17, 2024_: Two doctors were allowed in Temuco prison to
evaluate the condition of the PPM there. They report that the five
prisoners have each lost nine to fourteen kilograms since their hunger
strike commenced thirty-seven days previously. They reported
headaches, fatigue, dizziness, and abdominal pains.

Federico Aguirre Madrid, of the Araucanía Institute of Human Rights,
calls on the government to respect the prisoners’ rights as Mapuche
people.3
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_January 22, 2024:_ Application to the Appeal Court in Concepción to
hear the appeal against conviction of Esteban, Nicolás, Ernesto, and
Ricardo. The week of protests starts.

_February 9, 2024:_ Date of appeal hearing.

Notes

1.
[[link removed]] For
a report on previous hunger strike, see Andy Higginbottom, “Mapuche
Political Prisoners Hunger Strike Reaches Critical Stage
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MR Online, January 11, 2023.

2.
[[link removed]] “Ante
propuesta del INDH, Vallejo dice que la CAM no ha mostrado ‘ninguna
disposición al diálogo
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Cooperativa.cl, December 26, 2023.

3.
[[link removed]] Radio
Kvrruf, Facebook video
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January 17, 2024.

_ANDY HIGGINBOTTOM is a retired Associate Professor at Kingston
University, London.  See his related articles “Global Britain’s
Real Climate Changers: Big Oil Must Be Taken Down
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and  “Oil price collapse & the crisis
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* Chile
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* Ecology
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* Indigenous Rights
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* Social Movements
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* Prisons
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