STORY about Police/PrisonsIndigenous posted on September 10, 2010 by dawn

Our Strength "Newen" is What Feeds Us and Will Give Us Our Freedom

Interview with Mapuche Political Prisoner, Hector Llaitul

by Lucía Sepúlveda Ruiz →Original Peoples

Freedom for Mapuche Political Prisoners

Political prisoner and hunger striker Hector Llaitul

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A total of 34 Mapuche Political Prisoners have been on hunger strike since July, all of them are demanding a fair trial and an end to the Anti-terrorist Law. On August 23rd in El Manzano prison, the five where happy with the visits of family members and they themselves celebrated with maté [herbal tea] for the visitors and family members. Lucía Sepúlveda Ruiz sat down with Hector Llaitul, a prisoner who has lost more than 17 kg in 52 days of fasting; only drinking water and maté, and did the following interview.

Lucía Sepúlveda Ruiz: What can be achieved by this action, which may be seen from the outside as an act of desperation? I haven’t heard of other cases where the accused declare themselves as political prisoners on hunger strike, as what happened in this case?

Hector Llaitul: It may seem contradictory, but we wanted to refresh ourselves to keep on struggling. We feed ourselves from Newen, from strength. We wanted people – and not just Mapuche Peoples – to mobilize. Plus, none of us are indispensable. Our morale is strong as well as our consequence. It gives us much strength to know that our people see us as their prisoners, as their Weichafe [warriors].  What we don’t want is for people to be immobilized; the lack of conscience. We seek the end to the Anti-terrorist trials, and two strikers have already been released since the beginning of the strike. The judges and the political elite are feeling the pressure. If nothing would happen, the powers that be would not know of anything. They could have a thousand prisoners throughout the entire country and nothing would happen. But with a hunger strike, there is a national and an international effect. We are achieving something, and we expect more achievements in trial. The accusations will be become twisted. The one thing that will become clear is that there are only set-ups, and our people will come out better from it, we are going to achieve our freedom as best as we can. How many people we can set free depends on our strength. But we are not all going to prison anymore.

LS: What analogy can be made in regards to the situation of the trapped miners?

HL: In the beginning the miners had no way of getting out of from underground. And how can we get out of this confinement if we are trapped with two different legal procedures, Civil and military justice simultaneously? When there is a fully fledged compact and uniform media saying that we are violent, who can confirm otherwise? The media is tendentious. The prosecutors say what they want and the media gives them all the coverage. The silence they maintained on the hunger strike is because it wasn’t in their interest to speak about the prisoners.  The anonymous witnesses that testify against us are compensated by the State, by the Prosecutor’s office, in order for there to be less questioning when a estate lord does it directly, as in the case of Osvaldo Carvajal, in the area of Lake Lleu-Lleu. We feel very good when people mobilize despite this huge campaign. In the Temuco trials, they are even going to have Colombian police, CIA agents among others as protected witnesses; this is a trial at a Latin American and Global Scale.

LS: They have accused you of carrying out violent actions. Why have you chosen this form of struggle?

HL: Here, there is no political instrument that can be used to struggle. We wouldn’t be in prison if we were in a country like Venezuela. If we were there, we’d be members of the Venezuelan parliament. In that parliament the indigenous peoples fight with the oligarchy and with reformist sectors, in unison with the revolutionaries.  The political struggle is given by the instruments that are available. However the Mapuche continue facing the invasion, and is under a military dictatorship. We haven’t shaken off the occupation of our ancient territory by various States. Domination has been historically dragging in us.  We reside on miserable lands under a legislation of occupation. The only way the State grant access to our lands is when there are lands claims, which were conceded after the military occupation, for a minimal part of our ancient territory. All the ancient territory that we reclaim is considered illegal. The State has never consulted us, not before, not now, not ever; they have resolved the issue within their material, ideological and cultural apparatus. Our struggle seeks to construct the basis for a national liberation struggle. We are just beginning to construct that base. That can be done by maintaining a very coherent political and ideological maintenance of our struggle with the demands of territory and autonomy. These demands are what guarantee the fulfillment of the historic demands of our People. They are the fundamental ideas for the reconstruction of our nation.

LS:  How do you relate today’s struggle with the history of your People?

HL: Some historians say there was no common direction in the struggle. But what do they say about our examples, like Pelentraro [Warrior Chief of the 1598 Mapuche rebellion]? What he and his warriors achieved was the gathering of forces of a people in struggle, a succession of sorts. The actions of resistance are developed through the basis of a construction. Otherwise, there are only short term goals to be followed, along with State genocide.

LS: And what happens when you speak in public about these struggles?

HL: In my case, I don’t like to appear in public. I like to be on the ground, in the community. But the youth invited me, after I was released in the other trial in 2008. One of the accusations against me in this case is that I was lecturing students at the University (La Frontera) over the struggle of the Mapuche People in its edge of resistance, and I insist, not of a feverish group. All of us are completely native. We are the product of a reality of dirt floors and alcoholic parents. They make a leap of faith because there is conviction and dignity. All of the prisoners are from the community, and their political struggle comes from the community.

LS: Do you only consider the actions of land reclamation as valid? What about the cities?

HL: We maintain different levels of work and fronts of construction. NOT as a party, but as a community... We have mobilization on other fronts, on the street, in the plazas for the freedom of the Mapuche Political Prisoners. In regards to migration, we say they should come back to the community. Those that live in the city are the Diaspora. The only way we can integrate them back to our way of life is to live with the Mapuche world view, because that’s where everything comes from; it includes our religion, our spirituality. If we don’t state it in that sense, the essence is lost.  It is part of being original peoples; otherwise, its most basic elements cannot be sustained. Nonetheless, in our struggle every little bit helps: the support, the writings of spray paint, or whenever the parents say to their children to dress in their traditional clothing – that too is Resistance. It becomes into a subversive act because it is linked to a political project of liberation. The reconstruction is not only anti-systemic power, but it also is maintaining your way of life. It is to awaken and to reconstruct many things; it all has an ideological aspect.

LS: How do you evaluate the coming of Piñera’s government?

HL: The Left did not reincarnate itself into the world of the oppressed to continue struggling, after negotiated transition. They let others use take that ground. The Left abandoned its real political project, and does not educate the people. The last [social-democratic coalition] government, ”La Concertacion,” paved the way for the Right and cooperated with Military Justice. They didn’t reform the legal system. Viera Gallo [ex-Chilean foreign Minister], who represented the Bachelet government at the United Nations last year had to answer to 24 reproaches for the actions taken against the Mapuche People.  How many will Piñera have to take? The practice of torture, death and the raids did not begin now. But it became more serious. The Right had the control of everything; they just needed the political power.  Now the advancement of the logging/forestry and mining companies are intensifying, to continue to take control over Mapuche territory and other peoples. The Araucanía Plan that is being promoted by the government is like Plan Colombia for us.

 LS: Where do you all stand in regards to the implementation of [International Labour Organization Convention] No. 169 on Indigenous Peoples?

HL: There is no political will for that to function. It’s a bluff.  We can’t forget the fact that it had been in Congress for 17 years, and just like the creation of Land Claims process, it was created because there was a process of mobilization in course – the reclamation of land – which brought it to the forefront. But in practice the accord is never applied, as it states there should be consultation if any indigenous lands are to be put at risk. The logging/forestry companies do it, apply the theft of lands and repression. The accord is useless; it does not defend any community. If we want to defend our territory, we know that we have to do it ourselves, which isn’t defined by any decree. We struggle to reclaim our land, metre by metre.

LS: What do you respond to those that accuse the Mapuche of being directed from abroad?

 HL: Our definition is our own, as other peoples have their own definitions. The Bolivarian movement does not work for indigenous peoples, as the allegations of training in Colombia are contradictory. We don’t need the conduction of anyone. We struggle on the basis of our principles and in the history we inherited from our ancestors, such as Lautaro. In that regard we can teach others! Sometimes it is forgotten that our people have a great historical legacy of resistance. Besides, historically Bolivar was responsible for the genocide and colonialism of our peoples, as the Bolivarian project implies the destruction of our community system. Spanish was imposed on our peoples. We cannot converge on that basis, but we unite with them and other mobilized peoples, in regards to the liberation of humankind. For us they are allies in struggle on our own basis.  We do not recognize them in terms of the links set out by the prosecution. We do recognize a similarity in ideology, moral positions in relation to the struggles of other peoples.

 LS: What can say about the application of the Anti-terrorist Law that is now also being applied to a section of Chilean youth as well?

HL: The Anti-terrorist Law has it origin in the dictatorial era, it is an exceptional law, a special law that in the end only seeks to annihilate the opposition of social movements that oppose the regime. It is a law that has been applied today in the context of annihilation and political persecution towards those who fight for justice. We have seen its application to the Mapuche People since the [social democratic] Concertacionista governments and now even more during the reign of the Right, which transgresses many procedural rights and the access to a just trial. To apply now to others, is part of the strategy to say there is no racism. We consider the struggle to abolish the Anti-terrorist Law transcendent to the Mapuche struggle. If they apply the law to us now, sooner or later they will apply it to other social movements that rise up in struggle for more dignified living conditions, and for a more just and human political project. Of course they can be applied to other groups. If this is applied to our brothers in the libertarian movement or anarchists as the media describes them, it must be because there is anti-systemic foundation and a compromise with certain people that bothers them, and transgresses the a State of its kind.

The next action in Vancouver in solidarity with the hunger striking Mapuche political prisoners will take place Wednesday, September the 15th in front of the Chilean Consulate at 12:30 noon. The Chilean Consulate is located at 1185 West Georgia St., Suite 1610 – Vancouver, BC.

Translated and Distributed By: The Women’s Coordinating Committee Chile-Canada. Email: wccc_98@hotmail.com. This interview was originally published in Spanish on Lucía Sepúlveda Ruiz's website.