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A New Strategy for Repression? Mapuche children seem to be the target of the Chilean Police By Reynaldo Mariqueo, 17th November 2011
Straight away the police then subjected him to the most horrific physical and psychological torture that has ever been recorded in the recent history of the Mapuche movement: the boy was repeatedly submerged in a canal full of dirty water until he was semi conscious whilst at the same time he was hit and insulted in derogatory and racist terminology. Subsequently he was bundled in to the helicopter where they continued to subject him to torture and threatened to throw him out if he did not admit to being one of the participants in the occupation of a farm that was located adjacent to his community. Thereby, with his clothes wet and dirty from the mud of the marsh, he was tied by the hands and feet, a balaclava placed on his head, stones and a slingshot in his pockets and was taken out of the helicopter towards the Santa Lucia farm, where people from the community were carrying out a protest for the recovery of their land. There, in front of the journalists and the television cameras the police removed the balaclava, and publically accused him of being one of those participants in the aforementioned act of protest. Afterwards he was put into a police van to be taken to the city of Vilcun, located at 40 kilometres from his community, to check on his injuries. The child recalled that the truck went first to the police post of Padre Las Casas (located at a few kilometres from his community) and afterwards to another in the city of Temuco. He also said that when they finally arrived at the hospital in Vilcun, one of the Police and the doctor from the hospital greeted each other like they were good friends, and the doctor, far from giving any medical attention to the cut and pellet wounds that he received on various parts of his body, told the boy that “they were only light scratches” and that “this is what happens when going taking farms” (1) According to the story told by Francisco, in Vilcun Hospital he received no medical attention and the Doctor, far from showing compassion or acting in an ethical way, merely reprimanded him and showed no consideration for his physical and emotional state. This is the typical attitude that we find in many of the Chilean doctors in the region of Araucania or Gulumapu, who besides giving poor medical attention and making racist insults to the Mapuche, also act as informants to the Police with regards to their Mapuche patients who arrive seeking medical attention and those who are hospitalised as a result of injuries suffered in acts of protest .This behaviour on the part of medical professionals means that many Mapuches do not go to the hospitals for fear of being detained by the Police. Francisco was then driven to the Police Station of Padre Las Casas, the place where they had been to between 3 and 4 in the afternoon of the same day. The police of Padre Las Casas had denied repeatedly to his family, who were searching desperately through all of the Police stations in the city, that the child had been detained there. When the Police finally admitted that the child was to be found there he was set free, allowing his family to take him to the Regional Hospital of Temuco for treatment to his wounds and at last receive proper medical attention. As mentioned previously, on the day of the detention of Francisco, a recovery of land on Santa Lucia farm at Lonkoche was being carried out by members of the Mapuche communities of Rofue, located at some 3 kilometres from the place where Francisco was found. It is important to make clear that peaceful acts of land recovery by the Mapuches are being carried out after years of unsuccessful proceedings in the Chilean courts, who far from being fair, generally back up the theft of land by the seizing winka (Chilean or foreign), thus leaving the members of the Mapuche communities with no other option but to opt for the recovery of their land through demonstrations of direct action. As would have been expected, the cruelty of the Chilean police against a minor touched the defenders of human rights, both national and international, and was the reason for which Francisco was invited to take part in the United Nations Human Rights Council. There, in front of the international community, the youngster related his testimony which shocked many of the participants of the court, while the Chilean diplomats sat in shameful silence, incapable of explaining or denying the testimony that called into question the rule of law in Chile. Part of the testimony read in the Human Rights Council stated that: “I was chased by a police helicopter whilst at the same time receiving the impact from lead pellets to various parts of my body, I was caught up with by the police, my hands tied up, I was subjected to insults, racist remarks and punches, and submerged in a ditch, later to be kidnapped in a helicopter and taken towards the neighbourhood of Santa Lucia farm.”(2) After Francisco ended his speech, various delegates approached him to obtain a copy of his testimony and later others greeted him with sympathy and words of encouragement when they passed down the corridors of the Palais des Nations. In spite of Francisco not committing any crime, the Chilean Police continue to intimidate him when he is recognised in the city, with the aim, to silence and prevent him from speaking out about what happened. The action of intimidation by the police of the Second Police Station of Temuco, against the young Mapuche, continued even when the child went to classes in the Pablo Neruda College in Temuco. A mounted Policeman belonging to the same police station was waiting for him at the school exit, accompanied him as far as the bus stop and throughout the journey the policeman steered his horse so close to Francisco that the horse’s face remained only a few centimetres from his own in a clear act of intimidation and humiliation; all of this in public, in front of his class mates, who were insensitive in response to this tragedy suffered by the boy now called a dangerous terrorist by the authorities and Chilean media. As a result the racism of his class mates and his teachers, of which the young Mapuche was the target, increased dramatically. Simply being a Mapuche or “Indian” amounted to that of being a “terrorist”. Francisco said that on one occasion he arrived late, as he must travel from his rural community to the city - the bus transport of the region is not always punctual - with his voice faltering through anxiety, he told me (in Geneva) that his maths teacher reprimanded him in front of the class for arriving late demanding “..Why didn’t you come by helicopter?” There are not enough words to convey the insensitivity of this teacher, who is not the only one in an educational system that ignores the cultural diversity of the country, that promotes racism and at times is ignorant of the social problems and territorial disputes that affect the members of the Mapuche communities. The Effects of Police Repression on Mapuche Children. In recent years numerous human rights organisations have expressed their concern about the actions of the police that fragrantly violate the Convention on the Rights of the Child and as a consequence many Mapuche children suffer physical and psychological damage. This situation is particularly serious in those Mapuche communities “in conflict”, such as Temucuicui and those situated in the Makewe and Trapilwe sector amongst others, namely in those communities that are fighting for the return of their ancestral lands. The repressive actions of the militarised police have been and are being condemned daily by the affected communities. The territory of these communities is militarised as it was during the times of the military dictator Pinochet. This adds to the applying of techniques and repressive laws introduced during the said military regime, such as the Antiterrorist Law, in spite of the fact that the same Chilean government promised not to implement it after consistent calls from the United Nations and other international organisations. These organisations condemn its use stating that it is not justified against the peaceful struggle of the Mapuche for their territorial, cultural and social rights. However, in practice, this law continues to be applied: allowing amongst it, house searches and the sentencing and indiscriminate detention of Mapuche leaders who, as a preventative measure, remain in prison for years. There does not exist a detailed study of the cases of children who, as a result of governmental repression, suffer the interruption of their school studies (as would happen with Francisco) or physical and psychological health problems. The girl Relmutray, whose case has been extensively condemned at an international level, is only an example of the many problems that the Mapuche children have to face. Relmutray suffered severe Post Traumatic Stress Disorder which meant she remained hospitalised for a long time receiving medical treatment in Geneva. The problem of this Mapuche child (now 13 years of age), caused by police brutality against her family and her community, intensified at having to confront the reality of returning to her community after almost 3 years in exile, for fear of “reliving again this nightmare” (3) that was witnessed when she was a child. The excesses of the Police, the corruption and the planting of false-evidence orchestrated by the landowners and the police go together with the ruses used by the public prosecutors that are in charge of the legal proceedings against the Mapuche activists. This was, once more, to be exposed during the “Mapuche Cañete trial” at the beginning of this year, where, to incriminate Mapuche leaders the Public Ministry used protected witnesses that included amongst them paid anonymous witnesses or people forced into giving testimony by illegal means of coercion as was the case with the 17 year old youngster, Rodrigo Viluñir. The teenager was tortured and was hung by the feet, face down for more than half an hour on the bridge of Lake Lanalhue. This simulation of assassination by the police was carried out with the objective, through intimidation and terror, of getting the youngster to collaborate with them, in the form of anonymous testimony that would incriminate the Mapuche leaders of an adjacent community. Later on, the young Mapuche, with the moral support of his family and the community, refused to collaborate with the police and wanted to tell his true testimony before the Chilean courts, who obviously declined. In his testimony about the Police action he stated, “here, they asked me do you want to die... are you going to talk or not?.’.. One arrived, took out his gun and loaded it. There I began to cry, there they tortured me. Afterwards, in Cañete, they made me sign sheets of paper and I said to them. “May I read them?” “No” they told me.”You cannot read anything, get the hell out of here, go straight home.” (4) It is reasonable to assume that these techniques of torture and coercion and the use of children to extract statements from them is a clear policy of the Public Ministry, and cannot simply be discounted without condemnation in any democratic country with a rule of law. This policy is reflected by the lack of action against those police that abuse their power and the non existence of legal mechanisms designed to repair or compensate the victims. This means the police have carte blanche to torture and commit all types of abuse and violence towards the Mapuche community. The criminal actions of the Police are rarely investigated or the perpetrators punished; this demonstrates the institutionalised racism endemic in a Chilean justice system which discriminates barefacedly between ordinary Chileans and the Mapuche. Bibliography:
_________________________ Translated by Suzanna Ashton
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