TUESDAY, 07 FEBRUARY 2012 18:06
WRITTEN BY BRITTANY PETERSON
Whether it was police carelessness or intentional, any human deserves better treatment.
José Ancalao, spokesperson for the Federation of Mapuche Students and member of CONFECH, suffered a broken nose when police arrested him in early January after trying to speak with the officers violently arresting a fellow Mapuche at a protest in Temuco. The protest, held on the fourth anniversary of the murder of Matías Catrileo, saw a total of 16 arrests, including Catrileo’s mother and sister.
José Ancalao after the protest. (Photo by José Ancalao)
"I only went toward [the police] when they detained Diego Saldivia Mankilef. I didn't even insult them when they started to hit me and say 'Talk now, Indian, you piece of shit,' and other allusions to my position as a student leader," said Ancalao.
If found guilty of public disruption at his trial on Feb. 14, he faces a possible 341-day prison sentence.
With this incident and the pending trial, the Chilean government is clearly confusing, perhaps intentionally, its self-preservation with pursuit of justice. When a government fears losing its power or influence, it kicks into survival mode to fight off any imminent threat. This is a basic form of self-preservation. As the Sebastián Piñera administration faces power threats inherent in many legitimate demands by the Mapuche and student movements, it employs the token undemocratic response of actively oppressing, in many forms, these movements and their leaders.
It is this threat to its power that moves a country’s police force to violently arrest young people. While Ancalao has recovered from the relatively minor injury, the most unsettling part is that the police brutality toward this young man came as no surprise for several reasons.
The Mapuche activists have regularly been targeted as terrorists under Chile’s Anti-terrorism Law N°18.314, often receiving unduly harsh punishments. While the law initially applied to a few cases of arson over the last decade, it is now being used to target important Mapuche leaders.
Additionally, the demonstration that took place on Jan. 4 was unauthorized. As we have witnessed in unauthorized demonstrations associated with the student movement, this means police can get away with arresting anyone who even slightly gets in their way. In an act of peaceful civil disobedience, a few protesters hung a banner from the roof of City Hall to demand justice for the 2008 murder of Catrileo by a Chilean police officer. The officer, Walter Ramírez, was granted impunity by the Supreme Court in December 2011. Although Ancalao, who was not actually on the roof, acknowledged attempting to peacefully intervene with police officers in the street outside of City Hall as the protesters were arrested, police apparently considered his effort to converse with them a crime.
Finally, Ancalao’s unwarranted arrest comes as little surprise when considering his important role in the student movement that swept across Chile in 2011. There appears to be little disagreement among government officials about the influence of Ancalao, his Mapuche and student peers, their well-researched and rational arguments, and their influence upon the majority of Chileans. This past year, the student movement effectively called into question key laws, political institutions, and the neoliberal economic model that has allowed Chile the social and economic stability that made it South America's first OECD nation in 2010.
Clearly, the government is concerned.
The same day as Ancalao’s arrest, Camila Vallejo tweeted, "Chile continues abusing its power to repress all social fighters. Strength, Ancalao."
The world is replete with examples of governments, both democratic and non-democratic, that have deployed a heavy-handed police force as a means to defend the government’s interests and its supporters. The countries of the Arab Spring plus Greece, England, the U.S., and others have seen this story play out again and again. Yet in democratic nations, it is the responsibility of the people to speak out and yell “shame!” to their representatives who use any tactic--be it aggressive or playing deaf--to repress a social movement.
I am not Chilean. I am a grateful immigrant trying to build a life and a career for myself here. The responsibility is yours, queridos Chilenos, to say “basta!” and to support those who support peace and justice.
While we hope for the best, if Ancalao is found guilty of public disorder on Feb. 14, I invite you to join me in calling la Moneda and peacefully taking to the streets to show our intolerance for such unjust actions.
Source: The Santiago Times