by Chris Barrett, 09 January 2013.
A school that served the indigenous Mapuche community of Collipulli, in the southern province of La Araucanía, was set ablaze in the early hours of this morning by two armed and hooded suspects, according to local media.
The two men forcibly entered the building and proceeded to tie the caretaker to a tree on the property. The subsequent fire destroyed the school in which 25 indigenous children attended class. It also damaged the home of the caretaker. Both buildings were unoccupied at the time.
Malleco governor Erich Baumann lamented the act, stating that it “leaves the children with no possibility of educating themselves, furthermore the poorest children will no longer be able to receive food from the school cafeteria”.
The fire is the fifth to take place in La Araucanía since a similar blaze killed an elderly landowning couple in the town of Vilcún last Friday. Coordinadora Arauco Malleco (CAM), one of Chile’s largest Mapuche activist groups, denied having any ties to the fire which killed Bernard Luchsinger, 75, and his wife Vivianne Mackay, 69.
In a statement released after Friday’s fire, CAM denounced “the infiltration by certain rightist groups of Mapuche communities, by actors instigating and committing actions that serve as an excuse to repress and detain the advance towards the reconstruction of the Mapuche People and their national liberation.”
The conflict in southern Chile, which has pitted corporations and landowners against Mapuche activists, has escalated considerably in recent weeks, causing the national government to use a controversial anti-terrorist law in an effort to “stabilise” the area.
The Mapuche community, largely concentrated in La Araucanía and the southern provinces of Argentine Patagonia, will convene on 16 January in the Chilean city of Temuco to discuss development initiatives in the area, one of Chile’s poorest.
Source: The Argentina Independent