Mapuche political prisoners break off hunger strike

The four Mapuche activists, Florencio Jaime Marileo Saravia and José Patricio Marileo Saravia, Juan Carlos Huenulao Lemil and Patricia Roxana Troncoso Robles, broke off their hunger strike, begun on 13th March 2006, last weekend. They were immediately transferred to the intensive care unit of a hospital in Temuco.

The end of the hunger strike is to the credit of a mediation group headed by the senator Alejandro Navarro, to which the Bishop of Temuco and four Lonkos belong.

Two weeks ago Senator Alejandro Navarro handed in a bill to the Chilean Congress, which would enable the Chilean President, Michelle Bachelet, to grant the four Mapuche an early discharge on probation. This possibility is not provided for in the Anti-Terror Law. This change in the law has to be passed by Congress and is at present being discussed there.

The four Mapuche are aiming at a revision of the case in which they were sentenced to prison sentences of over 10 years and high fines of over 400 million Chilean pesos (about 620,000 euros). The were sentenced on the basis of the Anti-Terror Law (Ley 18.314) from Pinochet’s time because they had taken part in a land occupation to protest against the fact that the Mapuche have up to the present day been denied their rights to land. In this campaign an agricultural vehicle was set alight. „Terrorist arson” and land occupation are the standard charges in cases against Mapuche, which are based on the Anti-Terrorist Law.

After a particularly long period of detention while awaiting trial  (up to 18 months) the case was marked by grave irregularities: the rights of the defence were restricted, the judgment relied on witnesses whose identity remained unknown to the defence („faceless witnesses”) and whose statements could not therefore be challenged by the defence.

The implementation of the Anti-Terror Law (Law No. 18.314) against Mapuche leaders who stand up against the rape of their land and the admission of anonymous witnesses has often been criticised by various international organisations, among them the Society for Threatened Peoples. In 2003 Rodolfo Stavenhagen, the UN Special Commissioner for Indigenous Affairs, called upon the Chilean government to take measures at last to prevent the Mapuche being criminalised on account of their legitimate protests against the sequestration of land and social discrimination. The same conclusion was reached by the committee for the economic, social and cultural rights of the United Nations in its last Chile report. In addition the Inter-American Commission for Human Rights has before it five cases against the Chilean government.  They have all to do with cases against Mapuche who have been charged on the basis of the Anti-Terror Law.