The Mapuche conflict (Spanish: conflicto mapuche) involves indigenous Mapuche communities located in Araucanía and nearby regions of Chile and Argentina. It is often referred to as a conflict between the Mapuche and the Chilean government or state. Big forestry companies[1] and their contractors, Chilean police and some non-indigenous landowners have been confronted by militant Mapuche organizations and local Mapuche communities in the context of the conflict. The conflict has been classified as an indigenous self-determination conflict. [2]
Mapuche activists demand greater autonomy, recognition of rights, and the return of historical lands. The Mapuche conflict intensified following the return of democracy in the 1990s, with Mapuche activists seeking to rectify the loss of ancestral territory during the Occupation of the Araucanía and the Conquest of the Desert.[3] The Mapuche lack a central organization and individuals and communities carry out their struggle independently and by different means. Some groups, such as the Coordinadora Arauco-Malleco (CAM), have used violent tactics since 1998, while other groups have preferred non-violent tactics and institutional negotiations.[2][4]
The conflict has received the attention of international human rights organizations such as Amnesty International, which have criticized the Chilean government's treatment of the Mapuche.[5] The Chilean government's usage of the "Anti-Terrorism Law" in the conflict is a focal point of the controversy surrounding the conflict.[6][7] In 2013, the United Nations condemned the use of the Anti-Terrorism Law against Mapuche activists.[8] Many activists have been killed.[9] Recently, the MACEDA database has compiled more than 2,600 events related to this conflict (1990-2016).
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See also: Arauco War and Occupation of Araucanía |
The conflict has its historical roots in the occupation of Araucania by the Chilean army in the late 19th century. After 1881 the land was divided into plots and distributed mostly among private owners (including foreign and Chilean settlers as well as members of the army). The Mapuche (around 100,000 persons according to the 1907 Census) were confined to almost 3,000 atomized reservations named titulos de merced.[10] [11] Since the 1960s, many Mapuche were actively involved in the process of land reform. More than 150,000 hectares of land were transferred to the communities, but most of this land was later taken back during the counter-agrarian reform process implemented after the military coup in 1973.[12] [13] From the 1980s onward large swathes of southern Chile became integrated into the country's export economy, forming what has been described as an enclave economy.[14] The central component of this is the forestry sector, with several plantations in plots that were originally part of the land reform and others in plots claimed by communities.[14] [15]
The Mapuche conflict surfaced in the 1990s following the return of democracy.[3] The conflict started in areas inhabited mostly by Mapuches like the vicinities of Purén, where some indigenous communities have been demanding that certain lands they claim for their own but which are now the property of logging and farming companies and individuals be turned over to them.[16][17] Several Mapuche organizations are demanding the right of self-recognition in the quality of Indigenous peoples, as recognized under the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples by the General Assembly of the United Nations.
The official 2002 Chilean census found 609,000 Chileans identifying as Mapuches.[18] The same survey determined that 35 percent of the nation's Mapuches think the biggest issue for the government to resolve relates to their ancestral properties.[18] The official 2012 Chilean census found the number of Mapuches in Chile to be 1,508,722[19] and the 2017 census a total of 1,745,147, representing around 10% of the population.
Historian José Bengoa has likened the Mapuche conflict to the Catalan struggle taking note that both conflicts were major concerns for the 17th century Spanish Empire and remain unresolved to the day.[20] More generally, it is possible to classify this as an indigenous self-determination conflict.[2]
One of the first organizations claiming self-determination in the early 1990s was the Consejo de Todas las Tierras (CTT), which coordinated a new wave of, mostly pacific, plot occupations and started using the Wenufoye Mapuche flag. The conflict became more violent around 1998, with the first arson attacks in Lumaco and the creation of the more radical Coordinadora Arauco-Malleco (CAM) group.[21] [2]
The building of the Ralco Hydroelectric Plant, Chile's largest hydroelectric power plant, in the 1990s was highly controversial among Mapuches and pro-Mapuche groups as it was to flood allegedly sacred land including one Mapuche cemetery. After compensations were paid the plant was eventually finished in 2004.[22] Nicolasa Quintreman, who advocated against the construction of the plant, was found dead.[23]
Numerous incidents such as violent land occupations, burning of private property and demonstrations have occurred in Araucania. In the wake of the deaths of a few of its activists, Mapuche organization Coordinadora Arauco-Malleco played a key role by organizing and supporting violent land occupations and other direct actions, such as the burning of houses and farms, that have ended up in clashes with the police. The government of Michelle Bachelet has said that it is not ready to contemplate expropriating land in the southern region of Araucania to restore lost ancestral territory to the Mapuche.[24]
The government set out to buy land for use by 115 Mapuche communities, however, according to government officials, the current owners have nearly tripled the prices they are demanding. On the other hand, the effectiveness of the government policy of buying and distributing land has been questioned.[24] Two special presidential envoys were sent to southern Chile to review the increasingly fractious "Mapuche situation".[18]
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Main article: 2010 Mapuche hunger strike |
Between 2010 and 2011, a series of hunger strikes by Mapuche community members imprisoned in Chilean prisons to protest against the conditions in which the proceedings against them took place, mainly due to the application of the antiterrorist law, and for the double prosecutions they were subject to, because parallel proceedings were carried out in the ordinary and military courts.[citation needed]
The strikes began on 12 July 2010, with a group that was in preventive detention, some for more than one year and a half, all accused of violating anti-terrorism legislation.[25][26]
A march was held in commemoration of the death of Matías Catrileo in Santiago in January 2013. During the march a group of masked men attacked banks and threw molotov cocktails. Later the same group caused incidents near Estación Mapocho.[27] The commemoration was associated by newspaper La Tercera with the assault and torching of a truck in Chile Route 5 in Araucanía Region.[28]
In the morning of 4 January 2013 the agricultural business couple Luchsinger-Mackay died in a fire in their house in Vilcún, Araucanía Region.[29][30] The prosecutor said it was arson in a preliminary report and newspaper La Tercera linked it to the commemoration of the death of Matías Catrileo and to the truck burning the previous days.[31] A relative of the dead persons claimed there was a campaign to empty the region of farmers and businessmen adding that "the guerrilla is winning" and lamented the "lack of rule of law".[31] A male activist wounded by a bullet was detained by police 600 m from the torched house.[30] A thesis claims the house was attacked by at least seven persons and that the "machi" had received the bullet wound from the occupants of the house before dying in the fire.[30]
On 30 April a freight train was derailed near Collipulli to be then assaulted by men with firearms.[32][33] Interior minister Andrés Chadwick said the Chilean Antiterrorist Law will be applied to those responsible for the attack.[32]
Since 2016, there has been an increase in attacks in the region, especially against churches, machinery, forest industries, and security forces.[34][35] For their part, "the military police (GOPE) often intervene violently, on the side of the companies, intimidating the Mapuche communities, acting indiscriminately against women or minors."[4] The priest Carlos Bresciani, SJ, who has spent 15 years heading the Misión Jesuita Mapuche in Tirúa,[36] doesn't see autonomy coming easily, given the disposition of the Chilean Senate, but he says "The underlying problem is how communities participate in decision-making in their own territories".[37][38] Bresciani observed that the violence "reflects that there is an open wound."[39] In January 2018, while saying Mass before thousands at Temuco, "the de facto capital of the Mapuche community", Pope Francis called for an end to the violence,[40] and for solidarity with "those who daily bear the burden of those many injustices".[41] In 2018, Camilo Catrillanca, the grandson of a local Indigenous leader, was shot in the head during a police operation in a rural community near the town of Ercilla. His death triggered nationwide protest leading to seven police officers being convicted in connection with the shooting.[42]
On 20 December 2019, the UN urged Switzerland to stop deportation of Mapuche activist Flor Calfunao to Chile on concerns over her human rights, including the risk of being subjected to torture.[43]
On 16 June 2021, a police officer was wounded during clashes with suspected indigenous militia groups in the Biobío region. In the same region volunteer firefighters were caught in the crossfire between police forces and indigenous militiamen while they were trying to get to the La Pasión farm to put out a fire.[44]
On 6 July 2021, protest erupted during the opening constitutional session, with citizens demanding an amnesty law for political prisoners that were arrested during the country’s political unrest in 2019.[45]
In late July, fighting was reported between state forces and suspected indigenous militias the Araucanía and Biobío regions. In the Tirua area, Biobío, armed men ambushed a police unit, injuring two police officers. Finally, in the Carauhe area, Araucanía, militiamen exchanged fire with police officers carrying out a protective order outside the building of a logging company. Two police officers and a worker were injured, before the suspects managed to escape.[46]
In October, Chilean President Sebastián Piñera declared a state of emergency and deployed troops to Biobio and Araucania in response to clashes between security forces and Mapuche groups.[47]
On 25 December 2021, the Mapuche organization Lafkenche Mapuche Resistance claimed responsibility for the following sabotage actions in Wallmapu in support of Mapuche political prisoners and fallen fighters:
