Radio Mundo Real

The news were made known by early March. A Chilean court in Cañete, a municipality located 600 km to the South of Santiago, found four Mapuche indigenous people guilty of a supposed attack against a district attorney and convicted them to 20-25 years in prison.

The members of the Coordination of Mapuche Communities in Conflict denounced a series of irregularities linked to the trial, including several absurd situations related to the participation of “faceless witnesses”.

“They were imprisoned for thinking differently and protesting”, said Luis Menares, one of the indigenous people acquitted, before warning that the anti-terrorist law passed during Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship is applied in most cases to criminalize Mapuche people.

Over three weeks ago, when the decision of the judges was made known, Héctor Llaitul, Ramón Llanquileo, José Huenuche and Jonathan Huillical started a hunger strike. The four Mapuche leaders demand a “fair and impartial” trial, and regret having to take these extreme measures in order to be heard, according to Natividad Llanquileo, the spokesperson of the imprisoned Mapuche people.

The Court’s decision, according to indigenous organizations, is a symbol of the persecution by the Chilean government “against our people, to put an end to the struggles for the recovery of ancestral lands that were taken over for the benefit of transnational companies.”

Last week, the families of the victims sent a letter to the President of the Supreme Court of Justice, Milton Juica, where they demanded a new trial with an independent tribunal that doesn’t apply the Anti-Terrorist Law, according to Mapuexpress.

Photo: Mapuexpress