Four days following the arrest of Facundo Jones Huala in El Bolsón following having been a fugitive for a year, the lack of statements of support from the Mapuche organizations drew attention.
Only the Mapuche Autonomous Movement of Puelmapu (MAP) and UAL de Resistencia Ancestral Mapuche denounced the Argentine and Chilean state “for the political and legal persecution of the lonko Facundo Jones Huala since 2011 in the Pisu Pisue case in Chile.”
But, in turn, they made “a call to the conscious people, to pu weichafe, to the different expressions of resistance, to the autonomous movements on both sides of the mountain range to accompany and show solidarity in the development of this mobilizationbefore the oppressive, racist and usurping states of our people».
In 2019, Jones Huala was sentenced to 9 years in prison for burning a house and for possession of homemade weapons in Chile. In January of last year, he was granted parole, but the measure was revoked by the Chilean Supreme Court a month later. Jones Huala remained a fugitive until last Monday when he was arrested in a quincho in the La Esperanza neighborhood in El Bolsón, while intoxicated.
The following day, Jones Huala declared a liquid strike demanding his transfer to the Esquel Prison, in Chubut, and “his non-extradition to Chile.”
The Mapuche Human Rights Commission page gathers signatures to prevent the extradition of Jones Huala to Chile. The goal is 1,000 signatures, but so far they only have 134.
When asked regarding the arrest of Jones Huala, Orlando Carriqueo, spokesman for the Coordinator of the Parliament of the Mapuche-Tehuelche People of Río Negro, said that “the struggle of the Mapuche people has community autonomy and there are diversity of political positions in the course of history«.
He assured that today, the focus is on “the return of the rewe (sacred site) in Villa Mascarid, in the consultation of the Néstor Kirchner gas pipeline in Catriel, in the presence of mining companies in the Andean Zone, in the lack of water in the province, the green hydrogen project in Valcheta, the territorial conflicts with foreigners, the inconveniences with the Ministry of Education for the implementation of the Bilingual Intercultural Education program and the idea of the Río Negro government to exploit lithium in Mamuel Choique, which is community territory”.
“That is the agenda of the organization. The dialogue table for Mascardi today has centrality”, indicated Carriqueo.
When asked regarding the conditions in which Jones Huala was detained, Carriqueo considered: “If there were a terrorist organization, as the right says, what happened to him would not have happened to him. Guerrilla organizations have a command and support structure. So one can analyze that RAM is an invention”.
With the arrest of Jones Huala: will there be demonstrations? “It is a case among others,” replied Carriqueo. He is not from our organization. He has a different thought. We are committed to a dialogue with the state that, up to now, has not borne fruit. We propose resolving issues through dialogue because there is a possibility that the conflict will become radicalized”.
None of the other Mapuche referents responded to the consultation of this newspaper.
The same Monday that Jones Huala was arrested, his mother María Isabel Huala wrote on social networks: “On the field you can see the pingos and when the potatoes burn, few remain”.
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