The Mapuche Conflict: Unraveling the Security Crisis in Chile

2024-05-09 17:44:00

The so-called “Mapuche conflict” is the most serious security problem of the Chilean State.

(From Santiago, Chile) This Tuesday, Héctor Llaitul Carrillancaspokesperson, leader and co-founder of the Arauco-Malleco Coordinator (CAM), the oldest radical Mapuche organization in southern Chile, was sentenced to 23 years of prison for crimes against the State Security Law. With two of her children- Ernesto and Pelentaro -, in preventive detention for arson attacks, the eclipse of the radical group that broke out publicly in 1997 is clear.

However, there are other armed groups that would seek to occupy the power vacuum left after the beheading of the CAM. According to a report by Ex-Ante, two of them are already consolidated Weichán Auka Mapu (WAM), in La Araucanía and the Mapuche Lafkenche Resistance (RML), in Biobío. Another, more recent appearance, is Mapuche National Liberation (LNM)and a fourth radical group, the Mapuche Malleco Resistance (RMM)is closely watched for now by the police.

The RML’s priority business is wood theft.

The first big blow for the RML – which has been operating since at least April 2020 – came on December 22, 2021, when the group was awarded a series of attacks arson attacks that destroyed 31 cabins, 30 forestry machines and 5 vehicles in the Biobío Region. Through a statement, they assured that their attacks “will not stop neither with Piñera nor with Boric.”

In August 2022, the arson attack on the Grollmus mill in I was shocked (640 km south of Santiago), which left 3 injured.

Your business would be wood theftfor which they are associated with not mapuche for its exploitation. Such is the case of Walter Aranedawho must pay an effective penalty of 5 years, after an appeal by Forestal Arauco.

In his statement of October 31, 2023, explained the business that he maintained with, presumably, the RML.

“I explain how it works. In general, the Mapuche community or the radical group, whatever you want to call it, they take over a piece of land, they usurp a propertyThey keep it under surveillance for a while, which could be a month, with access control, and then they call a buyer or two, although suddenly there are many interested in buying, and then they say: ‘we have this property so much, the community so much, We sell a truckload of wood for so much or we need them to make the wood and load and transport it, that is, the complete service. It always works like that,” he testified.

In January of this year, the Biobío prosecutor’s office announced sentences for 11 members of the RML for illicit association to commit this crime, but after a Abbreviated procedure They were sentenced to between 2 and 5 years in prison.

The former Jesuit novice Luis García-Huidobro, accused of being a member of the WAM, is in preventive detention.

Born in 2014 as a excision of the CAM – but unlike this one, it admits as targets the burning of churches -, On April 30, WAM published a statement on Radio Kurruf denying having been the perpetrators of the recent murder of three police officers in Cañete.

“Actions like the one that occurred do not contribute to the process of territorial reclamation, and violate fundamental principles of any revolutionary struggle worth its salt,” they stated.

It was the reappearance of a group hit in March by the arrest of the former Jesuit novice Luis García-Huidobro, sent to preventive detention after a protected witness placed him in a 2021 attack in Carahue, claimed by the WAM. Luis García-Huidobro pleaded innocent and denied being part of that organization.

Its known reference is the machi Fidel Tranamil, convicted in 2013 for participating in the takeover of the San Fidel major seminary, which he returned to occupy in 2014. “The Church has proven to be another member of the State and we are not going to rest until we expel it,” he said then. He was later falsely accused of participating in Operation Hurricane.

He is the older brother of Luis Tranamilconvicted of the murder of the Carabineros corporal Eugenio Nain in 2020.

The LNM group burned 16 industrial machines just two days after the sentence against Héctor Llaitul was announced.

On April 24, less than 48 hours after the conviction against Héctor Llaitul was announced, hooded armed men burned 16 machines from an aggregates company in Lautaro. Before fleeing, they left a canvas that read Mapuche National Liberation.

The LNM, whose existence became known in 2021, won Protagonism after the arrest of Llaitul in August 2022 and the blows suffered by the WAM and the RML.

In 2022, attacks were attributed to a work site belonging to the former president of the Confederation of Production and Commerce (CPC). Juan Sutil and to the fund of the former regional councilor Carmen Phillips.

In April 2023, they also claimed responsibility for the attack on the El Crucero farm, at kilometer 22 of route S-11-R in Lautaro, northeast of Temuco, where an owner’s house, a warehouse and agricultural machinery were burned. Also the burning of 18 machines from an aggregate company in Panguipulli, northeast of Valdivia.

Its leaders to date are unknown, although the authorities presume that Nelson Queupil —sentenced in December to 10 years in prison for attempted homicide against the police and illegal possession of weapons—would have a relevant role in the organization.

Among its characteristics stands out its transnational ambition. “We propose a main objective: the liberation of our people from occupation by the State Chilean and Argentinewhich took over 95% of our territory in a violent and dirty Pacification of Araucanía campaign in the gulumapu (mapuche lands in the west), and the Desert Campaign in the puelmapu (mapuche lands in the east),” they said in a statement. of principles published in 2021.

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