Héctor Llaitul: “The Current Government Has Become More and More Functional and Servile to the Interests of the Great Capital”
Héctor Llaitul, leader of the Coordinadora Arauco Malleco (CAM), sentenced to 23 years in prison under the Chilean anti -terrorism law, in writing and through a visit, offers a deep look on their personal situation, the Mapuche resistance and the fight for the Territorial autonomy. Llaitul addresses issues ranging from political prison and violations of the rights of Mapuche political prisoners, to the repressive policies of the current government and the impact of these on the Mapuche communities. Through their words, they emerge not only forceful criticisms of the Chilean political and judicial system, but also a reaffirmation of the commitment to the Mapuche cause and its worldview. This look allows us to understand the complexities of a historical conflict that remains in force.
How do you describe your experience in this new political prison and the impact of this sentence in your life and in the fight of the Mapuche people?
The first thing is to point out is that this was a political condemnation and therefore it must be assumed according to the degree of consciousness and politicization that our struggle has reached, which has been undertaken from the autonomist Mapuche movement. And by the way, political prison must be assumed under a context of greater adversity, because with the current government this fighting process has become more complex and adverse since it has demonstrated its decision to keep the neoliberal model with the Extractivist policies throughout Mapuche ancestral territoriality, thus exacerbating confrontation on the basis of the increase in militarization, criminalization and persecution of the most consistent expressions with the line of territorial and political struggle. And it is in this framework that we must also endure harassment and repression within prisons who embrace the revolutionary struggle more strongly. The impact has been greater and is a consequence of the neo-fascist offensive that is reinstated on Wallmapu. We resist in a land of greater threat and punishment towards the Mapuche militants. Today the imprisoned Weichafe must sustain with greater force and rigor the onslaught of racist institutionality. Under this government, many Mapuche have been imprisoned and some are subjected, under Gendarmerie policy, to the violation of our rights, based on the act of keeping us as common prisoners and far from our ancestral territoriality.
What message do you seek to convey with your book “written from jail” and what role you expect to play in the fight for the rights of the Mapuche people?
The message we want to deliver with the book is more than anything of breath and reaffirmation, and this is somehow related to what was said above since its elaboration was in very adverse conditions of political prison, when I assumed hunger strikes and endured punishments for my fighting attitude. It is a publication that occurs in a context in which we are still monitored and repressed only for maintaining our convictions, denying all our political and cultural rights as Mapuche political prisoners. We also want to demonstrate that despite being prisoners we will maintain the line and unalterable principles, and thus contribute to the fighting process being maintained in what is its broader scope. That is, it is our contribution as militants of the Mapuche revolutionary cause that are imprisoned today that we remain firm in the great process for Mapuche national reconstruction.
By the way, it is a message based on our rakiduam with analysis and reflections regarding how we the Mapuche must assume the new political and cultural challenges especially in a context in which the current government has become increasingly transformed into functional and servile to the interests of the great capital, thus raising the way for a new offensive of the most recalcitrant right in this country. It is important to reaffirm in turn that assuming the political prison and writing implies being part of the story of those who fight, and it is a way of denouncing and accounting for the violation of our rights, which had previously been achieved and that allow us to respect our culture and identity, and that are related to our status as Mapuche community members. Because it is not only about human rights, it is about respect for the cultural rights of an original people. In fact, the segregated modules for Mapuche were achieved with mobilization and struggle of prisoners, their relatives and communities, and which at the time had international support, based on ILO Convention 169.
The current situation is different because with the current administration all the rights of Mapuche political prisoners are violated. The treatment that is given to us is as criminals and delinquents, forcing us to be in high security enclosures and in modules with common prisoners with all that that entails in terms of security and exposure to racism and bad treatment in general. In this sense, what affects us most is the violation of our cultural rights in its broadest sense, because racism and intolerance is at all levels and is part of the structural violence of the Chilean State.
Your family has announced that they will resort to international organizations to demand your release. What is your opinion about this strategy and what expectations do you have?
Indeed my family and communities we will resort to international instances for my case, especially since I suffered a conviction that is eminently political in regard to the use of the State Security Law and crimes associated with this legal interpretation, in addition to faults to due process. With my defense – a team of lawyers – we are going to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights IACH, and in turn we will also go to Human Bodies linked to the United Nations, this within the framework of the complaint about the criminalization of the Mapuche case and of the persecution that we are subject to as Mapuche leaders. We are going to undertake these actions, because we do not obtain justice by the Chilean courts who have acted and operated symptomatically with what is colonialism and the deepest racism that still sustains institutionality, which we define as oppressor of the Native peoples. These actions will also allow us to give visibility to our struggle, which we consider absolutely legitimate and fair, thus appealing to international solidarity with the Mapuche cause.
How do you evaluate the relationship between the government of Gabriel Boric and the Mapuche communities, especially in the context of the state of exception and the repression denounced?
The evaluation that we make of the relationship of this government with our people and with the Mapuche communities in struggle, particularly those that are mobilizing for the recovery of their lands, has been deplorable, is a relationship of greater confrontation and violence. Especially when our territorial struggle collides with the interests of the great capital of this country. We can affirm that it is one of the worst experiences that we have had within the framework of the historical conflict in recent times. The state of exception, the increase of military and the members of special forces and police in conflict areas demonstrate it. It is a militarization policy that we had not seen before, as well as the increase in criminalization and persecution against the struggle processes carried out by communities. Undoubtedly, this has increased tension, violence and confrontation with the state of Chile and with the capitalist system of extractivist base that sweeps our ancestral territories.
This is a government that at first defined itself as leftist and progressive but that has gradually subsumed itself to the system of domination and has tried to maintain the bourgeois neoliberal model, which is why it has functioned in a servile and lowly manner in the face of the interests of the large economic groups. For this reason, with this imposed reality we visualize a more adverse situation for the Mapuche autonomist movement that fights for territorial recovery to base our autonomist liberation proposal. We reiterate again and affirm that with the current government the historical conflict has been sharpened because it is not only based on the application of more repressive policies against the movement in struggle, but by the farce in which its alleged instances of dialogue has been transformed, as of the Commission for Peace and Understanding. An initiative that arises and is installed with the sole objective of using and manipulating the co-opted and functional Mapuche sectors to the system, an instance that has resulted in a failure and that constitutes a new mockery for the Mapuche movement in general.
As a synthesis we can affirm that with the Boric government not only a false flag has been installed with its dialog conditions for increasing repression mainly towards land recovery processes, and that in a certain way reinstates extermination policies that we suffer in the last century. Therefore, we affirm that we suffer a new occupation. Perhaps what portrays this government most is its attitude and decision to prosecute the Mapuche autonomist movement, which is registered in the active prosecutors and judges who have green light for this purpose, committing all kinds of procedural and police injustices against our fighting expressions. Today there are more than one hundred Mapuche prisoners in the prisons of the Chilean State.
What advances has the CAM achieved in the recovery of territories and how does it visualize the future of this fight against repressive policies?
From our perspective, we can affirm that we have made substantial advances in what is the recovery of the territory and this is the reason why there has been an increase in repressive policies against mainly the autonomist movement. And in this sense, we can categorically affirm that the recovery of the land has been, mainly, against forestry that are our historical enemy. Since this new reality is that the historical conflict has been exacerbated, because the post-dictatorship governments and this one specifically have put themselves on the side of the powerful, of the rich in the confrontation with our people. These advances allow us to carry out, in some way, our political project of national reconstruction, which is precisely what the state institutionality does not want, is what the fascists of the right do not want, so they have made the decision to repress with greater force the various processes of Mapuche reaffirmation and resistance. It is a fact that reactionary expressions and fascist forces that historically operate in the territory have the approval of the current administration, have the approval of a type of neoliberal governance, in which repressive policies that are increasingly more sophisticated and elaborate try to eliminate and atomize the movement of struggle.
In a context of political persecution, how is Mapuche worldview strengthened as the central axis of resistance and the construction of territorial autonomy?
In a context of greater criminalization of the Mapuche cause and the increase in militarization throughout the Wallmapu, we have opted to maintain resistance with the strengthening of the struggle, which is why we have to strengthen our Mapuche Kimun, our Mapuche Rakiduam, that is, our worldview and culture of our Mapuche nation people. These efforts link us to the entire Mapuche movement in general and has become the central axis of the resistance and reconstruction of our people and are the strategic bases that we as an organization, as Coordinadora Arauco Malleco CAM, we propose.
This is the recovery and defense of the ancestral territory, of the defense of our ItrofillMongen, which would mean the defense of all lives in the Mapuche world. This is the restoration of the communities – of the LOF – based on a proposal to reorganize communities so that the large autonomous territories can be rebuilt butalmapu and ultimately the Wallmapu. It is the recovery and defense of the wallontumapu, of a very diverse and rich world in the cultural, values and ideology, where our own idiosyncratic aspects have a lot of sense and reason for what our Mapuche nation is.
In the current stage of the struggle it is to slowly transform the reality to which they force us to live, and turn this reality into what our ancestors bequeathed. We call this, to get involved and continue fighting in the great reconstruction process of our nation people. We know that there are many diverse contributions, not only from the resistance with the Weichan, but of contributions from the Mapuche that implies understanding and assuming a political project of the size that we embrace from the CAM. It is what we have been raising from the different trenches that we have to assume. Therefore, our people have always strengthened with more and greater ceremonies which in turn strengthen our spiritual forces, everything related to the world of pullu. Which are the fundamental elements in our project.
Source: Clarin.cl
Resumen Latinoamericano, 16 January, 2025
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