On March 8, the Mapuche communities in resistance in the province of Malleco, region of La Araucanía, resolved through an assembly to go in support of the Autonomous Community of Temucuicui, “which was a victim of State violence and terrorism.” To this end, they agreed to carry out each and every one of the legal actions against the personnel of the Carabineros special forces who stole the grain harvest from the Temucuicui Community and attacked its people.
Rodrigo Huenchullán is a werkén from the Autonomous Community of Temucuicui. He explained that, “We want to get out of the media versions that say that we entered a property to steal someone’s harvest. That is completely false. The entire process involved in producing the grain, which goes from weed control, planting, fertilization to harvest, takes 9 months. We, the community, did all of that.”
– In what way?
“In the beginning, the residents of the site gave us part of their grain. In recent years, they told us that they did not intend to plant more, but if we wanted to, we could do it. It was all a word commitment, as used here. In fact, that is why we had the confidence and guarantee to be able to plant, a practice that has a very high cost and whose resources come from the community.
Thus, we planted and harvested on a property in Pailahueque (Malleco) for which we had already filed a lawsuit to recover 12,000 hectares demarcated by the community in 2012. Later we began to inhabit the place, raising rucas in the territory. We have been planting here for about 3 to 4 years.”
– And what are the ‘legal’ conditions of the land?
“Until now, there are several ‘legal’ owners of those 12,000 hectares. Much of it belongs to the Mininco, Arauco, and Maciza forestry companies and to private individuals. In a portion of that territory we carry out our agricultural work”.
Rodrigo Huenchullán indicated that in the last cycle of agricultural tasks, “We planted three different crop species: wheat, oats and lupine, on a plot of approximately 250 hectares, collectively. We are around 50 Mapuche families working”, and he added that, “This last year, the entire first week of February we were harvesting. But on February 10 and 11, the grains were taken from us. Now, the Carabineros did not act because he suspected that there was a robbery. It happened that before the matter was judicialized. People appeared, third parties, representing the legal owners of the property, who pressured our neighbors to file a complaint of grain theft against us. So the Prosecutor’s Office ordered the confiscation of our grain and agricultural machinery.
All of the above occurred in a context of states of exception, of the militarization of what is called the southern macrozone, of the media construction against the Mapuche struggle. So they set up this operation with the purpose of giving a signal to the Mapuche world as a whole that indicates that what we were doing cannot be done”.
Huenchullán said that, “That was when the press, the Prosecutor’s Office, the police officers and the Chilean government came in to say that the Temucuicui Autonomous Community was stealing the harvest and that we acted in flagrante delicto, which allowed them to take our grain and machinery. Since they couldn’t accuse us of ‘usurpation’ of land, because it would be as if we were stealing from ourselves, they changed the legal concept”.
– From that moment, the events precipitated rapidly…
“Carabineros left in their custody the harvest that they took from us, equivalent to 150 hectares. But they did not take all the crops. There were 50 hectares of wheat left to harvest. On March 3, the community went to finish the job, but the police attacked again and once again robbed us of some 5 hectares of crops and new machines that we had rented. Everything that we did not manage to harvest, the police officers burned, escorted by a caravan of armored vehicles. They left us without food.
But unlike what happened on February 10 and 11, which we thought was a misunderstanding, on March 3 the people of the community resisted a new robbery. They had already taken 80 thousand kilos of grain from us.
At about 8:00 p.m., the Carabineros withdrew from the place and the community members began to eat dinner. And at 10:00 p.m., the Carabineros returned when it was already dark, firing tear gas canisters and steel shot indiscriminately at us, while the military surrounded the property. Our people began to flee in disorder while they fell wounded in the open field. Víctor Queipul’s son, Víctor Hugo Queipul, was seriously wounded and remained in the community all night. On Sunday, March 4, he couldn’t take it anymore, and it was decided to transfer him to the Victoria Hospital where he was treated with a serious condition. Most of the injured were cared for by the community itself.”
– Why do you think the concerted attack was against you in particular?
“The objective of the operation was to weaken the Temucuicui community. There are communities from Malleco and other towns that also recover and control the territory through agricultural work, which gives us more independence and food sovereignty.
The Chilean State seeks to stigmatize us because we are a historical example of the struggle to recover the ancient territory. That is why it persecutes us with special viciousness, involving us in non-existent setups and crimes, such as Operation Hurricane.
The truth is, we believed at first that this government would be different from the previous ones, however, it ended up dominated by the powerful”.
*The images were ceded by the Temucuicui community to the author of the note and whoever wants to use them.
