Mapuche Girl Seeks Political Asylum in Switzerland
Written by Thomás Rothe - Tuesday, 21 October 2008
Ten-year-old Relmutray Cadin Calfunao has been arrested and interrogated by Chile's Carabinero uniformed police force. She barely survived a mysterious arson attack on her house in 2005 and has repeatedly seen police beat her parents and brothers. With most of their family in prison and to avoid further psychological damage to their youngest member, the Calfunaos decided to send Relmutray away to Geneva, Switzerland, where they say she will have the opportunity to regain a lost childhood. Relmutray is now appealing to the Swiss government for political asylum.
While Chile's government insists there is no need for any Chilean to seek political refuge, the Calfunao family argues that through their struggle to protect their ancestral land in Chile's Region IX - also known as the Aruacanía or Wallmapu - family members have been subject to constant police persecution, unjustified prison sentences, and torture.
"There is ample evidence indicating that since her birth, Relmutray has lived in an environment of relentless police tension and harassment," reads a document that the Mapuche International Link (MIL) submitted to the United Nations on September 16. "She has witnessed police brutality against her parents and her community as well as personally suffering inhumane, cruel, and degrading treatment."
On Sept. 9, Relmutray left the indigenous Mapuche community Juan Paillalef, where she grew up with her family and 14 other families, just east of Region IX's capital, Temuco. Relmutray's aunt, Flor Rayen, who has lived in Geneva since 1996 and does research for the United Nations' human and indigenous rights commission, returned to Chile to accompany her niece on the long journey to Europe. And during the first week of October, Flor and MIL submitted the petition for Relmutray's political asylum to the Swiss government.
While living in Chile, Relmutray would cry every day and have constant nightmares. "Her mental state seemed to be deteriorating," said Remultray's sister, Carolina Calfunao (20), who is the only family member never to have been incarcerated, although she must register once a month at the district attorney's office and is prohibited from leaving the country because of her family affiliation.
Carolina receives regular calls from Geneva in which Relmutray tells her about her new home. "She is taking swimming lessons, ice skating, and learning a new language with her classmates," said Carolina. "She is doing all these things that she couldn't do when she was here. Of course she's sad to be so far away from us, but she now has the chance to live like a normal child. And, thanks to Aunt Flor, at least she is still with family."
Carolina is not the only family member to receive calls from Geneva. Relmutray also calls her mother, Juana Calfunao Paillalef, who is currently serving four years in the women's prison in Temuco on charges of "public disorder" and "attack on authority." Juana is the Juan Paillalef community chief - the Lonko to the Mapuche - and continues to lead the community from inside prison.
Relmutray's father, another aunt, and one brother are in prison on similar charges. Her oldest brother, Waikilaf (27), was released from prison nine months ago after spending nearly a year and a half in Santiago's maximum security prison. Waikilaf had been imprisoned in Temuco for charges similar to those leveled against the rest of his family, but got transferred to Santiago after attempting to expose Temuco prison guards for torturing inmates (including him), more than 90 percent of whom are of Mapuche descent.
"The guards hit me so much that my testicular cord got ripped, they knocked out one of my teeth, and they left my back with scars I still have today," Waikilaf said.
In Santiago, he spent 10 months in a subterranean solitary confinement cell, where, accoding to Waikilaf, inmates are legally only supposed to spend a maximum of six months. He fears the police may throw him back in jail at any time, and he believes detectives follow him wherever he goes.
Mapuche Resistance and State "Conflicts"
The Mapuche are Chile's largest indigenous population and for more than 500 years have been resisting outside invaders, from Spanish conquistadores to the current-day Chilean government, private companies (mainly the large forestry companies that run Chile's booming timber, paper, and cellulose industries), and large landowners, known as latifundistas. The Mapuche say their struggle is to maintain autonomy on their ancestral lands, which are concentrated in the Araucanía, or Wallmapu. They say their fight is not against Chileans, but rather against the Chilean government.
The Calfunao family's conflicts with the Chilean government began back in 1946, when Chile's Ministry of Public Works (MOP) built a road, Los Laureles, leading to scenic Lake Colico, and build it directly through the Juan Paillalef community. According to MOP, the government agency in 1947 legally expropriated from the community seven lots of land, one of which was the Calfunao family lot - measuring some 300 square meters. MOP claims that Juana Calfunao's father, Ambrosio Calfunao, willingly signed away the property rights in exchange for monetary compensation.
Though the Calfunao family acknowledges that Ambrosio signed the government forms, they said MOP officials do not tell the entire story. "The road that runs right in front of our house is 10,200 square meters, and MOP only properly expropriated 200 meters," said Waikilaf. "First of all, my grandfather didn't even speak Spanish (Ambrosio spoke the native Mapuche language, Mapudungún), and he never received the money that the government promised him. But most important, he was never the rightful owner of the land. Since 1913, the title has been in the name of my grandmother, Mercedes Paillalef. And they were never married."
Neither MOP nor Region IX courts have ever recognized the Calfunaos' argument as legitimate, meaning that in the eyes of Chilean law, the road is state property. This led to the private electric company FRONTEL's cutting down trees along Los Laureles to install some 20 light posts in the late 1990s - without, according to Carolina, community approval. "Imagine one day, someone comes into your office and puts in a street lamp," she said. "You'd think it was ridiculous. Well, that's what we think. No one ever asked us, and we don't want those posts there."
Although MOP officials insist the road is open to the public, Waikilef maintains it was built to allow better access to farm land for the latifundistas and the occasional tourist. "We don't have cars," he pointed out. "The road was obviously not made for us."
According to Observatorio Ciudadano (OC), an NGO that is one of Chile's leading authorities on indigenous rights, MOP conducts many projects that violate indigenous lands. "The affected communities are never consulted beforehand, nor do they assist with the project design," said the director of OC's Indigenous Rights Program, Blaise Planel.
In 2005, things took a turn for the worse when MOP wanted to repave the road. Juana Calfunao did not welcome a government initiative that would severely affect her community for several years to come. With logs, sticks, rocks, and banners, the Calfunaos began to block off access to the road. Chilean authorities answered, but with more force, sending in Carabineros to make arrests and then sending the Calfunaos to court, charging them with "public disorder." Ever since, the Calfunao family has not stopped fighting or softened their criticism of the government. As a result, they have suffered continuous police persecution.
Carolina describes the Calfunao house as a war field. It has been burned down three times since 1998, and the family has decided to not waste more resources in rebuilding. The last arson occurred in 2005, when someone began whistling from a nearby river to draw her parents out of their home. "They thought I was coming home and was in some sort of trouble," Carolina recalled. "And while they were going down to the river, someone burned the house down, and my sister was in the house. Fortunately, another community member was passing by at the time and managed to save Relmutray. If not, she would be dead now."
No one has gone to jail over these arson attacks, which Carolina suspects were the work of criminals hired by the region's large landowners. She has also accused the landowners of promoting the Carabinero raids on her community, which have contributed to the destruction of the Calfunaos' house.
OC and Amnesty International Chile (AIC) have documented that Carabineros frequently raid Mapuche communities considered to be "conflictive." The NGOs report that, during these raids, Carabineros have entered Mapuche homes, torn beds apart, thrown food on the floor, hit elderly and children, and dispersed tear gas bombs.
Both OC and AIC also have filed reports charging Carabineros with physically and psychologically abusing indigenous adolescents. On Oct. 12, a network of Chilean NGOs dedicated to infant and youth rights in Chile released a statement citing 18 cases of severe police abuse against Mapuche children who ranged in age from nine days to 17 years old. Relmutray's name appears on the list. Among the other documented cases is that of Alex Lemun (17), who Carabineros shot in the head while Lemun and a group of Mapuche students performed a "sit in" on lands of the large forestry company Mininco in 2002. Five days after the incident, Lemun died.
To raid a community, Carabineros do not need permission from the government; rather, they obtain a judicial warrant, a process that Undersecretary Felipe Harboe told state-owned Chilean daily La Nación the government has no control over.
OC's Blaise Plantel says the warrant process is discriminatory because the majority of raids are not based on proof, but rather on vague suspicions. "A landowner could report a missing animal to the police and say he thinks it is in a certain community and that a certain family robbed him," he said. "Then police can obtain a warrant solely based on this one landowner's word and suspicions."
"And of course, most police exhibit their racism during these raids, telling the people they are just 'fucking Indians,'" Plantel added.
A Plea from International Rights Organizations
In 2007, the United Nations' Committee on the Rights of the Child advised the Chilean government take measures to assure that "indigenous children and youth no longer are victims of police brutality." According to Plantel, the government never responded, and there was never a follow up to the initiative. "This specific case with Relmutray demonstrates how the Chilean government has not respected U.N. measures," Plantel said.
On Oct. 14, Chile did, however, make a landmark stride concerning the country's indigenous population by passing the original version of the International Labor Organisation's (ILO) Convention 169 on indigenous and tribal peoples' rights. The Convention, which has been floating around in Congress since 1991, mandates a range of social advancements for indigenous peoples, including measures to further integrate indigenous communities into national politics and to resolve land ownership conflicts. The government agreed to enforce the measures by Sept. 15, 2009 and report on advancements in 2010.
Chile's Senate had approved a modified version of the Convention last March, saying the government would "interpret" the document's main articles. The country's human and indigenous rights advocates quickly responded by writing an open letter to President Michelle Bachelet, urging her to pass the Convention in its entirety.
OC's Plantel believes the Convention will lead to incorporating the aspirations of indigenous peoples in the design and approval of public projects, such as the construction of roads that affect indigenous communities. "This is something that has historically not been part of the political culture in Chile," he said.
Despite last week's passing of the Convention, Waikilaf remains skeptical about the government. The resentment his family holds toward the Chilean state will not vanish with a simple signature. "Our struggle is no longer just about the road," he said. "(Police) have beaten us so many times, they have humiliated us, and the courts have displayed how racist they are."
Waikilaf describes his sister as shy but resilient. He hopes she can receive a good education in Geneva and someday return to help her community and people, although he doesn't know when that day will be. He fears that, had Relmutray stayed in Chile and he been sent back to jail, the government would have sent her to live in a state-run orphanage, a belief shared by the rest of the Calfunao family.
"We couldn't just leave Relmutray to the hands of the state. We had to get her out of here," he said. "She is the family treasure."
______________________
Source: Patagonia Times