Chilean Police Seek French Pro-Mapuche Activist
Written by Matt Bostock - Tuesday, 12 May 2009
Mapuche Sympathizer Sought For Questioning Over Attack On Special Prosecutor
Police officials in southern Chile are searching for a French woman, 28-year-old Julia Goyout, who is believed to be involved in an attack on a specially appointed prosecutor late last year.
Region VIII police last week raided the woman's house in the town of Tirúa, a Mapuche stronghold 107 km from Temuco, where tensions with Chilean authorities are common. Investigators claim to have found original documents belonging to Batasuna, the political arm of ETA, more than 100 DVDs bearing the logos of ETA and Argentine anarchist groups, and literature from the Mapuche activist group, Arauco Malleco Committee (CAM). Goyout was not found at the residence.
Regional prosecutors hope to question Goyout to “clarify certain points” as part of a criminal investigation into the attack. Eleven members of CAM are alleged to have orchestrated the Oct. 15, 2008 attack in Tirúa, firing shotguns at Special “Mapuche” Prosecutor Mario Elgueta and his police escort.
“We’re investigating the context and the collaborators involved with CAM,” said Interior Undersecretary Patricio Rosende. “The government gives its full support to the prosecutors and to the tribunals.”
Elgueta was returning from a visit to an elderly couple in the San Ramón area when the ambush occurred. The couple claimed to have been harassed by members of the local Mapuche population and was seeking help from a witness protection program. Elgueta suffered bullet wounds to the hand and arm, and five police officers suffered minor injuries.
Police intelligence reports that Goyout lived in Buenos Aires, Argentina, before arriving in Chile in 2002. She lives with partner Joel Millalef, a Mapuche activist, and their two-year-old son in Puerto Choque, near Tirúa.
Goyout, a self-proclaimed naturist and anarchist sympathizer, has a history of involvement with the Mapuche community. She attended a private ceremony with senior Mapuche leaders during the funeral of Matías Catrileo, a Mapuche student killed in Temuco in a confrontation with Carabineros (Chilean uniformed police) on Jan. 5, 2007. She also participated in protests for jailed pro-Mapuche activist Patricia Troncoso and has made frequent visits to Mapuche prisoners in Regions VIII and IX.
The Mapuche, an indigenous people representing 4 percent of the Chilean population, have a history of resisting authorities occupying their ancestral lands since the Spanish colonization of Chile. Mapuche activist groups are frequently involved in local conflicts with the Chilean police over autonomy claims and land disputes.
In 2003, the United Nations released a report criticizing Chile’s use of counter-terrorism laws to detain Mapuche leaders. The report’s author, UN Special Rapporteur Rodolfo Stavenhagen, expressed concern over the right to due process under the laws enacted under the Pinochet regime.
Stavenhagen describes the current situation of indigenous people in Chile as “the outcome of a long history of marginalization, discrimination and exclusion, mostly linked to various oppressive forms of exploitation and plundering of their land and resources that date back to the sixteenth century and continue to this day.”
SOURCE: EL MERCURIO
_______________________
Source: The Patagonia Times