Restoration of Historical Link to the Kingdom of Araucania and Patagonia
Mapuche Portal Launches Today
Press Release, 16 April, 2010
A new group will re-establish the historical link which bonds the Mapuche nation and the Royal House of the Kingdom of Araucania and Patagonia, a link which was broken in the early stages of the 20th century.
Mapuche Portal will help the Mapuche communities of Wallmapu (1) to participate in the work of their government-in-exile, which is currently based in Paris, France.
His Royal Highness Prince Philippe, the current monarch of the Mapuche Kingdom of Araucania and Patagonia, notes that: ‘the Kingdom was initially created and composed entirely of Mapuche; therefore Mapuche participation in the Royal House essentially reaffirms the goals which gave it its birth’.
Count Reynaldo Mariqueo (2) who, along with Nina Dean (3), has overseen the development of Mapuche Portal, hopes that Mapuche from all backgrounds will ‘participate in the Royal House’.
He also envisages that Mapuche Portal will encourage this by ‘restoring the historic link between the Mapuche and the Royal House’. This link will enable Mapuche participants to ‘directly influence the Royal House’s policies and procedures’.
Count Mariqueo adds that ‘the Kingdom is a powerful political mechanism which is directly relevant to our struggle. If utilised to its full potential it could play a major role in the future resolution of our ongoing conflict with the Argentinean and Chilean state authorities’.
Nina Dean is also keen to stress the Royal House’s contemporary relevance. She affirmed that: ‘whilst the Mapuche nation remains under siege by the post colonialist states complicit with multi- national corporations, the Kingdom represents a vital lifeline to the free democratic world, by initiating the restoration of this historic link we are providing a means by which the Mapuche people can grasp this lifeline’.
In a second development, the Royal House has announced that Count Mariqueo, of Lul-lul Mawidha, will henceforth serve as the Royal House’s chargé d’affaires. In this role he will be responsible for the organisation’s foreign relations.
Both initiatives are timed to coincide with the 150th anniversary of the formal declaration of Mapuche independence, when a French citizen, Orelie Antoine de Tounens, was crowned as King of the Kingdom of Araucania and Patagonia on 17th November 1860.
Despite a Spanish Treaty (1641) which formally recognised Mapuche independence, the Mapuche were aware that their long tradition of cultural and political independence could only be preserved through the norms of international society, which essentially meant statehood - and the symbols of statehood - and adherence to the associated principles of mutual recognition and non-aggression.
Tragically, even this safeguard was to prove insufficient, as the Mapuche king was forced into exile when the two Republics launched the ‘Araucanian Pacification’ (Chile) and ‘The Campaign of the Desert’ (Argentina); both of which, euphemisms notwithstanding, resulted in occupation, brutal subjugation and genocide. The two Republics divided the spoils between themselves, with the assistance of British arbitration (1902). The Mapuche continue to struggle against this arbitrary ‘settlement’ to this day.
Given that the two annexations were illegal under the terms of international law, it is scarcely surprising that both states have utilised other methods of dubious legality to suppress the Mapuche independence struggle. In Chile in particular, human rights are systematically violated by an ostensibly liberal democratic state; a state which nonetheless frequently invokes repressive laws that were first enacted under the Pinochet dictatorship.
For further information please contact Reynaldo Mariqueo and Nina Dean of Mapuche Portal at portal.mapuche.rap@googlemail.com or on 01179 279391.
Wallmapu, Mapuche ancestral territory currently occupied by Argentina and Chile.
Reynaldo Mariqueo is a councillor and charge d’affaires within the Royal House
Nina Dean is vice-secretary of Mapuche International Link