Trial for illicit terrorist association
Public Declaration by the Arauco Malleco Mapuche Coordinating Committee - CAM
From Mapuche Territory , 14 June 2005
In the context of the new trial for illicit terrorist association that is continuing against us, we DECLARE:
This trial is part of the political persecution against the CAM in particular, and the Mapuche movement in general, clearly demonstrating the menial and obliging attitude that the Chilean government has in relation to the powerful of the region, both transnational forestry companies and right-wing estate owners, who have seen their interests in the ancestral Mapuche territory affected.
WE DENOUNCE the heavy-handed police operations that have been taking place over recent days in our communities, mainly in the Arauco area, where in combined operations police intelligence forces and special forces have raided several communities to pursue leaders of the CAM; as a consequence Mapuche activists have resisted attempts to make them submit to the Chilean judicial system, turning this into a full-blown manhunt. The implementation of policies of intimidation and repression against mobilised communities continues to effect a destructive impact upon the lives of Mapuche families and their way of life.
Once again we denounce the behaviour of national and transnational business people with capitalist interest in Mapuche territory, who seek to legitimise and consolidate the history of usurpation and plundering of our ancestral lands, and with this to achieve the extermination of our Mapuche People and Nation, manipulating the communication media in order to appear as victims of lawful Mapuche demands.
In this framework, we CLAIM THE RIGHT TO all the legitimate forms of struggle that our People wishes to take up and all the actions of resistance that our communities may decide upon and develop as part of the resistance and reconstruction of our Mapuche Nation. Any action against the aggression and domination of our People must be understood as an action of justice if it is carried out claiming the territorial and political rights of our Mapuche Nation.
Once again, we call upon the communities in conflict to continue to maintain and strengthen the processes of recovery of land and territorial control. We call upon the Mapuche People in general to challenge the processes of capitalist investment in our territory by the forestry companies and estate owners, since these are the true pillars of domination over Mapuche communities.
Resist and move forward to Mapuche National Liberation
Freedom for the Mapuche Political Prisoners
W E U W A I Ñ
ARAUCO MALLECO MAPUCHE COORDINATING COMMITTEE
Translated by Leslie