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Chile: 10 Years in Prison for Mapuche-Leader written by kh - 11.1.2004 In the most drastic decision reached by a Chilean court against a Mapuche leader so far, a Chilean court of Penco town has accused Victor Ancalaf, former leader of the Coordinadora Arauco-Malleco and present speaker of the conflict-communities of Collipulli of being the instigator of terrorist activities against the company Endesa-Espana in the Pehuenche area of Alto Bio-Bio and sentenced him to ten years in prison. His defence lawyer speaks of "obvious political persecution" and the Mapuche-organisations are announcing that protests will follow. Victor Ancalaf Mapuche leader sentenced to 10 years in prison. As reported by radio Bio-Bio, judge Diego Simpertegui sentenced Victor Ancalaf, former leader of the Coordinadora Arauco-Malleco to 10 years in prison today after one year of investigations. The defendant is supposed to be the only person responsible for the arson attacks against lorries of the company Endesa-Espana which were used during the building works for the hydroelectric power station Ralco. The defence lawyer of the well-known Mapuche leader, Rodrigo Calderon, made it known that he would appeal against this decision of first instance of the court of Penco and indicated that he would call on the Inter American Court for Human Rights of the OAS because in his view there was no proof that anything could be used to incriminate Ancalaf. Rather, assumptions had been used which could not be legally proven during the court proceedings. "This is a political act with the aim of depriving a substantial and respected part of the Mapuche population of its leader. It is a doubtless an obvious case of political persecution" he said. The counsel complained that due to the use of anti-terrorist legislation he was not allowed access to the documents used during the judicial inquiry for a whole year. The latter were needed in preparation for the defence of the Mapuche leader. " Besides this it seems absurd", he added, "to suggest that a single person was able to create a terrorist network that was aimed at planning and carrying out three attacks in the Andes within six months. " Members of the conflict communities of Collipulli made it known in a statement a few hours ago that they would consider starting protest action within the next few days in response to the court sentence which they identified as 'racist'. " We, as Mapuche communities, will not tolerate a racist and repressive court sentence against our Werken (messenger). From today on we consider ourselves to be in a state of high alert and will consider actions to demand his release and to draw attention to the complicity between the government and those making plans for the company Endesa on our territory" they say in the text. Ancalaf has been in El Manzano Prison in Conception
since November 2002, together with the leaders of the Coordinadora Arauco-Maleco,
Jose Huenchunao and Hector Llaitul, who are expecting further court proceedings
in the law courts of the 8th and 9th region because of 'creation of an
illegal association'. Due to the imminent mobilisation of the communities,
police circles are considering strengthening the police contingent stationed
in the province of Malleco where Ancalaf has his greatest influence. The sentencing of Victor Ancalaf is connected with the building of the hydroelectric power station in Ralco (in the province Bio-Bio) by the Spanish company Endesa. Since 1999 there have been increasing protests and resistance by the Mapuche-Pehuenche against the construction of this dam. The Chilean government had agreed to the building of the hydroelectric power station against the wishes of the Pehuenche, even though this power station was going to be built in their territory. In doing so, it violated several articles of the Indigenous Law of 1993 according to which each development project in indigenous territory has to be agreed to by the relevant indigenous community. Besides this, the relocated families received only insufficient compensation. This led to a deep rift between the Chilean government and the Mapuche organisations and increasingly more violent confrontations on top of the already existing conflicts with forestry companies and settlers. The Mapuche activists tried to prevent the transport of transformers for the hydroelectric power station. This led to police action in March 2000 during which several dozen Mapuche people were arrested, some demonstrators were injured and homes were devastated. IAlready in August 1999 an illegal search of the home of Ancalaf, chairman of the Coordinadora Malleco-Arauco, had been conducted during which 5 of his relatives were arrested. The Carabineros pretended that the search was carried out on the instruction of a lawyer. The latter, however, denied that he had given orders for the search. In April 2000 the home of Ancalaf was attacked in his absence but in the presence of his wife and five children and several windows were broken. On the 6th of November 2002 violence was used during his arrest by plainclothes Carabinero units in a street in Temuco. As reported by eye- witnesses, about eight plainclothes men violently attacked the leader with their fists and kicked him with their feet. Because of this violence and because the men did not identify themselves as police, Ancalaf put up heavy resistance. On the 28th of March 2003 about 20 plainclothes policemen conducted a search of Ancalaf's house in the presence of his wife. During this search a complete inventory of his home was drawn up. A similar action took place in the office of the co-ordinating committee (Coordinadora Arauco-Malleco) in Collipulli. In April 2002 an attempt to abduct a leading female activist of the resistance movement against the Ralco dam failed. An unknown person attempted to drag her into his car by force. The day before, her computer with information on disc was stolen from her house. Because of the arson attacks in the area of Malleco/Alto Bio-Bio which some of the Mapuche organisations were supposed to be responsible for, the Chilean government used the anti-terrorist law. During some of the related accusations it could be proven that logging company employees had laid these fires themselves or had attempted to incite the Mapuche to lay them. The Coordinadora Arauco-Malleco (CAM) was classed as a terrorist organisation. In December 2002 a large police force arrested 16 members of this organisation including the chairwoman and the speaker of CAM, accusing them of terrorist acts and membership of a terrorist organisation. In January 2003 several houses were searched in the rural part of the province of Malleco in connection with suspected terrorism and arrests were made. The fight over the building of the hydroelectric power station Ralco ended in September 2003 with a victory for the interested company. Even though the environmental study in support of the project had been declared void by a court in Mai 2003 the company finally succeeded in changing the minds of the last families who were holding on, by offering money and allocating them alternative land.
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