[IPSM] The Autonomous Mapuche Movement in Chile

[Jaggi Singh]

The Autonomous Mapuche Movement in Chile
by Jed Kinnison, Sebastian Guzman
from LeftTurn.org

"The root of the conflict is the application of a
model that does not consider our form of life;
that absolutely does not consider us." - Alihuen
Antileo, Mapuche Community Association (CAM)

Background: Near the end of 19th century, the
Chilean state violently invaded the independent
territory of the Mapuche Nation-attacking a
people that had resisted more than three
centuries of attempted conquest (the Mapuche
successfully resisted occupation/conquest
attempts from the Incas and Spaniards (1) ).  The
Mapuche (Mapu means land and che means people),
the indigenous peoples of central and southern
Chile and parts of Argentina, lost 95% of its
territory during the invasions of the Chilean
state. Most of the lands sacked by the State, in
opposition to the state's own laws, were given to
European colonies, and the Chilean military for
the foundation of forts, national settlements and
parks. Over a century later, the State's
subverting and suppressing the Mapuche has
continues to sow the seeds of resistance.  Today
the battle for space and cultural autonomy has
necessitated the formation of new Mapuche
organizations who tie pointed connections between
the developments of the neo-liberal economic
doctrine and their repression by the Chilean
state.  In this interview, the leader of the
Mapuche Community Association (CAM), Alihuen
Antileo, tells us of the movement he heads, its
relation to Chilean economic woes, the rescue of
culture, and their achievements and lessons in
movement building. - Sebastian Guzman and Jed
Kinnison


How have the Mapuche movements for sovereignty (re)arisen during the 1990s?

There is an economic, material background that is
important to consider. Salvador Allende made an
agrarian reform that returned 200,000 hectares of
land to the Mapuche. Pinochet cleared the reform
and proceeded to transfer the land's usage and
future into private hands. The territories were
cleared and replanted with profitable pines and
eucalyptuses, all of which was subsidized by the
State. Both species of flora are non-endemic
species and the eucalyptus's roots suck up a
badly needed 90 liters of water daily.  As a
result, the Mapuche communities residing in the
interior of these forest enclaves were forced to
leave due to the scarcity of vital underground
water. The thirsty soils prohibited the
cultivation of wheat and other crops by the
Mapuches.  The rural communities that relatively
flourished under Allende's protective hand began
to disappear into the city under Pinochet's
crafty ecological deprivations. Later Pinochet
legally divided the remaining Mapuche communities
compelling people to sell their lands to the
state which turned them over to logging
companies.  Pinochet's policies linger into the
present day as the Chilean state continues to
guarantee and subsidize lumber (especially
Eucalyptus and Pine) investment on Mapuche land.
This systematic ecological dispossession of
Mapuche land motivated many communities to come
to Santiago to speak with the authorities. For
about 10 years we talked with anyone we could,
but everyone seemed reluctant to assist our
cause. At a certain moment the communities saw
they had to choose between mobilizing themselves
or simply disappearing. And that was what opened
the Mapuche conflict in 1997, when a group of
communities that affected by this problem
mobilized to recover 1,500 to 2,000 hectares of
land that had been (taken) by the dictatorship
(Pinochet).  This reclamation event culminated in
the burning of three of the private logging
company's trucks.

Thus a new stage begins where the communities, by
the route of the deed, recover their earth and
expel the forest companies from their rightful
territory. The root of the conflict is the
application of a model that does not consider our
form of life; that absolutely does not consider
us, and produces the contradiction.  Conflict is
permanent if we are to retain our form of life.


How are notions of culture, tradition, and
identity incorporated into the organizing process?

Our pueblo resisted the inquisitions of the
Spaniards for approximately 300 years before
being subdued. But our defeat was not a just
military one; we also suffered a defeat of
consciousness.  The Spanish changed our people
from having a collective to a very
individualistic conscious.  The old divide and
rule tactic happened at very real but also
figurative levels as Chilean society tried to
force us to integrate into their way of life and
leave our indigenous past behind.  In the process
of integration we did not have good results, in
the sense in that we lost culture, identity,
earth, religion, language... and we were not
integrated into the Chilean society either. The
result was that we began to question the
acculturation project. It did not make sense to
us to be integrated into the poorest districts,
effectively assimilated only to be marginalized
by Chilean society.  What we have wanted, then,
is to recover our identity and to conquer and
construct spaces of autonomy within this society.
During this material process we begin to recovery
cultural identity. For that reason there is a
strong reconversion of our mental structure back
towards our religion, our music, our language,
our cultural history and all expressions that we
have had, and that allows us to identify
ourselves contrapuntally vis-à-vis Chileans
nowadays. The aim of the movement is not to say
"we are all Chileans", but "we are Mapuche, you
are Chileans". The greater project of our
consciousness is for all Mapuche to recognize
that we are legitimately part of an original
nation.  We were a nation until the arrival of
the Spaniards, because we had political autonomy
and sovereignty in our territory. And therefore
we say nowadays, that we are a nation or pueblo
that must gain recognition of our collective
rights and our political rights. So recently this
has been the strategy of the Mapuche movement,
especially among the youth.


Could you define the objectives of CAM and its
difference with other Mapuche currents?

The immediate objective of the CAM is to find a
way to voice its own grievances when the judicial
system incarcerates anyone who is believed to
have ties to the CAM.  The rhetoric the use to
justify their actions is a supposed association
with terrorism.  For the past year, 25 to 30
people have been processed under these charges
and have each received 6 to 8 months of jail.
But the general new plan of the CAM has two
important elements: first it develops a strategy
of resistance and second, a plan for
reconstruction.  We have a generally resistance
to capitalism that specifically clashes over the
future of former Mapuche spaces forcibly taken
and redistributed to the lumber companies and for
the private construction of an ecologically
devastating hydroelectric dam.  These territorial
and material disputes are no longer legal
disputes to us because those routes were
exhausted: the important point is who controls
those zones. Anti-capitalism is the general
struggle. Why? Because we are going to restrain
capitalism in that zone because it has destroyed
our pueblo.  It exerts what is called
"territorial control" and needs to be resisted by
a Mapuche power without any interference in the
decision making process by the Chilean state. For
that reason the CAM generally tries to avoid too
much interaction with traditional leftist
political parties.  Many Mapuche currents depend
on leftist political organization. But a point of
contention that we retain with this support is
that traditional parties of left understand the
Mapuche as a social sector more, while we define
ourselves as an original nation.

We recognize three great tendencies within the
Mapuche movement. An independent movement that is
currently in the process of being constructed,
and is in the minority; also a majority movement
exists that seeks to integrate itself into the
State of Chile. And the others simply say "we are
Mapuche, but only by cultural definition", that
is, they know that they have an historical root
from the Mapuche nation. The mobilization and the
Mapuche political movement have generally stayed
separated from the latter. We (the former) have
done 95% of all the real mobilizations and are
the reason why between 350 and 400 Mapuche are in
prison.  95-97% of the CAM leaders have passed
through prison system.  But the government, in
order to try to disqualify us,  positions the
organizations of the other sectors - more
bellwether, more docile, more put under, as we
say -  in a way so that they are elevated in
social status by giving them land, credit, etc.

Look, we don't want a Mapuche State. We have
never considered the creation of a State. We want
certain spaces of autonomy within the Chilean
society, but we don't want a Mapuche 'State',
because we never had a 'State', therefore, it
would be an artificial construction. We have said
that in Chile it would be possible for the
Mapuche to have territorial autonomy, like, for
example, (the indigenous peoples) in Canada. We
would have the political decisions to choose our
own authorities or educational policies, for
example, within that sector. That agreement
exists in many countries, such as Spain and,
again, Canada.  But that does not mean separated
in the sense that we would have an army:
creating a State is problematic because you must
create an army to defend borders and that is not
in our world conception and, therefore, is not a
priority for us.


Do you discuss how to general strategy of
resistance neo-liberalism in movement building?

Yes, nowadays there is no alternative to that
discussion.  It has been the most difficult
aspect for us in our liberations. Why? Because a
majority conscience does still not exist that
understands that neo-liberalism is now the system
which creates our biggest problems today. And
that is very serious, because if I do not have
conscience of which economic model I am fighting
against I can think that my enemy is called Juan
González (a typical Chilean name). We do not want
that to take place, because an artificial
conflict between Mapuche and Chileans could come
into existence.  Neither Juan González, nor even
a North American businessman who is working near
us is what should be identified as the problem.
The predator is an economic model and we are not
going to say that we are well because there are
Mapuche communities administering a logging
company. The neo-liberal economic model is today
responsible for these contradictions, these
inequalities, in Chile and the rest of Latin
America. And that is very important, because if
we realize that we have a common adversary with
the rest of Latin America, we can say, then, that
we must unify our struggles.

For us, the most difficult task is this: to gain
and spread any real consciousness or concrete
conception of neo-liberalism.  But we are working
on maturing our understanding of the model.  How?
.Confronting the model is the best school.


What kind of awareness does the CAM have of other
Latin American movements working toward cultural,
political, and economic autonomy? Is there
solidarity, dialogues, networking, or cooperation
with these groups?

That is being developed. An organic bond cannot
be said to exist, but we feel a natural affection
because we understand the relatedness of our
struggles. We have not had communications with
the Zapatistas, but we have supported them and
have tried to imbibe their essence and dignity in
our attitude and revolt.  We have, however, made
other links with indigenous groups in Ecuador,
Argentina and Bolivia.  We have begun making
contacts with the MST (Landless Workers Movement)
and I have personally met once with them. We are
talking with all of them, presenting our
situation along with the obvious need to
construct long term goals of mutual resistance.
Long term we realize the significance of
supporting our indigenous compañeros throughout
Latin America and even more distant struggles
that we sympathize with such as the Palestinians
and the Kurds. We were the first Chilean
organization to extend our support to the
solidarity work of the Palestinians in
Santiago(3).  We also have communications with
the Basque independentistas.


What role does the mass media play in the development of the conflict?

I would say that there are two stages: first
after the conflict began, until the year 2000 or
2001, the mass media played a important role in
the present conflict by assuming that the Mapuche
resistance had either died or had become
inconsequential.  They assumed we had
successfully been assimilated into Chilean
society. But as this conflict began to generate
newsworthy problems such as violent encounters
between the State and the Mapuche, the mainstream
news media depicted the conflict as a problem (4)
rather than a phenomenon.  In Chile, the
controllers of main media's networks are also the
proprietors of the forest and cellulose companies
and it is absolutely normal and expected that
they disqualify or vilify us.  But despite all
that, the last survey that became available 2 or
3 years ago indicated that 82% of the [Chilean]
population supported the Mapuche's cause;
remarkably, this survey came out of sectors tied
to the right.  In spite of how the media depicts
us, we enjoy an important degree of acceptance
from Chilean society in general.

1. Beginning in 1541 the Mapuche fiercely fought
the Spanish conquests in the Araucanian War which
lasted over 350 years.

2. For more information about the construction
and resistance of this highly controversial dam:
http://www.mapuche-nation.org/english/html/articles/art-12.htm

3. Palestinian Diasporas in Santiago constitute
the greatest concentration of resettled
Palestinians outside of the Middle East with an
approximate population of 300,000.

4. More specifically, the some of the CAM's
actions were labeled "terrorist" by the major
Chilean newspapers such as La Segunda, El
Mercurio, and La Epoca


The interview was conducted by Sebastian Guzman and Jed Kinnison