PunkAssBlog.com

It’s that day again. The day that wingnuts remind us to NEVER! FORGET! (while conveniently ignoring the plight of uninsured rescue workers still suffering from health effects and those now ineligible for workers’ compensation. But who cares about that when you can wave a little flag?).

Today, also, many of us remember that other thing that happened on September 11th. You know, that time the CIA overthrew the democratically elected president of Chile to install a neoconservative wet dream of a dictator.

Despite Pinochet’s death and the election of a supposedly centre-left president, the ripples of American democracy-building exercises are still hurting Chileans. Few, if any, have been screwed over more than the indigenous Mapuche people. Like all native inhabitants of the Americas, colonization wasn’t kind to them—they were frequently evicted from their communal lands and subject to systemic persecution.

Salvador Allende was one of their few beacons of hope:

In 1972, Law #17.729 of the Popular Unity government of Salvador Allende completely restructured the Mapuche land situation. As one Chilean lawyer we met told us, this is the only legislation in the history of Chile which has been favorable to the Mapuche.

I bet you can guess what happened to the Mapuche in 1973:

In September 1973 the Pinochet military regime took power and a widespread and bloody revenge was visited on the Mapuche who had dared to question the injustices of history and retake the lands which had always been theirs.

“… On the day of the coup, the big landowners, the land barons, the military and the carabineros started a great manhunt against the Mapuches who had struggled and gained their land back; … the massacres of Lautaro, Cunco, Meli-Peuco, Nehuente, … Lonquimay … and Panguipulli … The counter-revolution of 1973 hit the Mapuche populations even harder than most other sectors …” (UN Ad Hoc Working Group on the Situation of Human Rights in Chile 1978). “No one has ever been able to accurately establish the number of Mapuches actually killed at /that/ time. Only /in 1979/, after six years, /were/ some people gaining the courage to explain what happened to them and their families” (Inter-Church Committee on Human Rights in Latin America 1980).

The issue is still land. The Chilean government would like to use Mapuche lands for mining, logging, and the construction of a large hydro-electric dam. The Mapuche, obviously, take issue with this, and face torture, murder, and imprisonment for fighting back. They are especially targeted by counter-terrorism legislation originally introduced by Pinochet, which allows prosecutors to withhold evidence from the defense for up to six months, and to conceal the identity of prosecution witnesses.

Michelle Bachelet, President of Chile, claims that the hundreds of Mapuche political prisoners (including tribal leaders and activists, several of whom regularly go on hunger strikes), are all “common criminals.” Meanwhile, the Mapuche suffer under the brunt of corporate globalization and the War on Terror, 1973-style, their cause ignored by most of the world.

The Mapuche Nation website has more information, and information on how you can help.