Mapuche Students Protest at Embassy in Mexico Lee Purvey - Santiago Times
go to original September 7, 2012

Flag of the Mapuche indigenous group. (Solidaridad con el Pueblo Mapuche/Facebook)

Protests of the government’s treatment of Chile’s Mapuche indigenous group reached the international stage this week as Mapuche students in Mexico gathered outside of the Chilean embassy in indignation of alleged police violence against the indigenous minors.

The demonstration marks an increase in international criticism of the violent treatment of Chile’s largest indigenous group, following a July 23 incident outside of the Araucanía region’s Collipulli Hospital in which five Mapuche minors were injured at the hands of carabineros, Chile’s uniformed police, including three by police buckshot.

“Looking from the outside, there is a clear mixture of impunity and racism toward minors who are engaged in a context of social protest, of political and cultural demands for their communities,” said Andrés Cuyul, a doctoral candidate in collective health at the Autonomous Metropolitan University of Mexico (UAM). “What worries us is that currently they aren’t only targeting the leaders of the Mapuche community, but attacking young people as well.”

With Wednesday’s protest, demonstrators hoped to draw attention to an issue they feel the government has worked to conceal.

“They continually create smoke screens around violence and social protests in Chile, for both students and Mapuche protesters,” said Margarita Ortiz Caripán, a Latin American studies master’s candidate at UAM. “One of the reasons for the demonstration is to show that we are informing ourselves, despite the barriers that exist in the Chilean media.”

On Monday, Mapuche in Mexico released a public statement condemning the “escalation in violence against our Mapuche communities, the lack of intervention of international organizations and the continuous attacks against our children, women and elderly,” according to Radio Universidad de Chile.

“We await the delegation of officers from the United Nations to visit the communities where our children, women and elderly have been assaulted and provide the national and international public with a report about the effects of this violence on our communities and the criminalization of Mapuche protest,” the statement continued. U.N. Representative Tom Olsen was recently sent to the region following an agreement with domestic Mapuche protesters

Radio Universidad de Chile reported that Wednesday’s demonstration was the first in a series of scheduled activities, which will include marches, forums, and seminars that aim to break the “media siege” and urge other nations to comment on what is happening in Chile, to create a “culture of total respect and recognition” on a continental level.

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