Chile hunger strike puts focus on Indians' plight
Diario Austral de La Araucania

Patricia Troncoso, serving time for allegedly setting fire to a forest
plot, is moved to a hospital in Chillan. “Pinochet for us has not ended,”
she said, accusing police of persecution.

Jailed activist Patricia Troncoso has had no solid food for 100-plus days,
and is seeking release of Mapuche prisoners and return of ancestral lands.

By Patrick J. McDonnell,
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-fg-mapuche28jan28,1,4322267.story

January 28, 2008
CHILLAN, CHILE -- The case of a jailed indigenous-rights activist who has
been on a hunger strike for more than 100 days has galvanized support for
restive Mapuche Indians seeking the release of prisoners and recovery of
ancestral lands in central Chile.

Mapuche activists and their allies have converged on this town in the
Andean foothills, where Patricia Troncoso is being held in a hospital.
Authorities intervened against the prisoner's will last week and provided
Troncoso with intravenous nutrition to prevent her from dying.

Her plight has drawn renewed attention to charges that Chile's much-lauded
economic growth has not lifted the Indian minority, which is largely
landless, disenfranchised and the victim of police repression. Supporters
have staged demonstrations in the capital, Santiago, about 230 miles
north, and other cities and have circulated petitions.

"Don't lose hope," Troncoso, 38, urged in a letter read on Thursday, the
107th day of her hunger strike.

Troncoso is calling for authorities to release her and imprisoned Mapuche
activists, whom she calls "political prisoners." She also wants the
withdrawal of a heavy police presence from traditional Mapuche zones in
Chile.

The Mapuche militants are incarcerated mostly for arson strikes against
land and trucks belonging to forestry and agribusiness interests. Mapuche
leaders say much of the territory was stolen and should be returned to
them. Troncoso has served about half of a 10-year sentence for setting
fire to a forestry plot -- a charge she denies.

Sympathizers have called on the center-left government of President
Michelle Bachelet, who was a political prisoner under the Pinochet
dictatorship, to help resolve the hunger-strike impasse. Deputy Interior
Minister Felipe Harboe expressed sympathy for the Mapuches, while
condemning violence.

"I defend the Mapuche community," Harboe told reporters in Santiago. "But
there is a minority that perpetrates acts of violence and stigmatizes the
entire community."

The dispute has raised tensions in the region and resulted in periodic
confrontations.

On Jan. 3, police shot and killed a Mapuche activist, Matias Catrileo, 22,
an agronomy student, as he and others allegedly trespassed on a farming
estate.

Three days later, authorities said, shots were fired at a car carrying a
hydroelectric executive in Santiago. No one was injured, but officials
suspect the shooting may be linked to Mapuche objections to hydroelectric
projects.

Human rights groups have assailed the prosecution of Troncoso and others
under anti-terrorism laws dating to the former dictatorship of Augusto
Pinochet.

"What these activists have done may represent crimes under the penal code,
but certainly could not be characterized as acts of terrorism," said Jose
Miguel Vivanco, who heads the Americas division of Human Rights Watch.

In her statement last week, Troncoso declared, "Pinochet for us has not
ended," and cited police checkpoints and other alleged acts of repression.
"We keep experiencing him in the country roads, in the house searches, in
the persecution, jailing, torture and death."

The case has resonated here and elsewhere in Latin America, where
indigenous issues have taken on a higher profile, especially since the
election in 2005 of Evo Morales as Bolivia's first Indian president.

But Chile has a much smaller indigenous population than neighbors Bolivia
and Peru.

Mapuche Indians in Chile number 600,000, about 4% of the country's
population of more than 15 million, according to census figures.

Studies have shown many Mapuches feel discriminated against in a nation
long dominated by lighter-skinned Chileans of mixed-race and European
origins.

Troncoso, known as La Chepa, is not a Mapuche and was raised in a
middle-class family in Santiago. She gravitated to the Indian cause while
studying theology at university, said her father, Roberto Troncoso.

"La Chepa is Mapuche in her heart," said Juan Pichun, a Mapuche leader who
is among the many holding vigil outside her hospital.

Supporters have set up tents at the hospital gates and strung up cardboard
signs denouncing Chilean officials as "murderers." Sympathizers include
many students, left-wing activists and environmental advocates who cite a
legacy of ecological ruin on former Mapuche lands.

Last week , doctors acted to prevent Troncoso from developing potentially
fatal kidney damage, said Dr. Gaston Rodriguez, the police physician who
is overseeing her care. Her vital signs have improved since she began
receiving an intravenous mixture of vitamins and other nutrients, he said.

Troncoso had to be restrained with straps, Rodriguez said. The restraining
procedure resulted in bruises on parts of her body, her friends said.

"Her body is full of marks," said Valentina Peralta, a friend who visited
Troncoso in the hospital. She described the prisoner as "physically
depleted" but lucid, tranquil and determined to continue to refuse solid
foods.

Troncoso has lost more than 50 pounds as her only intake has been liquids
such as water, juice and mate tea, sometimes with sugar. Doctors say
Troncoso has survived in part because when she launched her fast Oct. 10,
she was in robust physical shape, weighing about 185 pounds.

"My daughter has promised me she will live," said Roberto Troncoso.

"I want her to come home alive, not in a coffin."

patrick.mcdonnell

@latimes.com

Special correspondent Claudia Lagos in Santiago and Andrés D'Alessandro of
The Times' Buenos Aires Bureau contributed to this report.



Mapuche International Solidarity Network
mapucheinternationalsolidarity@gmail.com