Latin American Summary, January 15, 2023
After the meeting with state officials and human rights organizations, the Committee of Mapuche and Mapuche Tehuelche Authorities agreed to continue the dialogue towards a reconciliation between National Parks and the Lafken Winkul Mapu Community.
This Thursday, January 12, our delegation of Mapuche and Mapuche Tehuelche authorities had a dialogue table with pu winka from the national and provincial government.
The talk was long, and not because it lasted almost 4 hours, but because this dialogue with the State began in 2017, when the weichafe Rafael Nahuel iem was murdered in a hunt carried out by the albatross group of the Argentine naval prefecture commanded by Bullrich, in territory of the Lof Lafken Winkul Mapu.
Murder still unpunished that seems to have been forgotten by them but in our memory their spilled blood and that of all our kuifikeche who gave their lives for the territory is still latent and fresh.
Dialogue that, at that moment, was interrupted because it is always under his conditions. We were never, nor will we be, in parity since, whoever governs, we were always the ones who put the murdered, the imprisoned, the persecuted and dispossessed, and that continues to this day.
They tell us that we have to wait? They tell us that we are not in a position to demand?
They tell us that they don’t want violence when we are the result of a genocide perpetrated by the winka towards our town.
Today there are Mapuche childhoods imprisoned and outside their territory, a Machi separated from her rewe, dismembered families, a militarized Mapuche territory, if this is not violence, what is it? It seems that it is considered so only when the white suffers from it.
From our Mapuche worldview, all this generates discomfort that, no matter how patient we are, they will never understand.
In spite of everything, calmly and feientun we went to that dialogue table.
We exposed all our demands, because we are in all the conditions to demand: we are a pre-existing people to the State and it wanted to make us disappear.
We as a people only want to recover our identity, our culture, and that implies recovering our territories where we can fully develop, territories that we care for with our lives from the ambition of the winka interests that seeks to violate and assassinate the different spaces of which we are legitimately heirs and guardians and with whom we are connected because we are part of the mapu, we have to be there.
At the dialogue table, we talked about all the violence that was exerted on us since October 4, about the violence that we continue to experience, about the danger to the health and life of our Machi and pu pichikeche by being separated from the rewe, from the pu kona persecuted just for defending the territory, from the repression of the unified command by treating us as terrorists when what we do is take care of the lakes, the hills, the springs, when what we do is recover our spirituality.
After a lot of talk, and ideas and twists on your part, your answer will be given at the end of the month in the city of Bariloche.
We understand that this answer has to be the definitive solution since we gave them all the reasons and foundations when they don’t have one, neither from our worldview and even from their own laws that protect us. In addition, today, one day after the dialogue table, the request for the release of the Mapuche political prisoners was again rejected, when it is public knowledge that the investigation period ended and that with that, according to the same judiciary, pretrial detention.
That’s why we say,
#thepoliticalsolution but that is not why we should leave the result of this dialogue table in the hands of the winka.
We call on all our Mapuche people, pu Machi pu lonko, Pu pillan Kushe, Pu kona, Pu weichafe of the Meli witran Mapu, a kompuche to continue reaffirming our spirituality, to continue raising their voices and carrying out actions to give strength to this coming dialogue table that has to be the one that gives a definitive answer. That a precedent be set in our fight for the recovery of our being Mapuche, defending all the itrofill mongen, life, Water and Mapu.
We summon the entire conscious society that has been accompanying through different activities, demonstrations and alternative media. That this also sets a precedent for the struggles.
WIÑOTUPE TAIN MACHI ÑI REWE MEU!
AMULEPE TAIN WEICHAN!
MARICHIWEU!