(After 110 days on hunger strike, Mapuche Patricia Troncoso Robles decided to end the pressure tactic on the 28th of January. The government of Bachelet acceded to her demands that she and two other people - Juan Millalen and Jaime Marileo -, be given prison benefits such as prison leave on weekends, starting in March, without previous approval of the prison authorities. A number of voices from within Chile and from around the world have called for an end to the criminalization of the Mapuche people and efforts to find a comprehensive solution to their demands).

"If my death helps to free my brothers and sisters, I will not desist", wrote Patricia Troncoso on December 23rd after 74 days on hunger strike in Angol prison, in the south of Chile. She was recently transferred to Chillán and Tuesday of last week, was forcefully given intravenous fluids to keep her alive. Patricia has been on fast for more than one hundred days and her health is very delicate.

This time, the repression was not able to isolate the Mapuche struggle. Over the past four months, mobilizations have been organized in several Chilean cities, including the capital, Santiago. On November 12th, a delegation of Venezuelan parliamentarians visited the Angol jail and expressed its preoccupation over the prisoners’ health. Amnesty International sent a letter to president Bachelet, on January 21st, asking for Patricia’s life to be saved and reminding the government that in 2003, the Special Rapporteur of the United Nations presented a report of its mission to Chile in which it recommended that "in addition to the granting of titles on privately-owned land, traditional territories, that include resources for community use, must be reclaimed and reestablished".

A mission of ten human rights organizations and the United Workers Federation (CUT) of Chile undertook an observation mission at the beginning of January, soon after the murder of Mapuche youth Matías Catrileo. They were moved to denounce "the brutality, the savagery and the terrorism of the State" that Mapuche communities suffer. Arturo Martinez, president of the CUT, indicated that this conflict cannot be resolved with bullets and repression. He also said something unheard of in the union federation since the dictatorship: "The Mapuche can count on us. Their sacred right to the Earth deserves to be supported ".

On January 10th, a Declaration of Chilean Historians was released, which denounced "the virtual militarization of the Mapuche people’s historical territory" and "the implantation of a permanent regime of surveillance and police terror". The historians, among them Gabriel Salazar, winner of the National History Award, spoke out against the criminalization of the Mapuche struggle and the application of the Antiterrorist Law, inherited from the military dictatorship, as well as the media blockade they suffer. They concluded by pointing out that the Chilean State must recognize "the political autonomy of the indigenous communities, the return of their land arbitrarily usurped on the basis of ‘right of Conquest’ and the total respect for the human rights of their people".

Secondly, the hunger strike—representing a new wave of Mapuche mobilization—encouraged a greater coordination among the different political, social and cultural organizations from the Mapuche world. Both national and international solidarity and the increasing organizational convergence within the Mapuche universe are the most hopeful results of Patricia Troncoso’s sacrifice.

Under the governments of the Concertación Democratica coalition (since 1990), 400 Mapuches have been charged under the Internal Security and Antiterrorist Laws. This was the government’s answer to the struggles that erupted in 1997 with the outbreak of multiple conflicts that affected the major forestry and energy companies. The movement deployed cultural and artistic initiatives along with its own media outlets. It was also able to recover some land, to the point that the state funds to buy land for the communities rose from about 5 million dollars in 1995 to more than 30 million in 2001.

The government began to apply the Antiterrorist law in the climate generated by the September 11th attacks in the United States. Between November of 2001 and October of 2003, 209 Mapuche were charged in the Araucanía region alone, while hundreds were detained at protests, and beaten and mistreated as part of what, according to many observers, is a true "dirty war". Patricia Troncoso was charged with participating in the December 2001 arson of one hundred hectares of pines planted by the tree plantation company Forestal Mininco.

Whoever has visited the Mapuche communities in the south can verify that they are being boxed in and exterminated by a sea of forest plantations that devastate their land and prevent them from continuing to sow and producing for their survival. Worse still: police bearing military arms break into the communities without judicial order. And there exist commandos, like the "Hernán Trizano", who make night raids firing their weapons while they install surveillance cameras and devices that interfere with cellular phones. Human rights organizations charge that police disguise themselves as civilians to make incursions and intimidate the communities. Who practices terrorism?

The Bachelet government has behaved shamefully throughout all of this. Patricia is right when she says in her letter: "What can we expect of our tyrants, if they come from a generation that lived through all of these afflictions, and yet with time become dehumanized to the point of forgetting the exile, the tortures, the persecution and the death of so many human beings"

Now that the decisiveness and the courage of Patricia and a handful of Mapuche have resulted in a resonant and historical triumph, it might be the time to ask uncomfortable questions. What is happening to us? How many times do those from furthest below have to offer their lives – for that is really all that they have-- so that those from below react, that we react, and that we shout together “Enough!” so loudly that we are able to restrain the genocidal ambitions of those from above? (Translation: ALAI)

- Raul Zibechi is an Editorial Board member of the Montevideo weekly Brecha, teacher and researcher of social movements at the Multiversidad Franciscana de América Latina, and adviser of several social groups.