Mapuche Nation. Why Does CAM Prevent the Exhumation of Pablo Marchant?

Werken Noticias / Resumen Latinoamericano, March 26, 2025

The recent attempt to exhume the body of Pablo Marchant, frustrated by the resistance of the Lof Pidenko, has revived the conflict between the State and the Coordinadora Arauco Malleco (CAM). But why is the CAM so strongly opposed to this procedure?

A weichafe buried according to Mapuche tradition

For the CAM and the Lof Pidenko, the refusal to exhume is not only a political issue, but also a spiritual and cultural one. Pablo Marchant, known as “Toñito” within the organization, was buried in an eltun, a Mapuche cemetery where his ancestors and historical leaders rest. From their worldview, removing his body would be a serious transgression, since the weichafe (warrior) chose to remain with the pu lonko in their eternal rest.

In interviews prior to his conviction, Héctor Llaitul, leader of the CAM, had already expressed his rejection of any attempt at exhumation, pointing out that “extracting Toñito’s body and leaving it in a common cemetery is a blow to the heart of our cause.” The organization considers this act an affront to their struggle and an attempt by the state to weaken its territorial control in the recovered areas.

A political and territorial struggle

Beyond the spiritual aspect, the CAM sees this procedure as part of a strategy by the State to weaken its presence in the region. The organization maintains that the exhumation does not respond to a real judicial interest, but to an “intelligence operation” to discredit their struggle and justify new incursions into disputed territories.

Llaitul has been categorical in his rejection of what he considers political persecution: “The conditions are created for a new incursion-occupation of the recovered properties.” In this sense, the resistance to the exhumation is not only out of respect for the weichafe, but also a way to prevent the State from continuing to advance in what they consider a strategy of repression.

Distrust of the State and the Media

Another key point in the CAM’s position is its deep distrust of state institutions and the media. According to Llaitul, the legal proceedings against his organization are based on “lies and fabrications,” and the media play a role at the service of the powerful to justify the criminalization of the autonomist movement.

In this context, accepting the exhumation of Marchant would be, for the CAM, validating a system that they consider oppressive and contrary to their struggle. For this reason, they have decided to prevent it at all costs, even confronting the Prosecutor’s Office, the PDI and the Army.

The conflict is still open

With the exhumation frustrated, the tension in the area remains high. It is unclear whether the authorities will insist on the procedure or how the CAM will respond in the event of a new attempt. What is clear is that, for the organization, Pablo Marchant’s tomb is a symbol of resistance and dignity that they are not willing to give up.

—

Héctor Llaitul’s statements are excerpted from an interview given to the media outlet “Voces en Lucha” in 2024.

LOF PIDENCO RESISTS THE ATTEMPT TO ENTER THE TERRITORY BY PDI AND MILITARY WHO RESPOND WITH HIGH-CALIBER WEAPONS

Maximum tension in the Lof Pidenco. Community members report that PDI, backed by military personnel, try to enter the territory, encountering resistance from the community. According to initial reports, state forces have responded with the use of high-caliber weapons.

Unofficially, it is indicated that the operation seeks to exhume the body of weichafe Pablo Marchant, which would have intensified the reaction of the community. The community members denounce strong repression and uncertainty remains about the development of the events.

The situation is still developing and more information is expected in the coming hours. We will stay tuned for any updates.

https://abolitionmedia.noblogs.org/?p=17908

He Should Have Been on the Street for 2 Years: Marcelo Villarroel Reaches 17 Years in Prison

By: La Zarzamora

On March 15, Marcelo Villarroel, an anti-authoritarian subversive prisoner, served 17 years in prison, after being sentenced in 2014 to 14 years for two bank robberies, a sentence that was completed on December 16, 2023, however, the state still maintains his kidnapping in prison.

With multiple activities and actions of solidarity, different affinity groups showed solidarity with the current situation faced by the comrade, who should have been out of prison for 1 year and 3 months, however the legal apparatus of Power ignores its own legality, ignoring the fulfillment of these sentences and imposing sentences issued by the exorbitant and disastrous military prosecutor’s office, which according to power is no longer active, but which continues to be used to keep Marcelo in confinement.

A BRIEF STEP THROUGH HIS HISTORY

Marcelo Villarroel, a comrade who at the age of 13 took his path in the Lautaro Youth Movement, a structure with which he later broke 10 years later, entering into autonomous, non-hierarchical perspectives and anarchic ideas. From a very young age he lived imprisonment thanks to his active participation in the urban combat against the dictatorship and the post-dictatorship.

In prison he is part of the kolectivo kamina libre, an anti-prison collective that deepens the questions about horizontality, prison struggle, the understanding of being uncertain in prison society beyond prison walls, the consumption of animals, among other reflections, all accompanied by publications characterized by their graphics, composed of drawings by the same imprisoned comrades.

The current stage of imprisonment begins after the robbery of the Security Bank where Paco Moyano died, which generates a media, political and judicial persecution against a group of comrades who had a long history of combat. This persecution campaign culminated in the arrest of Marcelo Villarroel and other comrades on the other side of the mountain range on March 15, 2008.

On December 16, 2009, Marcelo was expelled from Argentina after 21 months of confinement, passing through different detention units in the province of Neuquén, thus being at the disposal of the $hilena jurisdiction. Since then he has remained in prison, but always active becoming part of the outside through his writings, words, graphics, and music, among others, which accompany activities, experiences and also facts and farewells that have marked the last years of the anarchic offensive.

THE PREVAILING NEED

The maintenance of these sentences issued by the disastrous military justice system is an aberration that is not supported even under the same legal parameters of bourgeois justice, so the comrade’s legal team remains fiercely in the effort to achieve the annulment of these.

Under the current context of worsening confinement and isolation in prison, the situation of the comrade becomes urgent and paramount in the fight against prison society, and his release to the street, a priority in it.

SOLIDARITY GESTURES

As a way of showing solidarity with the comrade, various like-minded groups carried out informative activities about his situation. The Anti-Karcelaria Solidarity Network “Marcelo Villarroel a la kalle” (★RSAMVALK) released a new statement of support, along with a set of large posters and pamphlets as part of the agitation and propaganda necessary in this context. In addition, in Santiago, the recovered Space La Kopa (La Granja commune) held a day for the annulment of the sentences of the military prosecutor’s office, in which there were theatrical interventions, live music and a discussion on Marcelo’s legal situation, amplified simultaneously by Axolote radio (Mx), Radio Lafkenche de San Antonio and Radio La Zarzamora.

From the support networks of Buenos Aires, Argentina and from the Iberian Peninsula, greetings have been sent in solidarity with the situation of the comrade.

Similarly, at the Tattoo Circus in Torino, Italy, the presentation of Kamina Libre, a book was held within the framework of the internationalist campaign for the annulment of military justice sentences, and also from different territories graphics, gestures of solidarity and other activities will be carried out during the coming weeks within the framework of the unwavering campaign for his release from prison.

“We call for active solidarity with Marcelo, a comrade who has not given up and who, despite the multiple adversities of prison society, continues to make a concrete contribution to the anti-authoritarian struggle, maintaining an explicit harmony with the street, never in silence, and that should be highlighted.” ★RSAMVALK

It is vital to enunciate the relevance of this year in the legal resolution of the situation of the comrade and from there the importance of redoubling the gestures and acts tending to disseminate, agitate, contribute and propagate, extending his struggle as part of a collective anti-authoritarian struggle that keeps alive the memory of resistance for the total destruction of prison society beyond mere slogans, through an active history that does not die.

It is time to break down the walls of indifference, articulating constant initiatives to achieve the objective of getting the comrade out of prison, snatching him from the state and its social-fascist institutionality, which still legitimizes Pinochet’s disastrous military justice, 35 years after supposedly having ended the Dictatorship.

For the departure to the street now of the comrade Marcelo Villarroel!!

To extend Active Solidarity!!

Strength comrade, prison cannot be eternal!

https://abolitionmedia.noblogs.org/?p=17720

Antonio García on the Role of USAID in US Imperialism

By: Antonio García, Primer Comandante of ELN

U.S. Congressman Scott Perry in his X account had already been denouncing what now jumps out again among an endless number of scandals: “USAID financed Boko Haram, Al Qaeda with more than 697 million dollars (…) It financed the training camps for these terrorists. In Afghanistan and Pakistan it also financed terrorism with false programs.”

A strong and controversial denunciation made in previous years, now, in 2025, regains strength in the midst of the total change in US international policy, under the Trump administration.

At the beginning of February of this year, the new occupant of the White House, among many decisions he has made in his first month in office, made the radical decision of closing the Agency for International Development and Cooperation -USAID-.

He vehemently stated that much of the funds of this Agency have been used fraudulently, without a beneficial return for the United States.

This entity was created in 1961 and became a mechanism that, under the protection of “international aid”, had already been translated into a perfect mechanism of political interference in various countries, the objective was none other than to achieve the objectives and interests of the United States in the regions considered strategic for the northern country.

There are many cases that account for and ratify this statement, the case of the coup d’état and installation of a dictatorship in Chile, overthrowing the elected President Salvador Allende, more recent and under a similar logic stand out cases such as the support and promotion of the failed coup d’état against the then president of Venezuela Hugo Chávez in 2002, support and interference that extended to 2006, 2009 and later.

It is worth remembering that these actions of interference have been repeated throughout the region, just to refer to cases from the continent, they motivated the expulsion of USAID from Bolivia for supporting the opposition in the growing destabilization of the government of the time (2013), the same thing was done at the time by the then president of Ecuador Rafael Correa in expelling this agency from his country (2014).

In Cuba, for example, USAID financed destabilization actions through the use of social networks, the case called ZunZuneo. The list of actions is long and the denunciations profound.

Perhaps one of the acts of greatest interference has been to support and guide training processes aimed at public servants, judges, prosecutors, social organizations, but above all the media.

Almost 500 million dollars were allocated through the NGO Internews Network (IN) influencing a wide network of media, thus consolidating narratives related to the interests of the United States, that is, it ended up financing a wide network of manipulation and propaganda.

This extensive mechanism of manipulation has proven to be very effective in attacking and destabilizing governments not aligned with U.S. interests, generating a matrix of disinformation, a series of baseless accusations, but credibly edited to encourage hatred, as was the case of the proceeding against President Zelaya of Honduras, Fernando Lugo of Paraguay, Dilma Rousseff in Brazil, attacking everything that opposes its interests.

It has even been revealed how USAID has been key to activating destabilization processes against the government of Venezuela, with the participation of legal and illegal actors, media matrices from Colombia, as was done during the government of Iván Duque, when the network of destabilizing actions and deep corruption was conceived.

Now, this flood of information that comes to light, some open secrets, others unpublished data, does not imply anything satisfactory in the medium term, it is only the change of a foreign policy focused on threats, coercion, extortion and that rewards indignity and submission. Let this be clear to us.

However, this large amount of information is of great value to us.

Colombia is among the countries with the greatest “unconditional support” from this defunct agency, resources that were allocated, among others, to the implementation of the 2016 peace agreement, support for investigations and work of the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP), support for the issue of land, border, projects in strategic regions, etc.

It is good to keep in mind the reports presented to the Truth Commission in 2020, one in particular entitled: “From the beginning to the end. The United States in the Colombian Armed Conflict.” It leaves us with the question after reading it, because the one who has been the promoter of the war in Colombia since long ago, now serves as a “disinterested” promoter of Peace.

We cannot pass by and we are obliged to look carefully at the recipients of “hot money” from the “master of the North”, NGOs and some social organizations and even institutions of the current government, which regret Trump’s decision. They think that people swallow the “toad” that these monies come with well-intentioned purposes.

https://insurgenciaurbana-eln.net/dineros-calientes-de-la-usaid/

https://abolitionmedia.noblogs.org/?p=17538

(Chile) Update on Anarchist Comrades Aldo and Lucas Hernández

It’s been more than two years since that 22nd of December in 2022, the day of various raids orchestrated by the Metropolitana Sur High Complexity Prosecutor. Six households were raided, five of these in the Metropolitan Region and one in the Valparaiso Region, all registered by police groups OS9, GOPE and LABOCAR, resulting in six arrests, four of which led to pre-trial prison. Two of these were brothers and comrades Aldo and Lucas Hernández, who throughout the following months remained under investigation for the explosive attack on the National Police Headquarters of Chile. Aldo is accused of having placed the device, as well as facing violations of the Arms Control Law, and Lucas is also accused of various violations of the arms and explosives control Law.

Months later, the comrades were asked to attend a hearing to be re-formalized, and both were charged with the manufacture of weapons and explosive devices for various items found in the home raided in Pedro Aguirre Cerda.

In this process we have seen how the prosecution has used trickery and dirty games to attempt to harm and intimidate those surrounding the accused with imprisonment, seeking information and even denunciations in order to complete the investigation and to be able to prove their accusations. The result of the harassment has been negative, since all the detainees after the raids have remained dignified and trustworthy faced with the mediocre attempts of the Prosecutor Claudio Orellana, demonstrating complicity and loyalty to the principles of anti-authoritarian comradeship in practice.

Across the months, the comrades have lived various and different realities of prison, since from the beginning they were separated, trying to break their family ties, depriving them from having contact and sharing the same physical space for more than two years.

Now the comrades await the preparation audience of the oral trial, which has already been postponed on two occasions for legal reasons. After awaiting trial for over two years, the comrades remain unable to reunite for reasons of security, violating their rights of conserving the family ties that bond them.

In this trial, they risk being given exemplary sentences; for Aldo the prosecution requests a 90 year sentence and for Lucas a 26 year sentence. We call these exemplary because this excessive quantity of years only aims to intimidate the environment and those who decide to return blow with blow without turning the other cheek, nor awaiting illusive and idealized opportune moments to go for our enemies. The comrades maintain intact their integrity and impetus to continue contributing to strengthening the anarchic path outside and within prison. They cling fiercely to their ideas and values, bringing along various comrades who have been deprived of their freedom just like they have, making their ideas a real threat for the range of nefarious conducts inside prison and practicing carceral solidarity, remaining strong against prison and its jailers within their own houses (prisons).

Power continues to deal blows; reprisals are part of the daily life/captivity of our brothers. The last update was Aldo’s transfer to unit 2 of maximum security in “La Gonzalina” prison, on December 24 of last year, changing the carceral regime for him. Currently he is being kept with a schedule of 21 hours of lockup and 3 hours on the range, this added to restrictions such as the prohibition of electronic apparatuses (TV, kettle and radio). This transfer resulted from a raid carried out in unit 12 (unit in which Aldo was held for 2 years) on December 18 during which the personal information of the 16 national police wounded in the attack on the headquarters carried out on December 27, 2021 was found inside Aldo’s cell. This information which was found contained in the respective investigative files of the case, was the motive for which the high authorities of La Gonzalina decided on his isolation.

Violentist practice is more valid than ever, and it is blood to pump the hearts of our brothers in prison. Each unerring action, propaganda gesture, reveals the vulnerability of a predatory system that sustains itself through a false security that’s no more than a mask that can be burnt off, in reach of our hands full of conviction and courage.

Actions such as attacks with arms-bombs on institutions-police-machines that protect the interests of power and the rich are only one demonstration of this, so that the fear is felt by those who capture us, the bullets have names and addresses. May our energies be capable of creating what our imagination once thought, so that each idea in the minds of those who see the violentist struggle as possible overflows.

Fire and death to the spectator, the scavenger, the martyr and the vulture.

Freedom for all those who remain convinced, true and courageous against domination!

Freedom for anarchist, subversive and mapuche prisoners!

We dare to create the forbidden!

Make ideas a real threat!

Freedom for Aldo and Lucas Hernández!

February 2025.

via:informativoanarquista

Translated by Act for freedom now!

https://abolitionmedia.noblogs.org/?p=17516

Mapuche Nation. 100 Years of Punishment for a Young Weichafe: Another Revenge of the Chilean State

Pelentaro Llaitul, my son, is being prosecuted for a series of events that are part of what is the territorial and political claim carried out by the Mapuche Nation people.

His trial, which is currently in the process of preparation, begins in June 2025 after more than 2 years of preventive detention, a case where we are once again in the presence of a judicial process full of racism, prejudice and bias with implications of political persecution. It is undoubtedly a trial that demonstrates once again the position of the Chilean State, the oppressive Chilean institutionality, against the process of struggle carried out by the Coordinadora Arauco Malleco, the CAM.

It is the so-called “Lautaro Case”, of resistance actions against the forestry industry in which several militants of the Mapuche cause, including my son, are artificially involved. A case where a new situation of improper process is already observed, since this judicial case together with the presence of protected witnesses, the lack of concrete and scientific evidence, adds the argumentative fallacy on the part of the prosecution, which indicates that the pu peñi (brothers) were arrested in flagrante delicto, in circumstances that they were arrested many kilometers away from the scene of the events and in an area where another process is taking place of territorial recovery, and where there is a strong ascendant militant insertion of each of them in that Mapuche Nagche territory.

For this reason, the procedural situation is complex and unfair. First, because one of the weichafe prosecuted is my son, which shows a kind of cruelty against my children for the role I have been playing in the autonomy struggle. And on the other hand, the contribution and meaning that the Mapuche youth have had in the concrete struggle. Certainly, Pelentaro’s participation in the Mapuche cause has been very significant not only because of his selfless dedication that gives new energy and freshness to the liberation process, but also because throughout his life, his participation has to be an example for young weichafe to follow.

Pelentaro Llaitul, is one of my youngest sons, he has a lifetime of being involved in the struggle for the historic territorial and political claims of our organization. From a very young age he has participated in this process, becoming at a very early age, an outstanding militant of the Mapuche cause. Fulfilling very specific roles within what is our world and the culture of our people, what are the socio-political and cultural implications of the communities in reconstitution, the lof, and in the Mapuche autonomist and revolutionary movement in general. Thus he became purrufe, curiche, palife and an outstanding weichafe. It is in this framework of outstanding cultural and political participation that he had to fulfill a very important function in the organization, which earned him hatred and persecution by our historical enemies, today represented by the forestry companies and the fascists who attack Wallmapu.

We are in the presence of a new act of directed political persecution and that today is part of a political decision on the part of this specific government, an action of revenge and cruelty against Pelentaro, because beyond being my son, the State intends to achieve a mockery of the new generations of fighters.

With this action, the Chilean State portrays itself as giving an account of the de facto repressive and punitive action against the Mapuche that is applied by the current administrators of justice in Chile, by the current ruling political class and that is carried out by the courts that have historically acted in a racist and intolerant way against our people. This is the reason that explains the bitterness that is reflected and translated into the Lautaro Case where the prosecution is asking for 70 years in prison and this government of Gabriel Boric is requesting 100 years in prison against Pelentaro via complaint. Moreover, aggravating the situation and not satisfied with the above, my son is being formalized again for another cause, in which he also risks many years of political imprisonment, in circumstances that at that time he was a minor.

It is for this reason that we can affirm without fear of equivocation that we are in the presence of an emblematic act of political persecution, where this government in particular wants to install an example of derision and teaching against one of the most consistent Mapuche youth. With this action, the current government contradicts the entire supposed position of human rights and justice for the Mapuche that it shouts so much and that is reflected in absurd peace commissions, revealing the true position towards the native peoples, which is to repress the resistance of the communities at all costs.

Without a doubt, we are in the presence of a new action that portrays this government in its most racist, intolerant and punitive facet that has been seen in recent decades, and which currently has more than 100 Mapuche political prisoners in Chilean state prisons. Because, discrimination and political persecution against the Mapuche who are willing to fight for territorial and historical political claims are and will be repressed without contemplation to safeguard the interests of the powerful.

I am currently a prisoner in a Chilean state prison, but I must continue to denounce injustices and from my role as werken of a Mapuche autonomist organization that is still in force. Especially because this case, in which my son and other young weichafe have been involved, has not had the proper media coverage, which has allowed there to be abuse on the part of the Prosecutor’s Office and the courts, and where due process is imposed in all its magnitude.

Another reason for making this specific denunciation, and which obliges me to disseminate it in the alternative and foreign media, is because the official press, the bourgeois press, covers the facts in a tendentious and malicious way, creating the conditions for the racist action of the oppressive institutions and where the courts and the political police of the State have not only criminalized our struggle but also mount operations and are vicious against the most outstanding weichafe of our people.

It is in this framework that we extend the denunciation against the media that are supposedly alternative and that were pro-Mapuche cause, and that soon ended up selling themselves to power, that were not only co-opted by the current governance as is the case of the newspaper El Ciudadano, El Mostrador, The Clinic who are accomplices with their silence or omission of these dirty intelligence operations. Because only in this way can it be understood why they do not cover or make these cases invisible and only cover supposed demands that are framed in lowly and submissive positions. It is, in the final analysis, a pseudo-progressive press at the service of the model of injustices.

Finally, we continue to reaffirm the profound significance of our struggle in recent times, and where, given the achievements of the autonomist movement, the contradictions between the Mapuche people and the Chilean State have become more acute. Because our struggle has positioned itself in anti-capitalist and anti-colonial definitions that have mostly clearly confronted the interests of big capital. The struggle for territory and freedom does not compromise. It is in this context that there is greater repression on the part of the current government, and that generates the conditions for a new fascist offensive of the Chilean right that is already attacking with great force in historic Wallmapu.

Finally, and a not insignificant piece of information at the last minute, my son Pelentaro Llaitul is currently awaiting the trial, which was set for 39 days from June 24. And that one of the judges that the court ordered for the drafting of the sentence in that process, is Judge Jorge González Salazar, the same one who convicted me without evidence in a case that is currently in international headquarters for various violations of rights that occurred in the process. In principle, this judge had not been appointed, however, a day after the court was formed, one of the 3 judges was changed to leave González Salazar, a recognized anti-Mapuche. It should also be remembered that this judge was the same one who convicted several Mapuche leaders as in the Lonkos Case, for which the Chilean State was condemned internationally due to the way in which Mapuche social protest was criminalized. This new fact clearly illustrates how justice works in the ancestral territory. A justice system at the service of the powerful and that acts under pressure and mandate from the ruling political class.

For territory and autonomy for the Mapuche Nation !!

Out with the forestry companies from the Wallmapu!!

Weuwaiñ

Héctor Llaitul

(*) This column was published by the French newspaper Les 2 Rives

Resumen Latinoamericano, March 5, 2025

https://abolitionmedia.noblogs.org/?p=17356