Over the past weeks Chilean police and government were forced to acknowledge a new upsurge of militant demonstrations, actions of agitation and propaganda and acts of sabotage in support of the struggle of the Mapuche people. So much so that, despite a massive police operation code-named “Hurricane”, the government was once again forced to acknowledge some of the demands raised.
The fight of the Mapuche people is a constant thorn in the flesh of the Chilean government and the big landowners. In the futile attempt to appease the latter and considering the elections close at hand, the current Chilean government under president Bechelet in September ordered yet another massive police operation against the Mapuche people, especially targeting leaders of the movement. This attack however happened on the backdrop of the increasingly intensifying struggle waged by several political prisoners of the Mapuche that are on hunger-strike since June, denouncing their unlawful detention without any cause, their ongoing imprisonment without trail and the application of anti-terrorist laws, in place since the Pinochet Regime.
Faced with their struggle and the solidarity from outside the prisons, various electoral candidates tried to score points with the big landowner by promising more repression or a broadening of the police’s intelligence network in order to better isolate and capture “terrorists”. The government’s assault on the people, code-named "Operation Hurricane", however horribly backfired. Despite the rise of unlawful arrests, raids, evictions and torture the police and military were unable to subdue the revolutionary struggle. Hundreds of marches, barricades and acts of sabotage were carried out in the last weeks alone. More than 20 trucks belonging to big landowners or foreign capital were torched (a great signal of solidarity with the imprisoned because this was what they were charged for in the first place).
With the increasing ferociousness, the struggles were soon to overshadow the electoral theater and to further unmask the (already more then obvious) duplicity of the electoral candidates and their parties. Hence, now the charges on the grounds of terrorism were stopped, which is a victory for the movement, and several politicians were even forced do denounce those laws and the arrests made during the police operation. However, this nothing else but the very same duplicity and although a temporary victory was won, they reaction will not hesitate to use the very same methods the moment it has the chance to. Besides that, the struggles have once again shown, that the demands of the people are enforced not by petitions or in the elections but in the actions of the people and in joint work with the revolutionary forces.
