[su_label]Column: The Devil’s Advocate[/su_label]
The title of this column is a chant of the Mapuche people from Chile, who are the country’s original inhabitants. Today, it has been adopted all over Chile by activists (Mapuche or otherwise) who defend the valiant Mapuche people against the constant oppression they have endured, first from the Spanish conquistadores and then from the Chilean conquistadores.
On Nov. 14, Camilo Catrillanca, a 24-year-old Mapuche activist was killed by members of a new police force named “Jungle Commando.” He was shot in the head in Temucuicui, a Mapuche community about 370 miles south of Santiago, in what police initially reported as a confrontation with alleged car thieves. That initial report has since been rejected after further revelations.
News of the assassination went viral on social media not only in Chile, but all over the world. Although Indigenous people in Chile have been targeted before, this particular killing ignited a much forceful response from the defenders of the Mapuche people. I was swept into the sadness and indignation created by the assassination.
A few days ago, my dear “compadre” René Castro, a well known artist who lived in the Mission District for a few years who now lives in Chile, shared his thoughts with we. They were different from the letters that we usually exchange. His writing felt like a stream of consciousness addressed to the world, not just to his “compadre.”
The same day, my friend, Jorge Coulon Larrañaga, one of the founders of the famous group “Inti Illimani” posted a poem dedicated to Camilo Catrillanca.
I could have written plenty about Camilo’s murder, but I thought that it was perhaps more interesting to translate and share some of René Castro’s thoughts and Jorge’s poem… which was not an easy task! After all, they live Chile and both allowed me to print their words.
From René Castro:
Trained by the Colombian military, the Chilean “carabineros” (Police forces) continue being in the news, exhibiting the degradation of the Estate apparatus, with the scandals created by their false investigations, or for their robbery of fiscal monies (aka “Paco Gate”), and—topping it all—for lying to the national authorities and to the entire country.
The legitimate questions (to the carabineros) would be: Whom do they serve? Who do they respond to? Or perhaps they only answer directly to God, like the priests and the rest of the political/religious fauna do, positioning themselves beyond good and evil?
The “Jungle Commando” is an invention that aims to engage a non-existent “armed enemy.” That whole invention is connected to the military policies set up under the Obama administration, once the old School of the Americas (formerly located in Panama) was dismantled. That school trained all the pro-coup military leaders of the American subcontinent.
Now, in 2018, the new doctrine is to train military and police forces for what has been named “The Internal Enemy Doctrine.” At least that is what is being secretly sold and financed between The US and various local Latino American governments.
Poem by Jorge Coulon:
I, with my honest gaze. You, shooting me on the back.
I am one who shows his face, never one who honor lacks.
I am Camilo Catrillanca, son and grandson of the earth
I am forest, I am mountain and my rights I will defend!
Look at me! This is my chest! I’ve been peaceful, since my birth!
Come and kill me, face to face! Why the trembling of your hand?
I will fertilize this land with the blood of my smart race!
Come here if you dare and tell me why do you kill!
Who has sharpened that skill? Who is signing the blood checks that have made you a human wreck? Look at me! Why you kill?
I am one with my brave family, with our history and our land!
My shield is my strong heart and a tradition of dignity!
You shoot bullets of ignominy and wear the cloak of a knave, while pretending that you are brave and not a dog without a muzzle!
Can you decipher this puzzle? I am free and you, the slave!
Above, in his crystal palace with its elegant design
an old routine grows new vines: that of a fiscal paradise…
Its intellectual author lurks behind his poisoned rule as he drools like an eager mule awaiting the blood of the prey and those who shoot blindly obey, protecting the wallets of those who rule!
We end with René Castro:
What is really happening is a clash between two antagonistic visions of what we call life: on one side, the relentless fostering of production in the name of progress, a vision defended by the logging and pro-dams national and international forestry corporations, a vision backed by the armed forces of the current Chilean government and by ALL the governments before.
On the other side, there is a vision that defends the value of Nature as a value onto itself, measured by beauty and not money. That vision is held by the Mapuche people as a tradition of what they were, are and will continue being.
These antagonistic visions of the world have neither a military nor an economic solution. The solution is not the installation of anti-rioting police forces in the entire southern Araucanía region, or to financially help the lumber corporations that have changed the forest environment of an entire region… or to return to the original indigenous peoples some kind of territorial ghettos, in the style of the “American” reservations.
What is needed is to understand that two different worlds and visions do exist and that us Chileans have to learn to respect the Mapuche cosmology, as well as the visions of all the other ethnic groups that cohabit in the Chilean habitat.
Is that too difficult to digest, or too difficult to understand? Or difficult to accept? Or is Repression an essential part of Civilization?”
We can clearly see that the struggle of the Mapuche people is also a continental struggle, which is repeated across the entire American Continent from North to South!
To end, we repeat the chant from the title of this column: “Marichiweu! We shall win 10 times!”