Chile Mapuche Leader Jailed For Attacks On Police, Loggers

May 7, 2024

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A court in Chile on Tuesday sentenced Mapuche activist leader Hector Llaitul to 23 years in prisons for attacks against police and forestry companies in his campaign to reclaim Indigenous land.

The court in the city of Temuco in the country's south gave Llaitul a 15-year prison term for violating security laws, another five years for theft and three for assault. The sentences will be served consecutively.

The Mapuche, Chile's largest Indigenous group, has been accused of committing a series of arson attacks in their fight for restitution of ancestral land in the southern Araucania, Biobio and Los Rios regions.

They have been accused by the government of "terrorism" in their targeting of property owned by logging companies, which have prompted the deployment of troops in the region.

Llaitul, 56, has been held for almost two years in a prison in Concepcion. He was convicted in April.

Llaitul is the founder and leader of Coordinadora Arauco Malleco (CAM), considered a criminal organization by the authorities.

In the late 1990s, the CAM began a campaign against forestry companies through sabotage and burning of machinery and houses.

Its members have forcibly occupied a number of private properties and clashed with police.

Ahead of Tuesday's sentencing, authorities increased the security alert for Araucania.

Soon after taking office in March 2022, President Gabriel Boric doubled the budget to buy land to be handed to the Mapuche, a practice that had been suspended under his conservative predecessor Sebastian Pinera.

He also called for dialogue.

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