UNPO Statement on the Human Rights of the Mapuche and the Current Hunger Strikes

The Hague, 18 August 2010 – The Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization (UNPO) have become deeply concerned with the plight of 31 Mapuche detainees who have now entered the fifth week of their hunger strike.

The UNPO echoes the condemnation leveled at the Chilean government and judiciary by Mapuche human rights organizations for their handling of Mapuche grievances. Reports of paid witnesses, show trials, military courts, the highly inequitable anti-terrorism law which stifles Mapuche civil rights and the recent shocking hunger strikes of political prisoners have only intensified international concerns about disregard shown to the rights of the indigenous Mapuche people.

UNPO General Secretary Marino Busdachin stated that the recent events in Chile ‘are distressing violations of the rights of the Mapuche people that exposes the limited changes in Chile from the Pinochet era – the hunger strikers are desperate to stand for their rights.’

The UNPO therefore calls on the Chilean Government to negotiate an end to the hunger strike without delay, to ensure the wellbeing of the hunger strikers, and to begin addressing the serious shortcomings in Chilean justice and human rights that led so many people to take such drastic action.

The lessons of past centuries in the oppression and desecration of indigenous lands should have already been learned, the UNPO expressly see actions of this sort whereby the indigenous Mapuche people are targeted as evidence of state’s disregard for human rights. The continuation of the anti-terrorism legislation only legalises these civil rights injustices and its abolition is central to any improvement in the Mapuche situation.

Mr. Busdachin expressed his hope that the Chilean government and its judiciary will reform their treatment of the Mapuche and immediately free the hunger strikers or give them fair trials absent from paid witnesses and fabricated accusation.

The UNPO urges the Chilean government to make an immediate change in their stance on the issues regarding the Mapuche. It should be noted that the central role as the State Authority of Chile is to provide the people of the nation with protection, of their person and their rights. Chile has failed in this instance to do this.

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Office of the General Secretary
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