INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY CAMPAIGN

April 3, 2025 | Source: International Network in Support of Mapuche Political Prisoners (CAM)
The International Network in Support of Mapuche Political Prisoners (CAM) announces the launch of its International Solidarity Campaign, aimed at raising global awareness of the Mapuche cause and mobilizing support across borders.
Below, we share the full statement:

STATEMENT International Solidarity Campaign

by the International Network in Support of Mapuche Political Prisoners (CAM)

From the International Network in Support of Mapuche Political Prisoners (CAM), we launch an International Solidarity Campaign to expose and denounce the stigmatization, criminalization, and persecution faced by the Mapuche people as a whole, and the Mapuche autonomist movement in particular, at the hands of the Chilean State and its current pseudo-progressive government. This government has now become a puppet of the corporate interests occupying ancestral territory.

We bring the following facts to the attention of the global population:

–Continuation and intensification of the militarization of Wallmapu, the ancestral Mapuche territory.

–Disinformation campaign by media outlets representing the interests of forestry and energy capital, which violate and destroy Ñuke Mapu (Mother Earth) and Ixofillmogen (all forms of life).

–Persecution and criminalization of the dignified struggle of our peñi [brothers], lamngen [sisters], weychafe [warriors], and zomo weychafe [women warriors], affecting their ancestral authorities (machi, lonko, werken), who now face imprisonment in jails where their cultural rights—recognized under ILO Convention 169, the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and the American Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples—are constantly violated.

-The enactment of a new Anti-Terrorism Law (Law 21.732), which repeals Law 18.314 imposed under the military-civil dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. In our view, this law will be arbitrarily applied to militants of the Mapuche cause.

The struggle for the reconstruction of the Mapuche Nation, particularly by autonomist communities and expressions like the CAM, understands that the main problem is the presence and invasion of corporate capital in Wallmapu. The Chilean State, in its most colonial and racist form under the leadership of Gabriel Boric Font (descendant of settlers), is creating conditions to delegitimize and discredit Mapuche resistance before the Chilean people and general public opinion, framing it as «terrorist activity.» This ignores statements such as that made in 2013 by UN Rapporteur Ben Emerson, who emphasized that the Chilean State must resolve a political conflict stemming from historical dispossession and occupation, not terrorism.

However, the Chilean State has increasingly come to represent national and international business interests, intensifying repression and extractivist policies, leading to systematic violations of the human, political, and cultural rights of the Mapuche people.

The recently enacted Anti-Terrorism Law violates the basic principles of Human Rights established internationally for so-called «indigenous and tribal peoples» (ILO Convention 169). Moreover, everything indicates that this is a new tool of persecution, as it does not define what constitutes terrorist conduct—leaving insufficient criteria to the discretion of judges, prosecutors, police, and political authorities—nor does it clearly establish who determines it and under what contexts. This reveals that it is merely another law serving the powerful who maintain the invasion of Wallmapu, criminalizing the legitimate right to resist oppression.

The current Anti-Terrorism Law is a new instrument of «state terrorism», designed to sow fear and uncertainty in communities and expressions of struggle at all levels, as well as among local, national, and international organizations standing in solidarity with the injustices faced by the Mapuche people.

The actions of colonialism and racism are represented by the majority of the Chilean political class—puppets of private capital—and are applied throughout the ancestral territory, Gulumapu and Puelmapu, where the occupation by the colonialist Argentine State is under a government that serves not only the interests of transnational capital but also acts as a lackey of the Zionist entity occupying Palestinian territory, making it complicit in genocide. In this regard, we affirm that Wallmapu is one, from ocean to ocean, and its struggle moves toward unity, defending: the Kümun (Knowledge) and the Rakizuam (Thought), the Feyentun (Spirituality) and Ixofillmogen (All forms of life), the Weychan (Struggle). This is a movement toward the reconstruction of the ancestral social and political fabric of the Mapuche people.

For this reason, we consider it urgent and necessary to call upon all expressions of resistance, communities in struggle, and supportive organizations at the local, national, and international levels to join an International Denunciation Campaign from April 1 to 20, 2025, with the goal of exposing the repressive strategy and political persecution of the current Chilean government. This government continues and deepens the criminalization, militarization, and political-ideological persecution, leading to an increase in the number of Mapuche political prisoners (over 100 at this moment) and applying the State Security Law against a historic leader of the CAM.

FOR THE FREEDOM OF ALL MAPUCHE POLITICAL PRISONERS OF THE CAM!

AMULEPE TAIÑ WEICHAN! [OUR STRUGGLE CONTINUES!]

MARRICHIWEU! [TEN TIMES WE SHALL OVERCOME!]

Follow and support the campaign on the social media of The International Support Network for the PPM CAM: Facebook and Instagram

Translated by: Claudio Ekdahl / Spanish text