Héctor Llaitul, the leader of one of the main violent organizations that operates in the Chilean Araucanía, the Arauco Malleco Coordinator (CAM), has been arrested this Wednesday. Llaitul is responsible for dozens of attacks in the area since 1997. According to the Prosecutor’s Office, the arrest occurred for a cause that began in 2020, after a complaint by the Government of Sebastián Piñera for three crimes contemplated in the Security Law of the State. The arrest of Llaitul has been carried out by the police in the town of Cañete following an order from the Temuco Guarantee Court, the regional capital, where the 54-year-old Mapuche has already been transferred, according to the Arauco provincial delegate, Humberto Toro. . The arrest occurred after Llaitul raised the tone of his public threats since the leftist government of Gabriel Boric took office in March, an administration that came to power with the promise of not invoking the State Security Law in the control of the conflict. and to demilitarize the area. La Moneda, however, at the end of July decided to expand the existing complaints against the head of the CAM and, beforehand, to continue counting on the military to try to control the violence.
Llaitul’s arrest has occurred 11 days before the plebiscite for a new Constitution. The region of La Araucanía, the epicenter of the conflict over ancestral lands, was one of the areas of the country that most supported the extreme right-wing candidate José Antonio Kast in the second presidential round against Boric: 60.14% against 39.86%. Currently, this region of the country is about to reject a new Constitution, 54% against 32%, according to a recent UDD Citizen Panel survey, published before the period that prohibits the publication of new opinion studies. With the issue of public security as the main priority for citizens – an issue that Boric has said he understands – Llaitul’s arrest comes when the Ministry of the Interior is facing serious problems. In a likely Cabinet change, which would take place after the September 4 referendum, the departure of Minister Izkia Siches from the portfolio in charge of crime control is likely.
Boric’s government has had problems managing the conflict in La Araucanía and other surrounding regions, a permanent challenge from the Chilean state for at least 25 years. In her first hours in office, Minister Siches undertook a trip to the area and her entourage was the victim of an attack on a Mapuche community. This incident, among other issues, led to the resignation of Mapuche constitutionalist Salvador Millaleo, Siches’s main adviser on these matters, who had opposed the frustrated trip. It has been an Administration that has tried to change the policy in La Araucanía and favor dialogue. When Llaiutul in May made a call to “organize armed resistance” after the government decided on a “limited” constitutional state of exception in the area, La Moneda decided not to sue for the State Security Law. “Our government does not pursue ideas or statements,” explained the president. It was repeated by important ministers, such as Giorgio Jackson. Since then, the Executive and the Prosecutor’s Office entered into an escalation of tension, because the Public Ministry – autonomous in nature – cannot investigate any crime that is described in this law, unless the Executive files a complaint or a complaint. With the extension of the existing complaints against Llaitul at the end of July, the Government urged prosecutors to act and prosecute the crimes against the CAM leader, who has publicly pushed to commit crimes and has even confessed participation.
President Boric himself has recognized the difficulty in dealing with the conflict that this Administration defines as “between the Chilean State and the Mapuche people.” He has justified, in turn, changes of opinion on issues such as the implementation of the state of emergency, because the level of violence in the area makes it impossible to control it with police alone, the president said in an interview with a television channel on Sunday. .
The 2020 complaint against Llaitul that allows his arrest was filed by the former mayor of La Araucanía, Víctor Manoli. “We believe that the facts reported in this complaint carry a message to destroy, disable, paralyze, damage or interrupt productive activities such as forestry, along with producing and communicating fear and violence, not only to those who work in that area, but that in addition to the inhabitants of the areas where these activities are carried out and are related to them, in the region of La Araucanía”, indicates the complaint from two years ago.
The exacerbation of the conflict occurs precisely when part of the indigenous world has opted for an institutional path to respond to its historical demands: participation in the constitutional convention that drafted the proposal for a new Constitution that will be plebiscited on September 4. It is a process that, however, Llautil and the CAM view from a distance.
Boric’s government has not yet issued a statement about the arrest.
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