Saturday, October 10, 2009 1:00pm - 4:00pm Federation Square Melbourne - City

We invite all you to join us in support and solidarity to the indigenous Mapuches of Chile and Rally beside them for their freedom and justice movement.
The Mapuches are holding a national rally in Chile on the 12/10/2009.

During the past eight years the level of violence and repression from the Chilean Government towards the Mapuches movement has risen.
The Mapuche Nation have bravely resisted continuous attempts by first the Spanish Colonisers and later the Chilean and Argentinean States to claim their territory and the resources therein aiming to neutralise Mapuche culture and identity by applying a strategy of assimilation.
The subsequent effects upon the Mapuche, human and territorial rights, culture and identity are catastrophic. It appears that the Chilean State will stop at nothing in the pursuit of attaining and securing such resources including the murder and violation of Mapuche people their human rights and fundamental freedoms.
To date there are 37 Mapuche political prisoners in detention in Chile, among them many Mapuche Lonkos (ancestral authorities) and their families. All Mapuche political prisoners were sentenced for protesting against the illicit plunder and occupation of their ancestral lands using the application of State anti-terrorist law, initially introduced under the Pinochet dictatorship but today applied solely against those Mapuche who refuse to comply with the Chilean government’s agenda for the illegal development and expansion of the capitalist state.

Jaime Mendoza Collio is the sixth young Mapuche man in as many years to be killed by state military police. In 2008 police murdered 23-year-old Matías Catrileo and Johnny Cariqueo, aged 23 ; In 2007 they murdered Rodrigo Cisternas ; In 2006 Juan Collihuín Catril, aged 71, was murdered and in 2003 Alex Lemun, aged 17, was also murdered. In 2005 16 year old, José Huenante disappeared without trace whilst held in detention by Chilean police .

YOUR SUPPORT COUNTS !
no matter what back ground you come from ! Your Support counts. Its basic human rights.
Patchy Abarzua

Supoorted by : Chilean Popular & Indigenous Solidarity Network and Latin American Solidarity Network (LASNET)