The event that marked this Tuesday was the ambush suffered by a group of forestry workers, who were attacked with shots from weapons of war in the commune of Lumaco, Region of La Araucanía, resulting in one of them being killed –Segundo Catril Neculqueo– after receiving a bullet wound to his skull. A day later, his body was removed from the Legal Medical Service of the area, to later be transferred to his home.
Among the members of the caravan was the contractor for the workers attacked in Lumaco, Santo Reinao, who spoke with The counter about the last 48 hours lived in the commune. Regarding the removal of the body, he pointed out that “I saw it totally with great support from the community of the territory. High presence. A large caravan supported from Temuco itself to his house. I think that more than 800 people came to the house of peñi Segundo , that means that the territory is supporting strongly, with encouragement, without taking a step back in this project that we are trying to do as a community of Lake Lleu Lleu”.
The project in which Catril participated is linked to the territorial recovery of the lake – around 25,000 hectares – which seeks to be delivered to 13 Mapuche communities. A project that, according to Reinao, has no detractors within the communities themselves, which is why it points to “criminals” such as those responsible for Tuesday’s attack.
“What there are are some common criminals, like in any part of Chile, who may not agree, let’s say. But they are not communities, they are people,” he said, later adding that “they are a couple of criminals who are linked to drugs and alcoholism, and generally what they don’t like is working and producing neither themselves nor anyone else”.
Santo Reinao affirms that he does not know if they are Mapuche or “huincas”: “I am not sure who it was. I am not part of the investigation. I am not part of the intelligence service, who acted against us. But I think that they were not well-trained Mapuche, that they think for the good of their people. And if they were not the Mapuche, they are huincas infiltrators.”
For him, it is a fact that there are groups in the area that act just like the Colombian cartels: “The government has said on several occasions that there is organized crime in the area and that is what is happening. And that is what happened with Our peñi. They are those people. Therefore, the State has to take charge of carrying out an in-depth investigation, placing the best intelligence services and supporting these types of actions that they carry out, supporting them with the maximum resources and with the maximum capacity. of intelligence that we have in Chile, and also equipping the police so that they can enter the places where they think they have power with weapons”.
Along these lines, he says that the State “has to do its job. The current President is responsible for executing public policies and maintaining public order in Chile. Therefore, we are part of this State, part of Chile, and they have to give us the security to walk calmly on our roads, to walk freely in our bedroom without having to look around, let’s say, that today they are going to attack us or tomorrow they are going to let us pass in peace. the current government today, and whoever it was, let’s say, has to assume that responsibility. A political responsibility”.
It’s not the first attack
Reinao says that this project in which he participates, which seeks to restore land to Mapuche communities located on the shores of Lake Lleu Lleu, began four years ago, during which time the project “has demonstrated its capacity for political, economic and social solvency. And that has a before and after. Today we can evaluate it with a great participation and support of the people who are permanently betting that this project cannot fall, it has to continue working and it will have to come to a good end, with all the support we can give each other, until the State takes over this project, and we can return the land, part of the farm or all, I don’t know how much, from the forestry company to the hands of these communities”.
In these four years, the attack this past Tuesday has not been the only one that has ended with fatalities. Reinao says that, in 2019, Elodia Aguayo (57), mother of Claudio Pilquimán, leader of a Mapuche community in Ranquilhue Chico, also died when unknown persons entered her house. And in fact, Reinao – who was also a candidate for the Constitutional Convention – was attacked in 2021.
“Once they attacked me from behind, they shot me, after I passed in my truck. They have never been able to confront us head-on,” he recalled. The media that year reported that the leader was on his way to his house in the company of his nine-year-old daughter, sitting in the passenger seat, when they were ambushed by three vehicles. A shot was fired from one of them that grazed his daughter. Fortunately, no one was injured in that incident. In the area, a press team from TVNheaded by the journalist Iván Núñez.
“We have had several attacks. These things have been happening gradually and the State has never taken charge of this. But this is one more, of all. They are not going to intimidate us and we will continue with our project,” says Reinao , who sends a message to the groups that have perpetrated these attacks: “A well-born Mapuche is never threatened or intimidated, even when he does not receive a blow from the vague terrorists who are in the area. No Mapuche who wants to retake his identity , his culture, his territory, he is going to do it hooded, he has to do it with his face uncovered”.
