Chile’s Comando Jungla: An agent of racism

Content Warning: Police Brutality
In November of 2018, a young Mapuche man was driving his tractor when he was involved in an ‘exchange’ of gunfire, which later turned out to be just the police firing at the young man, killing him, in an all too familiar case of police brutality.  The police claimed he ‘fit a description’ and were ‘acting in self defense.’  The man was found to be unarmed, contrary to the police departments claims. This case added to the long and complicated history between the police the Mapuche, inciting protests against the injustice experienced by the Mapuche people at the hands of the police.  Piñera, the right-wing Chilean president, after pressure from protesters following the November 2018 case, made a statement about new leadership and conflict resolution, but the Mapuche people know they are empty words.
These types of protests, demonstrations, and riots by the Mapuche are cited as the reason a comando jungla, in addition to the normal police force, is necessary on their lands under the pretense of combating terrorism.  The action was enabled by the terrorism Law 18.314 written into the constitution during the Chilean dictatorship, that is still in place today, intending to silence political opposition with little regard for the due process of law to consolidate Pinochet’s power.  Trained in the U.S. and Colombia starting in 2007, the special force was deployed to the region that contains the Mapuche ancestral lands, the epicenter of the activism that is actively fighting for land rights and autonomy for their people.  The state has used police force as a social control born out of explicit racism against the Mapuche. These actions and policies are part of the larger agenda to erase indigenous culture and subjugate indigenous people into the western hierarchy to benefit the neoliberal machine of the elite.