Translated in English from original article in Spanish published in Resumen on Nov 21, 2025.
Foreward by Orin Langelle
For nearly two decades, my visits to Chile have revealed a consistent pattern: escalating state violence against the Mapuche people. My last visit was a 2024 investigation organized by Global Justice Ecology Project. We traveled there with the express purpose of speaking with and documenting the stories and experiences of Mapuche People in the Militarized Zone of Wallmapu – their ancestral lands. We visited several Mapuche communities and political prisoners in three separate prisons who described the daily reality of repression inside the Militarized Zone. Today, those patterns have only intensified. Communities in Arauco Province are denouncing the torture of young detainees and the renewed use of Chile’s Anti-Terrorism Law—an instrument long deployed to criminalize Indigenous resistance under the guise of public security.
This Resumen investigation underscores how this law “allows the detention period to be extended without a hearing” and remains part of a “special law amended by the (center-left) Boric administration as part of its security agenda,” a policy framework critics say aims to “curb the legitimate Mapuche struggle, as a legacy of the dictatorship.” Despite campaign promises to demilitarize Wallmapu, the current administration has instead reinforced mechanisms historically used to suppress Indigenous land claims.
This escalation is unfolding just weeks before Chile’s December 12 presidential runoff. The two leading candidates—Jeannette Jara of the Communist Party and far-right contender José Antonio Kast—represent starkly different political paths. Kast currently leads by double digits. His family’s ties to both Nazi Germany and the Pinochet dictatorship deepen fears among Mapuche communities and human-rights observers that a Kast presidency would bring an even more aggressive expansion of state repression in Mapuche territory in southern Chile.
– Orin Langelle, Global Justice Ecology Project / Langelle Photography
Mapuche communities denounce torture and application of Anti-Terrorism Law against Young Detainees in Arauco Province, Chile
WALLMAPU | The Juana Millahual community of Contulmo and the Taiñ Meli Bolil community of Ponotro issued a public statement expressing their support for two Mapuche youths, identified as Mapuche political prisoners, who were detained on Wednesday, November 12, 2025, in a police and military operation.
The detainees are Lientur Pelantaro Millacheo Llanquileo and Jaime Ignacio Huenchuñir Llauquen. Family members and communities denounce that they were tortured and that the new anti-terrorism law passed by the Chilean parliament and government in early 2025 is being unfairly applied to them.
In the statement, the communities denounce a “new repressive onslaught” and accuse the state of promoting “political judicial setups” to criminalize their struggle. In particular, they repudiate and denounce various situations.
Torture and unlawful coercion by the Navy.
According to family members and communities, the navy and police committed acts of torture against the detainees. The communities also denounced “the racist act of the bourgeois press for carrying out an a priori media condemnation” and publicly exposing the identity of the detainees, which they consider a violation of the presumption of innocence.
Application of the Anti-Terrorism Law and Extension of Detention
According to the statement, no arraignment hearing was held because “the government invoked the anti-terrorism law for the first time.”
This action, they point out, “allows the detention period to be extended without a hearing” and is part of a “special law amended by the Boric administration as part of its security agenda,” seeking to “curb the legitimate Mapuche struggle, as a legacy of the dictatorship.”
The communities emphasize that their struggle, which dates back decades in the defense of their territory against Forestal Mininco and Forestal Arauco and mining interests in the Lleu Lleu Lake area, should not be considered terrorism.
You can read the full statement below, which was published after the arrests on November 12.
There is also a video made by the communities about the case:
Public statement.
We, Lob Juana Millahual (Contulmo community) and Taiñ Meli Bolil (Ponotro community), declare the following to domestic and international public opinion:
Kiñe: Lob Juana Millahual has been fighting for decades to reclaim land grabbed by Forestal Mininco. She is one of the first in Arauco to confront forestry interests, large landowners, and later the mining interests that seek to exploit minerals in the region. Together with the communities living on the shores of the lake, for decades they have staunchly defended Lake Lleu Lleu and its itrobil mongen, or living ecosystems.
Epu: In our ongoing struggle, we have suffered persecution, harassment, and a priori prosecution through many political and legal setups driven by this racist and colonial state, which seeks to criminalize and persecute our brave weichafes (fighters) and to exterminate our worthy resistance in defense of our territory against the advance of big capital.
Küla: As part of a new wave of repression against members of our community, the Mapuche political prisoners Lientur Pelantaro Millacheo Llanquileo and Jaime Ignacio Huenchuñir Llauquen, were both arrested in a large-scale police and military operation on Wednesday, November 12, 2025.
We repudiate and denounce their torture and illegitimate coercion by the navy and also condemn the racist conduct of the bourgeois press, which has declared them guilty a priori, violating any right to the presumption of innocence by publicly exposing their faces and identities.
Meli: Yesterday, their arraignment did not take place, as the government for the first time used the anti-terrorism law, which allows it to extend a prisoner’s detention without a hearing. This special law was amended by the Boric administration to reinforce the dictatorship’s security agenda and curb the Mapuche people’s legitimate struggle.
As a community in resistance, we offer our support to Lientur Millacheo and Jaime Huenchuñir and call on the territories in resistance to join us in accompanying the families and detainees at the arraignment in the Cañete Court of Justice, on a date yet to be confirmed.
[signed by] Lientur Pelantaro Millacheo Llanquileo and Jaime Ignacio Huenchuñir Llauquen
Freedom for the Mapuche Political Prisoners.
Truth and justice for Julia Chuñil.
Resistance is not terrorism.
NO more political judicial setups.
NO to mining companies.
NO to the anti-terrorism law.
FREE WALLMAPU!!
