Much of central Santiago de Chile has been brought to a standstill by protests against the police killing of 24-year-old indigenous Mapuche activist Camilo Catrillanca on November 14. Catrillanca joins Mati谩s Catrileo, Jaime Mendoza Collio, Alex Lem煤n, Jos茅 Huenante and Rodrigo Melinaeo, all young Mapuche men who have been killed by Chilean police or disappeared while in police custody in recent years.
Protesters in Santiago trashed police vehicles and set fire to barricades constructed out of O-bikes, forcing the closure of main streets and three of the city鈥檚 underground Metro stations. In Araucan铆a, where the killing occurred, a church and a school have been burnt down in protest.
According to police, the killing occurred during a gunfight that ensued after police pursued three reportedly stolen cars. However, the story doesn鈥檛 sit well with the fact that Catrillanca was apparently driving a tractor home from his family鈥檚 land when he was killed, at around 5 pm on Wednesday. Catrillanca, moreover, is the grandson of the lonko (indigenous mayor) of nearby Temucuicui and a prominent Mapuche spokeperson in his own right, raising suspicions of an assassination. The conservative government of President Sebasti谩n Pi帽era initially maintained their silence, before backing the police versions of events following the protests.
The shooting has renewed opposition to the militarisation of policing in the historically indigenous province of Araucan铆a in the country鈥檚 south. The policemen responsible were part of a unit known as Jungle Command (鈥楥omando Jungla鈥), a squadron equipped with armoured vehicle, tanks and drones fitted with heat-seeking cameras. According to Chilean press, Jungle Command earned its name following its training in the US and then Colombia, a key US regional ally whose military has a long history of assassinating leftist and indigenous politicians and activists.
Jungle Command was introduced as a military police unit supposedly to respond to Mapuche 鈥渢errorism鈥, particularly the ongoing arson attacks against the forestry industry on land that Mapuche claim should be respected as indigenous territory. However, on the morning of November 15, TV news station Ahora Noticas reported that Jungle Command is now the only police unit operating in Mapuche communities.