in the morning, plainclothes agents of the Chilean carabineros (Militar Police) arrested the Mapuche journalist,and director of the newspaper Azkintuwe, Pedro Cayuqueo, in the town of Nueva Imperial close to Temuco in the southern part of Chile. The arrest warrant was issued by the surrogate judge of the Court of Traiguén, who had ordered Cayuqueo be jailed for not having paid a fine stipulated in 2003 where he was found guilty of illegal ocupation of land along other mapuches when they were trying to recover land who that belonged to the community of Traiguen. Cayuqueo has been very critical of the Chilean Justice System in which the Chilean government use the anti terrorist law created by former dictator General Pinochet in many land dispute trials against the Mapuche. In those trials where the witness are presented wearing hood in a act called "witness without a face", the Mapuche don't have rights to "play not guilty". Basically they are considered guilty from the beginning of the trials. The jailing of Cayuqueo comes at precisely the moment when he was getting ready to participate in an important meeting of Indigenous communications experts in Vancouver, Canada. The Indigenous Peoples in Chile are not recognize under the constitution. No even important Convention like 169 of International Labor Organization, ILO, has been ratified by the Chilean state. More that ninety percent of the he Mapuche territory have being occupied by the big land owner, logging corporation and non Mapuche individuals. The policy of the President Lagos has been to support corporation control and ignoring the rights of Mapuche People to their traditional territories, and when the Mapuche are demanding the rights they are automatically criminalized and accused under the Anti Terrorist Law. Please write to the Chilean authorities (Listed below) expressing your concern and demanding the immediate release of Pedro Cayuqueo and please, send copies to Azkintuwe :
