Chileans Remember the Murder of Camilo Catrillanca

On Monday, the Chilean military police repressed the acts of commemoration carried out for the fourth anniversary of the murder of the Mapuche community member Camilo Catrillanca.

RELATED:

Chilean President: Plan to Restitute Lands Claimed by Mapuche

In Santiago and other cities, citizens held marches and rallies to remember the Indigenous leader who was assassinated in 2018 during the government of President Sebastian Piñera.

"The Mapuche community member Camilo Catrillanca was murdered by a Carabinero. This crime was covered up by other police officers, who also attacked a teenager who was accompanying him," the Chilean Human Rights Institute said.

"Camilo was killed while trying to protect a teenager on a tractor. On Nov. 14, 2018, he was shot in the back and head by members of the Special Police Operations Group (GOPE) and the Jungle Command," recalled Minga, a journalist from El Ciudadano.

The tweet reads, "Did you see this? In Chile it seems impossible to march. It is 76 seconds of an attempted march in commemoration of Camilo Catrillanca, who was killed in the Temucucui Mapuche community during a Carabineros attack in 2018. Look carefully at the patience the protesters had ."

Catrillanca's murder shocked the country when videos of police operations were discovered that left no room for doubt about what happened. The then General Hermes Soto and other policemen were involved in the concealment of this and other evidence.

This crime was committed after the Piñera administration was unable to successfully execute the Hurricane and Andes operations, which were directed against the Mapuche Indians who have resisted the Chilean State for centuries in the south of this South American country.

In January 2021, the Chilean Justice sentenced military policeman Carlos Alarcon to 11 years in prison for murdering Catrillanca. Six other police officers and a lawyer who intervened in the cover-up of the crime were also prosecuted.