FEATURE: The daughter of Mendoza Case (Text and Photos: Roberto Farias)
Never a lonco opens your privacy. But we know their children. That tremble as he spoke. Are suspicious. Resentful. Draw fights. But begging the hill and ask permission to river. Mapuche are under 16 that leaves the conflict: children injured, tight, turned to his own world of magic and warrior. Away from Chile.
The teenager Vania
Queipul start a cinnamon leaf to the center of Nguillatún in prison in Angola, the dip in a bowl and sprinkle liquor muday ground praying aloud: "Ray wenu Fuza, wenu ray Kuze, Fachi ANTV , mulepain tufamu luktulein putu ... (father aged, elderly mother who art in heaven and throughout the universe.) FIMI me inche Furre nor peñi Kume, or pu chau, or che pu or pu Weni (health ask you for my brother, my father, my people, my friends).
Vania has 16 years and is the daughter of Victor Queipul, the lonco Temucuicui community, "harsh", with communities Rekem Pillán and Joseph Guiñón, those Mapuche south of the river Malleco that persisted 10 days in the hunger strike and did not want to be discharged by a physician, but a machi. They ended their protest, not signing a paper with the government, such as Conception strikers, but with a prayer. Vania
grew up going to jail of Angol and Temuco to visit his father and uncles. Now came to pray for his brother, Victor Hugo, 21, who spent 80 days on hunger strike. It looks like a child machi with its silver ornaments on the head and chest. One would think that is somewhat forced, I would like to be somewhere else, listening Hannah Montana, tucked into Facebook or perhaps why. But Vania kneels with a serious and profound gesture, and we are tears when he prayed aloud. Again and again. Many times. Vania and about two dozen Mapuche children and adolescents, according to unofficial estimates, interrogated, prosecuted, imprisoned, including refugees, are the collateral damage of the Mapuche conflict.
Children without childhood. Serious, suspicious, which are impregnated with an adult warrior spirit. In Nguillatún, friends of Vania cinnamon revolve around in jeans and turtleneck. She dresses and carries chamal head is the daughter of lonco and should lead by example. And see him leading pasta. Its friends say he will be werken (spokesperson), which will be Lonca someday. "I can not evade my responsibility, but do not know," says Vanya.
I ask naively if you prefer to be an ordinary girl and makes a face of interrogation.
"Everything is one thing for the Mapuche," he says with conviction.
's dress, traditions, the struggle. I was born Mapuche cause my people come to me from the factory.
His family fight for territory forever. Before killed. But since the end of "pacification" in 1881, according to count family, grandparents, grandparents and parents Queipul have been tried and imprisoned. In fact, Vania and went to "fight" was in jail one night and won a trial in the Court of Temuco. Last year, Vania and another girl were charged with breaking the windows of the Office of Collipulli. He was handcuffed in a jail of Angol. In a trial that lasted 9 months was found not guilty at first instance. But the attorney César Chaban-the only witness to the cause and appealed and went to the Court of Appeals. Vania won again, defended by lawyer Karina Riquelme. The prosecution lost in court costs, two and a half million pesos. Replenishment window glass, as records show, totaled 72,000 pesos. The lonco says: "Tell me if this is not a pursuit of my daughter. But she is innocent, he won the trial, the first of many likely to face lawsuits on behalf of their community. "Everything was to be the daughter of lonco" says Vanya. But what we have to do, I'll do it. I will not stop. How do you get to that conviction at age 16?
Condor Learning
Mankilef (Condor fast) is 5 years old, and her older sister, Wangulén (Star), 7. Temucuicui live in, many miles of a court. Do not know what a clown, have never been to the cinema or have gone to a game mechanic. Manki plays with plastic toy cars yWangulén jump with a piece of hose. Play in your yard to get caught, but he called paco-Mapuche. Have fun collecting soil tear gas caps, cry when listening to radio news about the Mapuche.
know perfectly permanent checkpoints police in the hills around the community. His parents, Jaime and Griselda Huenchullán Calhueque, no land, just a few cows in a plot in a forest that gave CONADI. The daily sent to the Basic School San Francisco de Assisi, Ercilla-la same school where he studied Vania ", 10 km away, to remove some of the environment as police. When James says goodbye to them in front of the municipal van that takes him to the hill and asks for permission to instruct the cinnamon tree planted in front of your house and bring them back like a party. In the school of Ercilla, Manki is a normal child. Franciscan Sister Isabel Monk, director of the school, lets you use long hair. "Out of respect for their customs," he says, quite resigned to the firm decision of their parents. "But peinadito come," says cariñosamente.Wangulén taken can go with traditional and silver ornaments, rather than uniform.
Isabel is the school to be a bubble for students. "This is a 100% normal school," he says, but knows that is not true. With their poverty with dignity, what little they have is invested for a year in a psychologist to help children in communities in conflict. "Whenever there are problems, low attendance. Then there is the tense for several days. Who went to jail, who was injured, they ask unruly children. By
coexistence drawings and exercises, the psychologist diagnosed children. According to Isabel Monje, there are critical cases: "These are children who have problems with attention, concentration, lack permanent presence of the agents, which are processed or are sought. To address school situations using language that is more typical of the conflict: paco, search, summons, witness historical memory.
The psychologist tries to return them to their children's world, but it is very difficult with only two sessions a week for 100 students. We make an example with an aunt. -Manki draw very well, "she says. At once he draws a picture of Mapuche with spears and crooked on one side and, on the other, police fired tear gas and helicopters overhead. He draws very tiny, hidden in the hut of the community.
- What do you think when you're there, Manki? He asks the aunt.
-In doing the work.
- Really? He asks incredulously.
-No. In fact, my dad.
- Where is your dad in the picture, Manki?
"Here," and indicates to the Mapuche people armed with spears and clubs face the police.
In Ercilla, if a policeman sees Manki and aiming at the fingers like gun. If you see a fancy car in the ramshackle village,
question
- Is it a tax?
is not hate. To Manki is a game.
The gap is becoming increasingly tenuous. In such a hostile environment, it is very difficult for the head monk to keep the conflict out of the classroom. A tip of persistence, it is usually done. Recently, two children aged 10 and 12 years for the Mapuche New Year, on the afternoon of 22 June, threw stones at cars on Route 5. Police arrived and took them to the police station. According to them, advised them on their behavior. Sister Isabel went to look and left the field at 5 pm. At 6 was facing one of the mothers prepared to make a complaint "by police violence." At half past six was calling the prefect. At seven, the regional mayor. The Special Forces were preparing for the brawl when Sister Elizabeth stood among them and remained calm on all sides. Before the fire broke out.
But not all principals and teachers advocate for children. The inspector and the director of the Liceo de Collipulli, whose officials have denied an interview with Paula testified against Vania Queipul when it was arrested by broken glass. According to his lawyer, Karina Riquelme when he returned to school Vania they put a special inspector to watch her at recess, tells Vanya. The PDI was at least five times to withdraw from high school to question him or her to sign documents. He lowered his notes. Of the 20 citations missed many classes because the trip to Temuco, between going and return, within three days. Vania
no longer wanted to keep going, but there is no other place nearby.
In April, two brothers aged 7 and 8 were taken from their rooms by civilians and questioned about their parents in the school of Muco, 50 km de Ercilla. In a ruling unprecedented in Chile, the lawyer Pablo Ortega won that police and PDI did not enter most of the area schools to collect information Mapuche children, because they violate the Convention on the Rights of the Child. In a statement, police said they "were activities in the framework of education of police activity towards children." The Court, however, established that such "policing" were undercover interrogation and ruled that the police entry "nonspecific" basic schools violates the Convention. Two months later, the Police Special Forces in combat uniform, returned to school entry: "Supposedly it was to monitor a adjacent property. Some carabiners, with soft toys and pencils, simulating a game, questioned two children 6 and 7 years on their family, "says Eduardo Mella, a researcher working with Mapuche issue Ortega.
Mapuche In another sector, the community José Guiñón, the werken José Necul not let their children photographed, YME said: "I do not want them to be associated with this. I get them, protect them and send them elsewhere. But where, how? -. Where friends and relatives is the same. In all communities around Ercilla-Angol Malleco rubbing police Mapuche is permanent. The conflict has a fuse so short, that when it explodes, no arson attacks, are the raids and children are at the mercy of tear gas to be getting in their faces and their spirits. Not the same again.
Pilar Macía The English lawyer, who collaborated with UNICEF and Save The Children, said these cases, "Once" adultizado "a child, military or political conflict, it is very difficult to return to a childhood without interference which should be the greater good of humanity. There is a guiding principle of justice, and equal before the law, called the child's best interest, which is to protect children the most of the trouble in courts and police procedures. What is the highest good? "Your right to live their childhood without changes," said Macia. According to her, in Chile applies a justice process which is already a punishment for adults. "In the case of minors, harm a child. Without tact and verbal and psychological violence. Null and judicial outcomes, "he says. "I see it very similar to the case of Palestinian children," says José Necul while watching his nephews by a campfire where marshmallows but not burn the spearheads of toy. If you live permanently in the violence, what can you expect from them but more violence?.
The invisible child
Queipul
Patricio, who grew up with Vanya, is the son of lonco false. Is 15 and from 9 has been interrogated, beaten, arrested, tried and shot, until he fled. Since October last year clandestine lives in a tent, as a guerrilla in the remote forests of the coastal mountains south of the river Malleco. Carabineros and PDI have made at least five raids and did not find him a clue. Al lonco not take a word or a gesture that betrays his hiding place, because this lonco tough but good-hearted, it looks like a child.
Vania
going to see and brings her food when you can. Patrick is one of the children's religious community. Of those who ask permission before crossing the river river. Of taking a piece of cinnamon and pray in Mapudungun. We try to go one morning to his refuge in the mountains, but aborted the mission due to lack of security. A few months ago, attorney Fernando Lira, founder of the NGO Free,
, which protects children and there is only two years ago did manage to talk to Patrick last April in his tent, with a teapot and a bonfire .
Lira says that sometimes, Patricio low to a nearby community to be your turn, like a child wandering around invisible, covered and disguised. No one can see, nobody can recognize. Lira recorded a moving video where Patrick, his eyes still fresh, said: "I have not had children. I could never play, I do not know what being a child. I did not choose this life, starting to walk. So I hope that the State did not pursue more children, not to mind what has happened to me.
studied with Vania in the same school of Ercilla, but he came up to 4 th grade. The nun remembered as a quiet child, with much love for the countryside, very quiet, very quiet. After being questioned several times on the way civilian school, stopped going. Then he was wounded in his right arm shot Special Forces in an eviction of the farm La Romana. "If before I shot, now what is left," asks Patrick, "kill me?
In 2007 he was prosecuted for theft of animals and subsequently acquitted. When fire was allegedly pursued by the toll of Victoria, along with seven other masked, risking up to 40 years in prison for Anti-Terrorism Act. Do not resist and went into hiding, like a little Che Guevara, under the protection of the spirit of the forest, the owner of the river, whom Patrick is entrusted every morning.
The lonco took his case to Unicef, where the representative to Chile, Gar Stahl, promised to present it at the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. Now that the strike did not prosecute minors for Terrorism Law, the expected lonco Patrick can down the hill and be visible again. Relive the leftovers from his childhood, along with Vania, Manki and the other children.
Release
The group claims that Fernando Lira is not a lawyer, who does not know the whereabouts of Patrick Queipul and did not record any video of the child mentioned, Marta War as a journalist conducted the interview and makes use of the confidentiality of the source.
This video was made by Martha M. Guerra, journalist. In this interview, young Patrick Queipul talks about his decision to go underground, where he lives for six months in the mountains of Region IX.
SOURCE: REVISTA PAULA
Twelve 
