The Chilean Prosecutor General will investigate Colombia’s allegations that members of the Coordinadora Arauco-Malleco (CAM), an organization which seeks land rights for the Mapuche indigenous group, received military training in FARC camps.
Colombia’s Prosecutor General’s Office handed its Chilean counterpart a 200 page dossier, which allegedly contains evidence, including former guerrilla and analyst intelligence testimony as well as photos, of CAM presence at a FARC camp run by now-deceased FARC leader “Raul Reyes” in a mountain range in northern Ecuador.
A Chilean prosecutor, Sergio Moya, said that Colombia claims that files found on Raul Reyes’ computer – which was seized in a 2008 Colombian army raid on the Ecuador FARC camp, in which the guerrilla leader was killed – link CAM members to the FARC.
Aucan Huilcaman, a Mapuche indigenous leader, denied any links between his people and the FARC, saying that “the Mapuche do not need the FARC nor anything else to maintain their legitimate fight for the reclaiming of their land and self-determination.”
According to Huilcaman, the accusations are part of a plan by Chilean President Sebastian Piñera’s administration to “Colombianize the region and bring a United States strategy here to the Mapuche territory.”
The Mapuche people want ownership of land they consider to be ancestral, which is presently under private ownership. The land is located in the La Araucania region, 650 kilometers south of the Chilean capital Santiago. There are frequent clashes between the Mapuche and local authorities.
A Colombian police investigator on Thursday admitted to manipulating evidence recovered from the computers of FARC leader “Raul Reyes.”
