International Solidarity with Mapuche Media

Several Mapuche communities in the Lleu Lleu lake region are coming together to build a radio station as a source of counterinformation that comes from a Mapuche cultural worldview. The Mapuche have been struggling for over 500 years against invasion and colonization. They were not conquered until 1880-1883, when the Chilean state invaded Walmapu in violation of hundreds of years of treaties. Since the 1990s, the Mapuche struggle has intensified with land reclamation actions recovering thousands of acres of land from the logging companies or wealthy landlords who have usurped them.
The Lleu Lleu is one of the cleanest lakes in South America, precisely because it is surrounded by Mapuche communities. An anonymous group of investors is currently looking to start mining in the Lleu Lleu region, endangering the health of all the land that has been won back. Because land transportation is so slow in the region, a radio station would be an especially effective means for coordinating resistance, spreading information, and revitalizing the Mapuche culture. Mapuche resistance has already blocked the construction of a tourist hotel on the banks of the Lleu Lleu, and postponed the initiation of the mining project. Now an unknown consortium of capitalists is again trying to advance the mining project, and the Mapuche in struggle are asking for international solidarity. Click here for more. Click here to donate to the Mapuche.