54 deemed that it constituted “terrorist offenses” on the basis that the subjective element of a “terrorist intent” had been proven, whereupon the Anti-Terrorism Act became the applicable law. 190. According to the information available in the case record, the three verdicts of conviction that became final make repeated references to what the judges regarded as the sociopolitics of the Mapuche people and their social protests in Chile’s regions VIII and IX. 191. For example, in the case prosecuted against Aniceto Norín and Pascual Pichún constant allusion was made to the so-called “Mapuche conflict” in order to make the case that the fires and threats under investigation were terrorist acts and to portray the defendants’ terrorist intent as proven fact. Taken together, the conviction that the Angol oral criminal trial court handed down on September 27, 2003, contains various relevant passages that demonstrate that the classification of their conduct as terrorist acts was based in part on the socioeconomic context that the Court regarded as the backdrop against which the facts under investigation took place. 192. Of particular interest is Consideranda 13, where the Court explained why, in its judgment, the crimes of which the defendants were accused were terrorist crimes. In the words of the court, “the crimes herein specified must be viewed against the backdrop of a process of recovering Mapuche lands, in which the perpetrators took direct action, without respecting the legal and institutional order and by recourse to the use of force through measures that were planned, agreed and prepared in advance by radicalized groups that seek to create a climate of insecurity, instability and fear in various sectors of Regions VIII and IX.” The Angol Oral Criminal Trial Court, in referring to this representation of the “Mapuche conflict,” noted that "the purpose is to inspire in people a justified fear of being victims of similar attacks and, thereby, force them to stop developing their properties and abandon them.” 193. To reach this conclusion, the Court relied on statements of the “context witnesses” during the course of the criminal case, witnesses who –the Commission notes- did not testify about the acts carried out specifically by Pascual Pichún or Aniceto Norín; instead, their testimony concerned other crimes or threats of which they had allegedly been victims, reports or subjective assessments of the situation and facts about the economic situation. Indeed, the Court mentioned that these witnesses were aware of threats or attacks on people or property "perpetrated by persons belonging to the Mapuche ethnic group.” Mention was also made of a report in the press that referred to the "number of conflicts caused by mapuche groups through terrorist acts.” 194. Then, in Consideranda 15 of the conviction, the Court listed six considerations, which followed the phase “As for the involvement of the two defendants, the following has to be considered”: (1) it is a “public and notorious fact” that de facto organizations have existed within the area for some time that commit acts of violence or incite violence on the pretext of their territorial claims. Their modus operandi includes various acts of force targeted at the lumber businesses, small- and medium-size farmers, all of whom have one thing in common: they are owners of properties that are adjacent to, neighbor or are nearby indigenous communities that are asserting historical claims to those properties. The purpose of the measures is to reclaim lands that they believe are their ancestral lands. The illegal occupation of those lands is the means to accomplish the most ambitious goal. Through these actions, they believe they will gradually recover a portion of their ancestral territory and thereby strengthen the territorial identity of the Mapuche people”; (2) “[i]t has not been sufficiently established that these acts were caused by persons outside the Mapuche communities, since they are acts clearly intended to create a climate of harassment towards the property owners in the sector, in order to instill fear and get them to accede to their demands. This is the logic of the so-called “Mapuche Problem.” The perpetrators knew the territory they were claiming and no Mapuche community or property was affected”; (3) that Pascual Pichún and Aniceto Norín are lonkos of their respective communities, which “means they have authority within their community and have some degree of command and leadership in those communities”; (4) that both defendants had been convicted of other crimes in the past, one of which involved occupations of land; (5) the communities of which the two defendants are lonkos are adjacent to the Nancahue tree farm, and that (6) according to the statement by a witness based on his investigations, both defendants are reportedly members of a violent de facto organization, the Coordinadora Arauco Malleco.

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