considerandum, the oral court resorted to references to the “Mapuche land conflict” and to the context of the land claims of the Mapuche indigenous people including reflections that make general observations on the use of violence and its illegal nature, by asserting that the process of land recovery of the Mapuche people “has been carried out by acts of violence, without respecting the institutional framework and the laws in effect, resorting to the use of force […].”58 These contextual elements were not presented in a neutral manner, and created a causal nexus between the Mapuche origin of the presumed victims and the determination of their criminal responsibility. In the nineteenth considerandum, the terrorist intent was inferred from stereotypes and prejudices relating to the violence of the Mapuche land claims and from the testimony of witnesses concerning the “fear” they felt owing to actions other than those that were being tried in the proceedings. […] it has been proved that José Benicio Huenchunao Mariñan, Patricia Roxana Troncoso Robles, Juan Patricio Marileo Saravia, Juan Ciricao Millacheo Lican and Florencio Jaime Marileo Saravia, participated as direct perpetrators of the said fire at the Poluco Pidenco property because they acted immediately and directly in the execution of this fire, an illegal act inserted in the so-called Mapuche land conflict, committed with the intent of instilling a justified fear in the population of being victims of similar crimes. 58 When examining the terrorist nature of the offense of arson, the Angol Oral Criminal Trial Court stated the following in the nineteenth considerandum: NINETEENTH: Regarding the defense’s assertion that the acts were not of a terrorist nature, it should be noted that the statements mentioned in the preceding considerations, provided by persons who were directly connected to the events or who knew about them for different reasons, are coherent with the expert opinions and documentary evidence provided by the claimants during the hearing. They constitute background information that, taken as a whole and freely assessed, lead these judges to establish that the fire which occurred at the Poluco Pidenco property on December 19, 2001, does qualify as a terrorist offense, inasmuch as the actions that underlie these crimes demonstrate that the form, methods and strategies employed had a malicious intent, which was to instill a generalized fear in the area, a situation that is a well-known and notorious fact that these judges cannot ignore; this is a serious conflict between part of the Mapuche ethnic group and the rest of the population, a fact neither argued by the parties nor unknown to them In effect, the offense established in Considerandum 16 must be viewed against the backdrop of a process of the recovery of Mapuche lands, in which the perpetrators took direct action, without respecting the existing legal and institutional order and by resorting 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 the Province of Malleco, as most of the incidents, and the most violent ones, have occurred in communes of that province. These actions can be summarized as follows: excessive demands that violent groups make of owners and landholders, under pressure, warning them of the different consequences they will face if they do not accede to the demands. Many of these threats have materialized in the form of attacks on physical integrity, robberies, theft, arson, vandalism and land occupation, which have affected both the personnel and property of various owners of agricultural properties and logging companies in this part of the country; during the oral proceedings the court heard numerous pieces of testimony and learned some of the background to this situation, notwithstanding the fact that this is public knowledge. The obvious inference is that the objective is to instill in the population a well-founded fear of falling victim to similar crimes, and thereby to force the owners to cease any further exploitation of their properties and ultimately to force them to abandon their properties, because the feeling of insecurity and unease that these attacks cause has led to a decrease in the availability of labor and an increase in its cost, an increase in the costs of leasing farm equipment and insuring the properties, the installations and the crops. Furthermore, it is becoming increasingly common to see workers, machinery, vehicles and operations on the different properties under police protection, to safeguard operations, all of which affects rights protected by the Constitution. The court’s conclusion is a result of the testimony given by witnesses […] all of whom told the court that they were direct victims or knew of threats and attacks on persons or property perpetrated by individuals of Mapuche origin. Albeit in different ways, these witnesses all expressed the feeling of fear that those acts have instilled. This background information is in the report of the meeting of the Senate’s Constitutional, Legislative and Justice Committee, paragraphs of which were read during the hearing 15

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