26
Senate Commission on the Constitution, Law, Justice and Regulations, July 1, 2002, which ended
in a finding to the effect that the State had failed to provide service; the uncontested reports at
pages 10 and 11 of the March 10, 2002 edition of El Mercurio concerning the number of conflicts
caused by groups of Mapuches in terrorist acts, publications of La Tercera on the internet, La
Segunda on the internet and El Mercurio Electrónico, published on March 26, 1999, December 15,
2001, March 15, 2002 and June 15, 2002, respectively, the three graphs taken from the web pages
of the National Commission on Foreign Investment in Chile, divided into sectors and by regions,
according to the country’s administrative political division, which does a dollar comparison of the
amounts invested in other regions and in the Ninth Region, illustrating that private investment in the
region has dropped.
Underpinning all this is the legal presumption set forth in the second paragraph of subparagraph 1
of Law 18,314, now amended by the new principles for the weighing of evidence set forth in articles
295 et seq. of the Code of Criminal Procedure. In effect, at the present time, logic dictates that the
public’s well-founded fear of falling victim to similar crimes is borne out by the fact that it is now
98
threatened with falling victim to and being harmed by a crime committed using incendiary devices.
79.
At consideranda 15, the Court explained the background information that, in its view, had
a bearing on its decision to convict the defendants of the crime of threats:
As for the involvement of the two defendants, the following has to be considered:
1. As general background and from the evidence that the Public Prosecutor and the private
accusers introduced at trial, 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. This is what the court learned from the testimony given by victims Juan and Julio
Sagredo Marín, Juan Agustín Figueroa Elgueta and Juan Agustín Figueroa Yávar, which was
supported by the testimony of Armin Stappung Schwarzlose, Gerardo Jequier Salí, Jorge Pablo
Luchsinger Villiger, Antonio Arnaldo Boisier Cruces and Osvaldo Moisés Carvajal Rondanelli,
examined earlier.
2. It 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. It has been established that defendant Pascual Pichún is lonko of the community of ‘Antonio
Ñirripil’ and that Segundo Norín is lonko of the community of ‘Lorenzo Norín.’ This means they
have authority within their community and have some degree of command and leadership in those
communities.
4. Defendants Pichún and Norín stand convicted of other crimes involving occupations of land
committed prior to these events and against timberlands located near their respective communities,
as the record of Case No. 22,530 and combined cases shows. Pascual Pichún was sentenced to 4
years imprisonment, the maximum short-term prison sentence, while Segundo Norín was
sentenced to serve 800 days in prison, which is an average short-term prison sentence. They were
both given accessory penalties and ordered to pay legal expenses and costs for the crime of (sic).
98
Verdict of the Angol oral criminal trial court – chamber with jurisdiction- September 27, 2003; consideranda 13.
Attached to the communication that attorney Rodrigo Lillo Vera sent to the IACHR on behalf of Aniceto Norín, received on
December 23, 2003, and to the communication from Pascual Pichún Paillalao supplementing the original petition he filed with the
IACHR, received on June 21, 2004.