MISMO TEXTO EN ESPANOL ADJUNTO.

Chilean Government continues trampling on Human Rights

We want to call international attention to denounce the mistreatment that the Mapuche people are suffering from the Chilean Government and to show solidarity with Patricia Troncoso, a Mapuche woman, and prisoner in a Chilean jail who has spent more than 100 days on hunger strike.

The life of Patricia Troncoso is at serious risk. The Chilean Government could resolve this dramatic situation responding favourably to her two simple demands: to be allowed home on Sunday and transfer to an agricultural penitentiary centre.

The struggle of the Mapuche people is the struggle of all indigenous peoples, it has no artificial administrative borders so their struggle is linked with the recognition that our Latin America is made up of multiple nations and peoples, who over the course of more than 500 years have been discriminated, marginalised and persecuted.

Patricia’s legal process has been full of irregularities: twice she was declared innocent; in spite of this, the Chilean Government used a law created during the Military Dictatorship called the “Anti-terrorist Law” with which they could use anonymous witnesses and who were paid a great deal of money to testify against her.

Patricia and thousands of Mapuche land workers who live in indigenous communities penned in by multinational forestry companies and private estates have seen their most elemental human rights trampled on, suffering persecution, torture, unlawful entry in their homes and provocations by the Chilean armed forces, the police and the ruling legal system.

Patricia’s current state of health is very critical according to the report prepared by a medical team, formed on the expressed request of the Inter American Human Rights Commission. This medical team recommends—among other things—her urgent transfer to a Santiago hospital. However, Patricia remains shackled in her provincial hospital bed, isolated and even denied telephone communication with the Executive Secretary of the Inter American Human Rights Commission.

The behaviour of the Chilean Government against a woman in grave risk and who simply claims justice for herself and her people seems really shameful and unacceptable to us.

We demand an immediate solution to the situation of Patricia Troncoso and the Mapuche people.

We ask for the Chilean President, Michelle Bachelet, to communicate, heart to heart, with the Mapuche people and start a direct dialogue to repair the injustices caused.

Tomás Hirsch
Spokesperson for Humanism in Latin America

Giorgio Schultze
Spokesperson of the European Humanist Forum

The same has been signed by other organisations, among them DEFENSORIA INTERNACIONAL DE LOS DERECHOS DE LOS PUEBLOS (DIDEPU). But, this was a quick action and a comprehensive list of signatories was not collected.

The same text has been sent to the Embassies of Chile in Finland, Sweden and Denmark.

En Castellano: Libertad para Patricia Troncoso y Justicia para el pueblo mapuche

Some pictures of visits to embassies of Chile in Europe

Press about the occupation of the building of International Labor Organisation in Santiago de Chile for the cause of Patricia and Mapuches

In December-January I was in Mumbai, where we launched some Clubs of IHYLC, an up-coming international student network. Besides a free and voluntary network, it is a training programme, where leadership skills are trained through workshops on personal development and through practical experience on social organisation. The new groups are more or less pilot groups although the workshops and social activism and organisation we have a lot of experience on and in Mumbai the cooperation between various councils of the Humanist Movement facilitates the project. A website is being built and launching of Clubs is foreseen in many countries during the year, by any council or volunteer interested to apply this format. Basicly the youth can go through the training programme and continue to apply it in their lives, but of course we are hoping that some of them stay and continue building the Humanist Movement for years to come. The initial reception is encouraging.

Some pictures from Mumbai

While in Mumbai, I also wrote a research on Learning in the Humanist Movement in Mumbai. It is a rather limited research; it was done entirely in four months and the interviews were made during the first half of the last month, but I’m satisfied with the result.

Education for Active Non-violence: Apprenticeship and Leadership in a global movement

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Dear Ambassador of Netherlands in Finland, Finnish medias;
for your information, please find attached the press release and petition to World Bank, organised by the Institute for Policy Studies, Washington D.C. and signed by 863 civil society organisations in 59 countries, involving the fraudulent use of the bilateral agreement between the Netherlands and Bolivia.
Yours with respect,
Juha Uski
Representative of the Humanist International in Finland

Press release DOC
Petition PDF

Videos in YouTube of the opening of the Latin American Humanist Forum of 2007, in Tiwanaku and La Paz, Bolivia:

Impressions of ceremonies in Tiwanaku

Tiwanaku, with speech of Tomy Hirsch, and short bit of Evo Morales at the opening in La Paz

The President of Bolivia, Evo Morales explaining that the tag “left wing” is too vague and because of that he declares: “I am not from right or left, I am a Humanist.”