Lof Temucuicui Accuses Police of Violent Raid Aimed at Planting False Evidence Against the Community

The Mapuche community of Lof Temucuicui has raised serious allegations, claiming that a recent police raid conducted on May 14 at a nursery and school within their territory intended to plant false evidence against them and create a «media spectacle» to project an image of «strong arm» tactics.

In a public statement, community members urgently highlighted that the latest aggressions perpetrated by the state’s military apparatus are not just targeted harassment against children, infants, and unborn babies in their territory; rather, they constitute a widespread, premeditated, and violent assault against the entire Lof Temucuicui.

Firstly, they explained that on May 6, 2026, “state forces violently disrupted and isolated a pregnant woman and her unborn child, arresting a pregnant woman amidst gunfire and tear gas within the Lof Temucuicui. In this bloody operation, the state criminally detained a 4-year-old child alongside his mother, subjecting children to the brutality of an excessive military presence.”

Furthermore, they stated that “just eight days later, the military machine returned with the same malicious intent” to the Lof, unlawfully entering a nursery and school within the territory, turning spaces meant for early childhood care into war zones.

Additionally, they indicated that “as if the trauma inflicted on children inside classrooms was not enough, the state’s repressive forces directly kidnapped two school buses, illegally retaining the sole transport for community students in an unprecedented act of military intimidation and state piracy within Lof Temucuicui.”

The community detailed that both operations involved high police contingents and direct military support, “utilizing drones and highly sophisticated weaponry,” accusing them of firing more than 400 shots during each of these operations against the Lof Temucuicui.

“The question we pose to the world is clear: How can a territory be raided in such a brutal manner, with the explicit focus of violence being to target all of Lof Temucuicui, attacking nurseries and schools, and yet publicly declare the seizure of ‘high-caliber weaponry’ without a single arrest on site?” questioned the Mapuche community members.

At this point, they emphatically declared that it is a farce that “falls under its own weight.”

“We clearly explain the crude strategy of the Prosecutor’s Office and Carabineros during this second incursion: in the operation on May 6, the court completely dismissed the alleged ‘evidence’ presented by the Public Ministry, denying mass preventive detentions and leaving almost all community members under lesser precautionary measures due to insufficient technical solidity,” they continued.

Thus, the statement continues, “realizing that they were failing judicially, they consciously opted for a different political strategy in the raid on May 14: to not arrest anyone and limit themselves to planting false evidence in the territory of Lof Temucuicui.”

“We challenge the basic logic of public opinion: What criminal organization or alleged terrorist group would leave an UZI submachine gun abandoned in an open field for the police to conveniently find before the cameras? This manipulation of weapons and supposed arsenals is not new; it is the same criminal conduct that was already exposed during the historical setup of Operation Hurricane,” emphasized the Lof.

For the community, it is clear that this evidence presented “could very well have been placed by the state agents themselves to support a media operation devoid of legality against Lof Temucuicui.”

Inaction of the Children’s Defense Office

In light of this situation, the Mapuche community of Temucuicui criticized “the absolute silence and inaction of the Children’s Defense Office of Chile regarding the systematic terror imposed on our territory.”

“We publicly challenge this institutional organization: Do the children and infants of Lof Temucuicui not have the same constitutional and international rights as Chilean children? Or is it that for the state’s racism our pichikeche are considered ‘second-class childhood’?” they expressed in their statement.

In this line, they emphasized that “the lack of a robust, immediate, and on-the-ground defense against gassed nurseries, kidnapped school buses, and rifles aimed at children as young as 4 years old in the Lof Temucuicui demonstrates that the protective institutions discriminate based on ethnic origin, operating servilely to security policies that strip our people.”

They also reminded that “the assault with war weapons against infants, pregnant women, the kidnapping of their transportation buses, and the attack on rural educational facilities in Lof Temucuicui completely undermines the democratic commitment of the Chilean state,” explicitly violating several existing treaties and protection regulations in the country.

“Internationally, the Convention on the Rights of the Child put forth by the United Nations is being trampled, which strictly prohibits subjecting minors to cruel, degrading treatment or environments of war-related terror. Additionally, the ILO Convention 169 concerning Indigenous Peoples and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples are breached, mandating the state to respect family, community, and cultural integrity, explicitly prohibiting the militarization of their traditional territories and the use of force against vulnerable members of Lof Temucuicui,” they noted.

“At the national level, Law No. 21,430 regarding Guarantees and Comprehensive Protection of Children’s Rights and Adolescence is directly violated, requiring all state institutions to prioritize the Best Interests of the Child above all else in any proceedings,” they pointed out.

Accountability with Names and Surnames

Finally, the Mapuche community of Temucuicui asserted in their statement that they hold “directly responsible for the physical integrity, psychological trauma of our children, and any irreparable tragedy in the Lof the executing authorities of this selective violence.”

“We denounce by name and surname the High Complexity Prosecutor, Carlos Bustos, and General Cristián Mansilla Varas, Chief of the Carabineros Zone of La Araucanía, as the material authors of this bloody persecution. They are the ones who sign the documents, order the bursts of more than 400 shots in populated areas, validate the assault on educational facilities for children, and execute the kidnapping of school buses serving Lof Temucuicui,” affirmed the community members.

Moreover, they stressed “categorically that the intellectual authors of this violence are the Chilean state and its entire institutional machinery, which includes its political and judicial powers and its official media apparatus that acts as a propaganda arm to justify repression. Their names and structures are recorded before history and international human rights courts for their crimes against Lof Temucuicui.”

Additionally, they remarked that it is “paradoxical, complicit, and macabre to see how official media and major television channels were on the ground early in the morning. This demonstrates prior coordination and a clear political design: the objective was never a serious criminal investigation, but to once again stage a television show of ‘strong arm’ tactics, using the trauma of our children and the assault on Lof Temucuicui as advertising merchandise for national consumption.”

However, they warned that “the severity of this assault on childhood and territory has transcended the barriers of the media blockade.”

“We confirm that the National Institute of Human Rights has already held direct conversations at the highest political level with the Lonko of the Autonomous Community of Temucuicui, Peñi Víctor Queipul Huaiquil,” they informed.

“This urgent intercession responds to the extreme alarm and deep concern that the explicit focus of militarized operations in Lof Temucuicui remains on minors, a 4-year-old child, infants, pregnant women, educational spaces, and the kidnapping of community school transportation. No security strategy can be sustained on the trauma inflicted upon childhood,” emphasized the community members.

In conclusion, Lof Temucuicui reiterated “to the national and international community that our dignified struggle is not criminal, is not terrorist, and is not subject to the electoral calculations of the current administration. Our cause is not limited to any particular political color; we confront the structural violence and ongoing abuses of the Chilean state against Lof Temucuicui.”

“The policy of oppression, dispossession, and militarized assault on Wallmapu has been a constant maintained identically by every one of the rulers since the return to democracy: Patricio Aylwin Azócar, Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle, Ricardo Lagos Escobar, Michelle Bachelet Jeria, Sebastián Piñera Echenique, and Gabriel Boric Font, also serving populist and racist discourses from far-right sectors led by figures like José Antonio Kast, who demand and celebrate these operations as political trophies obtained by their material henchmen,” they recalled.

Thus, they affirmed that “in the face of this systemic oppression that transcends governments and coalitions, our cause in Lof Temucuicui is entirely political and historical: the state of Chile must assume its historical responsibility and restore the legitimate ancestral Mapuche territory that was usurped by blood and fire to favor forest and landed interests.”

Lastly, they questioned the security policy of the state of Chile in their ancestral territory, describing it as “bloodthirsty.”

“We condemn the hypocrisy of a public apparatus that subscribes to treaties protecting children’s rights abroad while pointing war rifles at unborn babies, detaining 4-year-old children, pursuing and kidnapping school buses, and gassing nurseries within the lands of Lof Temucuicui. We demand the immediate cessation of these punitive operations aimed at breaking the resistance of a people by targeting their future generations,” concludes the statement.

We will continue to report.

El Ciudadano

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