Chile: Mapuche detainees say they were framed

"This lie has got to end," said a sobbing Luisa Marilef, a 55-year-old Mapuche woman who says her son's arrest and prosecution under Chile's anti-terrorism law was part of a set-up by the police and prosecutors. Such claims, which the authorities deny, are commonly heard in southern Chile, the homeland of the Mapuche people, who complain about being framed for things they did not do, in the context of the age-old dispute over land. "My son (Sergio Catrilaf, head of the 'Juan Catrilaf II' community) works in his fields, growing lettuce, and growing spinach and chard in the winter. He sits down at the negotiating table with the government and takes part in the dialogue, but now they have put him in prison. We have never had any problems with the carabineros (police). This is so painful," said Marilef, hardly able to talk through her tears. The Mapuche number nearly one million in this South American country of 16 million people and make up close to 90 percent of Amerindians in Chile. Although around half of all Mapuche now live in Santiago, their ancestral territory stretches from the region of Bío-Bío to the region of Los Lagos, over 500 km south of the capital.