TV Report that followed the end of the hunger strike
The Chilean Government agreed to meet the two demands Patricia Troncoso made during her long hunger strike. The government will transfer Troncoso to spend the remaining of her sentence in an agrarian minimum-security prison and grant Troncoso weekend passes along with two other jailed Mapuche activists.
Troncoso and two other Mapuche activists, Juan Millalen and Jaime Marileo, were jailed for setting fires to forestry plantations in a controversial trial. Prosecutors charged the group under Chile's Pinochet era anti terrorist law and used secret witnesses to get a conviction.
Mapuches say the land in question belongs to them. The lands are currently owned by Chile's largest forestry company Mininco, part of Chile's CMPC business holding.
The same day the Government reached the agreement with Troncoso, it named a High Commissioner for Indigenous Affairs to negotiate with Mapuches on their land claims and work with Congress to approve a Constitutional reform that seeks to recognize Indigenous Peoples in the Chilean Constitution.
