"No more racism, no more militarization of the Mapuche people ”is the phrase with which more than 20 Chilean Reggae artists became part of a video that a few days ago circulated on social networks, Alluding to the conflict between the Mapuche people and the Government, which has caused an excess of military force in the Araucanía region.
The initiative was born spontaneously from the musician Jaime Acevedo, also known among the Rastafari community as Brother Tafi, who has lived in the Araucanía Region for years (located more than 600 kilometers south of Santiago) and who has lived closely how the area has been militarized and how a racist wave has been unleashed against this warrior and ancestral people in Chile.
In conversation with Reggae Chalice and consulted about the motivation to generate this campaign to support the Mapuche People, the artist also said that "here everything is more complex (…) it is a daily struggle the theme of injustice, the little apathy of the police state and the companies that come to repress so much families, children, elderly with the repressive and indifferent hand of the Chilean State ".
In the video that lasts about 4 minutes participate Quique Neira, Vanessa Valdes, "Chispa" by the band Vibra Mistik, Ysabel Omega from Peru, Mc Jona, Empress Nyahdan de Brasil, popular cannabis activist Cogollo Larraín; Fran Mc Manus of the band Aflora, Tomas “Patagonia Dub”, Mary Zion, Jano reggae, tecladista de la banda Kitra; Víctor Jiménez “Big Touch” and Italia Neira; Andre Luiz Da Silva of the Nazarei Rupestre de Brasil band, Efraín Rodríguez "Polidread", Fernando Caniumil “Selektor Power”, Jahime Irie, Lemuel Rocker; Leo Duque of the band La Negra Roots, Congo Ghetto, Gino Zamorano of the band Iration, Native of Raices, Pablo Ismael from the Congo Mapu band and the promoter of the initiative, Taf I of the band Negra Repatriazion.
It should be noted that in recent months there has been high social unrest in the Araucanía region, after Mapuche community members imprisoned in prisons in the south of the country went on hunger strike as a protest and support for Machi Celestino Córdova, ancestral authority of the Mapuche people, the only one convicted by justice for the case of the murder of the Luchsinger family – Mackay in the year 2013.
In the same time, Mapuche community members simultaneously took over five municipalities in the Araucanía area demanding for the release of Mapuche political prisoners who carry out an extensive hunger strike in the Angol and Temuco jails. This action unleashed the fury of the inhabitants of the surrounding areas of the municipalities, people with a clear right-wing and anti-Mapuche tendency, who went directly to confront the commoners, violating curfew, quarantine, raising racist and fascist chants against the Mapuche people.
It is also necessary to specify that in various recordings that circulated on television and on the Internet, a group of people was heard outside the premises in progress., jumping and shouting "the one who does not jump is Mapuche".
These are just some of the antecedents that motivated Brother Tafi to generate this coordination of musicians and singers from different regions of Chile., to give your support and raise your voice from Reggae, as representatives of Reggae, in tune with what this style of music has always defended and for which it has always stood: for the oppressed, against all discrimination, For justice, against racism.
Finally, Tafi called on all the people to take part and speak out against the injustices that happen daily in the area but that are not made visible by the mass media..
“It is important that everyone manifests, Mapuche and not Mapuche, because every day things happen here in Wallmapu that don't appear on TV, therefore the only way we have to inform is through these autonomous alternative means ", He ended.
