They have had to suffer racist abuse, torture and physical assault. The companies' objective is to intimidate Mapuche people, and prevent them from demanding the restitution of their ancestral land which they have expropriated. This was widely publicised in the Chilean media just recently. Many communities are virtually under siege. The police are patrolling them, taking photographs, filming and interrogating leaders, destroying household possessions, violently preventing people from meeting and holding peaceful protests.
Some families claim the police are stealing their money and humble possessions.
As there is no effective recourse to law, these actions go unpunished. None of the many complaints about arbitrary offenses and racial abuse have been dealt with by the authorities. Numerous Mapuche requests for an investigation of their complaints have been met by a deafening silence of the part of local and central government. The national police force in Mapuche areas have been converted into minions of the forestry companies. With their institutionalised racism, all security forces have lost credibility with the affected population, as they have been transformed into instruments of repression, and act like an occupying force in the same way as in Palestine, East Timor and Kurdistahn.