Tuesday is 100 days since the spiritual leader, Celestino Cordova, began a hunger strike. There is still no news or progress in the negotiations with the Government of Chile on the reform of the law. The National Institute of Human Rights (INDH) is conducting mediation between the strikers and the Government in Catalonia.

Cordova was the one who initiated the protest and joined by several political prisoners, 28 of whom are on hunger strike in the Basque Country. The Mapuches have made concrete demands: to allow the execution of the prison sentence on the grounds of their community, to improve the living conditions of all political prisoners and to modify the precautionary measures for the Mapuches.

Chile's president Sebastián Piñera himself spoke on Sunday of the critical situation in Araucania, a region of Chile that encompasses the lands of the Mapuche, in which the government "is willing to dialogue with those who want to dialogue, respecting the rule of law, renouncing violence and contributing to advancing solutions".

Worsening health

Celestino Cordova suffered several health problems this weekend, so an operation has been created in the New Imperial Hospital in view of the seriousness of the situation.

On the 100th day of the hunger strike, Cordova sent the following audio message:

 

 

In 2014, Cordova was sentenced to 18 years in jail for an anti-terrorist law and 16 years in jail. In 2013, Werner Luchsinger, 75, was charged with killing his wife Vivianne McKay, 69. Luchsinger belongs to a family that has been facing the Mapuches for decades and owns, among other things, the land in which five years before the Carabineros killed the young Matías Catrileo. Irregularities were reported in the Cordova judicial process, which have not been proven.