Note of memory and resistance developed by the Macarena Valdés Territorial Studies Center
Macarena Valdés, along with her partner Rubén Collio, were organizing within the Network for the Defense of Panguipulli's Waters. Macarena was a woman defender of the Tranquil River against the threat of a hydroelectric project by the Austrian transnational company RP Global and the Chilean company SAESA. However, her struggle was brutally halted on 22 August 2016, when she was murdered by corporate hitmen.
These energy-extracting companies, under the guise of green capitalism, sought to produce 3MW of energy at the expense of destroying an eltun (1) and the biological and cultural biodiversity surrounding the Tranquil River watershed. The rejection and defense of the territory were immediate, but at the same time, families in the area began receiving countless threats from the companies involved. Since 2006, RP Global had maneuvered, founded, and financed new business entities to create the necessary conditions for operations on the Tranquil River to begin in 2014. It is striking that at the time of its intervention in the Tranquil River, a company Sociedad Anónima El Arroyo increased its capital exponentially to over five billion pesos.
It was in this context that Macarena Valdés’s 11-year-old son found her hanged on 22 August 2016. Present at the scene was her one-year-eight-month-old child, with whom she was supposed to attend a medical check-up just hours earlier. The investigations carried out by the Chilean state (2) concluded that she had committed suicide. However, the official cause of her death was never accepted by her family or the community.
Amid suspicions of third-party involvement, through various self-organized and solidarity-based activities, a private forensic investigation was conducted that confirmed these suspicions. This investigation uncovered new scientific evidence proving that Macarena Valdés was murdered and that she had been hanged afterward in her home.
The family's attempts to seek justice are countered by the inaction and complicit silence of Chile's democratic governments following the military dictatorship. Countless obstacles and acts of obstruction to justice have prevented uncovering the true causes of our comrade Macarena's murder. We firmly believe that our sister is an example of resistance, and her story must continue to live on in the memory of every defender of life.
1 Mapuche sacred burial ground
2 The institution responsible for conducting forensic examinations to determine the causes of death in Chile is the Servicio Médico Legal (Legal Medical Service).
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