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GUEST: Jorge Fernando Garreton, a journalist and correspondent for Free Speech Radio News, live from Santiago, Chile.

For more than two months, in the southern Chilean city of Temuco, three indigenous Mapuches and an activist supporter had been on hunger strike to protest their lenghty sentences. This past Sunday, Juan Carlos Huenulao, brothers Jaime and Juan Marileo and Patricia Troncoso finally pledged to temporarily abandon their fast and receive medical treatment. The four prisoners had received ten year sentences and heavy fines under the anti-terrorist law for allegedly setting fire to a private farm belonging to one of Chile’s wealthiest men, Eleodoro Matte. Last week, many Mapuche activists held various protests in solidarity with the hunger strike. In response to the prisoners suspending their high-profile hunger strike, the Chilean government presented an urgent bill for congressional debate that would guarantee parole for indigenous persons tried under “anti-terrorist,” legislation. That legislation was originally passed under the Pinochet dictatorship. The Mapuche are Chile’s largest indigenous group. Many live in poor communities that have become encircled since the 1990s by spreading commercial tree plantations.