Santiago de Chile, October 4 (RHC)-- Chilean Mapuche activist Ariel Trangol has brought an end to his hunger strike after 118 days, according to Chilean authorities.  Trangol was the last of four activists to end a hunger strike in protest of charges under Chile’s anti-terrorism law. 

Ariel Trangol, his three brothers Benito, Pablo and Alfredo are accused of leading an arson attack and burning an evangelical church in 2016 in the town of Padre de Las Casas.  They have always insisted that they are innocent.  The Mapuche activists have been imprisoned for a year and four months but have not been found guilty or tried. 

They are being held under an anti-terrorism bill passed during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, which establishes harsher penalties and that has been applied to the Mapuches for their ancestral struggle in the recovery of their lands. 

Benito, Pablo and Alfredo ended the hunger strike on Saturday after Interior Minister Mario Fernandez announced that the government will not use the Anti-terrorism bill against the activists.  Chile's largest native ethnic group continues to fight with the government as it tries to regain land lost during Chile's 19th Century expansion southward into the Mapuche-held territory.