Political courage at La Moneda palace
Political courage at La Moneda palace
By William Alexander Yankes
Published On : Tue, Jul 8th, 2014
Opinion: Bachelet must keep her election promise to bring about social equality and the return of long-seized ancestral lands to the Mapuche.
Chile is an indigenous word for “corner of the world.” When we speak the country’s name we’re using the original language, Mapudungún, spoken by Chile’s largest indigenous group, the Mapuche.
These days there’s a heated polemic about the Mapuche. It mostly has to do with the endless land and independence conflicts that have divided the country since its inception in the 1500s — conflicts that extended to post-independence times with the Pacificación de Araucanía (1860-1883). Pacification, of course, is a euphemism for the massacre of Mapuche civilization.
During the agrarian land reform movement of the 1960s the Mapuche had some of their lands returned to them. But with the coming of the Pinochet dictatorship in 1973, indigenous groups were once again divested of their properties. Still, after centuries of struggle and the roller coaster ride of the past 50 years, it appears that forces for real change are finally in the ascendency.
There is talk of creating an Indigenous Ministry to give greater legal support to Mapuche causes, and, hopefully, when Chile’s new constitution is drafted the Mapuche and other indigenous groups will finally be recognized as sociopolitical entities in their own right, helping create a new mindset about what it means to be “Chilean.”
More:
http://santiagotimes.cl/political-courage-la-moneda-palace/
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Historic land transfer to indigenous groups in focal point of conflict
By Sam Edwards
Published On : Mon, Jun 30th, 2014
Araucanía governor insists sale of ancestral Mapuche should lower tensions but landowners claim police are failing to maintain peace in volatile region.
The southern Araucanía Region witnessed the culmination of a historic land battle last week as several highly disputed agricultural estates finally passed from the hands of a local landowner to the indigenous communities which claimed them as ancestral territory, marking the end of a frequently violent conflict which has run for more than a decade.
The sale of the Montenegro, La Romana and Nilontraro estates has been in the pipeline since at least January when owner the Urban family, citing escalating conflict and violence with local indigenous Mapuche communities, announced plans to sell to the National Indigenous Development Service (Conadi).
The total territory — estimated at around 500 square acres, according to local Mapuche representatives — was divided among around 30 families from the Temucuicui and Ignacio Queipul Millanao communities, both located near Ercilla in an area considered a focal point of tensions between indigenous activists and landowners.
According to local press, there have been more than 200 violent incidents or clashes related to the dispute since Mapuche communities began occupying the estates in the early 2000s — a tactic some activists claim is their only means to effectively regain ancestral territory.
More:
http://santiagotimes.cl/historic-land-transfer-indigenous-groups-focal-point-conflict/
