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LATIN AMERICA |
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Chile to Distribute Land Among Indian
Communities
SANTIAGO – Between now and the end of her
term next March, President Michelle Bachelet
will distribute 33,000 hectares (81,500
acres) of land among Mapuche Indian
communities in Chile’s conflictive southern
region of Araucania, the press reported
Friday.
The president’s chief of staff and
coordinator of indigenous policy, Jose
Antonio Viera-Gallo, traveled Friday to
Temuco, the main city in Araucania, to
explain the plan to more than 100 Mapuche
elders.
Viera-Gallo said that 650,000 hectares of
land, most of it state-owned, have been
returned to the Mapuches since 1999.
Once the current initiative is complete, he
said, another 150,000 and 170,000 hectares
will be needed to fulfill the state’s
obligation to the 650,000-strong Mapuche
nation, Chile’s largest indigenous group.
The official acknowledged, however, that the
process of returning land “has not been
clear or transparent,” and he promised
changes in the mechanism.
Bachelet’s administration is mulling the
idea of creating a land bank, he said, under
which the state would purchase land from
current holders and transfer it to Mapuches,
avoiding direct transactions between the
Indians and landowners.
Viera-Gallo said officials want to
“establish a table of prices according to
soil quality.”
Besides the land initiative, the chief of
staff plans to brief Mapuche leaders on the
bill Bachelet sent to Congress proposing
creation of an Indian affairs ministry and a
Council of Indigenous Peoples.
“Chile faces an historic challenge when the
presidents opt to create new institutions so
the state can take responsibility for the
debt to the original peoples,” Viera-Gallo
said.
Bachelet’s proposed Council of Indigenous
Peoples would be made up of 43 members
elected proportionally by each nation and
would have an executive secretariat and
public funding.
She envisions the council’s participating in
the design and evaluation of Indian
policies, the budget debate and the annual
report on human rights.
Mapuches are demanding constitutional
recognition of their tribal identity, rights
and culture, as well as ownership of the
lands that belonged to their ancestors.
Their struggle to reclaim ancestral lands
from farmers and timber companies led last
month to the death of an Indian activist,
shot in the back by a police officer.
Authorities have prosecuted violent Indian
protesters under the dictatorship-era
Anti-Terrorism Law, which expands police and
judicial powers, while the Chilean right
claims – though thus far without concrete
evidence – that foreign groups are behind
the most violent Mapuche protests. EFE
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