5/28/2010
Issue Update: Mapuche repression
Chile’s Mapuche and new president
By David Dudenhoefer, Today correspondent
May 27, 2010
http://www.indiancountrytoday.com/global/94581714.html
After two months of relative calm following the quake, Mapuche activists have resumed demonstrations to pressure the government to return ancestral lands and free their jailed leaders. On April 23, approximately 200 members of the Mapuche Territorial Alliance protested in the southern city of Temuco to demand the government restart negotiations for the purchase of approximately 24,000 acres of land claimed by dozens of communities. Protest organizers warned that Mapuche activists would occupy some of those properties in one month if the government didn’t resume the negotiations, which were suspended after Piñera won the presidency.
...According to Faundes, another major problem is the Chilean police’s use of excessive force to break up Mapuche demonstrations and land occupations, which has resulted in the deaths of three protesters. As recently as May 13, police broke up a march by approximately 200 people in Temuco and arrested 17 protesters.
“During the dictatorship, the repression was more generalized. Under the democratic governments, repression has been focused on the Mapuche,” said Gabriela Cafucoy, a Mapuche activist who belongs to a support group for political prisoners. She claimed that many jailed Mapuche leaders were framed and convicted based on the testimony of anonymous witnesses in retaliation for their efforts to recuperate land.
José Aylwin, co-directon of the human rights organization Observatorio Ciudadano, noted that whereas the last two administrations “criminalized Mapuche protest,” Piñera’s campaign promise to strengthen law and order does not bode well for the Mapuche.
Issue Update: CHILE: Mapuche Indians Set Up Autonomous Legal Defence Unit
By Pamela Sepúlveda
SANTIAGO, Feb 11, 2010 (IPS)
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=50290
- As tensions mount in Chile's Mapuche territories, the indigenous people have created a new legal defence body for cases involving resistance against the state, as they put little stock in the justice system for working out cases such as land disputes.
Issue Update:This brief discussion of Chile's response to the earthquake also describes (guesses at?) reasons for their political and economic strength.
http://www.thedialogue.org/page.cfm?pageID=32&pubID=2284&s=The massive earthquake that struck Chile this weekend was 500 times more powerful than the one that crippled Haiti a few weeks ago. But Chile appears to have suffered far less immediate damage. We explore the political and economic history of Chile, of one of Latin America's wealthiest nations, and examine how that history is shaping the response to this week's disaster.
