 |
|
|
Mr. Ricardo Lagos
President of the Republic of Chile
Palacio de la Moneda, Santiago de Chile
We are a group of Aboriginal people from different countries who represent different academic, artistic and professional fields. Although we have many differences, we are united through our common interest for the history and present reality of the Mapuche people of Chile and Argentina. It is this relationship and bond with Mapuche history and with the history of Chile that motivates us to write you.
Through different national and international media sources and our direct contact with the Mapuche communities, we have followed with great interest, the development of the events pertaining to the construction of Ralco Dam on Bio Bio River, located in the Eighth Region of Chile. Through this letter we wish to make you aware of our deep concern about this situation.
Mr. President, we would like to remind you that Mapuche people had placed their hopes for social justice in the hands of the Government comprised by the Coalition of Parties for Democracy. However, after three time periods of Government, the Coalition of Parties for Democracy has destroyed this hope by building the first hydroelectric dam: The Pangue Dam was built over the Bio Bio River, and is now a reality.
ENDESA (National Electric Company) is building at this moment the second reservoir: Ralco Dam. These dams are part of a project to build seven other dams on the Bio Bio River.
In addition, 70% of the garbage dumps of the IX Region of Chile are located near or on the land of Mapuche communities. There are also more than two hundred Mapuche people on trial by the Chilean Justice System, as a consequence of their struggle for land reclaims. There are also twenty Mapuche political leaders living underground.
Under your presidential management our hopes have been translated into this historical demand: No more encroachment of Mapuche lands! However, with the construction of Ralco Dam the Mapuche-Pewenche population has been forced to relocate to other areas. This is ethnocide! Around 400 Mapuche - Pewenche people from the Quepuca-Lepoy and Ralco-Lepoy has been relocated. They are now far away from their ancestral lands, their history, their beloved dead relatives, and their spiritual lives.
Nevertheless, a group of Mapuche-Pewenche women have resisted abandoning their lands. Throughout these years, they have been able to vindicate before the national and international community, their rights to live and even to die for their ancestral territories.
At this point we would like to emphasize on the following matter: On April 5, 2002, the Minister of Finance made a public announcement regarding the creation of a special commission: the Good Men Commission; in order to use some amendments of the 1982 Law Enforcement Act # 1, from the Mining Ministry, General Law of electric services. This was a condition put forward by ENDESA, appealed for that special consideration. But the 1982 Act is an illegal Act, for it was issued during the facto government of Pinochet’s dictatorship.
The Good Men Commission would be able to estimate the price of about twenty estates located in the zone of conflict: the Ralco Dam construction site. The eventual confiscation of eight of these estates would increase the conflict between the Chilean State and the Mapuche Nation. The “Good Men” are authorized to deny legal and political rights to the people living in the area where the dams are to be constructed .
The mission of the Good Men Commission is to appraise the estates and inform ENDESA as to how make the payments. This also implies warrants could be used to deport the Mapuche-Pewenche community members. This decision and procedure are illegal and politically pernicious. It is illegal for it violates the Indian Law # 19.253, approved by the Chilean Parliament and which establishes that all Indigenous Lands cannot be encroached, seized nor purchased through legal principles, but only with an official approval of CONADI (National Corporation of Indigenous Development). This authorization cannot affect the housing and the land necessary for subsistence of an indigenous person. The whole decision and procedure of the Good Men Commission is deceitfully illegal for it violates the 1997 Environmental Resolution of the National Commission of Environment (CONAMA). This resolution states that in order to commence the Ralco project the people affected by the construction must voluntarily agree to relocate.
The 1997 Environmental Resolution of CONAMA demands that the exchange of the estates has to be approved by CONADI. At this point in time, it does not fulfill this requirement for CONADI has not approved the exchange of the estates.
Mr. President, during your presidential campaign you proclaimed that '...the progress for Chile is also the progress for the Pewenche people...' Today we are witnessing the failure to fulfill your promise of 'progress and development' in favor of the Mapuche-Pewenche people. On the contrary, the Indigenous movement in general has experienced the arrival of a kind of 'progress' that it is clearly an ethnically and ecologically threaten.
The resistance of the Mapuche-Pewenche women of Alto Bio Bio, make us reflect about: What progress?. Who decides the goals of progress?. Could we appeal for a National debate about this situation? Why do we not listen to the proposal of alternative development that has been suggested by Ecologist and Mapuche movements? If we so eagerly like to imitate the development strategies of developed countries, why couldn't we also encourage environmental policies for sustainable development?
The deportation of the Mapuche-Pewenche women from Alto Bio Bio, extinguishes Mapuche hopes, and the hopes of all of those that feel identified with the Mapuche struggle and who wish to participate in a development that is democratically conceived, democratically implemented and respectful to the Aboriginal Peoples.
We feel identified in the words of Lonko Mayor (Grand Chief) from the Council of Buta Huapi Chilhue, Carlos Orlando Lincomán when he publicly expressed his discomfort and repudiation for the violation of Human Rights of Mapuche-Pewenche people: “Our Pewenche brothers and sisters have the legitimate right to fight for the defense of their dignity and their territory. They are receiving the strength of Chao Ngenechen (The Great Spirit). Our Pewenche sisters get their strength and their wisdom from Nuke Mapu (Mother Earth). According to Lonko Mayor Carlos Orlando Lincomán’s judgment, our Mapuche-Pewenche sisters have shown perseverance and a great courage to defend life, the ecosystem and the Indigenous dignity. Chile and the entire world are witnesses!”
Not to the ethnic deportation!
Not to the ethnocide against mapuche pewenche people!
Signed: