28 May 2007
Today the Chilean President, Michelle Bachelet, arrived in Finland as a part of a European tour which includes Norway and Switzerland to hold talks with investors about the commercial potential of Chile's rich natural resources. However, campaigners are greatly concerned that the interests of indigenous people, such as the Mapuche, will be largely ignored by the delegation.
A document has been circulated to government officials, multinationals and NGOs expressing this concern.
The document highlights how the Mapuche people have the highest rates of poverty, infant mortality, unemployment and illiteracy in the country. The average life expectancy of the Mapuche is ten years less than that of the Chileans. Yet from their ancestral lands, huge wealth is amassed from the exploitation of resources by multinational corporations. Vast areas of land, for example, are made un-inhabitable by high intensity timber production, while the Mapuche people are forced to live on small reservations where their life chances are greatly disadvantaged.
Part of the discussions will also concern the construction of large hydro-electric dams. If constructed, these dams would further threaten Mapuche land and livelihood. In a previous case, the World Bank was forced to withdraw financial support for two dam constructions in Mapuche territory, and condemned the hydro electric company concerned, because environmental obligations, a prerequisite for funding, were not met.
In this struggle over collective and individual rights, and the protection of an ancestral homeland, more than twenty Mapuche activists are currently being detained in various parts of Chile. In all these cases the Chilean State has applied legislation, first introduced under the military dictatorship of General Pinochet, such as the Internal Security and Anti-terrorist Law. In ‘democratic' Chile these laws have been applied solely to the Mapuche; in February of this year, the Mapuche leader, Jose Huenchunao, was sentenced to ten years in prison under anti-terrorist legislation. The United Nations Human Rights Committee has requested that the Chilean government explain why Mapuche activists are being accused under anti-terrorist legislation for acts of political and social protest, which result in civilians being tried in military courts.
The Mapuche and other indigenous peoples' ability to address these massive social, environmental and economic problems are greatly restricted by the fact that the Chilean State does not officially recognise their social and political status. To rectify this, the Mapuche are calling for three conditions to be met: That the Chilean State ratifies convention 169 of the International Labour Organization on Indigenous and Tribal People; that the Chilean parliament approves a constitutional amendment which would recognise indigenous peoples in the political constitution of the Chilean state; and that representatives of indigenous people participate in any approval of commercial activity in their ancestral territory.
For further information please contact the organisations below:
Jorge Calbucura;
Sweden
Coordinator
Mapuche Documentation Centre, Ñuke Mapu
E-mail: yefal@mapuche.info
Miguel Utreras Imilmaqui,
Noway
Renu Theater Directo.
Domingo Paine, Sweden
Carlos Contreras Painemal, Germany
Mapuche Documentation Centre, Rucadugun
Reynaldo Mariqueo, England
General Secretary
Mapuche International Link
E-mail: mapuche@mapuche-nation.org
Gaston Lion,
Belgium
Comite Belga - América India
E-mail: gaston.lion@skynet.be
For further information please visit our web site:
Mapuche Documentation Centre, Ñuke Mapu: http://www. mapuche.info Mapuche International Link: http://www.mapuche-nation.org