[IPSM] No Solution in Sight to Mapuche Land Dispute

[hhazel at gmail.com]

 No Solution in Sight to Mapuche Land Dispute
Gustavo González* 
 
*SANTIAGO, May 6 (Tierramérica) - One year after a report critical of Chile 
by the United Nations special rapporteur for indigenous rights, Rodolfo 
Stavenhagen, there is little evidence of progress towards a solution to the 
Mapuche land conflict. * 

Observers say the dispute is likely to end up as one of the unresolved 
issues of the Ricardo Lagos presidency. 

For attorney José Aylwin, director of the Observatory of Indigenous Rights, 
there persists in Chile constitutional and judicial discrimination against 
members of the Mapuche community, and a lack of protection for their lands 
in lawsuits that involve socioeconomic, environmental and cultural aspects. 

The most controversial point is the criminalisation of the land occupations 
staged in recent years by indigenous communities in the Bío-bio and 
Araucanía regions, 400 and 800 km south of the capital, respectively, and 
home to the greatest percentage of the rural Mapuche population. 

In the lawsuits against the 'lonkos' (chiefs) that have led the land 
occupations, the prosecution has applied Chile's anti-terrorist and national 
security legislation, which opens they way for government and logging 
companies' accusations of ''illicit associations'' acting within the 
indigenous movement. 

''The Mapuche who protests is treated much more harshly than someone from 
any other group. The lawsuits against the lonkos have been complicated. They 
don't take into account the ethnic variable. They are stigmatised as 
criminals,'' anthropologist Loreto Rebolledo, of the public University of 
Chile, said in a conversation with Tierramérica. 

On Apr. 8, the Supreme Court of Justice overruled a sentence from the 
Criminal Court of Temuco, which had absolved 16 lonkos from the 
Arauco-Malleco Association, one of the most radicalised Mapuche groups. The 
highest court ordered the case reopened under charges of illicit 
association, based on anti-terrorism laws. 

UN special rapporteur Stavenhagen, a well-known Mexican anthropologist, said 
in his April 2004 report that the Chilean juridical system is limited when 
it comes to the defence of indigenous rights, and recommended that the 
Chilean government take legislative, administrative, political and economic 
actions to overcome the shortfalls. 

Stavenhagen criticised the criminalisation of the demands for recognition of 
ancestral lands and the description of ''terrorist'' used for the Mapuche 
leaders. He recommended to the centre-leftist government of Ricardo Lagos a 
general amnesty for the defendants. 

But Jaime Andrade, deputy minister of planning and coordinator of indigenous 
policy and programmes, told the UN Commission on Human Rights last month 
that the government does not criminalise the Mapuches; it is implementing 
the anti-terrorist law only in ''extremely serious'' cases and is working 
towards resolving the land dispute. 

Aylwin said that if the government is going to heed Andrade's 
recommendations, it should step back from its role as accuser in the 
reopening of the Temuco case against the 16 lonkos, ''given the inexistence 
of evidence that would prove the accused are part of an association with 
illicit and terrorist characteristics.'' 

The lawyer, son of former president Patricio Aylwin (1990-1994), said the 
government and the Public Ministry do not pursue with the same zeal ''the 
crimes committed against the Mapuches, like those attributed to the 
agricultural landowners near their communities or the police abuses that on 
more than a few occasions have been recorded, affecting even children and 
the elderly.'' 

Juan Carlos Huenulao, behind bars in Angol (608 km south of Santiago) and 
facing trial for burning a forest estate, said in a public letter: ''For us 
there is no justice. We are Mapuches.'' 

The government defends its indigenous policy and cites among its 
achievements the transfer of 230,000 hectares of land to indigenous 
communities in the 2000-2004 period, the concession of 33,000 scholarships 
to Mapuche, Aymara, Rapanui and other indigenous students this year, and 
Chile's Bilingual Intercultural Education Programme. 

President Lagos also underscores the creation of indigenous municipalities 
in areas that are populated mostly by Indians, as well as the election of 
indigenous mayors in 18 of the country's 345 municipalities in the October 
2004 voting. 

But the president has not been able to convince the Chilean Congress to 
approve a reform that gives constitutional recognition to the country's 
indigenous peoples, or to ratify the International Labour Organisation's 
Convention 169 on tribal peoples -- what Aylwin says is ''the most important 
international instrument for the protection of indigenous rights.'' 

The lawmakers' resistance to those initiatives, as well as the rejection of 
Mapuche demands for autonomy by most political groups, business leaders, 
some academics and the traditional press, demonstrate that the tensions have 
deep roots. 

''We're left with the feeling that the attempts the government has made in 
terms of indigenous policy have focused on resolving certain social and 
economic problems as stop-gap measures. But there hasn't been a change in 
attitude that would allow them to rethink the type of relationship the 
Chilean government wants to have with the Mapuche,'' said anthropologist 
Rebolledo. 

(* Originally published Apr. 30 by Latin American newspapers that are part 
of the Tierramérica network. Tierramérica is a specialised news service 
produced by IPS with the backing of the United Nations Development Programme 
and the United Nations Environment Programme.) 

(END/2005) 

 
   - Tierramérica <http://www.tierramerica.org/english/>
   - Mapuche Culture a Boon to Health and Palate 
   <http://www.tierramerica.net/2005/0219/iacentos.shtml>
   - Mapuches Want to Shape Their Own Future 
   <http://www.tierramerica.net/2003/1104/iacentos2.shtml>
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