Chilean President Michelle Bachelet has
announced a new plan to deepen land restitution to the country’s indigenous
communities and better incorporate them into the political process.
The president made the announcement
in a speech yesterday to commemorate Chile’s National Indigenous People's Day. Noting
that nearly 25 years had passed since the country’s return to democracy, Bachelet
said that even after five successive democratic administrations, the government
“remains in debt to indigenous peoples.”
El
Mercurio reports that the president did not provide specifics about her
proposal, but that it included three main elements: creating a new
institutional framework (including a new Ministry of Indigenous Affairs, a
Council of Indigenous Peoples and a Council of Culture and Heritage), strengthening
the government’s land restitution program, and granting indigenous communities greater
representation in Congress.
Any eventual reform initiatives will not be
unilateral. The government has signaled that it is entering into a six-month
process of consultation with indigenous organizations. Restitution is sure
to be an especially contentious issue. As La
Tercera notes, the government has purchased and turned over land to
indigenous communities since 1994, benefiting some 16, 000 families over the
last twenty years. Still, many indigenous Chileans, especially Mapuche groups
in the troubled Araucania region, are dissatisfied
with the slow progress of this program.
While no concrete legislation has yet been
presented, Bachelet’s speech offers the latest sign that her government is interested
in moving indigenous rights forward in Chile. It comes in the wake of repeated promises by
administration officials -- most recently
before the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva -- not to invoke a Pinochet-era terrorist law
to prosecute Mapuche activists. It also follows up on her appointment of
part-Mapuche politician Francisco Huenchumilla as the government’s top official
in Araucania, and his historic apology
to the Mapuche in March for over a century of land theft and displacement.
News Briefs
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- Ecuador’s legislative assembly approved a law yesterday which will allow state control over water resources in the country. Indigenous groups have been critical of the measure, recently organizing a national march calling for it to include protections of the rights of indigenous communities living near water reserves. As the WSJ reports, supporters of the measure in the ruling Alianza Pais party say they have included most of the demands made by indigenous activists.
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- After the UN released its estimates of coca cultivation in Bolivia on Monday, showing a dramatic reduction in coca crops, Bolivian officials provided some sobering figures to complement the news. Felipe Caceres, Deputy Minister of Social Defense, told journalists that 47 percent of the total coca crop in the country is diverted to drug trafficking networks, La Razon reports.
- El Pais reports on a symbolic change made last week to the clock mounted over Bolivia’s legislative assembly building, which was replaced with a modified clock with hands and numbers designed to be read counterclockwise, or to the left. In a press conference yesterday, Bolivian Foreign Minister David Choquehuanca dubbed it the “clock of the south.” The BBC notes that reception of the clock among locals in La Paz has been mixed.
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