Posts Tagged ‘Mapuche’
After the rescue of the 33 Chilean miners, Chile was even more lauded as a model democracy in region still portrayed in the media (and U.S. Cables as per Wikileaks) as run by power hungry and perhaps mentally unstable leaders.
What isn’t being covered, except in a few select outlets (namely orgs out of Chile, independent radio here in U.S. and through social media) is how the Chilean government is at this moment terrorizing two Indigenous nations.
VivirLatino has covered a little of what has been happening in the south of Chile regarding the Mapuche community (full disclosure, my elder child is Mapuche). Recently released cables have shown that while former Chilean Michele Bachelet may have been a victim of the U.S. sponsored coup/dictatorship of Pinochet, she had no qualms about reaching out to the U.S. to investigate the Mapuche as “terrorists” when they have been merely defending their lands.
From the L.A. Times:
One leaked cable, dated February 2008, tells of a meeting between U.S. Ambassador Paul Simons and Bachelet’s interior minister, Edmundo Perez Yoma, in which officials discussed the possibility that the Mapuche might be receiving aid from the government of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, or the FARC guerrilla army in Colombia, or even the ETA, the Basque separatist group in Spain.
The implications are powerful, for if indeed a connection was made (or rather invented) this certainly could place more U.S. anti-terror funds into Chile to suppress the Mapuche nation.
Then people question why I called Bachelet’s socialism “lite”.
As we enter September and quickly move to what is known in the U.S. as “Hispanic Heritage Month”, many Latin American counties celebrate their independence days, especially countries in South America. As the mother of two ChileRicans, one of them a MapucheRican and having lived in Chile in one of my incarnations, this 45 minute documentary really struck me. The Spanish (as in from Spain and in Spanish- with no English subtitles) looks at the Mapuche in Chile, with a specific focus on recent political repression.
I was moved and angered by the film as it discussed how, paralleling the treatment of indigenous nations in the U.S., colonial treaties were broken, new treaties were made, and then those were broken as well. I was particularly struck with how the new land ownership decisions made under the Pinochet dictatorshop were being enforced with violence against Mapuche communities.
If you speak Spanish and have 45 minutes to spare, it really is worth watching, considering the context of the upcoming bicentennial of Chile.
“Los Olvidados”, El Pueblo Mapuche, Una Historia de Resistencia from Nuestro Canto on Vimeo.
Via / Oposición a Piñera
When I lived in Chile more than a decade ago, I was struck by the how still fresh and raw the Pinochet dictatorship felt. I went there to study Chile’s rise post Pinochet and the discourse was based on the Southern Cone nation’s economic success. This success was of course based on capitalism and the growth of business meanwhile in one Santiago’s ritziest areas, Providencia, children begged for food outside U.S. chain fast food joints. Once I moved south to Temuco and surrounding areas, I witnessed the discrimination against the Mapuche population and the colorism against anyone who looked “indio”, including the Mapuche father of my first child. Now with a socialist, female president, Chile still has a long way to go according to the head of Amnesty International.
Concluding a one-week visit to Chile on Friday, Amnesty International’s Secretary General Irene Khan issued an assessment of the human rights situation in the country and a set of recommendations addressed to the Chilean government.
“Despite some positive steps taken by successive democratic governments in the last 18 years, Chile’s record on human rights leaves much room for improvement,” said Ms. Khan.
“We call on President Bachelet to use the remaining 17 months of her time in office to create a decisive and lasting legacy of human rights reform.”
Patricia Troncoso “Mapuche” Activist Reinstates her Hunger Strike in Chile
10:19 am By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · Activism|Chile|mexico · 2 Comments
4 Mar 2008
Patricia Troncoso aka La Chepa, a Chilean activist working in solidarity with the indigenous Mapuche community in Chile, has reinstated the hunger strike that landed her in a Temuco hospital after stating that the Chilean government hasn’t kept their end of the bargain that caused her to end her 112 day fast last month. Part of the bargain was that Troncoso be transferred to the Center for Work and Education (CET) owned by prison security in Angol, and also included Sunday outings to begin in March. Troncoso was in jail stemming from 2003 charges that she was involved in burning nearly 250 acres of pine plantations belonging to the Minico Company.
Mapuches Vs. Microsoft
8:12 am By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · business|Chile|language · 2 Comments
27 Nov 2006
Microsoft Corporation isn’t making any friends in Chile after it rolled out a Windows software package in Mapudungun, the langauge of the Indigenous Mapuches who are mostly based in the south of the South American nation.
At the launch in the southern town of Los Sauces, Microsoft (Charts) said it wanted to help Mapuches embrace the digital age and “open a window so that the rest of the world can access the cultural riches of this indigenous people.”
But Mapuche tribal leaders have accused the U.S. company of violating their cultural and collective heritage by translating the software into Mapudungun without their permission.
They even sent a letter to Microsoft founder Bill Gates accusing his company of “intellectual piracy.”
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