A new campaign has been launched to improve the situation of indigenous peoples in Chile, which aims to overthrow unofficial discrimination and official ignorance of indigenous rights.

Below are extracts from an article published by Matt Malinowski for The Santiago Times:

The Observatory on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (ODPI) initiated Tuesday [04 September 2007] a nationwide campaign to promote indigenous rights and culture. With this campaign, the Chilean NGO hopes to open a new chapter of intercultural relations between the people of Chile and the nation’s indigenous groups.

ODPI leaders plan to take advantage of Chile’s approaching bicentennial celebration in order to draw attention to the nation’s native residents. Organizers are planning a string of cultural events in upcoming months and have readied radio and television commercials aimed at further promoting indigenous rights and culture.

At Tuesday’s [04 September 2007] event NGO officials and other speakers emphasized Chile’s multicultural and multilingual heritage. Messages about the campaign were simultaneously translated from Spanish into native languages and were interspersed with performances of indigenous songs. Presenters also underscored Chile’s indigenous legacy by informing the audience about common Chilean slang words which have native origins, such as tata (“grandfather”), pololo (“boyfriend”), and guagua (“baby”).

Campaign Coordinator Paulina Acevedo told the Santiago Times that the campaign has been in the works for more than one year and has involved various sectors of Chile’s civil society. Acevedo said she expects the campaign to pick up steam in coming months.

“This is only the beginning. After this event, we hope to make this campaign truly public (…) this is going to be a campaign which will be seen everywhere,” said Acevedo. “We are going to keep on having activities. We are going to upload videos onto YouTube. We are going to put on audiovisual activities. We will do everything in our power to make this campaign a public one. That is our goal.”

Some speakers at the event lambasted the Concertacion government and its controversial treatment of the country’s indigenous peoples. Criticism of Chilean government policies focused on three points: lack of representation in the Chilean constitution, Chile’s neo-liberal economic model, and police discrimination.

Speakers expressed delusion that after 17 years of center-left governments, Chile’s indigenous groups are still not recognized under the constitution. This absence is especially conspicuous, speakers said, because roughly 10 percent of Chile’s population describes itself as indigenous. Furthermore, there is not one Chilean senator or deputy who is of indigenous descent.

Speakers also questioned the government’s willingness to allow big business to develop multi-million dollar projects on land indigenous groups claim as their own. They cited the Ralco Dam as a prime example of how the Concertacion has allowed business considerations to trump indigenous rights issues. Endesa’s Ralco Dam, Chile’s largest dam project, was completed in 2004, but required the displacement of the area’s age-old Pehuenche indigenous community. During the dam’s construction, the government turned a deaf ear to a roar of national and international complaints.

Finally, presenters at Tuesday’s [04 September 2007] launch cited cases of police discrimination against Chile’s indigenous residents. In recent months, southern Chile indigenous communities such as Juan Paillalef de Cunco have denounced the racist attitudes of police officers, attorneys, and public prosecutors in cases involving Mapuche activists.

“We are all gathered here today because we believe intimately, and not just in our dreams, in the need to end the pain which affects us during these days (…) the Chilean government should assume more responsibility (said well-known Mapuche poet Elicura Chihuailaf).”

Former Chilean President Patricio Alywin, who attended the event as a guest, praised the campaign’s intentions.

“Anything which creates a national consciousness about the country’s indigenous groups is very positive,” Alywin told the Santiago Times.

The former president also gave his own critique of subsequent administration’s attitudes towards Chile’s indigenous population.

“I think that there is a lot that we still have to do. We need to make a constitutional reform that recognizes indigenous people. I would say that Chile is marching in the correct direction, but which still has much work left to do with respect to recognizing and also improving the lifestyles of our indigenous populations (…) I believe that my government took definitive steps. Still, since then, the rhythm of progress has undoubtedly slowed,” Alywin told the Santiago Times.

The campaign launch comes at a time when the government is facing strong criticism from a slew of Chilean and international NGOs for alleged “institutionalized racism” against the Mapuche people of southern Chile.

A coalition of indigenous rights activists sent an open letter of complaint to President Michelle Bachelet and other ministers in July, urging government action on a list of UN recommendations aimed at improving the situation of Chile’s indigenous groups (ST, July 24).

“The UN mission found multiple situations that, in its judgment, constituted serious human rights violations, and that racism in state institutions is clearly perceptible in the cases of verbal and physical abuse against the Mapuches,” said the letter (ST, July 24).