Chile's President asks forgiveness from indigenous Mapuche

Record ID: 896687

  • Title: Chile's President asks forgiveness from indigenous Mapuche
  • Date: 23rd June 2017
  • Summary: SANTIAGO, CHILE (FILE - 2013) (REUTERS) FIGURES REPRESENTING THE INDIGENOUS MAPUCHE PEOPLE IN A MARCH ON RACE DAY MAPUCHE WOMEN MARCHING WITH THEIR FACES PARTIALLY COVERED VARIOUS OF MAPUCHE MEN AND WOMEN MARCHING WITH BANNER, FLAGS, WOODEN STICKS AND INSTRUMENTS WOMAN MARCHING WITH FACE PARTIALLY COVERED
  • Embargoed: 7th July 2017 20:35
  • Keywords: Chile Mapuche indigenous Michelle Bachelet
  • Location: SANTIAGO AND TEMUCO, CHILE
  • City: SANTIAGO AND TEMUCO, CHILE
  • Country: Chile
  • Topics: Government/Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA0016MI2S03
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: EDITORS PLEASE NOTE: VIDEO CONTAINS PROFANITY IN SHOT #8
    Chilean President Michelle Bachelet asked for forgiveness from the nation's indigenous Mapuche population on Friday (June 23) for "errors and horrors" committed by the State and announced plans to give them more power and resources.
    In the midst of growing tension between the Mapuche and loggers and farmers in Chile's south-central provinces, the center-left president said she would send a project to Congress creating an Indigenous Peoples' Ministry.
    Cash would be dedicated to building roads and providing drinking water in remote areas, as well as programs to more rapidly transfer land to indigenous people that they claim as their ancestral home, she said.
    "We have failed as a country," Bachelet said from La Moneda presidential palace in capital Santiago.
    "I want, solemnly and with humility, to ask forgiveness from the Mapuche people for the errors and horrors committed or tolerated by the State in our relation with them and their communities."
    Around 600,000 Mapuche live in Chile, many in the forested, hilly provinces of Araucania and Bio Bio, roughly 400 miles south of Santiago.
    Ever since the Chilean army invaded the territory of the Mapuche in a brutal campaign in the late 1800s, Mapuche relations with the state and settlers of European descent have been fractious.
    The Mapuche accuse the state and private companies of taking their ancestral land, draining its natural resources, and using undue violence against them. Their communities are among the poorest in Chile.
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