In La Araucanía and other areas of southern Chile, such as Biobío, a territorial dispute has existed for more than a century between the State, Mapuche communities and forestry companies that exploit lands considered ancestral by the indigenous people and that were forcibly occupied by the Chilean State.
The brutal murder of three police officers on Saturday harshly renews a decades-long conflict that a succession of governments of different types has failed to resolve in Chile. The violence attributed to Mapuche groups in the South reappears again and again, despite the sending of soldiers and to the lukewarm attempts at dialogue outlined by President Gabriel Boric.
An important advance on the indigenous issue occurred in 1993, when during the government of Ricardo Lagos a law was approved that addresses the land problem, one of the key points of the conflict. Among other things, the legislation establishes subsidies for land acquisition and regularizationhow to ensure the preservation and dissemination of indigenous cultural heritage or the implementation of intercultural programs in health and education, among other aspects.
The problem is that, since then, governments have not established a common plan to confront the problem while the struggle of the Mapuche people for their ancestral lands continues.
Since the formation of the Chilean State in the 19th century, The indigenous people were losing their lands, in many cases, through unclear or deceptive practices. Gradually, the land passed into the hands of European settlers, moved especially to the south after 1850, to their descendants and, later, to forestry, dairy and agricultural companies of great importance in the country’s economy.
In addition to their lands, the Mapuches ask that there is a balance between economic production and natural resources, essentially scarce and non-renewable. Despite the large number in the region, successive surveys show that Araucanía and its surrounding areas suffer from the highest poverty rate in the country, generally reaching a level close to 17.4%.
There is a wide series of reasons that explain the centuries-old trans-Andean conflict. Along with the dispute over land and the demand for respect for exhaustible natural resources, other relevant points exhibited by the Mapuche groups – the vast majority of whom are peaceful and opposed to all violence – has to do with the lack of recognition towards this people. since the trans-Andean State was created.
Since mid-2022, a state of exception ratified by Congress has been in force in the area, a constitutional tool that allows military deployment there to help Carabineros (the militarized Police). to control public order, including surveillance on the main routes and roads.
In this context, arson attacks on agricultural machinery and property, roadblocks and confrontations are frequent, which have cost the lives of a large number of Mapuche community members, in addition to the death of police officers.
It was the government of conservative Sebastián Piñera that declared, in October 2021, the state of exception and the militarization of Araucanía. More than 2,000 soldiers were then deployed to reinforce the police’s work. But the conflict did not subside.
Boric, who took the reins of the government in March 2022, had promised to lift that state of emergency which, in his opinion, only escalated the conflict. At the beginning of his administration, the social democratic leader tried to establish some channel of dialogue. Boric withdrew the military deployed by Piñera. But two months later he had to back down, seeing that the tension was escalating with new fires and attacks.
It was when the Arauco-Malleco Coordinator (CAM), one of the organizations that has claimed violent attacks in the area and to which the investigations for Saturday’s murder are aimed, called to “prepare forces and organize armed resistance.”
