Tag: Chile

Chile: "The Indian Problem"

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Although colonialism has historically targeted Latin America, such effects on the Latin American people have not been enough to stop their own imperialist efforts. Issues of land and sovereignty: the uneasy relationship between Chile and Rapa Nui  details the case of Chile, where the state’s imperialist efforts were inspired through their conquering of Peruvian and Bolivian land. The resolution of the War of the Pacific granted Chile land from the beaten countries, making Chile somewhat of an imperialist state over those newly gained territories. Here, they gained the Mapuche land, which allowed them to garner exploitive methods that would expand to the newly gained territory of Rapa Nui.  Through merchant trade, Chile saw a possibility in Polynesian territory and annexed Rapa Nui.
The relationship between the Rapa Nui and Chile is complicated and has remained ambiguous across Chile’s changing government regimes. When Chile annexed Rapa Nui, it was due to a misunderstanding between the Chilean representative and the island’s chief who gave them the blessing to use the land for agricultural purposes but without ownership. Chile took this ritual as acceptance to their land ownership, which came back full circle when the Chilean Navy practiced gifting land to newly married Rapa Nui couples. In their terms, this gifted land could be used for agricultural purposes, but it was to be understood that the owners were still the state. The Rapa Nui also understood this as holding property ownership, which attests to the confusing nature of these two group’s relationship, as well as its legitimacy.
The Rapa Nui have used this confusing relationship to circumvent Chile’s rule as the laws passed such as the Inscription of 1933, La Ley Indigena of of 1933, and La Ley Pascua, which subjected the Indigenous people of Chile to regulations. These laws have created unforeseen consequences that have been to the advantage of the Rapa Nuis’ autonomy. The Inscription of 1933 made it so no foreigners could invest or own the land on the island, which benefited the Rapa Nui peoples as they didn’t have to worry about the threat of foreign land ownership. Unlike other Latin American Indigenous groups who have and are subject to foreign attractive forces, the Rapa Nui were guaranteed against that.  La Ley Indigena of 1933 made it so land redistribution became a norm amongst Indigenous groups of Chile, which was a polarizing issue amongst the island.
Since Rapa Nui culture was founded on the practice of the Kainga, ancestral lands pertaining to each klan, land redistribution would force Rapa Nui to go against the Kainga and take ownership of a specific land not spiritually given to them. The Kainga made it so land could be used communally and without specific ownership because each group claimed their own land spiritually or through historical patterns. Then La Ley de Pascua was passed in which the Rapa Nui peoples were recognized as Chilean citizens and given the right to vote, which created greater pressures on the island to distribute land in a way that would create individual land ownership. Throughout the regime transitions of Chile, the factor that has remained the same is the pressure to instill land privatization that is a characteristic of the neoliberalist policy, but such pressures to enhance this practice undermine the cultural importance of the Kainga to the Rapa Nui, which indicates an instilled sense of the state that the Rapa Nui have not assimilated to Chilean culture and are therefore undeserving of practicing that culture.
The issue of Chile to recognize the cultural importance of land to the Rapa Nui and instead pressure them into privatizing their land is indicative of their lack of understanding of indigeneity that is described in the chapter “The Problem of the Indian” in Seven Interpretative Essays on Peruvian Reality. In this essay Jose Carlos Mariategui discusses how others attribute the “Indian problem,” in terms of it being an educational, religious, or administrative issue. The problem is not purely socio-economic, but it is also not purely a problem of the administrative policies or the education of some. It is also not just a land tenure problem, although that area is highly focused on as it is the most visible discrepancy of Indigenous peoples from state civilians. The complexity of what the “Indian problem” entails is similar and a relation to explaining why Chile has lacked in being able to police the Rapa Nui in the way that they have over the Mapuche. Instead of policing their land, their cultural habits, and the way they present themselves to outsiders as they have with the Mapuche, Chile has forgoed much intervention with the Rapa Nui, although they do, technically, own their land. By testifying that the problem of Indigenous assimilation or prosperity under the state is not merely due to a department of the state, but all combined, which makes the “issue” one almost impossible to define or fix.
https://muse-jhu-edu.ezproxy.carleton.edu/chapter/515052
https://www.marxists.org/archive/mariateg/works/7-interpretive-essays/index.htm

Chile's relationship to Rapa Nui

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In the article “Issues on Land and Sovereignty: The Uneasy Relationship Between Chile and Rapa Nui”, anthropologist Riet Delsing focuses on the Rapa Nui, also named Easter Island (or Isla de Pascua), and the way it has been administrated by Chile for the past 150 years. Delsing gives a general historical overview of the history common to the island and the mainland, and examines the successive laws that had an impact on the population and the landownership of Rapa Nui. 
Chile gained independence from Spain in 1818, but was still consolidating its territory in the 1880s: the integration of the Mapuche territory in the south and the annexation of former Bolivian and Peruvian territories in the north were the context in which Chile annexed Easter Island in 1888. Policarpo Toro Hurtado signed the Agreement of Wills with the Rapanui leaders. From this date, Rapanui ancestral customs, specifically regarding landownership, were disrupted. After the annexation of the island, and especially because of the civil war of 1891, the Chilean nation-state lost interest in Rapa Nui. Everything changed in 1917, when the Chilean Republic started to consolidate its hold on the island by sending the navy as a colonial agent applying strict military rules on Rapa Nui. 
The history of Rapa Nui is intrinsically linked to landownership. Before Chilean colonization, the kainga as a form of collective landownership was exclusively applied. With the arrival of Chilean settlers and moreover with the passage of the Ley Pascua of 1966, private landownership was introduced. It was reinforced by the Ley Pinochet in 1979. In opposition to those laws, the Ley Indígena of 1993 established norms of protection, promotion, and development of Chile’s indigenous people, and recognized land as the lifeblood of indigenous cultures. Nevertheless, Rapanui people were not spectators in this process of assimilation. They often fought the Chilean government, organizing themselves into a Council of Elders in 1980 and creating a Rapanui Parliament with demands of autonomy. Eventually, in 2007, the island was granted a Special Status, thanks to a constitutional reform. 
Delsing’s article highlights the evolution of the relationship between Chile and its Pacific colony through a detailed examination of landownership on Rapa Nui. It identifies the specificities of Rapa Nui, both its peculiar indigenous social organization and the policy of the Chilean government towards it, as opposed to mainland indigenous territories.
 
Delsing, Riet. “Issues of land and sovereignty: the uneasy relationship between Chile and Rapa Nui (Easter Island)” in Decolonizing Native Histories: Collaboration, Knowledge, and Language in the Americas. Durham: Duke University Press, 2012.
https://muse.jhu.edu/chapter/515052

Chile’s Comando Jungla: An agent of racism

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Content Warning: Police Brutality
In November of 2018, a young Mapuche man was driving his tractor when he was involved in an ‘exchange’ of gunfire, which later turned out to be just the police firing at the young man, killing him, in an all too familiar case of police brutality.  The police claimed he ‘fit a description’ and were ‘acting in self defense.’  The man was found to be unarmed, contrary to the police departments claims. This case added to the long and complicated history between the police the Mapuche, inciting protests against the injustice experienced by the Mapuche people at the hands of the police.  Piñera, the right-wing Chilean president, after pressure from protesters following the November 2018 case, made a statement about new leadership and conflict resolution, but the Mapuche people know they are empty words.
These types of protests, demonstrations, and riots by the Mapuche are cited as the reason a comando jungla, in addition to the normal police force, is necessary on their lands under the pretense of combating terrorism.  The action was enabled by the terrorism Law 18.314 written into the constitution during the Chilean dictatorship, that is still in place today, intending to silence political opposition with little regard for the due process of law to consolidate Pinochet’s power.  Trained in the U.S. and Colombia starting in 2007, the special force was deployed to the region that contains the Mapuche ancestral lands, the epicenter of the activism that is actively fighting for land rights and autonomy for their people.  The state has used police force as a social control born out of explicit racism against the Mapuche. These actions and policies are part of the larger agenda to erase indigenous culture and subjugate indigenous people into the western hierarchy to benefit the neoliberal machine of the elite.

Indigenous Rights Organizations Working in Latin America Today

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As I class, we found different indigenous rights organizations working in Latin America today. Below, you can see a list of a couple indigenous rights organizations located in different Latin American countries. In addition to a description of the work the organization is doing and their mission, you can also find the link to their website and social media page.

Bolivia

Confederación de Pueblos Indígenas de Bolivia (CIDOB), or Confederation of Indigenous Peoples of Bolivia

Website: http://www.apcbolivia.org/org/cidob.aspx
The Confederación de Pueblos Indígenas de Bolivia (CIDOB), or Confederation of Indigenous Peoples of Bolivia was founded in 1982 and is an organization that represents 34 distinct lowland indigenous groups in Bolivia. The information about the confederation is APCBolivia, a “plurinational communications agency.” It is unclear to me whether APCBolivia is the larger non-governmental organization, and CIDOB is a chapter, or if CIDOB is its own organization. Regardless, according to the CIDOB website, at the structural level, the confederation seeks to foster unity and solidarity among indigenous peoples from different tribes, to preserve the independence of indigenous organizations from external interference, and to include indigenous women’s voices at every level of decision-making. The confederation, in how it relates to the state and the public at large, means to represent indigenous peoples and “search for their effective incorporation and participation in political, social, economic and cultural decisions” of Bolivia “in the areas of local, regional, national and international development.”
The organization’s website details its specific strategies of how it promotes these goals — since its strategies and functions are various and specific, I have not listed all of them here, but there is a subsection of the site where you can find these details. As we have studied the history of indigenous peoples in Bolivia, it may be evident why such an organization needs to exist — there needs to be economic uplift, recognition of sovereignty and land, etc.

Chile

Colectivo de Comunicación Mapuche, or the Mapuche Communication Collective

Website: http://www.mapuexpress.org/?page_id=2056
Colectivo de Comunicación Mapuche, Mapuche communication collective
This organization works definitively apart from the Chilean government in the region of La Araucanía where the majority of the Mapuche people live.  Their main purpose is as a multi-platform news source to generate indigenous consciousness throughout the region and country. Running stories in both Spanish and mapudungun, the Mapuche language spoken by over 260,000 people, the organization creates a well informed network of activists to mobilize for the Mapuche community. Their goals are explicitly stated as anti capitalist and autonomist.  

Comunidades Mapuche en Conflicto Arauco – Malleco (also known as CAM)

Website: https://www.nodo50.org/weftun/
The Comunidades Mapuche en Conflicto Arauco – Malleco (also known as CAM) is an organization of Mapuche people in Central and Southern Chile. Unlike other areas of South America, the colonization of Southern Chile was slow and more about claiming land from Argentina than from the indigenous peoples. By the time colonizers arrived in Mapuche territory in the mid 1800s, they were organized and prepared to fight. The Mapuche have continued to fight since the beginning, and never recognized the Chilean state’s authority over them, refusing the identity of “Chilean” entirely. However, the chilean state has continued to encroach on Mapuche lands. As a result of the Pinochet regime, chile has a neoliberal government system, and the government will continually sell Mapuche lands to private companies. These companies force Mapuche off their land by replanting native forests with monocultures of Pine and Eucalyptus, which destroy soils such that traditional agriculture cannot take place. CAM, under the direction of Héctor Llaitul and Ramon Llanquileo, two inimitable Mapuche organizers, has been fighting back against this environmental siege by setting fire to monoculture forests and replanting traditional farms. Although it does appear to be a powerful and unified campaign, their lack of public materials indicated that they have given up on obtaining their rights through the Chilean bureaucracy.

Colombia

The National Indigenous Organization of Colombia (Organización Nacional Indígena de Colombia or ONIC)

Website: https://www.onic.org.co/
The National Indigenous Organization of Colombia (Organización Nacional Indígena de Colombia or ONIC) is an organization network for the indigenous communities of Colombia to organize and demand their political rights. As a result of their composition, the participants are representatives from various nations in Colombia and, although they recognize all the people’s different languages, all their materials are in Spanish. This group has been active in Colombia since the 1970s. The biggest threats to these organizations are the different violent actors that target them in the country, and the strong neoliberal system in place in Colombia that encourages the construction of megaprojects that endanger many of these communities. This is especially challenging in Colombia where the state’s development project align with the interests of right wing militias in the country and as a result of this deadly alliance you’ll have a case such as the current construction of Hidroituango, a major development project over mass graves of the victims of paramilitary groups.

Ecuador

Ecuador Runakunapak Rikcharimuy, or the Movement of the Indigenous People in Ecuador

Website: http://www.ecuarunari.org.ec/
The Kichwa name for this Indigenous Rights organization in Ecuador is Ecuador Runakunapak Rikcharimuy and it translates to “Movement of the Indigenous People in Ecuador” but also known as the Confederacion Kichwa del Ecuador–Ecuarunari. They are a fairly new founded organization with their founding date being 1972. The current president of the org (2016-2019) is Carlos Perez G and Kanari del Azuay. They represent politically 12 ethnic groups of the Ecuador region. In addition, it is a registered member of the Coordination of Indigenous Organizations of the Andes (CAOI).
List of what they want:

  1. Improve the living conditions of the Indigenous peoples of Ecuador and plan to do so through improvement of education, health, housing, and food security.
  2. Seek broad, democratic, equitable and conscious participation of the affiliated organizations of the Ecuarunari in the effort to ascertain the social, cultural, scientific, technological and economic development of its members.

On their website their mission statement is:
“We have built a past, we are in a present [sic], and want to continue with the future, strengthening the processes of organizational structures, and generating new expectations, such as the participation of children, young people; also, spaces for debate, gatherings of music, of peoples, to maintain life. Form new cadres, leaders and never let our organization end, but continue with the historical process.”
 

La Coordinadora de las Organizaciones Indígenas de la Cuenca Amazónica (COICA) or The Coordinator of the Indigenous Organizations of the Amazon Basin (COICA)

Website: http://coica.org.ec/historia/
La Coordinadora de las Organizaciones Indígenas de la Cuenca Amazónica (COICA) or The Coordinator of the Indigenous Organizations of the Amazon Basin (COICA) is an indigenous organization of international convergence that focuses its efforts on the promotion, protection and security of Indigenous peoples through the defense of their ways of life, principles and social, spiritual and cultural values. COICA was born on March 14, 1984 in the city of Lima-Peru, during the First Congress of the Indigenous Organizations of the Amazon Basin, in which participated: AIDESEP, Peru; CONFENIAE, Ecuador; CIDOB, Bolivia; ONIC, Colombia; and UNI, Brazil. Within this bigger organization, AIDESEP is more specific to the region of Peru. Some of their projects include: supporting infrastructure projects, mining, and projects by the National Bank in the Brazil Amazon, conserving biodiversity and ecosystem function in the Amazon, implement programs to mitigate emissions from forestry practices, and recognition and response to growing forest loss in the Amazon.
Primary focuses of the organization include: sustainable living, land and natural resources, their own legal systems, strengthening ancestral wisdom, economic development, and systems of communication and access to technology.  

French Guiana

FOAG (Federation of Amerindian Organizations of Guiana)

Website: http://foag.over-blog.com

The FOAG (Federation of Amerindian Organizations of Guiana) aims to represent the interests of the indigenous people of French Guiana at a regional, national, and international level. French Guiana is the second-largest region of France, and due to its status as a French Territorial Collectivity it is often ignored by NGOs — as France doesn’t need aid from them. Around 9.000 indigenous persons live in Guiana (5% of the global population), among six different ethnics — the Kali’na, the Arawak, the Palikur, the Teko, the Wayāpi, and the Wayana. The FOAG defends the interests of every one of them, and its members are all native to these ethnics. The FOAG cooperates with the COICA (Confederation of Indigenous Organizations of the Amazonian Basin) to fight for indigenous rights and to promote indigenous cultures and languages in Amazonia. It is interesting to notice that all their materials are in French though. In Guiana, the FOAG fights to promote self-development and self-governance of indigenous people. The actions of the organization are mainly informative, as they spread news via their blog. Nevertheless, they regularly address officials and representatives of the government. Recently, the FOAG opposed the “Montagne d’Or” (Golden Mountain) project, a project of the exploitation of a gold mine in the North of Guiana that would have a disastrous impact on the environment.

Guatemala

The National Coordination of Widows of Guatemala (la Coordinadora Nacional de Viudas de Guatemala: CONAVIGUA)

Website: http://conavigua.tripod.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Conavigua-Guatemala-457506251121355/
The major participants of this group are Guatemalan women whose husbands were killed in the Guatemalan Civil War. The objectives of this group include food, peace, equal education, protection for widows and mothers, protection for indigenous women, socioeconomic equality, and equal rights for indigenous communities. The group also seeks integration to la Unidad de Acción Sindical y Popular (UASP), a major union organization in Guatemala. CONAVIGUA, as well as the community the organization represents, faces some serious threats, in addition to the factors that led to the creation of the group in the first place. According to the website, members of CONAVIGUA have been threatened with violence by government soldiers for speaking out.

Mexico

The Popular Indigenous Council of Oaxaca “Ricardo Flores Magon,” also known as CIPO-RFM

Websites:
https://intercontinentalcry.org/a-look-at-the-cipo-rfm/
http://ipfs.io/ipfs/QmXoypizjW3WknFiJnKLwHCnL72vedxjQkDDP1mXWo6uco/wiki/Popular_Indigenous_Council_of_Oaxaca_%22Ricardo_Flores_Magón%22.html
https://www.nodo50.org/cipo/
The Popular Indigenous Council of Oaxaca “Ricardo Flores Magon,” also known as CIPO-RFM, is a grassroots rights organization mostly comprised of 2,000 rural indigenous activists in Oaxaca, Mexico. Their goals include, but are not limited to, promote and defend their human and cultural rights as individuals through non-violent community-based actions for environmental conservation and basic human necessities.

Peru

Matsés Movement  

Website: http://www.matses.org/
Matsés Movement promotes tribal subsistence and economic stability for tribes in the amazon, specifically Matsés communities. The board of the NGO is entirely run by indigenous leadership. They are located in Peru, and one of the issues they are combating is that the Peruvian government gave rights to search for oil on their land to a Canadian oil company. They view this as a threat to their community’s livelihood. Further, they call attention to how government aid and infrastructure does not extend into their region, which increases the poverty of the people. They note on their website that the only government presence are teachers whose salaries are paid by the Ministry of Education. In addition to raising awareness about the encroachment on their land, this movement also wants to improve the quality of schools and living situation in this region. The major participants seem to be elected members from different Matsés communities. They speak their native language, but their website did mention that the government does support teachers giving a bilingual education. The website is primarily in English, but they do have the option on some pages to translate it into Matsés and Spanish.

The Interethnic Association for the Development of the Peruvian Rainforest(La Asociación Interétnica de Desarrollo de la Selva Peruana or AIDESEP)

Website: http://www.aidesep.org.pe
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCs8G_cAIVzIPqyrC7tK_qig
Twitter: https://twitter.com/aidesep_org?lang=es
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aidesep/
The Interethnic Association for the Development of the Peruvian Rainforest(La Asociación Interétnica de Desarrollo de la Selva Peruana or AIDESEP) is an organization that advocates for the indigenous people of the Peruvian Amazon. Their mission includes claiming the territorial integrity of the indigenous peoples of the Amazon, establishing and strengthening indigenous self-governance, and further developing their indigenous economy—just to name a few. Some of their goals include solving socio-environmental conflicts, promoting indigenous women and youth, and intercultural education and healthcare. The AIDESEP has a Board of Directors, that consists of six members, each of which comes from different villages across Peru. The organization is made up of 64 indigenous groups, and despite the differing languages they may have, the website is run primarily in Spanish. Their major political struggle, or at least what they are continuously demanding from their government, is to not only receive their rights (land, bicultural education, etc.) but to be able to conserve and maintain them. The AIDESEP has a Flickr, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, and further publications like pictures, videos, and articles on their website to increase their outreach in social media.

Chaikuni Institute

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/institutochaikuni
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Chaikuni
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/institutochaikuni/
The Chaikuni Institute is a grassroots collective which works for a truly sustainable future for the Peruvian Amazon. The organization is located in Iquitos, Peru and according to their website they “investigate, promote, and protect” a form of life known as sumak kawsay. Sumak Kawsay translates to a “good living” in harmony with one’s communities, oneself, and most importantly, our living, breathing environment. The organization works with indigenous people in the following three operational branches: Intercultural Education, Permaculture, and Human and Nature Rights.
In terms of language, the non-profit organization predominantly uses Spanish and Quechua. This is interesting because the leadership of the organization does not consist of many indigenous people. The majority consists of immigrants from different countries such as Spain, Norway, and different African nations. In addition to the indigenous people within the organization, every member of the administration feels strongly about working to preserve the Amazonian environment. There are various threats to the ecology of the Amazon. The organization aims to overcome the ecological devastation, poverty, corruption, and cultural homogenization caused by modernization, globalization, and extractive industries.

“Casa Trans Zuleymi”

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pg/ZULEYMITRANS/events/?ref=page_internal
Website: https://hovupipumu.jimdo.com/casa-trans-zuleymi/
Article: http://agenciapresentes.org/2017/10/23/asi-funciona-la-primera-casa-trans-peru/
A refuge home for transgender women in Peru. It is a resource center situated in Lima, that helps trans-feminine people with STI(STD) testing, DIN registration (Identification), housing, education, and mental support. They also offer assistance in filing cases of domestic abuse, discrimination, etc. In a news story about Casa Trans, it was stated that “Many of them are migrants from the jungle of Peru,” which I am assuming to mean that there must be indigenous peoples being helped too. There are awareness videos on their Facebook and they receive funding from a nonprofit based in the US.