Mapuche nation creates Parliament

In January 29th, representatives of the Mapuche communities, accompanied by their lawyer, went to the presidential palace in Santiago de Chile to inform of this constituent action that they hope is not again accused of "illicit association".

The Parliament has as goals to be active participants of the constitutional recognition of the Mapuche nation and the implementation of convention 169 of the International Labour Organization.

For Jorge Huenchullan, Werken (president) of the new Parliament says that its creation means a new uprising of the Mapuche communities that are really in the struggle for land recuperation and reivindication and for regaining the civil rights that have been denied to the Mapuche in Chile. He states that the first goal of the Mapuche Parliament will be to expel the logging companies from the lands they have usurped, as well as the colonists in Mapuche territory. They plan to do so by legal means.

They also intend to work against the political repression they are suffering with indiscriminate arrests and even murders.

They are realist enough to acknowledge that the Chilean government has no intention of solving the conflict in any way that might favor the Mapuche nation. They denounce that the new Chilean president, Piñera, is a repressor who has direct interests with the logging companies and the death squads they maintain.

Source: Rebelión.