Journal of Haiti and the Americas
Chile: Gabriel Boric and the Mapuche conflict
Audio 7:30 p.m.
Chilean President Gabriel Boric (Illustrative image).
© REUTERS - RODRIGO GARRIDO
By: Mikael Ponge
3 mins
On May 16, 2022, the Boric government announced the return of the military to southern Chile, to the regions of Araucania and Biobio, where the largest number of Mapuche live, the largest indigenous community in the country.
An extended state of emergency, on May 30, 2022, for another 2 weeks.
A volte-face for the left-wing president, overtaken by violence.
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This is a file that has poisoned Chilean political life for several decades, the "Mapuche conflict", the main indigenous community in Chile (about 1,700,000 people out of the 19 million Chileans).
A community that claims lands lost since the 19th century.
In recent decades, this sometimes violent and deadly conflict has escalated.
So much so recently that the new left-wing president, Gabriel Boric, announced in mid-May 2022 the restoration of the state of emergency in the south of the country, a measure he had denounced during his campaign.
"It must have been a very difficult decision to take because it goes against his stated desire to find common ground with the Mapuche organizations, including those who declare themselves in struggle",
explains our guest Jimena Obregon Itura, University Professor in Hispano-American Studies at Rennes 2 University. However,
"there were no good choices",
believes the specialist, as the situation had become very tense: fires trucks and machines, attacks on vehicles… private forestry companies, established on the ancestral lands of the Mapuche are the main target of the attacks.
"The government has opted for a state of emergency limited to the main communication axes, the army has not been deployed everywhere in the south",
specifies Jimena Obregon Itura.
We cannot therefore say that Gabriel Boric is following in the footsteps of his predecessor Sebastian Piñera,
"because the announcement of the state of emergency was accompanied by a project that includes a certain number of elements to accelerate the process of land restitution, with the implementation of public policies in terms of health, drinking water, with non-negligible means".
Haiti: release of three Turkish hostages
Daily life in Haiti remains marked by the insecurity of gags: kidnappings are daily in the country and mainly in Port-au-Prince.
In this very tense security context, three of the eight Turkish citizens who have been held hostage for a month have been released.
These are the three young women from the group of eight nationals abducted while traveling by bus from Santo Domingo to Port-au-Prince.
They were
"released this weekend for health reasons, because they were sick"
.
On May 8, 2022, the powerful 400 mawozo gang hijacked the vehicle where a total of twelve people were, including these young Turks, aged 20 to 26.
Today, the kidnappers therefore still have the five young Turkish men in their hands.
For almost two years now, Haiti has lived in this terror of kidnappings and this phenomenon is experiencing a frantic upsurge: for the month of May alone, the UN has recorded at least 200 kidnappings across the country, mainly in the capital.
Brazil: still no trace of the British journalist and the Brazilian expert in the Amazon
Still no trace of the British journalist and researcher specializing in indigenous peoples who disappeared last weekend in Brazil.
Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira, recently threatened, were on a mission in the Amazon jungle, in the Javari Valley near the border with Peru.
A region renowned for its illegal invasions and trafficking of all kinds.
Fiona Watson of Survival International had worked with the two missing men in the past.
According to her, nothing surprising:
“the political climate has become very hostile towards those who defend indigenous peoples.
President Jair Bolsonaro, since coming to power, has often taken a stand against indigenous communities and tries to weaken their rights
.
And on the front page of the newspaper of the 1st
The opening on June 8, 2022, in Martinique, of an international symposium devoted to the decolonization of the memories of slavery.
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Chile
Gabriel Boric
Haiti
Turkey
Brazil
Martinique
Slavery
On the same subject
Chile: extension of the state of exception in Mapuche territory
Haiti: twelve people including eight Turkish citizens kidnapped by a gang
Amazon: disappearance of a British journalist and an Amerindian specialist