MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency
Chile questioned over slow implementation of Indigenous Peoples convention
Mapuches have been striving, even with violence, for their rights International Labour Organization (ILO) Standards Director Cleopatra Doumbia-Henry is meeting in the Chilean city of Temuco this week with Araucanía Region (IX) officials to discuss the lack of progress in implementing the ILO’s Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention.
The meeting occurs in the midst of a hunger strike by Mapuche prisoners and just after a nation wide demonstration on behalf of the hunger strikes that resulted in more than 100 arrests.
After 17 years of deliberation, Chile ratified ILO Convention 169 in 2008. Chile was one of the last Latin American countries to ratify the convention, which was established in 1989, and has reported delays on the first treaty-implementation progress report scheduled for September.
Dep. Gonzalo Arenas confirmed the draft’s delay and said a special session to address indigenous issues has been scheduled with the Chamber of Deputies’ Committee on Foreign Affairs for Sept. 7.
The convention requires that indigenous communities be consulted when legislative or administrative measures affect them. According Sen. Jaime Quintana, who was expected to attend the meeting with the ILO, the progress report states that authorities have not yet spoken with the Mapuche community to seek agreement on the proposed treaty - as required by the UN agency.
The Convention’s ratification was made difficult by the long history of indigenous conflicts of the Araucanía Region with activist Mapuche groups, and its implementation has also been a long, drawn out process. Still, Chile’s courts have already begun integrating the convention’s stipulations into some of their rulings.
“We are concerned that […] we have a very poor compliance with the standards required,” Quintana said.
By Dustin Zarnikow - Santiago Times
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Read all commentsIt was a big mistake that last government have signed that convention of ILO. We, in Chile, have just one kind of citiziens, so nobady must have special regulations as they asked for. Chilean originaries people are all people that have been born on our land, independent were their parents were born. That is a discrimination against the ramining people of Chile and it must be declared out of our Constitution that say that all people have the same right and duties in Chile....!!!
Aug 21st, 2010 - 02:47 pm 0About the extremist groups of that are operating on the Araucania Region, they are financed from outside and they are ideoligized as extreme left wing and supported by known Latinamerican regimes and “guerrilleros” providing them armed war knowledge (Ecuador, FARC, etc.). This extreme groups must be set under the Terrorist Law implemented in Chile and be on jail for a long time, so the remaining pacific Chilean can live a quiet and happy life.
Sergio. I am disappointed in you. I thought you were a 21st century person.
Aug 21st, 2010 - 03:37 pm 0Your ancestors travelled more than 7000 miles from their land of origin. They occupied land that belonged to other people. They imposed their own culture, probably ignoring that of the indigenous culture. Now, I'm not blaming you for that. It was 200 or more years ago and culture was different.
But surely, in the 21st century, it is time to recognise that the indigenous people have rights that pre-date yours, that they may have wishes that are not the same as your own and cannot be measured by the same yardstick. The Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention, 1989 is an attempt to reach a compromise acceptable to all.
To deny people their culture is inhuman.
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Aug 21st, 2010 - 07:55 pm 0Well........ What could be expected from a selfproclaimed “Proud Pinochetista”?.............. The beast always surfaces.................
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