Mapuche leader Héctor Llaitul has been found guilty of attacking authorities and other violent crimes. The prosecution has requested Llaitul be jailed for 25 years but the sentence will only be announced next month. The defendant claimed the trial was fueled by a political persecution stemming from the clash between two cultures. The indigenous leader was arrested in August 2022 and has since been remanded in custody at the Biobío Penitentiary Complex, some 500 kilometers from Santiago.
Chilean President Gabriel Boric Font set up a Commission for Peace and Understanding to lay the foundations for a lasting and sustainable solution to the long-standing intercultural conflict between the Chilean State and the Mapuche people, it was announced Wednesday in Santiago during the National Day of Indigenous Peoples holiday.
A total of 426 Mapuche women who were summoned a year ago for the task have come up with a loom almost 1 kilometer long to promote a Weltanschauung in which Chile's most numerous indigenous community is represented.
Chile's new Interior Minister Izkia Siches escaped unharmed after her motorcade in La Araucanía was halted and gunshots were fired into the air in Temucuicui, some 670 kilometers south of Santiago.
Bariloche's Federal Court Tuesday ruled in favor of an appeal filed by the Argentine Army and halted the handing over of some 180 hectares of State land to the Millalonco Ranquehue Mapuche community.
Argentine-born Mapuche leader Facundo Jones-Huala has been declared a fugitive by the Government of Chile after the Supreme Court overruled -albeit not unanimously- a decision from a Temuco court of appeals whereby he had been granted parole. Jones-Huala had already served the minimum time required to be granted an early release.
Bariloche Federal Judge María Silvina Domínguez has ruled that State-owned lands must be handed over to members of a local Mapuche community in a decision many fear might constitute dangerous case-law for future claims, it was reported Friday.
Leftwing Deputy Gabriel Boric (35) beat first-round frontrunner Conservative José Antonio Kast in Sunday's presidential runoff to become Chile's youngest-ever head of state. After more than 90% of the votes were counted, Boric led by 56% against Kast's 44%.
Residents of the Argentine town of El Bolson Sunday confronted reasoning Mapuches on horseback and kept them from doing any further damage as authorities failed to provide an institutional response to the increasing unrest caused by the rebel groups in the area.
Argentina's Security Minister Aníbal Fernández Friday said people who believed the Mapuche conflict was to be solved the way General Julio Roca did in the late 1800s were wrong.