The Chilean President, Gabriel Boric, has announced today at the Palacio de La Moneda, in Santiago, the composition of the eight members of the Commission for Peace and Understanding, a group that should focus on carrying out a cadastre for the restitution of lands to the Mapuche people, and that seeks a political solution to a historical conflict that has become more complex over the years. The members of the commission belong to politically transversal worlds and among them is Alfredo Moreno, a former minister of President Sebastián Piñera (2018-2022).
The formation of this body was announced by Boric in November 2022 and today, six months later, it was made the Day of the Indigenous Peoples, a holiday throughout the national territory. Since 1997, radicalized groups have staged hundreds of attacks in the so-called South Macrozone of the country, generating a climate of insecurity that has kept those territories under a state of constitutional exception, with a military presence, since October 2021.
Boric’s presidential commission is the first to address exclusively the Mapuche, the largest native people in the country. But it is the fourth attempt by the Chilean state, since the return to democracy in 1990, to open a political dialogue. Previously, different leaders have undertaken initiatives that, although they have meant historical progress and recognition regarding the treatment of indigenous peoples, the conflict has continued to worsen. Among them, the former socialist leaders Ricardo Lagos (2000-2006) and Michelle Bachelet, in addition to Piñera (2018-2022), from the traditional right, who promoted the Araucanía Plan and was led, precisely, by his former minister Moreno.
“I am hopeful that this (commission), through broad social dialogue, and agreements, which at first may seem improbable, difficult, will lay the foundations for a lasting and sustainable solution to the longstanding intercultural conflict between the Chilean State and the Mapuche people”, said Boric in La Moneda. “We are not starting from scratch,” he added, recalling the efforts of different governments, including the creation of the National Corporation for Indigenous Development (Conadi) and the promulgation of the Indigenous Law during the government of Christian Democrat Patricio Aylwin (1990-1994). “Since the return to democracy, there have been many and very significant efforts to chart a path that leads us to peace, tranquility, mutual recognition and respect,” the left-wing president said on Wednesday.
Boric especially recalled the Historical Truth and New Deal Commission led by Lagos and chaired by Aylwin, and stressed that “for the first time in our history, he referred to our relationship with indigenous peoples in the past, officially unveiling the dispossession, violence and even genocide of which they have been victims”.
The agreement was signed by all the country’s political parties. And, according to the Chilean president, it is a commission that is created to make political and legislative changes viable “to give an adequate response to a problem that has been trapped for too many years associated with the demand for land.”
Five Mapuche in the commission
“We are facing a State task that will transcend the current government,” Boric said when launching the Commission for Peace and Understanding that will be headed by psychologist Víctor Ramos, as executive secretary, and who also leads the Good Living Plan, the first initiative of the Government of Boric to open dialogue with indigenous peoples. Its work will focus on the Biobío, La Araucanía, Los Ríos and Los Lagos regions, and its members must propose a solution to the Mapuche people’s demand for land, first, by preparing a cadastre. Although there are areas of the ancestral lands where there are cities, in his Public Account of June 1 the president clarified that “those cities are going to be maintained.”
Boric highlighted his government’s way of addressing the problem in the area, “which has been going on for a long time,” he said, and has several dimensions. “Dialogue and meeting is one of them. But we do not leave aside the investments and the presence of the State”. The president added: “In turn, we are at a third leg of the table.” And he analyzed: “I said dialogue, the Peace and Understanding Commission; investments, the Good Living Plan, and also taking charge of improving the situation of insecurity and violence in the area, by strengthening the police, putting an end to the feeling of impunity and, of course, taking charge of something that is very painful and It is very important to put it on the table: reparation for all the victims.”
The eight commissioners summoned by the Government are political actors from different sectors. Four of them are of Mapuche origin: the Christian Democratic senator Francisco Huenchumilla; the socialist deputy Emilia Nuyado Ancapichún; the social worker and today in charge of the Unit of Original Peoples of the Regional Government of Biobío, Gloria Callupe Rain; the former mayor of Tirúa and ex-constituent member Adolfo Millabuir. In addition, the instance is convened by Juan Pablo Leonelli, chief of staff of the governor of La Araucanía Luciano Rivas (from Evópoli, center-right); Senator Carmen Gloria Aravena, from the conservative right-wing Republican Party; Sebastián Naveillan, president of the Victoria Malleco y Moreno Farmers Association, former minister of Piñera and who led the Araucanía Plan, the initiative of the previous government in the southern macrozone.
“In this great task that we have ahead of us, know that you will have the full support of the State, because this is a high-level commission,” Boric told the eight members. And he added: “In these times, we all get together, with different visions, because we are often in the daily political fight. But today we all come together with a long-term vision of the State, putting the common good ahead of our differences. That weight, that burden, we hope that we all carry it as a very positive responsibility”.
The Commission for Peace and Understanding must deliver a report to the country by the end of 2024. “It will not be easy and some may say why so long, but imagine how long we have been. It is important to advance, perhaps, at the pace of the slowest so that no one is left behind,” said Boric. “Although we cannot change the past, we can recognize it and not forget it, together we can look to the future,” he added.
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