Indigenous organizations in Chile, especially those
representing the Mapuche nation, have been mobilizing against government plans to enter into the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). The Council of All Lands, a Mapuche
nationalist organization, has called the treaty “a
new form of colonial and neocolonial expansion-
ism” that fundamentally undermines Mapuche self-determination. Mapuche organizations char-
acterize NAFTA as the “third invasion of Mapuche territory”-after the Conquest in the late sixteenth
century and the Chilean Army’s incursions in the latter half of the nineteenth century, which effec-
tively ended Mapuche autonomy.
The Mapuches are the largest indigenous group
in Chile. About one million Mapuches live in Chile,
comprising 10% of the population. (Other ethnic
groups, including the Aymaras, Quechuas,
Kawashkar and Yamanas, represent less than 1% of the population.) The center-south region of
Chile, known as the “Frontier” or “Araucania,” is the historic center of Mapuche culture. Depressed living conditions have led to a diaspora, however.
An estimated 400,000 Mapuches-almost half the Mapuche population-now live in the capital city
of Santiago. Even though the Mapuches are a minority within Chilean society, they are spear-
heading the opposition to NAFTA in Chile.
Mapuche opposition to NAFTA has its roots in
the historic forms of resistance adopted by Chilean
indigenous peoples. The Mapuche Cultural Center
was founded in 1979 to oppose Pinochet’s plans to
divide Mapuche reservations. Political differences led to a splintering of the group in 1980, giving rise to a number of Mapuche organizations, including
the Council of All Lands, Admapu, Nehuen Mapu
and Choin Folil Che. Their common stance of oppo-
sition to NAFTA has helped unify the diverse
Mapuche organizations. It has also led them to seek out allies among other sectors of Chilean soci-
ety that oppose NAFTA, including campesinos, agriculturalists, urban grassroots groups, students
and artisans. These different sectors have come
together in the Coordinating Committee for Fair
Development and Commerce of Araucania. While
its focus is economic issues, the Committee has become a social and political reference point for anti-NAFTA organizing in the region. The Mapuche organizations have organized tra- ditional protest marches against NAFTA in the city
of Temuco, the urban heart of Araucania. They
Rosamel Millaman is a doctoral candidate in anthropology at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. He was a Mapuche leader from 1976 to 1986, and currently teaches at Lehman College. Translated from the Spanish by NACLA.
have also been developing
more innovative strategies.
Last December, Chile’s indige- nous organizations partici- pated in a national meeting organized by the Foundation
of Indigenous Development, a Santiago-based non-gov- ernmental organization. They are now preparing a national indigenous congress
to strategize about how to organize protest against
NAFTA and thwart Chile’s participation in both NAFTA
and Mercosur, a regional common market comprised of Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay. A Mapuche community lea The Mapuche groups are Temuco.
also calling for a broader dialogue over the meaning of NAFTA for Chile. At the regional level, they have demanded that indigenous organizations be included in local forums that are debating Chile’s participation in NAFTA. At the national level, they have urged the current government of Eduardo Frei to initiate a nationwide debate about the treaty. They have also sought to mobilize support from international allies with whom they worked during the continent-wide Quincentenary campaigns. Mapuche leaders have toured the United States to speak about the negative impact that NAFTA would have on their communities, and they plan to meet with Democratic Senators later this year in Washington to discuss their opposition to the treaty.
The Mapuches believe that NAFTA will strengthen the neoliberal model-imposed during the Pinochet dictatorship and continued under democra- tic rule-that has been so devastating for their peo- ple. The Chilean government’s drive to impose mar- ket-oriented production has encouraged Mapuche assimilation and undermined traditional indigenous economies, based on reciprocity and subsistence agriculture.
The government’s neoliberal policies have caused environmental damage with repercussions for Mapuche communities. For example, the six hydro- electric dams constructed on the Bio Bio River under the Aylwin administration (1990-94) flooded more than 1,250 acres of Mapuche land and forced more than 600 families to migrate.’ Neoliberalism also threatens the integrity of Mapuche territories. The Frei government’s reforestation policy allows transnational corporations to fraudulently acquire Mapuche reservation land. Such was the case in
Malleco, where the U.S.- based Simpson Papers Company has claimed owner-
ship of over 500 acres of Mapuche land. 2
Other government plans to
“modernize” Chile have seri-
ously harmed the land-the
foundation of Mapuche cul-
ture. The Frei government has
begun to build a highway
along the Pacific coast,
destroying dozens of commu-
nities and Mapuche reserva-
tions in the provinces of
Arauco, Cautin and Valdivia in
the process. The government
also plans to construct a road eraddresses a gathering in linking the Pan-American
Highway, which runs north to
south along the Chilean coast, to the eastern side of
the city of Temuco. This would destroy seven indige-
nous reservations and affect thousands of Mapuche
landowners.
Mapuche organizations fear that Chile’s participa-
tion in NAFTA will further open the door for transna-
tional companies to extract the country’s natural
resources, like timber and water, with no considera-
tion of the social and environmental consequences.
There is also growing concern that Mapuche labor
will be exploited. Low levels of education and train-
ing among the Mapuches, coupled with ethnic dis-
crimination, have made them highly vulnerable.
National and transnational companies, for example, increasingly rely on Mapuche labor, which is grossly
underpaid. The Mapuches fear that under NAFTA, transnational corporations will set up new manufac-
turing industries in Araucania which will exploit the
local labor force without bringing any real benefits
to the area.
Mapuche anti-NAFTA organizing is not just a rejec-
tion of an economic system. It is also a protest
against the cultural and ecological implications of
the treaty. Most importantly, NAFTA threatens the
realization of a long-term Mapuche objective-
regional and economic autonomy. The Mapuches
may be a small minority of the Chilean population,
but their voice on NAFTA-and other issues of
national importance-is increasingly being heard, U
1. “Presas del Bio-Bio: la base para desaparici6n de los Mapuches y para la destruccion del ecosistema,” Africa Amrrica Latina, Cuadernos, No. 11, 1993. 2. Aukin, No. 25, Official newspaper of Aukin Walmapu Ngulam (Temuco), October, 1995. 3. Diane Haughney and Pedro Mariman, “Acerca del desarrollo y la di-spora Mapuche,” Documentos Krma-Liwen (Temuco), March, 1994.
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