ReportMarred by violence and illegal occupations, the historic disagreement over the restitution of the ancestral lands of the indigenous Mapuche population is at a turning point, with the coming to power of the left-wing president, Gabriel Boric.
Between the pines and eucalyptus stands a modest house. A large room, a stove, two tired sofas, a television and, outside, on the garden side, a vegetable patch, a few animals (chickens, geese, sheep, horses), firewood. Carolina Soto Campos, 33, and her husband, 52, have lived on this land for five years with their three children. We are in the heart of the Araucanía region in southern Chile, a largely agricultural and forested area located between the Pacific and the Cordillera. The place looks like the end of the world: lower down, due south, the country is breaking up into the ocean; higher up, heading north, you have to drive nearly 600 km to reach Santiago, the capital.
Carolina Soto Campos and her family are Mapuche, literally the “people of the land”, by far the main indigenous population of Chile (1.7 million people out of 19 million). And, if they live in Araucania, it is precisely to claim this land of their ancestors. “It is our need, like Mapuche, to be able to cultivate the land, warns this woman of character. After having been robbed, deceived, we want to be close to the mapu [la terre]. This is where I feel free. “Free” and committed to a singular challenge: to “recover” these six hectares that it occupies, currently owned by a private forestry company.
Police raids and inquisitive drones
Sixteen other Mapuche families in the area are in the same situation. In total, they claim 5,000 hectares. Enough to fuel what the Chileans call the “Mapuche conflict”, a matter of history and identity, sometimes punctuated by violence. One of the sides of this ” struggle “as Carolina Soto Campos asserts, these are the raids of the police and the visits of inquisitive drones, even in the middle of the night.
Before the arrival of the Spaniards, in the 16thand century, the Mapuche were cattle breeders, also present in the south of present-day Argentina. After having resisted the invasion of the settlers, they were gradually forced to fall back, despoiled by the Chilean State.
“In 1803, they had five million hectares. In 1927, there were only 500,000 left.recounts Sergio Caniuqueo, Mapuche historian, researcher at the Centro de Estudios Interculturales e Indigenas. They then continue to lose even more land. A part was returned to them in the 1960s, as part of the agrarian reform led by Salvador Allende. [le président socialiste renversé par le putsch de 1973], then withdrawn under the Pinochet dictatorship [1973-1990], which has granted aid to forestry companies for their establishment in the region. »
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