Chilean Plan to Help Indigenous People
8/6/99
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Title: Chile's Frei plans to help indigenous people
Source: Reuters
Status: Copyright 1999, contact source for permission to reprint
Date: August 6, 1999
Chilean President Eduardo Frei tried to smooth over relations with the
country's indigenous population Thursday by unveiling a $270 million
package of measures designed to improve their lives.
Chile's Mapuche Indians in recent months have stepped up demands that
the government recognize what they say are their rights to ancestral
lands.
Although Frei, who was dressed in a poncho, ignored the land issue, he
did promise to invest in programs to improve their rural roads, water
services, education, health and housing.
The $270 million will be spent between the second half of this year
and 2002, he said while addressing about 1,200 Mapuches at the
presidential palace.
The measures include creating jobs in the forestry industry,
restructuring or forgiving some of their debts, increasing
scholarships to indigenous students, and subsidizing the construction
of houses.
Outside the presidential palace, police arrested seven people
participating in protests in favor of the Mapuches. Some protesters
threw eggs and paint against the presidential headquarters.
The Mapuches, whose ferocious fighting kept Spanish conquistadors out
of their tribal territories for nearly three centuries, are by far the
largest indigenous race in Chile.
Aymara Indians reside in the northern desert, and the Rapa Nui
indigenous race lives on Easter Island, a Chilean possession 2,350
miles west of Chile in the Pacific Ocean.
Since 1994, more than 247,100 acres have been returned to more than
97,000 indigenous people, Frei said.