Recognition of Indigenous People in Chile’s New Constitution in Danger

Santiago de Chile: Just four days after the plebiscite for a new Constitution in Chile, the representation of native peoples in a Constituent Convention remains an uncertain matter.

Although the recognition of indigenous communities has been discussed from the very beginning of the process to convene that historic plebiscite, at this point the Senate has not been able to reach an agreement and the senators who make up the Constitutional Commission of that chamber accused the official representatives to boycott it.

In this regard, Senator Alejandro Navarro, of the Progressive Party, declared that what was proposed by the political class to the country was, to draft a new fundamental law, a joint Constitutional Convention, with representation of native peoples and independents, but that is not being fulfilling.

Senators from right-wing parties seek to impose a register only for indigenous people, apart from the national one, to elect the delegates of these ethnic groups to that body, with which their representation would be conditioned by the number of people registered on that list.

On the other hand, the opposition proposes the full electoral participation of indigenous peoples in the current national register and in accordance with their proportion within the total population of the country.

According to Navarro, right-wing legislators are dirtying the Approval and the process as a whole, and he wondered how native peoples are going to be asked to vote in the Plebiscite if their participation in the Constituent Assembly is not guaranteed.

Along the same lines, Juan Carlos Reinao, president of the Association of Municipalities with Mapuche Mayors, considered the lack of willingness of the parties to advance to be worrying and demanded that the representation of indigenous peoples be 12.8 percent, their proportion within the total population of Chile.

In statements collected by Radio and Diario Universidad de Chile, the mayor of Tirúa, Adolfo Millabur, appreciated that the opposition parties have unanimously asked for seats for indigenous peoples, but said that the government has a double standard.

He explained that La Moneda, on the one hand, offers dialogue and offers peace, but in practice it has a vital contradiction, because it simply does not want to have seats for native peoples.

For her part, the socialist deputy Emilia Nuyado said that without indigenous peoples there can be no new Constitution.