LatinNews Regional Monitor: Brazil & Southern Cone - 26 June 2017

Chile: President Michelle Bachelet has unveiled a plan for the country’s southern impoverished Araucanía area – the site of a long-running conflict stemming from historical claims to ancestral lands by the indigenous Mapuche. Among other things, the initiative includes plans to send down a legislative bill which would create an indigenous peoples’ ministry; to make official the use of the indigenous language Mapudungún in the area; to create a new inter-ministerial committee headed up by the social development minister to bring up to date the land registry and address land related claims; and to implement a policy of productive regional and territorial development with a “strong investment” in public works, educational infrastructure, basic roads, and access to drinking water. Among investments promised, the plan envisages some Cl$7bn (US$10.6m) to be invested annually in irrigation works until 2021, Cl$35bn to be invested annually until 2021 in improving access to drinking water, and Cl$28bn to be invested annually until 2021 in the building of some 3,000km of roads in the area.

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