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[SANTIAGO, 27 October 2009] - Reports of police violence against Mapuche children in the southern Chilean region of Araucanía prompted the country's UNICEF representative, Gary Stahl, to express the agency's deep concern at a meeting with three government ministers. Three months ago, several village communities belonging to the Mapuche Territorial Alliance began to "take back" the ancestral lands they claim by illegally occupying private estates in Araucanía, more than 600 kilometres south of Santiago, sparking a string of confrontations with the police. The Mapuche are the main Amerindian group in Chile, numbering around one million people in a total population of over 16 million. "We are calling for a halt to the violence involving children, whichever side is responsible for it," Stahl announced after his meeting with Carolina Tohá, spokeswoman for the government of socialist President Michelle Bachelet, Planning Minister Paula Quintana, and the president's chief of staff José Antonio Viera-Gallo, who is also coordinator of indigenous affairs. Asked whether the police might be violating the Convention on the Rights of the Child in Araucanía, the UNICEF representative said "some of the accounts we have heard" raise that possibility. "UNICEF calls on the government and all parties in the conflict to seek to improve the conditions for reporting incidents, because if people are afraid of making a complaint, no investigation is possible. And unless an investigation is carried out, we cannot find out what really happened, and what we have now is completely contradictory reports," he said. For over two years UNICEF, together with other institutions, has been carrying out training courses on children's rights for Carabineros (militarised police) in Araucanía. "But (we do) not necessarily (train) all the Carabineros who come to the region" as police reinforcements, Stahl said. The Paris-based International Federation of Human Rights (FIDH) issued a communiqué stating that on Oct. 16 "a large group of police, for as yet unknown reasons, began to fire pellets and tear gas canisters" in a school in Temucuicui, in Araucanía. Several children suffered pellet wounds and had trouble breathing. However, he reappeared Monday and was taken to the Traumatology Hospital in Santiago, where the damage to his leg was being assessed, according to local press reports. He said that he had been rabbit hunting when he was shot, that he did not know who shot him, and that he had gone into hiding because he was afraid. After meeting with Stahl Monday, Minister Quintana promised the government "will take all the necessary measures to safeguard the children's physical and psychological safety." But the tensions are running as high as ever. The Mapuche communities were not satisfied by the Oct. 9 announcement made by Minister Viera-Gallo, who said the government hopes to finalise the purchase of nearly 30,000 hectares of land for 115 Mapuche villages, at a cost of close to 181 million dollars, in 2010. In two provinces of Araucanía alone, Malleco and Cautín, some 90 estates are under permanent police protection, according to Sunday's edition of La Tercera, a local newspaper. Deputy Interior Minister Patricio Rosende confirmed Monday that "worrying items" were found during violent raids on Sunday in a number of villages. Among them were ammunition for M-16 rifles, shotguns and fuses for explosives. "What is happening here is a flagrant violation of human rights and of the rights of the Mapuche people," said Fernando Díaz, a Roman Catholic priest who coordinates the Southern Area Mapuche Pastoral Commission of the Chilean bishop's conference.
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