The son of a leader of Chile’s Mapuche people was on Friday shot dead by police in the restive Araucania Region in a potential blow to attempts to improve relations between the state and indigenous people, local media reported .
The shooting, which occurred during a confrontation between police and alleged intruders at a forestry company, is likely to inflame tensions in the region. Indigenous people have for decades said that their territory has been illegally requisitioned by agriculture and forestry companies acting with state complicity.
The victim was Ernesto Llaitul, 26, the reports said, citing the Chilean Public Prosecutors’ Office.
Photo: Reuters
He was the son of Hector Llaitul, a Mapuche leader described as a spokesperson for the activist group Coordinadora Arauco-Malleco.
Ernesto Llaitul was also identified as the victim in a statement on Twitter by Mijael Carbone Queipul, the leader of another local group, the Mapuche Territorial Alliance.
The Chilean police declined to comment, while the public prosecutor did not respond to a Reuters request for comment.
The Chilean National Institute of Human Rights said that the shooting would “further exacerbate the complex situation in the region,” calling for a “prompt, deep and transparent investigation.”
The incident took place at about 5:30pm at the Santa Ana-Tres Palos farm in Carahue, 55km west of the regional capital, Temuco, the reports said.
Police said that a group of hooded individuals arrived at the farm and fired at an employee, prompting an armed police operation, local news station Mega reported.
In 2018, Camilo Catrillanca, 24, the grandson of a local indigenous leader, was shot in the head during a police operation in a rural community near the town of Ercilla, triggering nationwide protests.
Seven police officers were convicted in connection with the shooting.
Last week, 155 Chileans drafting a new constitution for the country elected a Mapuche, University of Santiago professor Elisa Loncon, to lead them, a significant turnaround since indigenous people are not recognized in the Chilean constitution adopted during the rule of former Chilean president Augusto Pinochet.
Claudio Nash, a law professor at the University of Chile, said that if Llaitul’s death is confirmed, it would be a “serious blow to the dialogue between the Mapuche nation and the Chilean state that has been initiated through the constitutional process.”
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