Ecobreves – CHILE: Renewed Mapuche Opposition to Airport

By IPS Correspondents and - - Reprint | | Print |

SANTIAGO, Apr 26 2010 (IPS) - The Mapuche organization Ayún Mapu, which includes eight communities of Chile's largest indigenous group, will turn to the courts to prevent the construction of an airport on their land in the region of Araucanía, near Temuco, 670 kilometers south of Santiago. The Belfi company took over the contract for construction, maintenance and operation of the air terminal, which will cost about 100 million dollars.

“They haven't consulted the communities” as is required under Convention 169 of the International Labor Organization, which entered into force in Chile in September, Iván Reyes, president of Ayún Mapu, told Tierramérica.

According to Reyes, the airport is to be built on ancestral indigenous lands, and the necessary environmental studies were never conducted.