Chile has a new President. The billionaire Sebastián Piñera was elected recently.
The outgoing President, Michelle Bachelet, has overseen a real shift in the future of indigenous peoples’ rights in Chile.
Under her government, the country became only the 20th to commit to the international law for tribal peoples, ILO Convention 169, in 2008 and late last year the country’s Supreme Court applied that law for the first time, protecting an indigenous group’s right to water.
Chile’s Supreme Court was asked to decide if a water bottling company could divert water from a river source historically used by indigenous communities in the Andean foothills of northern Chile.
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We cried, we sang, I can’t describe it…this is history, an enormous precedent to ensure that water is not taken away from other communities.Luis Carvajal of the Aymara communities whose water was protected
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The Court decided that the communities must be guaranteed a steady flow of water from the river, in accordance with their rights to resources recognized in Convention 169.
This major victory is an example to all countries on how to apply Convention 169 in practice, making a tangible difference to the lives and security of indigenous people.
ILO Convention 169 on indigenous and tribal peoples protects in law the rights of indigenous peoples to control their own lives, on their own lands. Chile signed up to the law in 2008, and it took full effect in September 2009.
The incoming President Piñera has the opportunity to usher in a new era for indigenous rights in Chile. We will have to wait and see if he does.