Chilean Cop Wounded in Clash with Indians

SANTIAGO – A Chilean police officer was shot while trying to stop Mapuche Indians from occupying a rural estate in the southern region of Araucania, officials said.

The incident occurred Sunday morning at the Tres Luces property in Lautaro, some 640 kilometers (397 miles) from Santiago, where some 15 hooded Mapuches clashed with a unit of Carabineros – Chile’s militarized national police – who were guarding the farm.

The Carabineros repelled the invaders, but one of the retreating Mapuches fired at the officers.

The wounded officer was taken to the hospital in Temuco, the capital of Araucania, where he was listed in good condition.

Araucania Gov. Nora Barrientos, meanwhile, said authorities were looking for those behind Saturday’s arson attack on the Brasil estate in Vilcun, a town east of Temuco.

“The government is the one most interested in having the judiciary identify and punish those responsible for these types of acts, which have nothing to do with the legitimate demands of the Mapuche people,” Barrientos told reporters.

After visiting the estate, which eyewitnesses said was attacked by at least five armed individuals wearing hoods, Barrientos vowed to seek more police protection for people living and working on the 160-hectare (395-acre) property.

The Mapuches, Chile’s largest indigenous group with slightly more than 600,000 members, demand the constitutional recognition of their tribal identity, rights and culture, as well as ownership of the lands that belonged to their ancestors.

The Mapuches’ struggle to reclaim ancestral lands from farmers and timber companies led last month to the death of an Indian activist, shot in the back by a policeman.

Authorities have prosecuted violent Indian protesters under the country’s dictatorship-era Anti-Terrorism Law, which expands police and judicial powers, while the Chilean right claims – though thus far without concrete evidence – that foreign groups are behind the most violent Mapuche protests. EFE