It is a "dangerously radical" text, the major Santiago newspapers agree in reference to the draft of the new Chilean constitution that will be approved or rejected in a referendum on September 3.
But on a visit to the Mapuche communities around Temuco, among huge commercial forests 700 kilometers south of the capital, it becomes clear that radicalism for some is a matter of life or death for others.
The new constitution, which would define an "ecological, multinational and multicultural" State, and would recognize the "self-determination" of indigenous peoples, as well as full rights for nature, has scared the big extractive mining, agricultural and forestry companies. The media campaign against it has been relentless. In the latest polls, less than 40% support the 170-page draft drawn up by representatives of the constituent assembly.
But the almost two million Mapuche, many of them in territories they have inhabited since time immemorial, see the new constitution as a first step to pay off the debt of the Chilean State with its people. Not only because of the commitment to make self-government a constitutional right and make the various indigenous languages official. There is something more immediate: the right to water.
“All the wells have dried up. We have to ration water. A cistern truck comes once a week, but there are only 250 liters per person per week,” said the 20-year-old Mapuche spokeswoman in Temuco, Paloma Catrileo.
250 liters is what is consumed in a single day in districts such as Vitacura, Las Condes or La Dehesa, the richest in Santiago, where the handful of families of the oligarchy that have always ruled the Chilean economy reside. For example, the Mattes, the fourth richest in Chile, owner of the gigantic pine and eucalyptus plantations that extend over millions of hectares around Temuco. These trees are ideal for making pulp, paper or cheap furniture. But they consume more water per year than the native species of southern Chile due to their rapid growth.
As climate change melts Andean glaciers and leaves peaks of 6,000 or 7,000 meters without snow, the high water consumption of plantations is causing an environmental crisis in the south that already rivals the problems caused by mining in the Atacama desert. and Antafogasta, in the north: “Forest monoculture destroys everything living on our lands; recovering the watersheds is a human right”, says Catrileo, a medical student, in an interview in his community half an hour by road from Temuco.
The new magna carta –if approved– will guarantee the “human right to water”, as well as the “traditional use of waters in indigenous territory”. The contrast with the current constitution is total. Drafted in 1980, during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, it created the constitutional framework for the privatization of water rights and their conversion into tradable goods. Chile is the only country in the world where water is a private good under the constitution.
10% of water users, mainly mining, forestry or agro-industrial companies, have monopolized 80% of water rights. Meanwhile, a million Chileans – among them the Mapuche of Temuco – depend on the cistern truck and consume less than 50 liters a day.
In a country hit by a twelve-year drought, 76% of the population suffers from water shortages. A series of mega forest fires have destroyed an annual average of six million hectares in the last decade each year compared to three million 20 years ago.
For almost two million Chilean Mapuche, 10% of the population, the water crisis culminates a process of destruction of their environment and culture that keeps many on a war footing.
On the road from Temuco towards the high peaks and the border with Argentina, the charred remains of a Catholic church – one of several set on fire by Mapuche commandos – are testimony to the rage that is felt. Several logging companies have received letters warning: "You have a very nice house and family...". Someone has been killed. When Izkia Siches, Minister of the Interior in the Government of Gabriel Boric, visited the region, a group of Mapuche fired shots into the air in front of their SUV.
Despite its commitment to correct injustices against indigenous people, the government of the broad left-wing front, which took office in March this year, has been forced to maintain a state of emergency in the region due to violence.
But "you have to see everything in context," says Catrileo, who wears a lilac and gray Mapuche ceremonial dress, with dozens of silver pendants that serve as spiritual "protection."
Next to the burned church of Roble Huacho, a sign announces open enrollment for the attached Catholic school. "Valorical and Christian formation" is offered, he explains. “They have tried to erase us from history,” says Catrileo. A few meters away, a solitary bus stop has been painted: “Mapuche Territory”.
The history of the last long century in Temuco is one of a relentless conflict between the Chilean State and the Mapuche. The earth has been the main battlefield. “In the 19th century, the State occupied five million hectares of our land and left 500,000 – the worst lands – to the Mapuche through the so-called titles of mercy”, explains another Mapuche leader in Temuco.
After decades of violence, in the 20th century, the left-wing president Salvador Allende included the return of the land in his ambitious agrarian reform of 1971 and 1972, compensating the large landowners. He even moved the headquarters of the state agency responsible for the reform to Temuco, which became the center of land redistribution to peasants and indigenous people. "It was just a happy minute," said the Mapuche leader, interviewed in Temuco, who preferred that his name not be published.
But, after Pinochet's coup in 1973, the lands were returned to the big landowners. Immediately afterwards, in 1974, at the same time that the ultra-liberal water privatization plan designed by the so-called Chicago boys began to be outlined, a generous state subsidy program was implemented in which business groups such as the Mattes received 75% of the cost of establishing pine and eucalyptus plantations. "Everything remained in the hands of three families who destroyed the native forest across thousands of hectares," said the Mapuche leader.
97% of Chileans surveyed in 2020 by Greenpeace support the creation of a constitution that restores water as a consecrated human right, exactly the claim of the Mapuche people. But the media debate about the new magna carta has focused on issues that divide rather than unify. "They have created myths and lies to encourage fear of the new constitution," said the Mapuche leader who prefers not to say his name.
Paloma Catrileo has set out to travel around the region to ask for votes in favor of the new constitution. Gabriel Boric, the president, has done the same on a train tour. The hope is to mobilize again the millions of Chileans who demonstrated two years ago against the system of privatization and extreme inequality.
After all, the flags that used to wave next to the protest banners were not those of Chile but the multicolored ensign of the Mapuche.
