Attacks on Chile's Indigenous Peoples Thwart Efforts at Land Reparations

Brittany Peterson, The Nation, August 13, 2012

As dawn broke over southern Chile on July 30, smoke and flames rose from barricades blocking the main highway into the town Padre las Casas, 675 kilometers south of the capital of Santiago. About fifty members of the Paillanao Mapuche indigenous community had constructed the barricades to protest the fact that the government had not responded to requests to improve six miles of rural roads in their community.