Chile: Mapuche activist's death heats up

The lack of opportunities for dialogue and participation and the struggle for control over land and natural resources in Chile are hurdles to a solution to the Mapuche Indians' century-long conflict, which claimed a new victim this week: a 24-year-old activist shot by the police while taking part in an occupation of land claimed as indigenous territory. Jaime Mendoza Collío, who was killed Wednesday in the community of Angol in the southern Chilean region of Araucanía, was the third indigenous activist killed since the restoration of democracy in 1990, when the Mapuche launched a strategy of land occupations aimed at recovering their ancestral territory. The first was 17-year-old Alex Lemún, who was shot in the head by a police officer in 2002, under the government of socialist President Ricardo Lagos. The military court that tried the case ruled that the police officer had shot in self-defence, even though no evidence was found in the investigation that anyone other than the police had opened fire. And in January 2008, a member of the Carabineros (military police) shot 23-year-old university student Matrías Catrileo, whose death is still being investigated by the military courts.