A senior United Nations lawyer has launched a blistering attack on Chile for its treatment of the country’s Mapuche indigenous minority.
Ben Emmerson, the UN’s special rapporteur on Human Rights and Counter-Terrorism, said a long-running dispute over land rights could boil over into serious violence at any moment.
He said Chilean police were guilty of “a systematic use of excessive force”.
The Mapuche make up 9% of the Chilean population.
Mr Emmerson said the state had repeatedly discriminated against the Mapuche and used anti-terrorism legislation against them “in a confused and arbitrary fashion that has resulted in real injustice”.
“The situation in the Araucania and Bio Bio regions is extremely volatile,” Mr Emmerson warned, referring to the southern regions where the Mapuche have traditionally lived.
“In the absence of prompt and effective action at a national level it could quickly escalate into widespread disorder and violence.”
Before the arrival of the Spanish in the 16th Century the Mapuche inhabited a vast swathe of land in southern Chile.
Renowned for their ferocity, they successfully resisted conquest until the late 19th Century, when they were rounded up into small communities. Much of their land was sold off to farmers and forestry companies.
In recent years the Mapuche have waged a sometimes violent campaign to win back that land.
Protests have ranged from marches, hunger strikes and the occupation of public buildings to the setting up of road blocks, the occupation of disputed land, arson and the sabotage of machinery and equipment.
