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October 14, 2013

Chile: Indigenous People Protest Columbus Day 
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In Chile, thousands of Mapuche indigenous people and their supporters
took to the streets of the capital Santiago in an anti-Columbus Day
march Saturday. The Mapuche are Chile's largest indigenous group. They
are calling for the return of ancestral lands and an end to the
targeting of Mapuche activists under an anti-terrorism law. One
protester condemned the day marking 521 years since Christopher
Columbus's arrival in the Americas.

Meulen Huencho: "Today is not a day to celebrate, it is a day to condemn
and repudiate all the abuses that we've suffered for more than 500
years. We're here today to tell the Chilean state and current government
that we shall resist, that we shall be in defense and in resistance to
what's happening in the (Mapuche) territory."

 

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