Mapuches in ECLAC Headquarters in Chile

Chile: Representatives of the Mapuche people have been for five days at the headquarters of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) in the capital in solidarity with their ethnic brethren on hunger strike.

ECLAC Executive Secretary Alicia Bárcena and the Executive Secretary Antonio Prado visited the group of demonstrators to verify their conditions of stay in a place in the institution that was fitted out with the needed requirements for safety and shelter.

According to a report of the ECLAC, the spokeswoman for the Mapuches delivered a letter addressed to the Secretary General of the United Nations Ban Ki-moon, a document that was sent personally by Bárcena to UN headquarters in New York.

He also stated that "as part of the institutional policy of the United Nations, the Secretary General cannot consider a public statement until the group leaves the offices of the Commission, as occurred September 23 with the presence of Mapuches at the headquarters of the International Labor Organization".

The representation of the Mapuche Territorial Alliance consists of 11 adults, mostly women, and three minors, calling for an end to the application of the antiterrorism law in court proceedings against exponents of the native peoples of Chile. Santiago de Chile, Prensa Latina