Chile's indigenous women's network: building peace.

"In the city of Santiago in the Diego Portales building, we, the indigenous and African-descendant women who have attended the 4th National Town Meeting of Culture, 'Come, Let Us Build Peace,' have testified freely about our realities. This has been a unique moment in history: for the first time, women of the Aymara, Quechua, Atacama, Kolla, Rapa Nui, Mapuche, Kawesqar, Yagan and African-descendant cultures have spoken out against overwhelming discrimination and our continuous struggle as women-mothers 'handing down our way of life, our traditions, our language, our music, our way of dress, our dances, our way of earning a living, our way of living in harmony with our surroundings, in sum, our culture: because I am not just me, I am my mother, I am my grandmother, I am my great-grandmother ...'

"We face many, diverse forms of discrimination: first because we are Indians or black, because we are women, because we are illiterate, uneducated, poor ... But we want you all to know that we are not ignorant; we are proud of conserving our traditions, our ancestral culture that is the bedrock of this long and narrow strip of land. We refuse to continue to be invisible and ignored. Can Chile deny its roots? We are a living culture, and we demand to be allowed to participate actively in the full cultural, economic and social development of our own peoples.

"Indigenous and African-descendant women today confront many problems ... Many of us do not know how to read or write; our children have problems with alcohol, drugs and crime. They are citizens in an uncertain world in which they face discrimination in employment, education and health care. We want the centralist government to change the way it operates because those of us who do not live in the capital do not know what is happening in 'the big house.' We lack information, and we do not know how to take advantage of the support that some want to give us. Sometimes this financial support is appropriated by others who use us to their advantage while our situation remains unchanged ...

"We demand opportunities for the social and political participation of indigenous and African-descendant women, who are the moral reserve of this long and diverse country.

"We wish to join forces in our diversity. We need to strengthen our identity, preserve our cultures. We wish to communicate with our country and with the world that does not know us. As women, we have a tremendous reserve of energy, strength, creativity, imagination, truth, honor, solidarity, willpower and love, and these qualities will help us to create a world in which differences are respected and accepted, in which we understand that we are all formed of the same basic, organic material, that not one of us is worth more than another. Nonetheless, we still wait for social justice because 'we are equal, and we are different.' No one should be surprised to learn that discrimination and racism are and have always been the leading cause of poverty around the world.

"When a people loses its culture, it is as if a human being has lost her soul, her spirit, the very essence of her being. This loss is caused by this world and globalization. We invite you to help us, to keep them from ripping out our roots. We know how to build peace, and we want to do so, from this meeting on. To this end, we present the following proposed commitments-agreements:

* To form the Indigenous and African-descendant Women's Network (comprised of mothers, workers, folk artists, farmers, ranchers, poets, artists, university-educated professionals, politicians, women who own and operate small business, and others)

* To create a website for, by and about indigenous and African-descendant peoples in Chile--http://www. indiafro.cl--which will be financed by the Division of Culture of the Ministry of Education.

* To create in every region a place where indigenous peoples can rediscover and develop their culture as managers of their own cultural development, autonomously but with financing from the State, the people and civil society.

* To establish a program of cultural exchange among women of all indigenous and African-descendant cultures.

* To achieve the cultural recognition of African-descendant women and men in Chilean law.

"Come, let us build peace. This is definitively a call to work with pluralism, emulating our national anthem: "Your field of scattered flowers is the very image of Eden." We see this multicolored field of flowers as the metaphor for our different cultures.

"Respect for diversity, as should occur in a real democracy, in which our common trunk, with its diverse roots, becomes a splendid tree called Chile that might be a pepper tree, a molle, a carob, a willow or a foye. A country that we love like Mother Earth, Pachamama, Tata Inti ... Thank you, Ngenechen, for hearing us and because we are sure that the spiritual comes first and then the material.

"We strive for a cultural Chile that is better every day.

"'Come, let us build peace ...' Chantumay!"

Source: Revista Ser Indigena, http://revista.serindigena.cl/

September 5, International Indigenous Women's Day 

In 1983 during the Second Encounter of American Organizations and Movements in Tihuanacu (Bolivia), September 5 was designated as the International Day of the Indigenous Woman. The date was chosen to commemorate the death of Bartolina Sisa, a valiant Quechua woman who was dismembered by the forces supporting the Spanish Crown during the rebellion of Tupaj Katari. That struggle inspired Tupac Amaru and his valiant companion, Micaela Bastidas. who were the leaders of the great rebellion throughout the southern Andes (1780-82).

Indigenous women preserve the cultural heritage of their people and pass on this legacy to their children. It is the indigenous woman who safeguards traditions, resisting the various forms of structural violence that she endures precisely because of her triple condition of exclusion as indigenous, poor and female. Indigenous communities owe their survival in large part to the anonymous and tenacious fight of indigenous women. Whether in the countryside or the city, indigenous women have played a crucial role in fight against poverty, hunger, social, ethnic and cultural exclusion.

Source: Chirapaq newsletter, Centro de Culturas Indigenas del Peru, e-mail: [e-mail]

Indigenous and African-descendant Peoples in Chile

According to the 2002 National Census, there are 692,192 individuals who declared themselves as belonging to one of Chile's indigenous peoples: the Alacalufe, Atacama, Aymara, Colla, Mapuche, Quechua, Rapa Nui and Yaman or Yagan. Nearly half of the indigenous population (343,286) are female. The largest indigenous ethnic group is the Mapuche, with 604,349 individuals registered in the census. The smallest indigenous ethnic group in Chile is the Yaman or Yagan, with only 1,685 individuals.

The number Of African-descendant Chileans was not measured in the 2002 census. However, five representatives from Oro Negro (Black Gold), a group of Chileans descended from African slaves brought to Chile in colonial times, attended the First National Meeting of the Indigenous and African-descendant Women's Network. Oro Negro has begun the slow process of recovering the cultural and individual identities linked to their African ancestors and are petitioning the Chilean government to recognize their ethnicity.

"This meeting has been very important for us," explained Sonia Salgado, the group's president and mayor of the northern town of Camarones. "We are proving the existence of Afro-Chileans taking a stand against discrimination and defending our social, economic and cultural rights as an ethnic group."

Source: Revista Ser Indigena, http:// revista.serindigena.cl/

For more information, contact

Heddy Navarro,

e-mail: [e-mail]

Revista Ser Indigena, website:

http://revista.serindigena.cl

A special thanks to Heddy Navarro who provided this information. Ms. Navarro is a member of Chile's First People's Web Portal and editor of the e-zine Ser Indigena (Indegenous Being).