Chile: Celebrations over bicentennial and meetings with Mapuche communities

Chile, September 18, 2010:

The Chilean people celebrated the bicentennial of his country leaving behind the last tragic events suffered, but not forgetting what happened in February this year, with the earthquake and the 33 miners 700 meters deep.

The Bicentennial is celebrated with austerity, light shows, fireworks, and including the modernization of the National Stadium, the same the military used as a concentration camp for political prisoners.

The Government, sober, invested three million dollars, far less than the nearly $ 200 million it cost the celebration in Mexico.

Organizers said they had a special menu for people in San Jose mine, and the idea is not to celebrate while workers remain trapped 700 meters depth.

Carolina Lobos, the daughter of one of the trapped miners, said: “The atmosphere will be calm, every family will get together to eat, knowing that is our anniversary, but not having a party”.

President Sebastián Piñera, inaugurated inns in Santiago O’Higgins Park, where celebrations with dances, meals and drinks will be carried.

In the euphoria of the preparations and celebrations for the 200th anniversary of Chilean independence, Sebastián Piñera, announced today that “the government will sit down to negotiate with representatives of ‘Mapuche’ communities, as demanded by the villagers prisoners on hunger strike since 67 days.”

“We have a debt with our native peoples, and particularly the Mapuche people,” Piñera said.