The Pronounced Speech in the meeting of New Majority in the Stadium of Plain

I’d like to give my sincere thanks to Left Citizen, for giving me the privilege of being a leader to express my heart here to all of you respectful and distinguished guests.

It’s a special honor for me, because my presence around this platform seems fairly impossible, so incredible and hardly imaginable in those 200 years of history of Chile, a son of the Mapuche tribe has come here as president of a political party of the government.

From where I came they have said that we could never reach here. It was so impossible that a poor came here to talk to you and all those ministers, it should have passed many years for those backward and leg-behind of the country to be heard in the very center of the political power.

But today we’re here for the first time in history and no one could deny. Some politicians said that we couldn’t deserve to be here. But today we’re here standing with dignity.

They said that this day would never come, but today where the boulevard is reaching its arms for those who live hundreds of years in an island of political and economic marginalization, and in center of a sea of opportunity only for the minority.

My father, although didn’t know reading, taught me to respect the people and my tribe; my mother, a housekeeper, perhaps just like the one you have in your house, taught me to hold the hope that tomorrow would be a better day. They taught me that in Chile exists the possibility of going forward as long as you try hard.

This is the message that we’d like to share to hundreds of youngsters who have lost the expectations. I’m here and I know my story is like that of hundreds of Chileans, and also know that standing here is like an ugly duckling becomes a goose swan. It’s such a slim chance. Because from where I come, people don’t live, rather, they survive; from where I come, those worries are not about GDP, neither the sea with Bolivia, rather, are worries about what to eat and where to sleep.

And we are here to demonstrate to those who said that they had so many aspirations that one day people would not mind and judge you from your family name or your origin although we were not born in aisle of power, not blue-blood, we were born in poor and marginalized barrios, in those villages of the poor but dignified Mapuche families.

Today, the country is rather divided, we come to demonstrate that to get-together we can change the history. So we solicit you to listen to our proposals, we’re a small party, but represent those backward in Chile who have never come here to talk for themselves.

We worry about the economic balance, which is planned so delicately that is being maintained at the cost of all of those backward, and begins to off balance. We also worry about the tendency of cutting our budgets, making our resources contributed without balance and those promises undone.

1. To analyze the economy, we doubt what we’ve heard. Those data told us:

*That the increase of Latin America is near 0.9% of the GDP

*Those developed countries that belong to OECD estimate that this year would increase a 2.1%

*Meanwhile that the estimation of increase for Chile is 2.5% .

Thus we can affirm that Chile is increasing faster than the average of Latin America and than those developed countries of OECD.

    We increase a 3% of the GDP in scheme, similar to the beginning of the democracy in 1990.

2. President, we’re not ready for the tax reform. We don’t want any account lack of actual reality, we want to collaborate to make Chile, a country a little more just.
3. The educational reform is fundamental for Chile. President, a distribution of the budget is always reasonable, but the people obtain less financial income than the government originally planned and calculated.

All in all, it can imply a delay in the implementation, but by no means can make the poorest, the 1/5 of the population, be in danger of without free university education. This means to give finance support through public funds, a part of which today is private.

Nevertheless, we wonder: if the tax reform obtain 3.2% of the GDP, why not apply those resources to supply those students with higher education for free in universities, if it needs only 1.2% of the GDP.

4. In relation to the labor reform, President, there is not any financial fund and is extremely moderate with comparison to those employers in labor markets of some other countries. It could be an error backward in Senate with what has been achieved in chamber of deputies and with total support from the CUT and all of whose Syndicate adherents. They are all an important part of the social capital who voted for the New Majority and made our program with 62.7% of citizen’s adhesion. Therefore, without the “minimum” requirement being satisfied, the consensus of the pact of stopping a strike won’t be reached, and it needs negotiation. We worry about the assassination of the contracted worker of the copper mine field, Nelson Quinchillao, and the criminal can’t be at large. We need those policemen stood trial through civil laws in case of harming a civilian.
5. Law of abortion with 3 conditions: We make promise with those women in Chile, so we ought to response on Tuesday, 4 of August with the votes from our deputies, approving the law with those 3 conditions.
6. Arauco: Those problems in Arauco can be resolved by destroying the political discrimination those indigenous tribes suffered from. Hereon, Left Citizen solicits the government to implement the initiative of a pioneering undertaking, the presidential commission, for the political participation of those indigenous tribes. Because we need another concept of democracy that would be more just and permit those minorities ethnics represented with equal rights. We need a special electoral system for those indigenous tribes, with the parliament seats equivalent to their population, in order to solicit their demand in the very center of power.
7. Tax of forestry enterprises: It’s necessary to levy the land tax that those large enterprises of forestry of woods have evaded for years, and even reached near 60 thousand million of Chilean pesos. Measures should be taken by all Chilean involved, and we can’t approve the prolong till the year 2018, according to the decree law Number 701 on Boost Forestry by the chamber of deputies. It’s unacceptable that in scenario of crisis, as they said, the country continues subvention to those most rich and powerful, as the case of those family Angelini and Matte, owners of the grand forestry, simply owners of Chile who are using their economic empires to block those reforms.
8. Change this constitution: We really like to think about the future of Chile for the children of our children. For this reason we propose to impel a process that permits the President to call for a plebiscite in order that citizens can decide if they would like to have the New Constitution:
9. Approve in this government or up to the next

b.Approve through the National Congress or through Constituent Assembly

The Left Citizen feel that we can get out from the crisis of confidence, only with those programs that we have promised to the citizens completed.

Today, it is rather divided in this country, we come to demonstrate that although we have differences we share the same dream of equality and justice to make Chile a better country. In those days that I spent in the New Majority, I’ve seen a pleasant relation between different races, origins and social conditions without minding those different parties. We look for our similarities rather than that divide us, and we know that we can’t change the past, but the future is right in our hands and a better time will come. We, are the time.

Source: Book Mapuche Child between 2 Nations

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