The Kast Government Launches New Assault on Mapuche Rights
By Carole Concha Bell *- June 10, 2026
Chile’s far-right President José Antonio Kast launched his social media platforms by announcing that his administration seeks to strip away the protections shielding the little that remains of Indigenous ancestral lands, sending shockwaves through Indigenous rights and environmental groups. At his first State of the Nation address (Cuenta Pública) at the National Congress in Chile’s port city of Valparaíso, Kast declared,
“Why should there be a difference between Chileans? Why can’t someone who owns land use it? Why can’t they farm it?”
He framed the protections granted by the law as a “restriction” and a limit on personal freedom, arguing that any member of an Indigenous community should have the autonomy to lease or mortgage their land “under the same legal conditions as the rest of the Chilean population”.
Indigenous groups reacted furiously. A spokesperson for the Autonomous Temucuicui Community said, “Kast is declaring war on the Mapuche people today… We will oppose and fight to prevent this new genocide that seeks forced assimilation and aims to continue condemning our people to cheap labour, to life in the outskirts of major cities, and to endure exploitation, poverty, and discrimination.”
Simultaneously, Ana Llao from the Ad Mapu organization declared, “Mapuche land is not for sale, it is not for rent, and even less for mortgages.“
What is Law 19,253?
The Chilean Indigenous Law was enacted in 1993 to protect what is left of Mapuche ancestral lands from the commercial real estate market. The law treats Indigenous territories as non-commodified assets via four strict rules:
- No Outsiders: Indigenous land cannot be sold or given to anyone who is not from the exact same ethnic group.
- No Bank Foreclosures: The land cannot be used as collateral for a bank loan. If someone defaults on a debt, a bank cannot step in and seize the property.
- No Court Seizures: Judges and courts are legally barred from placing a lien or embargo on the land to settle any unpaid private or corporate lawsuits.
- No Long-Term Commercial Leases: The land cannot be leased out to major corporations or outsiders in a way that effectively strips the community of its control.
For three decades, Chile’s Law 19,253 stood as an unbreakable legal shield, protecting Mapuche ancestral lands from exploitation. Now, with a single policy announcement, the Kast administration threatens to shatter it. By stripping away these protections, the government is not just changing property law; it is exposing sacred territory to the open market and triggering an existential crisis for Chile’s Indigenous communities
Intensifying Repression
Kast’s announcement is part of a broader agenda. Since the start of his presidency, he has aggressively expanded the State of Emergency imposed in the southern macro-zone, Wallmapu. The administration is also seeking to further criminalise the Mapuche struggle for autonomy by classifying territorial disputes as acts of terrorism. By applying the dictatorship-era State Security Law and Anti-Terrorism Law to cases involving Mapuche land recovery actions, the state can utilise anonymous witnesses, impose prolonged pre-trial detentions, and issue heavily extended prison sentences. Forcing sacred, collective lands into the predatory private market will turn ancestral space into commercial real estate, leading to immediate territorial fragmentation
Reynaldo Mariqueo, spokesperson for Mapuche International Link (MIL) stated “With the arrival of José Antonio Kast to the presidency of Chile, a repressive policy against Indigenous peoples is being deepened leaving Indigenous communities in a situation of total legal defencelessness. Without the protection of national and international laws, these communities are exposed to systematic persecution, dispossession, and criminalisation.”
For the Mapuche, their lands represent the only means of sustenance; without them they will become even poorer, lose part of their identity, and be relegated to an even more degrading and miserable life.
————————————————— ENDS—————————————————
*Carole Concha Bell
King’s College London
0779 4540433