Rapa Nuis seek U.N. intervention in dispute with Chile

Written on 24 January 2011. Posted in Chile

"We are a peaceful people. We don't like war. We don't want police and military on our land," said Erity Teave, an indigenous activist from the Chilean-administered Easter Island in the Pacific Ocean. Teave, an indigenous activist who is currently visiting the United States, told IPS that her people were looking for urgent international action to protect them from what she described as "terrorism" by the authorities in Santiago.

"Our land is our mother," she said in a brief encounter before heading to a meeting of the U.N. Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues earlier this month. "We call our land 'Kainga,' which means womb. We don't believe in buying or selling it." Teave said her people on the island were not going to give up on their right to be independent from the Chilean domination and control and that she and other leaders would approach the U.N. rights bodies. "We want to have our own government. That is our right. We have our own laws," she said. "They (the Chilean government) don't understand our needs."

Tags: Land rights, Global governance