Chilean land reform
The land reform was initially supported by Chilean right, centre and left political parties plus the Catholic Church and the United States.
[2] Within a dual sector economic model the 20th century Chilean hacienda has been characterized as a prime example of a primitive and rural component.
[3] McBride, a Briton who visited Chile in the 1930s, is reported to have been "astounded" to see haciendas with "agricultural methods that reminds of ancient Egypt, Greece or Palestine.
"[4] Demands for a land reform appeared in Chile in the early 20th century and while neglected by the Radical governments (1938–1952) that favoured urban industrialization, in the early 1960s land reform ideas in Chile received support from both the Catholic Church and, through the Alliance for Progress, from the United States.
[7] That plan allowed CORFO to develop investments in dairy plants, refrigerated slaughterhouses, sugar refineries and transport infrastructure.
[5] The next land reform law was passed in 1967 under the Christian Democrat government of Eduardo Frei Montalva, giving legal status to farmers syndicates.
[5] Besides state reforms in the 1960s, Chilean communists and socialists engaged in the formation of agriculture syndicates through La Frontera and semi-arid Norte Chico.
[8] The Popular Unity government led by Salvador Allende that came to power in 1970 continued the land reform and, using the legal tools it inherited, attempted to expropriate all Chilean latifundia (usually known as fundos or estancias).
[12] The Chilean newspaper El Correo de Valdivia communicates that there were at least 19 protests in the form of mobilizations and land redistribution that were made during December of 1970 to August 1973 from indigenous communities with the amount of involvement ranging from 12 to 150 people .
[13]This remained true until 1979 when laws 2.568 and 2.750 modify it, finally facilitated indigenous ownership of land, through a free and less bureaucratic process.
When describing this law Garrido mentions "(...)the policy promoted by the Minister Alfonso Márquez de la Plata and the Vice President of INDAP, Ricardo Hepp, reintroduces the idea of granting the Mapuches the same rights as those enjoyed by the rest of the Chilean nationality, by means of a first step consisting of the delivery of definitive land ownership titles."
One of the specific examples of the Mapuche-Huilliche involvement during this land reform, Le Bonniec writes, was the conflict of Fundo Malchehue, a property of Leno Monje with the community Dionisio Manquel Chepo.
