FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE March 10, 2026
Santiago, Chile — José Antonio Kast’s ascension to the presidency of Chile marks a major shift toward conservative governance in the country. President-elect Kast, 55, is a controversial figure whose political career and family history have drawn international attention.
Human rights groups and Indigenous organizations warn that Kast’s policies toward the Mapuche people, and his admiration for the former dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet suggest that existing conflicts in Chile over land, democracy, and civil rights will be deepened.
The son of a former Nazi Party member, Kast built his campaign around strict immigration policies, promising to expel tens of thousands of undocumented migrants. His older brother, Miguel Kast, served as a senior official and economist during the Pinochet military regime and played a key role in shaping Chile’s neoliberal economic reforms after the US-backed overthrow of democratically elected socialist President Salvador Allende in 1973.
Kast’s presidency also follows the massive 2019 popular uprising in Chile, when millions of people took to the streets demanding an end to crushing neoliberal economic policies and other lingering legacies of the Pinochet dictatorship. Mapuche organizations and activists were among the visible forces in the mobilizations, linking Indigenous land struggles and state repression in southern Chile to broader national demands for social and political transformation.
For decades, Mapuche communities in southern Chile have resisted land dispossession, large-scale industrial forestry plantations, and the militarization of their territories, making the conflict one of the country’s most persistent human rights and Indigenous rights issues.
Chile’s political future also carries international economic significance. The country holds some of the world’s largest copper reserves and important deposits of rare earth minerals, resources that are increasingly strategic to global supply chains for electronics, renewable energy technologies, and defense industries.
“Under the Pinochet dictatorship, repression and human rights abuses were extreme, and large swaths of Mapuche territory were handed over to the timber industry,” said Anne Petermann, Executive Director of Global Justice Ecology Project. “Since 2004, we have documented the devastating impacts of industrial pine and eucalyptus plantations on Mapuche communities, including loss of access to fresh water, land for growing food, and increasingly severe wildfires. Under Presidents Piñera and Boric, we witnessed violent state repression against Mapuche people trying to recover their ancestral lands. Now, under Kast—the most right-wing president since Pinochet—we are deeply concerned that the new administration will adopt an even more hardline approach to these conflicts.”
Kast joins a broader international and South American trend toward right-wing leadership and authoritarian-leaning policies, raising questions about the protection of democratic institutions and human rights in Chile and abroad.
Last Saturday in Doral, Florida, Kast attended U.S. President Donald Trump’s “Shield of the Americas” meeting. Trump acknowledged Chilean president-elect Kast and stated that he had endorsed him. Critics viewed the gathering as a Trump-driven effort to reassert American dominance in the region through a militarized, security-first, anti-cartel approach that drew accusations of being a “neocolonial” initiative.
In the shadow of the attack on Iran, U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth made the ironic yet ominous statement at the “Shields of America” meeting that the U.S. had long focused on borders in far‑flung places “and not our own borders, our own Western Hemisphere.”
At the same time, right-leaning and populist movements are also gaining momentum across Latin America, with the ascension of notable figures including Argentina’s Javier Milei, El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele, and Ecuador’s Daniel Noboa.
Last week Kast pulled his incoming administration out of transition talks with outgoing “leftist” President Gabriel Boric. Observers note the continued influence of Pinochet-era policies and political networks in Chilean politics, highlighting the complex historical legacy the new administration inherits.
Given the history of increasing repression against the Mapuche People in Chile under the “left” Boric–including new Usurpation and anti-terrorism laws which criminalize Mapuche land recovery efforts–human rights and Indigenous solidarity groups are raising alarms at what Kast’s new far-right regime could mean for the Mapuche.
Global Justice Ecology Project is an international organization that works in solidarity with Indigenous Peoples and forest-dependent communities to defend human rights, biodiversity, and climate justice.
Media Contact:
Steve Taylor +1.314.210.1322 st***@******************gy.org
Global Justice Ecology Project
www.globaljusticeecology.org
Archival and contemporary photographs documenting Mapuche land struggles and forestry conflicts in southern Chile are available upon request.
