INDIGENOUS Mapuche campaigners and striking lorry drivers clashed in front of Chile’s presidential palace on Thursday during rival protests.

Police used water cannon to break up the two groups of demonstrators outside La Moneda palace and a central square in the capital Santiago.

The convoy, organised by the National Cargo Transport Confederation (CNTC), had come hundreds of miles from the south-central Araucania region, towing burnt-out vehicles they said had been torched by Mapuches angry at logging on their ancestral land.

Police refused them access to the city for hours before allowing them to drive to La Moneda on Thursday night.

“I recognise that the state has failed in the past when for a long time — and way before this government — many of these acts remained unpunished,” Interior Minister Jorge Burgos said, adding that he was willing to meet drivers and hear their demands.

The ruling left-wing New Majority electoral coalition, which includes the Communist Party of Chile, said the CNTC had refused the government’s offer to allow one lorry to enter the city and to open talks.

“This shows their absolute inflexibility, intransigence and unwillingness to arrive at constructive solutions,” it said.

The Mapuches, one of the most numerous surviving pre-Columbian peoples in the Americas, fought for centuries to retain their ancestral lands in the south of the country.

Under former dictator General Augusto Pinochet they were robbed of their land as logging concessions were granted to business interests.