Leandro boyer
09/05/2020 - 20:28
Clarín.com
Politics
On July 17, when the whole country was waiting for a new announcement by Alberto Fernández about the continuity of the quarantine against the coronavirus, some
40 people broke
into a field in the Buenos Aires town of
Guernica
and began the
massive take
that became in the new reference to a problem that heats up political tensions in the ruling party and that allows us to glimpse the dimension of
the social drama of the post-pandemic
.
That Friday,
they settled on about 30 hectares
located between the neighborhoods known as
Numancia and San Martín
.
But in a matter of hours, the outpost expanded towards the neighboring properties and the usurpers became more than 500.
These days, there is already talk of 100 hectares occupied by about
3,000 people
, of which
500 are minors.
What initially seemed like a marginal conflict in a remote territory of the Buenos Aires suburbs, 37 kilometers from the Federal Capital, ended up becoming the main reference of a crisis that looms in different parts of the country, with multiple characteristics and levels of violence, such as the observed in Villa Mascardi with the Mapuche community.
Aerial view of the shot in Guernica.
The events seemed to disconcert the political leadership, where initially the differences predominated, again, between the Buenos Aires Minister of Security, Sergio Berni, and his national counterpart, Sabina Frederic.
A
Kirchnerist oxymoron
2020 model.
In addition, Axel Kicillof's official did not hesitate and went out to blame the leaders of the Evita Movement and current national government officials, Fernando "Chino" Navarro (secretary of Parliamentary Affairs) and Emilio Pérsico (secretary of Social Economy of the Ministry of Social Development ).
It took days for the ruling party to stand behind a single message to warn that the usurpations of land
"are illegal acts
.
"
But the situation, far from slowing down, grows day by day.
Chronology of a usurpation
Guido Giana was
born, raised and lives with his family in a field that was also targeted by usurpers.
On the same July 17, the perimeter wires were cut and they were inserted.
Thus began for him a real
nightmare
with an uncertain ending.
"
This is not a drama, it is a nightmare,
" Giana described before
Clarín's
query
.
The complaint that she presented when the taking began, and that was added to an ex officio file opened by the local commissioner Emmanuel Suárez, did not serve to reverse the situation or to prevent them from attacking her property again.
On
July 21
, the sector of his field bordering the intake dawned without the wires and without the posts.
"I already had 50 people in my house. Fortunately, we caught them in flagrante delicto and the Guernica commando group had to come to evict them and remove them from my land," he recalled.
Giana
is a councilor for Together for Change
recognizes that there is a "historical crisis" of housing deficit.
However, it warns that progress on private property cannot be the answer.
"It got very
spicy at night, there are shots
. There was a confrontation between them in which a person was shot in the head," he lamented.
Since last August 7, he has had police custody, he and his family have police custody.
They live with the agents of the local security forces and also with the members of
the Departmental Support Group (GAD)
of the Buenos Aires Police, which acts in the most extreme situations.
"If this take is not resolved, we are facing a serious problem in the province of Buenos Aires, it is the largest. We are talking about a take of more than 2,500 people, there are armed people and it is sure to get spicy because it took on a national dimension. How is it resolved? Defining what we want to do as a State without considering an advance on private property ", said Giana.
For now, the definition is in the hands of the Justice because the complaint and the eviction claim that he presented together with the legal representatives of the firm
Bellaco SA
, owner of another of the properties taken where a country was going to be made, was appealed by lawyers representing some of the people involved in the taking.
On August 21, Judge
Martín Miguel Rizzo
suspended the operation to free the Guernica properties after the proposal raised by a group of lawyers from the Association of Lawyers and Lawyers of the Argentine Republic on behalf of the children and adolescents who are on the occupied property.
The next steps are in the hands of the members of Chamber 1 of the Criminal Cassation Chamber of La Plata.
The version of those who defend the taking
María Del Rosario Fernández
is a lawyer for some of the families involved in the usurpation in Guernica.
In dialogue with
Clarín
, he raised his version of events and anticipated that the shots "will grow because the needs, hunger and lack of work are great throughout the country."
As she explained, she and other members of the Lawyers Guild Association appeared at the scene after being summoned by the militants of some social organizations that accompany the families in the taking.
A man with a child in his arms in the capture of Guernica, in the province of Buenos Aires.
AFP photo
"The organizations called us. And they call us because we are lawyers who are with those who have the least, with the fighting people. We represent them, those who are in other positions, the Mapuches," he said.
Regarding the latter, Fernández indicated that they are the ones who participate in the negotiations with the Secretary of Federal Articulation of the Ministry of Security, Gabriel Fuks for the territorial conflict in Villa Mascardi and other regions of Patagonia where the Mapuches claim land.
Regarding the taking of Guernica, the lawyer discredited what was said by the mayor of President Perón,
Banca Cantero,
who was surprised by the events because, she assured, no one asked her to access housing.
"People do not come to Cantero. It is not necessary for someone to tell them, if she is the mayor, she has to be more than clear about it, if she has lived in that place since she was 6 years old, she has to understand that President Perón has a terrible
problem housing and knowing that coupled with the pandemic is going to explode,
"he said.
Take in Guernica.
Fernández justifies his diagnosis by pointing out that the taking of Guernica is one more in the province of Buenos Aires.
"This is being replicated, there is the one at kilometer 32 in González Catán, the one in La Plata, the one in Victoria, and the one in Quilmes. get together because
people want more,
"he said.
The presentation that stopped the eviction
The lawyer who attends several of these conflicts also rejected some of the arguments that are used to dismiss the needs behind the shots and associate them only with a criminal act.
A legal action stopped the eviction of the property where 3,000 people now live.
"It is important to be clear that the people who
take a shot do not want anything to be given to them
. What they want is to be given a piece of land and to be told how they can pay for it. What they want is to sit at a table dialogue to resolve that, if it is not there, see what other lots can be delivered, "he said.
However, he acknowledged that "obviously in the shots there will always be
infiltrators and people who play dirty
and create false publications on the Internet to sell the land."
For Fernández, the issue created a dilemma in the national government with political costs.
"I don't think they want to repeat what happened in the south with (Santiago) Maldonado dead.
If there is a dead man in a shot, the fault will be with the national government
," he said.
The lawyer proposes that the solution to the conflict of the seizures demands a greater commitment from the State to guarantee access to land: "It is to sit down and negotiate. If they want it to be other lands,
let them say what others
, in Argentina there is plenty of land, what say where they can be located and how they want to be charged. "
Finally, Fernández remarked that the drama of the seizures exposes the true level of the social crisis and demolishes the arguments of the national government, where they affirm that the emergency measures that were applied during the quarantine allowed to sustain the most vulnerable sectors.
"Very well the quarantine and everything is barbarous. But the effects for the working class were many, because the
rich lady of the country did not pay the employee during the pandemic,
" he graphed.
The around 100 hectares that were taken in Guernica.
Popular lots, an exit antecedent
The national deputy Fabio Quetglas is one of the top experts on the housing issue within the opposition space.
Since he took office, the housing problem has been one of the
leitmotifs
of his work in the Lower House.
And now, to analyze the grounding, he appealed to a historical antecedent in search of reasoning a possible solution.
"Until 1975, until Rodrigazo, in Argentina there were popular subdivisions. In Greater Buenos Aires, the subdivision companies went to the development societies and other institutions and announced that they were going to make subdivisions. Then, to the interested parties. they took them in collectives and showed them the properties, which came at
prices designed for industrial workers in installments,
"he told Clarín.
He takes it in Guernica.
The legislator uses this anecdote to explain what path should be taken to begin to solve the problem of land seizures, first, and then move forward to put an end to the housing deficit.
Although he clarified that those popular subdivisions did not escape negotiations or poor urban decisions, and that the times and macroeconomic conditions were different, Quetglas cited the scheme to begin to evaluate a response to the
"urban informality"
that he defined as a "
machine of exclusion
".
"In the 1990s, this possibility was completely blocked because the
boom
in closed neighborhoods appeared. And thus, the upper middle class occupies the place previously occupied by the subdivisions," he added.
The situation became even more complex with the march of an economy that undermines projections and discourages long-term private bets, such as those that could contemplate access to financed land and for the poorest sectors.
"Suppose we want to buy a hectare in the most expensive place, in a place close to the City. It should cost 50 or 60 thousand dollars. The infrastructure that must be put in order to make it an urban land, water, electricity, etc., costs 150 thousand dollars per hectare. In other words, you have to invest more than 200 thousand dollars per hectare and there are more than 30 lots,
at 7,000 dollars each
, "he exemplified.
Take in Guernica.
Thus, Quetglas continued describing his proposal to solve the problem, which he materialized in a bill.
It is a carefully thought out plan to generate new urban land.
"You
have to create an urban land factory
. If the accelerator is pressed, the government that is solved in five years the problem. But why not do it? Doing so has a lot of complications, such as those related to the delivery of funds federal ", clarified.
The legislator stressed that the model he is promoting contemplates the State guaranteeing access and the necessary works but also the beneficiaries paying with access to credit.
PJB