Land seizure in El Bolsón: Mapuche groups occupied 22 hectares of a forest reserve

Claudio Andrade

08/25/2020 - 13:38

• Clarín.com
• Society

The most valuable El Bolsón Forest Reserve in Río Negro was occupied by a group of about 100 people, endangering its delicate natural balance. The vast local fauna, rivers and the Andean Patagonian forest are concentrated there.

The taking of 22 hectares began approximately on August 18, but it became a major problem for the municipality of Mayor Bruno Pogliano , when in the last hours more than a hundred people joined. As confirmed by local authorities, the occupants extended their radius of influence another 600 meters to the Mirador Azul and Cabeza del Indio , spaces of exceptional tourist attraction.

Officials also confirmed that a large number of indigenous trees are being cut down to fuel fires and possibly sell some of the wood.

Sources indicate that among the occupants there are members of the  Awka Mallín Cooperative and some Mapuche communities in the area who have been claiming land for some time.

No to the taking of the Mirador del Azul-Cabeza del Indio in the Loma del Medio. # ElBolsón #NoALaToma pic.twitter.com/nf7aD85fZJ

This Monday afternoon the mayor Pogliano met with the federal prosecutor Silvia Little of the Federal Justice for the invasion, although he did not obtain concrete answers from the judicial official, as he told the local media.

At the end of the meeting, he talked in the street with the neighbors themselves. “I came out much worse than I expected, very upset, the eviction has not been disordered and I don't think they will order it. For Justice there is no crime . If the Federal Justice does nothing, if it does not order the eviction, it will be very difficult to stop this environmental damage that is taking place and we end uppenterging the one who takes ”, she was heard to say.

Prosecutor Little had been in the occupation zone during the morning of the same day, accompanied by personnel from the National Gendarmerie. Little spoke with the occupants and, according to what he told Pogliano, he found no facts that warrant criminal proceedings within the Forest Reserve. The prosecutor agreed with the families a 10-day impasse so that the municipality can find a new location for them. The number of occupants increases as the hours go by. It is estimated that there are a total of 135 families involved .

More than 20 hectares of a forest reserve in El Bolsón were taken and the mayor demands their immediate eviction. Photo: Municipality of El Bolsón.

However, the mayor Pogliano demanded the immediate vacating of the entire sector before resolving new lands for homeless residents. “We cannot negotiate with people who do not get out of there. We ask for the intervention and the intervention in particular is the National Gendarmerie evicting or the Airport Police ”, indicated the mayor.

One of the neighbors who was waiting for him outside the Federal Justice building assured him that they were going to get together and go to the occupied area. "It is the right thing to do. If we do not defend it together, what we are going to lose is the future of our grandchildren. We need that place that is the lung of El Bolsón to be unoccupied, ”he replied.

For his part, Pogliano has already initiated a formal request for the release of the space on Change.org, which has already collected some 2,000 virtual signatures.

The underlying issue could be much more complex than it seems. Neuquén police sources assure Clarín that the leader behind the capture is Juan Fernández , son of the former mayor of San Martín de los Andes, Juan Carlos Fernandez.

More than 100 people participate in the land seizure in El Bolsón. Photo: Municipality of El Bolsón.

Fernández Jr. (then 26 years old) was involved in the assassination of Neuquén police sergeant José Aigo on March 7, 2012. At dawn that day, Aigo and his partner, officer Pedro Guerrero, arrested Pilo Lil in the area. , 50 kilometers from Junín de los Andes, to a truck with Fernández and two occupants, Jorge Antonio Salazar Oporto and Alexis Cortés Torres.

After the document inspection, the police officers wanted to examine the truck's bed. It was then that Oporto and Torres fired at the agents, fatally wounding Aigo . The attackers fled to the Cordillera and Guerrero returned to Junín with Fernández as a detainee and carrying his partner.

A short time later, it was learned that the escapees had extensive ties to the Chilean left-wing movements MIR and FPMR. They were never caught .

One of the last clues obtained by the Neuquén police in 2017 was that Oporto and Torres could be in the Cushamen and El Bolsón area. Local sources would have recognized the militants at the same time that the taking of 1,200 hectares of Cushamen began, in April 2015, by the lonko Facundo Jones Huala, who is now detained in Chile. Santiago Maldonado drowned in this area on August 1, 2017.

The Neuquén Justice declared Fernández guilty of concealment and false testimony in April 2014, but in November of that year, a Court of Challenge acquitted him . There was a strong rumor in the province that the figure of the Neuquén senator Oscar Parrilli, then Secretary of the Presidency, would have weighed on the release of Fernández. During the Kirchner government there were strong attempts to get closer to the Mapuche community. In a period of 12 years, more than 200 thousand hectares were recognized by the indigenous peoples of the south.

Entrance to the property taken by the Mapuche in Villa Mascardi at the end of 2017. Photo Mario Quinteros

In social networks a photograph of Fernández has been viralized that says: "Juan Fernández from CETEP and murderer of the police officer José Aigo, is promoting the shots in Loma del Medio. If there is no Justice, there is Social condemnation."

CETEP refers to the Cooperativa Awka Mallín de El Bolsón whom they link with the occupation of the Federal Reserve. This organization, which is a member of Fernández, also maintains strong ties with some Mapuche communities in the area.

In the last five years, occupations have multiplied in Patagonia by groups that call themselves Mapuches. In addition to the 2015 occupation in Cushamen, in November 2017 another group of Lafken Winkul Mapu took over a six-hectare Mascardi property 35 kilometers from Bariloche. Since then, these militants have spread to more than 30 hectares on the surrounding lands and the shore of Lake Mascardi.