Rocio Magnani
10/15/2020 2:21 PM
Clarín.com
Society
Updated 10/15/2020 17:02
"No to the eviction", "Land to live", "Berni, button, there are guys", say some black canvases painted with white letters that point to the sky from several boxes raised on
the property of more than one hundred hectares taken in Guernica
.
"They are for Berni to see from the helicopter," said a delegate from the settlement.
He was talking about the mega-operation that the Buenos Aires Ministry of Security had announced - with 4,000 policemen, special forces and drones - to vacate the lands on Thursday morning, when the deadline given by Justice to the occupiers to leave expired.
The eviction did not take place;
was postponed once again, with a judicial deadline until October 30, and the Government of the Province summoned the assembly of representatives of the taking -which includes three independent referents and others from the MULCS, FOL, the Popular Front Darío Santillán and MTR- and social organizations linked to left-wing parties, which the Government
targeted for obstructing the relocation
.
"That's it, they
don't take us out anymore,
" says Roly (58) in front of a light blue and white flag of Indio Solari, in a plot of the sector of the settlement called "San Martín".
"How many times did they say that they came without prior notice to evict us? They also said that they were going to be here first thing in the morning and look. We are still here."
To one side, Estela, his wife, nods.
Roly (58) says that he does not trust the promises of the housing plan launched by the provincial government.
Photo: Luciano Thieberger.
The family claims to have been
the first to take a plot of land
.
"In my childhood, I came here to unleash the horses or play with kites. There was no one. The lands were alone for 200 years and now they want to get us out because we get in. We are poor, we have no other place to go," says Estela.
"They don't take us out anymore," says one of the occupants of the land of more than one hundred hectares in Guernica.
Photo Luciano Thieberger.
The Government of the Province, he says,
offered them money
to build a house behind the brother's.
"But I told them no because it is not my land. I do not want to live in a borrowed house and there is no place there either. But they told me that the land I had to get it," he says.
Roly says he doesn't believe in politicians or organizations.
"We don't get carried away by anyone. With the delegates, everything is fine, but
we don't trust anyone
. Because here they have already betrayed us a lot of times. Promises are useless," he says, referring to the housing plan launched by Axel Kicillof .
Estela was one of the first to occupy land in the capture of Guernica.
Photo: Luciano Thieberger
A few blocks into the outlet, Mari does not believe, like Roly, that "they don't get them out anymore."
She says that she is sure that
"at any moment" the police will arrive
to evict, because "the judge is very planted" in his decision.
"It is already the third eviction that was postponed. I don't know why it was. It was rumored here that there are like 30 people who entered in plain clothes to evict," he said.
There were shots last night
, he says.
"At one point, we were scared and we left with my four-year-old boy, and there were some people from a group who made us endure by taking care of things," he says.
Some of those who took the lands believe that the police will remove them "at any moment."
Photo Luciano Thieberger.
After conducting a census -which showed that more than 1,900 families inhabited the place-,
the Province set up care posts
in white tents.
The management of Andrés Larroque, the Minister of Development of the Community of the Province, communicated them as "mobile offices" and they were ready until October 14 -
Clarín
verified that this Thursday they had been withdrawn - to allow "all people and families that remain in the taking can come closer and sign the commitment act ".
"There they offered you
30 thousand pesos to build a booth
if a relative would lend you a piece of land; and, later, they promised us that they would give us a piece of land. But from the promise one does not live. Off the ground, yes; a piece of land is a place for life. We do not pretend that they give us anything. We live off our changa, "Mari explained to this newspaper.
A census indicated that about 1,900 families occupied the lands in Guernica.
Photo Luciano Thieberger.
Monica Guerrero (43) crosses a stream with her youngest daughter, Morena, and accompanies
Clarín
to the lot that her family took in the center of the 100-hectare property.
Although the eviction was scheduled for this Thursday, the family decided to move forward with the construction of the house and on Wednesday began to
dig the well for the bathroom.
"It has already reached 2 and a half meters deep, but we are going to make it four", he says.
With the land they removed, they set up a flowerbed for planting vegetables and raised a 15-square-meter plot to build the house.
"Anything so that my children can grow out of the street and not have to go back to sleep under the Constitution bridge as before," he says.
Alejo, the oldest of the brothers, will have a rabbit and now also a leg, he says.
Monica, with her son Alejo (13), on the lot where they already started to build in the Guernica taking.
Photo: Luciano Thieberger
"I am going to resist as it has to be," he
tells
Clarín.
"Here there will be some who are
occupying to do business
, but I do not need land to sell,
I need it to live
. And it is not that tomorrow I am going to build a villa, because I do not have the resources, but today we are going to put all the sticks (they donated some utility poles to use as columns) and we are going to achieve it, because I won't go back to the streets. I will be living here in a week at the latest, "he promised aloud.
Regarding the possibility of eviction, he assured that he is not so afraid of repression, but of being on the street again: "Four people abused me in the street and I had to resist, like a lioness, so that they would not hurt My children. I'm not going to go back to the street again. "
"This is more than won now," he
said in relation to the political negotiation on the vacating of the land.
"Next door, the neighborhood was a takeover too, and now it has been formalized. They came once, they took them out and reoccupied them.
Six times they took them out
. Here is the fourth notice they give that they are going to evict and it was not done. ", he reflects.
Marcelo and Mónica, with Morena (11) in the Guernica shooting.
Photo: Luciano Thieberger.
Her husband, Marcelo, says he is "tired" of eviction threats.
Last night none of the four slept more than two hours.
"I want to talk to the people who are going to make a decision. They would have to make urgent decisions. I want a prosecutor or a judge to come and tell me why we have to leave, and also why they didn't come before.
The state was never there. ", he assures.
Mónica adds that from the Province they approached a proposal to a relative's house, because they already knew about it from the neighborhood, with money to build, but without offers in relation to access to land.
To solve the province's housing deficit, at the end of September, Governor Axel Kicillof had announced a housing plan that provided for the construction of more than 33,000 homes and the delimitation of 91,000 lots with services, within a three-year period.
But from the assembly of delegates they criticize that the proposals of the Province are
"patches" and "delays"
that seek to generate "pressure to leave the property in exchange for promises of 'solutions within 6 months'".
They insisted, yesterday, through an
open letter to President Alberto Fernández
, with a proposal for the urbanization of a part of the property, within the framework of Law 14,449 on Fair Access to Habitat, by which "closed neighborhoods must give up 10% of the lands of the undertakings, and adding the disposition of another part of the property that is in a state of abandonment, 'vacant lands', of which no one reliably accredits being the owner ", which they assured that" would allow the necessary number of lots to be resolved, and in
addition to green spaces ".
The well the family built on the eve of the eviction.
Photo: Luciano Thieberger.
"For me, peacefully, the authorities are wanting to give something and I can accept, but what I want to have is
a piece of my land
,
"
explains Catalina (61) in another lot, which she occupies with her partner and a brother.
"A place that is ours and so that no one ever tells us 'you have to go'. I'm tired of being from one side to the other. I spent my whole life like this," she says.
Horacio Rodríguez (19), one of the delegates of the capture, criticized this Tuesday morning the statements that from the Province realize that there are only
150 families
left in the capture
.
"The Minister of Security would not be asking to have 3,000 police equipment to evict us, if that were the case. And neither were 600 families
who agreed with the Province, but between 150 and 200," he
said.
Operational suspended
A few hours before the judicial deadline for the occupants to leave the property of their own free will, the Minister of Security, Sergio Berni, had resolved to be present at the place in front of a force of
4,000 policemen
with the first lights of dawn .
However, that operation was not carried out.
The Minister of Security of the Province had
organized a team of negotiation specialists
, plus a contingent destined to deterrence
with Grupo Halcón at the head.
Also, one hundred members of the Immediate Operations Tactical Units Directorate (UTOI).
And the deployment would incorporate, if deemed necessary, a thousand Infantry policemen, in addition to the body of "twin-manned" motorcycles and even members of the Fire Department.
More than
500 families left the property voluntarily
, the Province reported, and will be relocated.
But there would be more than a thousand groups left.
So far there are no new extensions to the court order to start the launch this Thursday.
The eviction operation could take place at any time until the end of the month, according to the provisions of the Justice.
LGP
Look also
Eviction in Guernica: the Province postponed the police operation, and there is uncertainty
Within hours of the eviction in Guernica, the government of Axel Kicillof sent a message to the "political actors" behind the takeover
