Three cabins and ten hectares, the Government's offer to the Mapuche who took Villa Mascardi

Now thin blue and white flags fly by the side of the road. National Route 40, at the height of Villa Mascardi, goes through a time of serenity. At the post of the Automobile Club, in front of the beautiful mirrored lake, the troops sent a year ago by the Minister of Security, Anibal Fernandez, are bored. The unified command of federal forces has nothing to do there: they drink coffee in abundance and often take refuge from the frequent snow water of the time.

The owners have returned to the houses, timidly. But they don't end up feeling safe or even calm. They perceive that something is happening below the surface. A movement of bureaucracies that they fail to see and happens completely, they say, behind their backs. Then, they inform them. They warn them of what is coming and the restlessness returns.

A settled discomfort. Sculpted by the certainty that several of those who took their lands, the same ones who once attacked them, are loose, perhaps lurking, without being sought by anything or anyone. To date, there are six men and one woman fugitives from justice for the usurpation of Villa Mascardi, which occurred between 2017 and 2022.

There are also four women prisoners, including the machi, Betiana Colhuan. The woman of divine vision raises a child behind bars. The boy's father, Matías Santana, the famous Mapuche of binoculars is still elusive, perhaps in the mountains or rather hidden in the poor neighborhoods of Alto Bariloche or on the outskirts of Esquel or El Bolsón.

Another fugitive: Lucas Pilquiman. Witness E. Who said he saw Santiago Maldonado drown in the waters of the Chubut River. ​

But the novelty is given by the facts. The dialogues between the Lafken Winkul Mapu community finally evicted from Villa Mascardi and the Government have not stopped. The National Institute of Indigenous Affairs, managed by people from Juan Grabois, in tandem with the Secretariat of Human Rights, managed by Horacio Pietragalla, have managed to offer to the community. What they propose is attractive: three cabins and ten hectares in the area.

Meeting of Horacio Pietragalla with the Mapuche

In this direction, the dialogue tables that representatives of the Government maintain with the spokesmen of the community, now displaced, are advancing. The Nahuel Colhuan remain refugees in the Virgen Misionera neighborhood of Bariloche. Have they returned to Mascardi, eight months after the eviction? "I allow myself to think so. What Argentine would come to destroy the Argentine flags that are on the side of the road, as happened several times?" asks Diego Frutos. "Someone shows up at night and burns the flags," he adds.

These are isolated protests. Demands for the release of detained women. Isolated elements thus protest for a liberation that is not consummated.

"There were more than 200 criminal acts," said ten days ago Judge Gustavo Villanueva, who rejected the release of Mapuche women while subrogating the Federal Court of Bariloche. He dismissed the defense of three of the detainees. "This is not a process of usurpation like any other," he said.

But other things are specified. According to the residents of Villa Mascardi, the three cabins that the Government will be built in the area of the rewe, the religious totem where the machi Betiana had the vision. What did he see? According to the Mapuches, they had to settle on those lands facing the lake to refound their community. The houses will be built under state land. A few meters above the old destroyed IOS hotel, home to a ranger school that was never implemented.

The proposal was made by the Secretariat for Human Rights. It was in response to a request from Alberto Fernández to decompress the conflict.

The coordinator of the Mapuche People of Río Negro was confident that the document would be signed this week, although at the last minute the meeting between the State and the delegation was postponed. The new date of possible realization is June 12. There is another detail, which makes the treat even more attractive.

The offer to the Lafken Winkul Mapu is completed with ten hectares in a green and nourished valley. It is an esplanade on the shores of Lake Guillelmo, on the north bank of the water mirror, on the way to El Bolsón. No one objects. After five years of violence and death, after five years of tension and hardship, the fruits are finally being seen. A good portion right there in the Patagonian paradise... where no machi, as far as we know, has seen anything.

The anger of the neighbors grows. Therefore, they are organizing to march again. The call, on the 25th, says, then, the following: "The Homeland needs us! Join Patoruzú's call for the struggle for sovereignty in Villa Mascardi. The government has demonstrated its inability to keep our land safe, but we will not give up. This May 25, at the Diarco Roundabout, we will gather in a rally in defense of our territorial integrity. Bring your Argentine flag and all the national insignia you have. Let's fight together for our land and our people!"

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See also

Mapuches: Mascardi's neighbors denounce that the Government negotiates with a "gang of criminals and usurpers"

Mendoza: "Anti-Mapuche" caravan against the transfer of land decided by the Government