The Government and Mapuches set priorities at the dialogue table for the Villa Mascardi conflict

The new dialogue table that began today at the request of the national government and Mapuche referents, to advance a solution to the conflict of Villa Mascardi, had their first meeting with a definition of priorities to seek an agreement linked to the preservation of the rewe (sacred site) located in one of the National Parks properties that was evicted in October.

The meeting lasted for more than 4 hours at the headquarters of the former ESMA in Buenos Aires and while it was carried out, there were protests abroad by leaders of the libertarian party NOSled by Juan José Gómez Centurión, among whom was the resident of Villa Mascardi Diego Frutos, who is critical of this approach to dialogue promoted by President Alberto Fernández.

The spokesman for the Mapuche Tehuelche Parliament of Río Negro, Orlando Carriqueo, one of the attendees at the dialogue table, confirmed to BLACK RIVER that it was agreed «work on the situation of the rewe that is in one of the lots of National Parks and give priority to that issue.

The sacred site that the Lafken Winkul Mapu raised since it settled in the Mascardi area in 2017, was claimed by the Mapuche communities and is one of the proposals that have been made since the eviction ordered by Judge Silvina Domínguez, carried out in October past.

The coordinator of the Mapuche Parliament, Orlando Carriqueo (center) demanded for months an instance of dialogue with the Government to face the Mascardi conflict. Archive

The federal court ordered that space be preserved, while the legal case for the crime of usurpation that keeps four women from the community under house arrest and a trial suspended at the beginning, with a date to be resumed in February, was advanced.

Carriqueo indicated that a next meeting in the province of Río Negro on January 31.

Authorities from the Nation’s Human Rights Secretariat, National Parks, the National Institute of Indigenous Affairs, the Government of Río Negro, the Mapuche Parliament of Río Negro and other community representatives directly linked to the conflict and also from Chubut, according to what this newspaper was able to learn.

The provincial government confirmed its attendance this week through the Human Rights Secretariat.

It is expected that in the next few hours the national and provincial governments will officially report the progress in the first meeting.


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