The Secretary of Human Rights of the Nation, Horacio Pietragalla Corti, proposed this Wednesday to Diego Frutos and Luis Dates, owners of Villa Mascardi, allowing Betiana Colhuan, who long ago proclaimed herself a machi with the support, initially, of her family, and now of other Mapuche leaders, to return to the property where the Lafken Winkul Mapu community built a rewe. The sacred site was located in one of the lots belonging to the National Parks Administration and is protected by order of federal judge María Silvina Domínguez after the eviction of the community from the usurped properties.
“The proposal is totally absurd. They want us to accept that the machi can live there, in the rewe.” Frutos said that together with Dates they met in the City of Buenos Aires with Pietragalla Corti, who conveyed to them the national government’s proposal to try to resolve the conflict in Villa Mascardi with the Lafken Winkul Mapu Mapuche community.
He said that the national official explained to them that the community has “the claim that yes or yes the sacred site, that is, the rewe of the machi, be respected.” and we maintain that as long as the violence in Villa Mascardi is there, it will remain.” He said that they suspect that if the machi returns to that property, they will once again move forward with the occupations towards neighboring lots, as happened from the end of 2017 until October 4, when they were evicted by order of the magistrate, who subrogated the federal court of Bariloche.
Natalia Jauri, vice president of the National Parks Administration board and a representative of the Human Rights portfolio of the Government of Río Negro participated in the meeting.
“We stood firm in the sense that The neighbors do not agree that the Executive Power interferes in the Judicial Power with respect to the parent cause that had started in December and that the federal judge (Hugo) Greca said that it would be truncated until further notice according to how the dialogue tables proposed by the President of the Nation were developed, ”commented Frutos.
Greca suspended until February 13 the start of the trial against 9 members of the Lafken Winkul Mapu community accused of usurping two APN properties in Villa Mascardi, which occurred in November 2017. The postponement of the trial was to await the result of the dialogue table convened by the Nation with the representatives of the Mapuche community.
According to Frutos, the national official assured them that the Nation “will not interfere in the mother cause, which will continue.” But he asked them “if we were willing to negotiate. Negotiate what? What they maintain is that the machi returns to her rewe. Just the machi. That is a story, the machi cannot live alone, in the sacred place where she has to attend, “said Frutos. “The proposal is totally absurd. They want us to accept that the machi can live there.” Indian.
Who is responsible for the damages?
“We ask you, Who is going to take care of all the disasters, the violence that they committed in our properties? And he says that he was going to channel in the government how he could give us an answer regarding that,” Frutos explained after the meeting.
He said that the Secretary of Human Rights told them that “it does nothing good” to resolve the conflict “Comments from the right that are comments that discriminate against native peoples.”
“To which we replied that The comments are not good, neither from the right nor those from the left, those who label the owners as racists, nazis, fascists and that we, the residents of Villa Mascardi, never made a racist comment,” Frutos said.
“We were firm in saying that the only option was to get them out of the place, where they had never lived in their lives. That it is not an ancestral community that can legitimize itself in the area, that the only community in Villa Mascardi is Wiritray”, he assured.
“He assured us that surveillance was going to continue, that the unified command was not going to remove him.. Ultimately it was that, more of the same, but we had better acceptance than when (former Security Minister Sabina) Frederic and Fuks received us, I must be honest about that. At least they let us talk,” said Frutos.
To comment on this note you must have your digital access.
Subscribe to add your opinion!
Subscribe