Indigenous women and guardians of the land continue to be criminalized for defending their territories in Argentine Patagonia
On Tuesday, October 26, the criminal trial began against Gloria Colihueque and her cousin Gregorio Cayulef, members of the Lof Colihueque-Catriman community. Both Gloria and her mother, Isabel Catriman (78 years old), have been harassed and threatened for fighting to defend their bodies, territory, land, and native forests in Patagonia. The provincial court will be presided over by Judge Alicia Fernanda Revori, and the prosecution is led by prosecutor Maria Bottini. The prosecutor's office is known in the area for its involvement in various land disputes with an anti-Mapuche rights perspective. Gloria is accused of threatening businessmen Alejandro Samame and Nahuel Serra with a firearm. Samame and Serra claim ownership of the territory inhabited for over two decades by the indigenous community of Lof Catriman Colihueque.
These are 844 hectares, currently "fiscal" (property of the provincial government), bordering Los Alerces National Park and near the Larga and Martillo lagoons. Nahuel Serra is the principal partner of a distribution and wholesale company (SERRA SRL), and Alejandro Samame is a board member (vice president) of the Esquel Rural Society. His family has close ties to the Chubut judiciary: his father, Eduardo Samame, was the Attorney General of the city of Esquel.
On April 20, the businessmen entered the field located in the Laguna Larga area, bordering the Los Alerces National Park, in the province of Chubut. After a series of cross-complaints and despite their inability to prove injuries or the presence of weapons; Samame and Sierra, authorized agricultural, livestock, forestry and mining exploitation in all its stages for a period of 99 years; They received support from the judicial system to follow the legal course of the criminal case..
From the Indigenous Women's Movement for Good Living to the Presentes Agency, the women of the organization expressed: "These men, who feel exposed and weakened by the categorical strength of these Mapuche women, determined to defend life and territory, feel threatened in their privileges and their destructive actions. They do not act alone; the entire judicial system is on their side. That is why we fear that a great injustice will be the State's response to such courage and dignity from our sisters."
Since November 1st, there has been a peaceful occupation of the IAC (AUTARTICO INSTITUTO DE COLONIZACIÓN Y FOMENTO RURAL) and of BOSQUES in the city of Esquel-Chubut, in repudiation of the policies of racism and dispossession of the Mapuche Tehuelche population in the territories.
The story of Gloria, Isabel, and their family represents the various forms of violence that permeate the lives of women who fight to defend their territories and oppose modern/colonial extractive projects in Argentina. These events reinforce the logic of the "machismo pact" (between businessmen and the prevailing patriarchal justice system), which, with excessive power, advances with its weapons and repeated threats against these women whose lives have historically been affected by (mis)development. The Argentine State must recognize Indigenous territories as an inherent right in order to prevent the evictions and displacement of women and their entire communities. It is time to take action against the violation of rights that is imposed daily on Indigenous and racialized women in our territories.
Do not More land destruction and violence against indigenous women!
4 of November 2021
CLACSO Working Group
Epistemologies of the South
Signatories:
France Marquez
Karina Bidaseca
Lucia Nuñez Lodwick
Agustina Molina
Michelley Aragão
Adherences: https://forms.gle/N17HJxnAm2AWwDdP6
This statement expresses the position of the Working Group Epistemologies of the South and not necessarily that of the centers and institutions that make up the CLACSO international network, its Steering Committee or its Executive Secretariat.
