<html>
<body>
<font size=4><b>Argentina’s Bicentennial: Indigenous Tell Another
History<br>
</b></font><font size=3>Written by Marie Trigona<br><br>
</font><font size=1>
<a href="http://upsidedownworld.org/main/argentina-archives-32/2510-argentinas-bicentennial-indigenous-tell-another-history" eudora="autourl">
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/argentina-archives-32/2510-argentinas-bicentennial-indigenous-tell-another-history<br>
</a></font><font size=3>Thursday, 27 May 2010 07:37 <br><br>
Argentina is celebrating the bicentennial of a revolution that paved the
road to independence from Spain with the nation’s capital transformed
into a gala event. But not everyone is celebrating. The nation’s
indigenous people are calling attention to a legacy of invasion and
displacement that continues to this day.<br><br>
<b>Nothing to celebrate<br><br>
</b>As bicentennial events commenced, indigenous groups led a caravan to
the nation’s capital to demand recognition of their sovereign culture and
plurality, in one of the largest indigenous demonstrations in Argentina’s
history. During the march thousands commemorated the nation’s
non-colonial history.<br><br>
Santiago de la Casa, a Pilagá community member traveled from the province
of Formosa to push for a law to recognize indigenous cultures, languages
and territory. “We can’t be happy and celebrate the nation’s past 200
years as indigenous people. The indigenous people already existed here.
The other, the Europeans who came here 200 years ago can celebrate. They
can be happy because they have benefited from the waters, rivers, air,
earth apt to produce. We are sad because we don’t have a specific law for
the aboriginal people.”<br><br>
The Pilagá community has faced environmental devastation and water
pollution due to the construction of public water works project which has
flooded indigenous ancestral lands. Amnesty International published a
report on the “systematic violation of human rights.” The Pilagá
community numbering around 6,000 inhabits the bordering lands of the La
Estrella wetlands. The indigenous have faced constant repression from
security forces and threats, in addition to the degradation of living
standards due to the pollution of the wetlands. The Pilagá face
food shortages and risk losing their traditional ways of life, such as
hunting and fishing which they have depended on for centuries.<br><br>
<b>Genocide<br><br>
</b>More than 30 indigenous nations have survived the mass immigration of
Europeans to Argentina. However, the nation’s early leaders led campaigns
such as the “conquest of the desert,” to wipe out indigenous communities
in the Patagonia south to make room for white inhabitants. General Julio
Argentino Roca led this campaign in which “30 million hectares were
stolen from the indigenous and distributed among the nation’s most
wealthy under what is called the campaign of the desert,” said Anarchist
Historian Osvaldo Bayer.<br><br>
Lestuaro Newen is from the Mapuche confederation in Neuquen, one of the
communities attacked in the campaign to dominate Patagonia in the 1870’s.
“An essential component of the change that needs to take place in
Argentina and in Latin America is that history tends to be manipulated
and tries to legitimize the genocide that took place. And that history
recognizes that there were pre-existing communities and that the
colonialists tried to exterminate indigenous people which constitutes
genocide. Our communities have a lot to contribute to history, not only
the past but the future and we have hope history will change.”<br><br>
The lands stolen during the Campaign of the Desert were handed over to
the nation’s oligarchy. One such beneficiary to the genocide of the
Patagonian indigenous includes the Great Grandfather of Jose Martinez de
Hoz, the former economy minister during the dictatorship and architect of
the neoliberal economic model for which the military junta needed to
carry out another genocide campaign to implement and disappear 30,000
activists during the 1976-1983 military dictatorship.<br><br>
200 years after the supposed end to colonial rule, indigenous territory
continues to be invaded by foreign economic interests. One of the largest
landholders in the Patagonia, includes the Italian company Benetton which
owns 2.2 million acres of land. Benetton has lead a campaign to evict
families from the land which their families lived centuries ago. “Our
demands include that they recognize our people, territory and our rights
to natural resources,” says Newen. He adds, ““The provincial governments
carries out policies that allow natural resources to be bought and sold,
for lands that Mapuches have occupied for decades to be sold with the
communities on the lands, and that our people along with the people from
the province are being polluted from the extraction of natural resources
such as petrol and mining.”<br><br>
<b>Mourning Pachamama<br><br>
</b>Indigenous communities have faced not only displacement but poverty
and health problems due to the environmental devastation of their land by
industrial agriculture, mining and dam projects. One indigenous
representative from the Amayra –Quecha Andean region, Guayma Huamca, said
that the Pachamama, or Mother Earth desperately needs equilibrium and
harmony. <br>
“Our leaders have been dismembered and tortured during the nation’s
history. To squash our consciousness and rights our communities have been
terrorized so that we never raise our voices again. Years go by and
centuries have passed, and the Pachamama is boiling with grief, and is
crying for help.” <br><br>
Festivities for the May 25 independence revolution concluded, and
millions have visited the art exhibits, food stalls, and didactic
historic displays line the Buenos Aires major avenues. President Cristina
Kirchner met a delegation of indigenous representatives. Only one law has
been passed in 2006 to protect indigenous lands, and only a handful of
provinces recognize the pre-existence of indigenous cultures, languages
and sovereignty over territory.<br><br>
However, for the 8,000 indigenous who marched to the city, the May 25
bicentennial struck a deep chord for communities that face discrimination
in the present and forget of the past. Throughout the city, the cries of
“the stolen land will be recuperated,” the mourning of the Pachamama and
the tears of genocide of indigenous peoples echoed as the nation
celebrated its bicentennial.<br><br>
<i>Marie Trigona is a writer, radio producer and translator based in
Argentina. She can be reached through her blog
<a href="http://www.mujereslibres.blogspot.com/">
www.mujereslibres.blogspot.com</a><br><br>
<br><br>
</i></font><x-sigsep><p></x-sigsep>
<font size=3 color="#FF0000">Freedom Archives<br>
522 Valencia Street<br>
San Francisco, CA 94110<br><br>
</font><font size=3 color="#008000">415 863-9977<br><br>
</font><font size=3 color="#0000FF">
<a href="http://www.freedomarchives.org/" eudora="autourl">
www.Freedomarchives.org</a></font><font size=3> </font></body>
</html>