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href="https://intercontinentalcry.org/argentina-1500-indigenous-danger-losing-land/">https://intercontinentalcry.org/argentina-1500-indigenous-danger-losing-land/</a></font>
<h1 id="reader-title">Over 1500 indigenous communities in danger
of losing their land</h1>
<div id="reader-credits" class="credits">by Sebastián Ortega,
September 18, 2017</div>
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<p class="secondary-title">Argentina's Indigenous
Territorial Emergency Law expires in November. More
1500 communities could be affected</p>
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<p><em>Argentina's Indigenous Territorial Emergency
Law, which restrains legal evictions and prevents
native communities from losing their ancestral
lands, expires in November. There are over 1500
communities in danger.</em></p>
<p>Each winter, with the first frost, the shepherds of
the Suyay Leufu <em>Lof</em> (the basic social
organization of the Mapuche, Huilliche and Picunche
peoples) of Los Molles, in Mendoza, descend from the
mountain range, herding goats towards the fields in
the plains. The community has inhabited these lands
for many generations; but, they lack title deeds. A
group of businessmen claim this land as their own.</p>
<p>In May of this year, the Mapuche managed to stop a
court-ordered eviction relying on the protection
afforded by the <a
href="http://servicios.infoleg.gob.ar/infolegInternet/anexos/120000-124999/122499/norma.htm"
target="_blank" rel="noopener">Indigenous
Territorial Emergency Law</a>, which suspends
eviction proceedings and establishes the territorial
survey of more than 1,500 communities across
Argentina. The period of validity of the Law expires
on November 23, 2017. If it is not extended, many of
these communities will be left unprotected and many
could lose the lands where they have been living
since time immemorial.</p>
<p>Two weeks ago, the conflict of the Suyay Leufu <em>Lof</em>
reached Buenos Aires television. That was 22 days
after the “disappearance” of Santiago Maldonado in
the midst of the repression by the <em>Gendarmería
</em>of the Mapuche in Chubut. TV host Eduardo
Feinmann interviewed businesswoman Rosita Aldao, who
accused native families of forming an "armed
organization". "RAM seizes land in Malargüe", said
the graph on the screen (RAM is the acronym for
Ancestral Mapuche Resistance, an alleged guerrilla
group operating in Argentina and Chile), while
Feinmann accused the Mapuche of being "terrorists"
and "usurpers."</p>
<p>The media offensive is intended to establish a
relation between indigenous peoples and "extremist"
armed organizations (as <em>Clarín</em>, the
largest newspaper in Argentina, published on its
front page on August 28), using scarcely credible
accusations, such as that they are being "<a
href="https://www.clarin.com/opinion/grupo-militantes-sensibles-toda-cuota-violencia_0_BkUu1ER_Z.html"
target="_blank" rel="noopener">logistically
supported by the Colombian FARC and Kurdish
extremist groups in Turkey</a>”. The demonization
of indigenous communities is the prelude to the
discussion of whether or not to extend the
Indigenous Territorial Emergency Law and paves the
way for the deployment of security forces into
territories that are being claimed by big
entrepreneurs, such as Italy’s Luciano Benetton and
England’s Joe Lewis.</p>
<p>"Argentina’s National Constitution is a very good
framework, but leaves enormous legal insecurity for
the recognition of legal territory of indigenous
communities," says Paola García Rey, director of
Human Rights Protection and Promotion at Amnesty
International. "The violent indigenous who wants to
occupy half of Argentina is not real. Stigmatization
and persecution are spreading, putting into question
the legitimacy of the indigenous claim in general",
she adds.</p>
<h4>An emergency law</h4>
<p>Law 26.160 was passed at the end of 2006 and
granted a period of 4 years to survey the native
peoples’ territories throughout the country. The
deadline was extended in 2009 and again in 2013. In
these eleven years the survey of 759 of the 1.532
identified communities began. Of these 759
communities, the National Institute of Indian
Affairs (INAI) considers that the surveys of 459
communities have been "completed". That at is to
say: the “current, traditional and public
occupation" of these 459 communities has been
officially recognized.</p>
<p>Although the Law makes no provision for securing
the land, this resolution is an essential step to
move in that direction. "The survey amounts to a
recognition by the State that a territory is
inhabited by a community. If the period of validity
of the Law is not extended, the territories which
have so far been left out of the survey will be
exposed to possible evictions”, explains Luna
Miguens, coordinator of the economic, social and
cultural rights area of the Center for Legal and
Social Studies (CELS).</p>
<p>On August 9, International Day of the World’s
Indigenous Peoples, Amnesty International, CELS and
15 other organizations launched a campaign demanding
the Argentine National Congress to extend Law 26.160
until November 2021. According to Amnesty
International, "60% of the communities registered by
the INAI will be left adrift if the Law is not
extended and the possibility of their territory
being surveyed will be cut short. The expiration of
this Law would leave communities unprotected against
the possibility of being evicted".</p>
<h4>Vaca Muerta</h4>
<p>The dispute over land between corporations and
communities extends across the country. The
territory that the Mapuche Campo Maripe <em>Lof </em>inhabited
in Loma Campana, Neuquén, in 1927, was turned into
corporate booty in 2011, when YPF-Repsol announced
its desire to exploit the Vaca Muerta oil fields.
The community had not been surveyed under Law
26.160. In July 2013, the Mapuche occupied two oil
rigs and forced a dialogue with YPF and the
government of Neuquén. The company promised to start
a development plan for the community and the
province agreed to carry out the survey of the
lands. According to the community, none of these
agreements have materialized.</p>
<p>One night in September 2016 a caravan of carrier
trucks, impact hammers and vehicles carrying
explosives entered the territory. The company
Tecpetrol, a contractor of YPF-Chevron, intended to
carry out a "seismic exploration" to assess the
resource potential of those lands. Since then, the
community has kept up with resistance. In June of
this year, the <em>Gendarmería</em> settled in
Mapuche territory to guarantee the exploitation of
the oil wells.</p>
<h4>La Primavera</h4>
<p>The Qom Potae Napocna Navogoh community, known as
La Primavera, lives in the Laguna Blanca area in the
Province of Formosa, in northeastern Argentina. In
2014, the INAI and the Institute of Aboriginal
Communities of Formosa carried out a survey within
the framework of Law 26.160. But the process
violated the right to consultation and participation
since there was no community involvement, and the
sketches and narratives by the Qom describing the
places where they develop their life projects were
not taken into account. As a result, the dwellings
of 17 families, including that of community chief
Félix Díaz, were excluded from the survey.</p>
<p>Over the past eleven years, the Indigenous
Territorial Emergency Law has allowed Indigenous
Peoples to restrain the corporate appropriation of
their lands and see some progress in the recognition
of their possession of land. But if Congress does
not extend the period of validity of the Law before
November, more than 1,500 communities will be left
unprotected—the campaign that aims to accuse
Indigenous Peoples in Argentina of being terrorists
may be only the beginning of what is to come.</p>
<div class="signoff"><span class="icon icon-cc"></span>
<p style="display: inline;"
class="readability-styled">This </p>
<a
href="https://www.opendemocracy.net/democraciaabierta/sebasti-n-ortega/native-communities-in-danger-in-argentina"
target="_blank">article</a>
<p style="display: inline;"
class="readability-styled"> was published as part
of a partnership between Cosecha Roja and
democraciaAbierta. You can read the original
article in Spanish </p>
<a
href="http://cosecharoja.org/hay-1500-comunidades-originarias-en-peligro/"
target="_blank">here</a>
<p style="display: inline;"
class="readability-styled">. The article is being
re-published at IC under a </p>
<a
href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/"
target="_blank">Creative Commons License</a>
<p style="display: inline;"
class="readability-styled">.</p>
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