The Coordinator of the Parliament of the Mapuche Tehuelche People of Río Negro, together with social organizations, held a press conference in Bariloche to repudiate the actions of the security forces in the Villa Mascardi eviction operation. In addition, they asked to form a dialogue table with authorities of the National Executive and the Government of Rio Negro for next October 12. The conference was held at the headquarters of the National University of Comahue, in Bariloche, and brought together members of different communities from the province.
The defense attorneys have already appealed the measure of the substitute federal judge Silvina Domínguez, who ordered the transfer of the detainees.
Referring to the judicial decision, the werken (spokesperson) of the Mapuche Tehuelche Parliament of Río Negro, Orlando Carriqueo, assured: “These are very difficult days for us as a people, what is happening is reminiscent of the Desert Campaign.”
Carriqueo warned that “violence in this territory has always been imposed by the State” and said: “We are calling on the communities to strengthen their spirituality, because there we are going to find the temperance to find the path of dialogue.”
They repudiated the transfer of detainees to Ezeiza
The conditions of detention of the seven women imprisoned after the eviction ordered by the Justice in Villa Mascardi generated questions and concern in human rights organizations, while criticism of the judge who intervenes in the conflict for ordering the transfer of four of them to a prison in Ezeiza, 1,600 kilometers from their place of residence. These are the seven women charged by the Federal Justice in a case labeled “Fire or Other Havoc, Attack on Authority and Usurpation”, after the operation carried out last Tuesday by the Unified Command of federal forces, with the deployment of some 250 troops in the vicinity of Route 40.
Subrogating federal judge Silvina Domínguez ordered the transfer of four of them -Martha Luciana Jaramillo, Andrea Despo, Florencia Melo and Débora Vera- to the Ezeiza Prison with the argument that there is no federal establishment for women in Río Negro.
This measure has already been appealed by the defense of the detainees, who warned about the “lack of gender perspective” and the “additional penalty” that implies “taking them 1,600 kilometers away from their family group.”
In addition, the lawyers of the detainees, Andrea Reile and Ezequiel Palavecino, warned that international treaties “prevent aggravating” the situation of women and urged that “all possibilities be exhausted -which has not been done in the case- of housing them in some appropriate provincial or municipal place in this city or resolve their procedural situation,” according to the Mapuche Parliament. The file was opened – with the intervention of the prosecutor Cándida Etchepare – from the complaint of nine usurped lots in the Villa Mascardi area, one of them belonging to National Parks and the others, to individuals. Meanwhile, from the Legitimate Justice group – which brings together judges, prosecutors and judicial workers – they demanded the reopening of a dialogue table and questioned the arrests, in particular the transfer of the four detainees from Bariloche to Ezeiza.
In the same sense, Cels and the Asociación Actrices Argentinas, as well as two social and political spaces that make up the Frente de Todos, such as Utep and the Frente Patria Grande, pronounced themselves. On the other hand, two of the seven women arrested remained housed in PSA facilities at the Bariloche airport because they are mothers of babies of a few months.
Meanwhile, another young woman from the indigenous community, in an advanced state of pregnancy, was admitted to the “Ramón Carrillo” Hospital in Bariloche.
“Aníbal F. should resign”
The leader of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo Línea Fundadora, Nora Cortiñas, considered that the Minister of Security, Aníbal Fernández, should resign and lamented that Argentina is “becoming a country of savages, where the Police are only instructed to kill, to suppress”. After the resignation of the Minister for Women, Gender and Diversity, Elizabeth Gómez Alcorta, became known as a result of her critical look at the eviction of a Mapuche community in Villa Mascardi, the human rights defender highlighted the decision of the national civil servant to walk away from his post. “It left me with a sense of satisfaction that finally in an event like this someone resigned, because when it is this brutality with which it is seen that it is acted, she has the dignity to say ‘I can’t stand this’. I thought it was a good gesture She is in a Ministry to protect women, although all ministries are to protect all the people, “he stressed.
Gómez Alcorta questioned “the imprisonment and the denial of release for all women detained“.