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For over twenty years, Isabel Catriman has lived with her family in the Laguna Larga area, bordering Los Alerces National Park , in the province of Chubut, Argentine Patagonia. Now almost 80 years old, business owners want to evict her from her home and are pursuing legal action against her family. Her daughter, Gloria Colihueque, and her cousin, Gregorio Cayulef, have been facing criminal charges since Tuesday, October 26, for alleged "aggravated threat with the use of a weapon," which their defense attorney interprets as "self-defense." Isabel knows this. It's not easy, especially when those leading the fight are Indigenous women.

Gloria and Gregorio, Isabel's only family and those who help her with farm work, are accused of threatening businessmen Alejandro Samame and Nahuel Serra with a firearm. Samame and Serra claim ownership of the land inhabited for over two decades by the indigenous community of "Lof Catriman Colihueque." Isabel's family is registered as such in the provincial registry of communities and with the National Institute of Indigenous Affairs (INAI), based on the survey mandated by Law 26160, the Indigenous Territorial Emergency Law.

The disputed land comprises approximately 844 hectares, currently considered "fiscal" (property of the provincial government), bordering Los Alerces National Park and near the Larga and Martillo lagoons. In 2000, Isabel Catriman settled in the "El Martillo" area with her eldest son, Hipólito (who died on the property in 2013), and their animals. This was based on a verbal agreement with Lucio Freeman, who held a temporary permit to occupy the land. According to an anthropological report by the GEMAS group (Group for Studies on Altered and Subordinated Memories), and Isabel's own account, she and Lucio maintained a close friendship that lasted until Lucio's death in 2016. They had agreed that she would stay there with her son, as he had no intention of living there.

Why do they consider themselves "owners" of those lands?

In February 2020, Luciano Freeman, son of Lucio Freeman, arrived at Isabel's house with a notary to inform her that "there were potential buyers for the property" and that they should leave. Alejandro Samame and Nahuel Serra acquired the possession rights from Luciano Freeman through Resolution No. 03/2020 of the Autonomous Institute of Colonization (IAC).

“ The IAC should have carried out inspections and verified Isabel’s presence on the property. Her son died there, and she remained there with her cousin Gregorio and her daughter Gloria, who are now being prosecuted,” Sonia Ivanoff, the family’s lawyer specializing in Indigenous law, told Presentes. “The law regarding public lands in Chubut is very clear. Before any concession of public lands where one of the parties belongs, by family or community, to an Indigenous people, it must be reviewed by the Indigenous Land Commission. But this commission has not been established in the province of Chubut due to the lack of consultation and Indigenous participation. Therefore, there is a very serious series of illegalities and violations of their rights .”

What is being debated in the trial

On April 20, 2020, Samame and Serra entered the property in two pickup trucks with at least six other people, and “that’s where the defense of the territory took place,” Ivanoff recounts. On that occasion, the vehicles they were in encountered, on a narrow road, a pickup truck carrying a load, in which Gloria and the driver were traveling. “An argument ensued, leading to cross-complaints,” the defense attorney explains. Gloria’s complaints, however, were not heard by the courts . But those filed by the businessmen were, and they quickly received the support of the judicial system to pursue the legal process that frames this trial .

“Aggravated threat with the use of a firearm” is the main charge. However, “ the weapon was never found, even though the first search was carried out that same day. In their statements to the court, Gloria claims she never had a weapon in her possession, and Gregorio maintains he was never at the scene. Furthermore, none of Samame and Serra’s men could prove any wounds, scratches, or other injuries ,” explains Dr. Ivanoff.

The trial against Gloria and Gregorio begins today, October 26, and continues until November 2. 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 territorial conflicts with an anti-Mapuche bias. Years ago, it was denounced by the public defender's office in a case involving the illegal spying on members of the communities and activists of the "No to the Mine" movement in Esquel .

The Indigenous Women's Movement for Good Living is demanding acquittal and asserting that the case is fabricated. "These two women (referring to Gloria and her mother) have tenaciously decided to defend the land, protecting the forest. Since they haven't been evicted, the authorities are fabricating legal cases, going so far as to accuse Gloria Colihueque Catriman of aggravated threats with a weapon," they stated in a press release, calling for support at the court hearings in Esquel, as they did today at the start of the proceedings.

Who are these businesspeople?

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.

According to the Official Bulletin of the province of Chubut dated May 20, 2019, Serra and Samame formed the company Los Tercos SRL in April 2019 with authorization for agricultural, livestock, forestry and mining exploitation in all its stages for a period of 99 years. 

“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,” the women of that organization stated, according to the Indigenous Women’s Movement for Good Living.

On Tuesday, May 5, 2020, the "new owners" arrived at Isabel's house. Alejandro Samame and Nahuel Serra, along with several employees, reached the territory where the elderly Mapuche woman Isabel Catriman lives . "They broke the padlock on the gate, heading towards her and her family, threatening to kill her and drive her off the land, or that she would end up dead. They left four men stationed there, twenty meters from the house, isolating her from her contacts and family members, who help her get to the "Los Alerces" health post for daily blood pressure checks, as she is a high-risk patient suffering from hypertension and heart disease," described lawyer Sonia Ivanoff in a request for a precautionary measure filed with the provincial court in response to these events.

Woman, old, poor and Mapuche

Isabel sits down to spin the wool from her sheep. Her calloused, hardworking hands know the craft her mother and grandmother taught her, just as they know that resisting abuse and dispossession is part of her family's history—the history of all the Indigenous peoples who existed before this state.

At nearly 80 years old, Isabel, along with her family, continues to defend her rights and her territory . Being a woman, elderly, poor, and Mapuche, places her in a position of structural inequality. This allows wealthy, non-Indigenous white men impunity and privilege. This occurs "every time they enter her territory (even her home) with arrogance, every night they shine spotlights on her house, when they unleash their dogs, when they spy on her movements, when they intervene in and transform her territory, when they close off the roads with padlocks, when they lie when they file complaints, when they prevent her daughter from visiting her, among other situations," as described in a report by the GEMAS Group. This is an interdisciplinary academic team specializing in anthropological and ethnographic research. Through essays and reports, they document the stories and conflicts of Indigenous communities in Patagonia.

“The last thing these businessmen did was block our access to the neighboring property through our gate, the only way we could get in without a 4x4. They came with a bulldozer and covered it with dirt. Now they have two workers who bring people to the property, drink alcohol, and fire shots into the air near my mother’s house,” Gloria Colihueque , Isabel’s daughter, tells us. “Despite everything we’re going through, my mother is doing well. My uncle keeps her company, and there are also lamien (brothers and sisters) from other communities who come to support her.”

Evictions : The Neverending Story

Isabel recalls the family history of evictions and forced displacements suffered by different generations of her family and community. Her paternal grandmother, to name one emblematic case, was one of the many victims of the violent "Boquete Nahuelpan eviction" in 1937. That year, the Argentine State, by decree, disregarded the community's land rights, formally recognized in the early 1900s, and violently evicted hundreds of people—families with their children and elders, descendants of Chief Nahuelpan . Their homes and belongings were burned, and their animals were released. Each family had to leave with only the clothes on their backs in search of a new place to live. This dispossession resulted in the forced displacement of communities to various locations, both nearby and farther away, where even today these "sad stories" continue to unfold.

“Among those families evicted in 1937 was Isabel’s paternal grandmother, Mercedes Colipan. The 1937 eviction of Nahuelpan was a family diaspora. Part of this half-truthful history that is told and that they want to make invisible is part of those stories of the depopulation of the territory and of Indian reservations at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries. It was during that journey that Isabel and her son Hipólito arrived in the area of ​​El Martillo lagoon with their animals,” recalls the community’s lawyer.