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BUENOS AIRES, Argentina. In leaked images from a chat group where judges, Buenos Aires officials, a former intelligence agent, and a Grupo Clarín operator plan to hide details of their visit to magnate Joe Lewis's property, they also talk about "cleansing" a Mapuche man and mock the words lonko (political and spiritual leader) and machi (healer). The leaders of this indigenous community in the Argentine province of Río Negro are demanding the release of the four women under house arrest following the violent eviction of their community in Villa Mascardi. The meeting at the lavish ranch, whose access to Lewis Lake is illegally closed, took place a week after the violent eviction operation in which, according to organizations , the rights of Mapuche women and children were violated.

That group —made up of Pablo Casey, director of Legal and Institutional Affairs for Grupo Clarín and nephew of Héctor Magnetto; Jorge Rendo, CEO of the business group; judges Pablo Yadarola, Julián Ercolini, Pablo Cayssials, and Carlos "Coco" Mahiques; Marcelo D'Alessandro, Minister of Security of Buenos Aires City; Leoqunardo Bergroth, former head of Legal Affairs at the SIDE; and Tomás Reinke, publicist and manager of Editorial Río Negro— was accused of committing the alleged crime of bribery in a case being pursued by María Cándida Etchepare, a federal prosecutor in Bariloche, in the court of María Silvina Domínguez. These same officials are involved in the case involving Mascardi's land.

Freedom for the detained Mapuche women

For this reason, Orlando Carriqueo, from the Coordinator of the Mapuche Tehuelche Parliament of Río Negro, expressed that “ the prosecutor Etchepare and the judge Dominguez should release the Mapuche women, return the territory to the Lafken Winkul community and resign because they cover up for judges, prosecutors and (Nicolás) Van Dirmak, (manager of Hidden Lake (Lago Escondido and right-hand man of the English billionaire Joe Lewis), both with the word of mouth of Mahiques and Ercolini”. In his opinion, “in Argentina, justice has not existed for years, it is the executor arm of institutional dispossession, these judges with double surnames are the continuation of the Infamous Decade”.

The first reports about the meeting at the British magnate's 20,000-hectare ranch—which includes a zoo and an airstrip—mentioned that due to their known leanings toward Macri, they had come together to conspire against Vice President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, even because one of the judges was the one who ultimately convicted her in the Vialidad case . "These individuals didn't go to see Lewis just for Cristina," said Carriqueo. He suspects that favors for the eviction of the Lafken Winkul Mapu, land deals, and extractivism in Río Negro were also part of that meeting . He added: "For two years, we have been denouncing that this mafia is destabilizing democracy, financing the attacks in Patagonia, the assassination of Elías Garay, and the attack against Fernández de Kirchner."

Soraya Maicoño, a Mapuche actress, singer, and Pillan Cushe (a traditional Mapuche role) from Puel Willi Mapu (southeastern land), spoke out with a different style but the same firmness. “Everything is still fraught with hypocrisy,” she told Presentes. She added: “The President was right when he went on national television to correct an undemocratic judiciary that would not allow for a quality of life for the Argentine people. Because we indigenous peoples have never had a real legal quality of life that would protect our rights, collective demands, and recognition as a people pre-existing to the State .”

“The same prosecutor who imprisoned the lagmen”

Regarding the meeting of Argentine political and judicial figures at the behest of businessman Lewis, Maicoño stated that "when the news broke, it spread widely here in the area because everyone knows that Lewis owns El Foyel, El Manso, Los Repollos, El Bolsón, and Lago Escondido. That (former president) Mauricio Macri spends vacations with him at the ranch he usurped, which he bought at a rock-bottom price." He noted that this "caused a certain commotion because it happened right at the beginning of the arrest of our lamgen (sisters) . We felt it was a VIP group made up of people linked to Clarín and Magnetto, former members of the SIDE (National Intelligence Service)."

She said, "It was a stir; we couldn't help but link that incident to what our lamgen at the Lof Lafken Winkul Mapu. Later, we learned that prosecutor Cándida Etchepare was handling the case for the complaint about that VIP meeting, the same case that led to the lamgen's imprisonment ."

Maicoño recalled that “ Prosecutor Etchepare is the one who promoted the Unified Command, the eviction of the Lof Lafken Winkul Mapu, and the accumulation of the cases of our lamgen for usurpation that were going to an oral trial with National Parks, which are for bailable offenses but has had four women with more than nine children under house arrest for two months .”

Without hiding his anger, he said: "As if it were the icing on the cake, in these judges' chats, Magnetto's nephew and former members of the SIDE (National Assembly of the Judiciary) are suggesting that, while they're there, they should clean up some Mapuche people."

How to move forward after the scandal

This agency wanted to know if they had any concrete action in mind regarding this matter. "A group of ancestral authorities are going to travel. We are requesting an audience with the President and Vice President to state that all our rights as a people are being violated. We are not being able to access our sacred site, the Rewe de Machi, which the National Parks have already recognized." 

Maicoño emphasized that her hope is that "after this legal and media scandal, the government will have the political will to recognize that it signed the formation of the Unified Command by decree, at the request of Prosecutor Etchepare, Patricia Bullrich, and Consenso Bariloche, all social actors linked to the corporate power of Lewis, Benetton, and the Emir of Qatar." The Mapuche leader added that "here and now, they are the true owners of the territories. They have been accumulating hectares with various tourist and hunting promotions, but their desire is linked to the sources of the waters and extractive projects ."

Maicoño was a spokesperson for the Mapuche community of Cushamen, where Santiago Maldonado disappeared and was found dead following the Gendarmerie repression in 2017, and also for the Lof Quemquemtrew, where the young Mapuche Elías Garay was murdered. “Those who always end up putting their bodies on the line, criminalized, prosecuted, stigmatized, and murdered are the Mapuche people . So after this scandal, the Argentine state should take a slightly more mature attitude regarding the functioning of the judiciary, which should be democratized. We are governed by a judiciary that responds to the interests of businessmen, most of whom are foreigners ,” she said.

“I hope we can have a mature, political, and serious dialogue after a hundred years in which no government has assumed responsibility for the genocide. They continue to humiliate our people and do what they want to us, such as holding four women prisoners and an entire community without their spiritual practice in the territory of our lamgen machi Betiana Colhuan Nahuel ,” she added, referring to the machi’s house arrest. Without contact with the territory, she also cannot fulfill her role as a healer in her community.

Patagonian communities request a meeting with the president and vice president

This is the dialogue requested from the Secretary General of the Presidency, Julio Vitobello, by Mapuche-Tehuelche communities and social organizations in the Patagonian region. "We, Mapuche Tehuelche ancestral authorities and social organizations, are writing to you to request an urgent meeting with the President of the country, Alberto Fernández, and/or Vice President Cristina Fernández, in order to discuss the serious situation we are experiencing as a people," reads the letter sent by Lonko Mauro Millán.

“The imprisonment of our Machi Betiana Colhuan Nahuel and the disruption of our spiritual practice around the Machi Rewe are serious consequences. It is the sacred space we rely on in the Puel Mapu to care for our physical and spiritual health, and it is attended by both Mapuche and non-Mapuche,” wrote Millán.

And he added: "Having our Machi imprisoned takes us back to the genocidal practice of the Conquest of the Desert, and the systematic dispossession we continually suffer. The State owes our people a historic debt, and we believe it is time to maintain a serious dialogue that will allow us to resolve this situation." For these reasons, they expect to be received at the Casa Rosada during the week of December 12-15, for which they will travel from different points in the "Puel Mapu" (the part of Wallmapu or Mapuche territory that is east of the Andes mountain range).