A Mapuche community is accused of occupying its own territory: the State had already recognized it.
The trial has begun in Bariloche accusing members of the Mapuche people of occupying Lof Buenuleo, their own territory since the beginning of the last century and recognized in the Territorial Survey of Indigenous Communities.
Share
Members of a Mapuche community in Bariloche are on trial starting today in that city in the province of Río Negro, accused of the crime of trespassing. Six of them belong to the Lof Buenuleo, at the foot of Cerro Ventana. They are Ramiro Buenuleo, Rosa Buenuleo, Lucas Dinamarca, Sandra Ferman, Nahuel Maliqueo, and Nicolás Quijada. They will appear in court alongside Claudio Raile and Mauro Millán, the lonko (chief) of the Pilláñ Mahuiza community of Corcovado (Chubut), before a panel of judges comprised of Ignacio Mario Gandolfi, Víctor Gangarrossa, and Romina Martini.
In an interview with Presentes, Millán said he will request his acquittal. “My status as an ancestral authority means we are being hunted by the justice system. It is a process designed to intimidate, with condemnatory and exemplary rulings, all of us who oppose this system of death they want to impose on us,” he reflected.
Lof Buenuleo is listed in the Territorial Survey of Indigenous Communities, which recognizes 480 hectares where its direct relatives have lived since 1880. In fact, since the beginning of the last century, this grazing land has appeared on maps as Pampa de Huenuleo . However, since 2019, 90 of those hectares have been in dispute because Emilio Friedrich claims them. But Friedrich doesn't have a title deed, only a purchase agreement that the defendants' lawyers consider fraudulent. Through their lawyer, Alejandro Pschunder, they reported that on September 10 of that year, Ramiro Buenuleo and others entered the property in a pickup truck and occupied it.
Although he lives in the Lof Pilláñ Mahuiza, 500 kilometers away, Millán is being accused because in November 2019 he went to the Buenuleo community to celebrate—or "lift ," as the Mapuche say—a ceremony. “That community is very close to Bariloche, the mecca of real estate deals. There, a land claim was being carried out to retain it because it was under threat. They invited me to lead a ceremony. These are fragile sites that, for a reason, haven't been inhabited according to the logic of large houses and mansions,” the lonko (Mapuche leader) recounted. “When I held the ceremony, thugs sent by the alleged owner arrived and threatened us with death using firearms and knives. The police and the prosecutor's office came, and I remained as the political, philosophical, and spiritual leader. There were also children and women. The prosecutor's office compiled a list, and we all ended up being charged. We were acquitted in this conflict, but the Superior Court of Justice overturned everything,” he concluded.
What happened in Lof Buenuleo
On August 25, 2014, the Buenuleo family recounted that they were finishing the wake for the deceased Antonio Buenuleo, grandfather and lonko (chief) of the community, when an intermediary from Friedrich occupied 90 hectares of native forest with its own water source, acquiring them at a ridiculously low price. Claudio Thieck had ceded them to him for 120,000 pesos.
On September 10, 2019, some of the families belonging to this community reclaimed the 90 hectares. Since then, they have been subjected to judicial and police harassment. Accused of trespassing, they resisted eviction orders. The Río Negro court ordered their eviction in record time, less than 24 hours after the Mapuche settled on their land. From then on, legal proceedings began to overlap, despite the fact that the Bariloche Municipal Charter recognizes the ancestral Mapuche possession of the land and promotes respect for the spirituality of this Indigenous people .
In favor of the Lof Buenuleo
In 2021, Federal Judge Gustavo Zapata of Bariloche verified that the Buenuleo territory had been recognized by the State through Resolution 90/2020 of the INAI (National Institute of Indigenous Affairs ) . Thus, in April of that year, the magistrate ordered the National State, through the INAI, to carry out “the survey of the territory of traditional occupation of the Mapuche Lofche Buenuleo Community,” and that “once this is completed, it should carry out the actions aimed at implementing the communal ownership in favor of the community.”
Millán recalled that “this generated a lot of opposition from the business community and political powers in Río Negro. It cost Magdalena Odarda, the former head of the INAI, her job. That's why the Judiciary itself is accusing us again; they can't allow a community to win a lawsuit of this nature because it undermines their ambitions. The person denouncing us is merely a front man for people who handle millions of dollars through real estate speculation.”
With Judge Zapata's ruling, the community felt vindicated after having suffered harassment and attacks. In April 2020, they were attacked with knives by a gang led by someone who claims to be the owner of the property. Ramiro Buenuleo was slashed across the head and neck and ended up hospitalized.
Finally, in March 2022, judges Marcos Burgos, Bernardo Campana, and Gregor Joos found Víctor Sánchez, Antonio Puñalef, Facundo Vera, Víctor Vera, and Olga Flores criminally responsible for aggravated threats, serious bodily harm, and trespassing against the Buenuleo family . Coincidence or not, the defense attorney was the same one now representing the victims in this trial that began today.
The community had been reported to the provincial court for alleged land grabbing, but the Río Negro Appeals Court declared itself incompetent to hear the case and ordered it transferred to the federal court in Bariloche, where they were acquitted. However, they are now back in court because the Bariloche Superior Court of Justice ruled that “acts of force cannot be tolerated.”
In a dialogue with Presentes, lawyer Matías Schraer explained that this means that "you may be right, but if there was a person and you took them out, that is considered vigilante justice."
The lawyer believes that a guilty verdict would open up a complex scenario, because the plaintiffs could request the eviction of the Buenuleo family. In that case, according to Schraer, “it would be important for the court to consider that Law 26.160—which declares a territorial emergency for the country's indigenous communities and suspends the execution of judgments, procedural or administrative acts aimed at evicting or dispossessing them of the lands they occupy—is still in effect, and that the dispute over that portion of territory should be transferred to civil court, because with that law in force, an eviction from a territory recognized by the national government would be a very serious matter .”
The debate is scheduled to last until March 13, and the Lof Pillañ Mahuiza community demanded the acquittal of Lonko Mauro Millán and the other defendants, who are assisted by the public defender Marcos Ciciarello.
Born of life
The surname Buenuleo, in Mapudungun, is a variant of Wenu Leufü, which in Spanish could be translated as “above” and “river.” “Grandfather told us it was the trail left by the stars; it could also be the Milky Way,” explained Deolinda Buenuleo, werken (spokesperson) of the community in October 2019 .
“There is a protection of the sites that allows us to survive as a human species; these are the headwaters of the rivers, and this is a common denominator in the conflicts with the Mapuche people. On the other side, we have real estate companies, the judicial system, political power, and mafia-like businessmen. This Buenuleo case is no exception,” said Millán, brother of the activist Moira Millán, who was present today at the start of the trial.
“The racist messages are beginning to materialize, enabling civilians to exercise this violence in concrete ways, as happened in the arrest of Matías Santana, where the intelligence work was done by supporters of Patricia Bullrich. Or when a governor goes out to publicly judge a community, the Lof Paillako, as Ignacio Torres did when he falsely accused them of starting the fires in Los Alerces ,” he added.
We are Present
We are committed to a type of journalism that delves deeply into the realm of the world and offers in-depth research, combined with new technologies and narrative formats. We want the protagonists, their stories, and their struggles to be present.
SUPPORT US
FOLLOW US
Related Notes
We Are Present
This and other stories don't usually make the media's attention. Together, we can make them known.