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PILLAÑ MAWIZA, Puelwillimapu. Today, September 5th, marks the International Day of the World's Indigenous Women , but racist Argentina's anniversaries don't highlight this day on any calendar. 2025 is proving particularly difficult for us. A racist and misogynistic dictatorship has been established, using state resources against Indigenous peoples.

As a Mapuche woman, I bear the brunt of the power struggle, just like my pu lamngen , who are determined to defend the right to live as Mapuche. I live in Puelwillimapu tuwun have been here for centuries. I belong to this territory , invaded, plundered, and governed for almost two centuries by bloodthirsty, racist, misogynistic, and genocidal invaders. Chubut was built with bullets, with the arrival of European riflemen, who had the green light to kill us and then, as privileged settlers, take our lands.

Nothing has changed since then. A case in point is the violent invasion we suffered on February 11th , when 100 heavily armed and hooded repressors entered my community, the Lof Pillañ Mawiza. About 70 of them burst into my small house, breaking things, beating us, throwing us to the floor, robbing us, and detaining Victoria, our friend and companion. They acted like the task forces during the dictatorship: I didn't see their faces, hidden behind the dark cloth. Sometimes I think I run into them on the streets, in shops, in a café, but I would be unable to recognize them.

"They deny us the right to defend ourselves"

Since February, we have been denied the right to defend ourselves . The same Judge Jorge Criado, who ordered the 12 raids on different lofs, has not allowed any lawyer to enter the case to defend us . The excuse is that we are not accused or suspected of any crime. However, that day they took our belongings, cell phones, computers, books, notebooks, and even seized our DNA. This is so serious that, in any healthy society, it would not only spark outrage but also raise an alarm to put a stop to so much violence.

This is a society born of genocide. Those who have always held power in this part of the world have been the descendants of the beneficiaries and accomplices of the attempted extermination. The judge uses a truth as a ruse: our innocence. But he doesn't authorize the restitution of our belongings and—above all—he doesn't declare the case null and void.

Summer is approaching, a season I used to enjoy with my family, but they've turned it into a nightmare, setting lands on fire, because there's no doubt that it's the government itself and real estate speculators who are trading in the lands scorched by the fires. Today, my greatest fear is that they'll use the DNA of more than fifty Mapuche people to frame us for the terricidal crimes they're committing.

I express my solidarity with and embrace the sisters of the 40 Indigenous nations in Argentina , who struggle every day to stay alive amid famine, drought, evictions, and multiple forms of violence. Despite all the pain , there is love and strength in their journey . In both the north and the south, the threat of dispossession, water privatization, and a possible neocolonial arrival keeps us worried and on alert.

Sisters, it is time for unity and to weave the struggle with courage and clarity. Let us do it. I know the telluric force that dwells within us.
Today, September 5, 2025, I commemorate the International Day of Us: Indigenous Women, joining the millions of voices calling for Freedom, Peace, and Justice for the Palestinian people, and that one day Memory, Truth, and Justice may not be just a slogan, nor a state policy solely for whiteness, but an exercise in healing that seeks to restore the harmony of peoples.

Moira Millán, from Puelwillimapu, Marici Weu!

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