MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Patagonia Mapuches reject Benetton offer.

Indigenous mapuche communities in Argentine Patagonia rejected a donation of 2,500 hectares from the Benetton brothers arguing that the disputed lands are theirs by ancestral rights.

A similar attitude was adopted by Peace Nobel Prize winner Adolfo Perez Esquivel who heads the Peace and Justice organization, which supports the mapuche land claims and at some mediated in the conflict.

One of the first indigenous leaders to reject the proposal, Mauro Millan from the tehuelche mapuche organization "11 de Octubre", said that "we're not talking about philanthropy; we want to revert a situation of abuse which we are enduring as an indigenous people in our ancestral lands".

Mr. Millan together with a married couple of mapuches Antonio Curiñanco and Rosa Nahuelquir who were evicted (by the Benetton family) from 300 hectares of land next to the Andes in the Chubut province are currently in Rome where they were expecting to meet Luciano Benetton, one of the principals of the Italian fashion and textile empire that has bought extensive tracks of land in Patagonia.

Last Monday the Benetton group released a letter addressed to Mr. Perez Esquivel saying they offered "2,500 hectares of good farming land next to Esquel to use as he sees fit to benefit local indigenous groups".

The letter emphasized the donation would be "a concrete and at the same time symbolic gesture, a contribution to cohabitation of different peoples in Patagonia, a solution to a historic confrontation", adding that Mr. Perez Esquivel "is a guarantor of recognized integrity and an expert in the Patagonia situation".

But Mr. Perez Esquivel rejected the compliment saying that "nobody can act as guarantor for lands that have always belonged to the mapuches and much less a Nobel Prize", adding that "since we respect self determination, it's up to the mapuche brothers to decide about the offering".

Nobel Prize Perez Esquivel has been working with groups seeking to preserve lands claimed by indigenous people and has also campaigned against private companies which have bought huge properties in Patagonia.

Mapuches claim the land offered was theirs even before the foundation of the Argentine state in early XIXth century.

Benetton brothers arrived in the 1990ies to Patagonia where they now own 900,000 hectares of land and the wool from their sheep flock represents 10% of the input for the textile empire. They allege to have invested 80 million US dollars in different undertakings related to the wool industry.

The fact is that since in Patagonia Carlo and Luciano Benetton have had conflicts with local indigenous people and have also been accused of not paying taxes and banning access to crossings and rivers and streams.

The latest controversy was in May when they went to court and had the Curiñanco-Nahuelquir couple evicted from a strip of land where they raised goats and were involved in rudimentary agriculture.

The ruling triggered Mr. Perez Esquivel intervention who last July wrote a letter to Mr. Luciano Benetton accusing him of taking hold of sacred mapuche land and urging him to return it to their legitimate owners and cease the abusive action.

"It would be a gesture of moral greatness" suggested the Nobel Prize winner.