MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Mapuche community to enclose ancestral lands and claim right to decide who goes through exclusive club in the area

Argentine non-Mapuche authorities “have permanently toyed with the patience of the community,” they said.

Members of a Mapuche community have announced Wednesday they would control who goes through a piece of land they claim to be their own.

The Kaxipayiñ Mapuche community has claimed the right to control people who wish to enter the Mari Menuco club located on the shore of Lake Mari Menu.

As of Monday, September 13, “no one will enter the Club property without first identifying themselves and requesting the corresponding permission from the authorities of the Mapuche community.”

The communiqué, issued through the Mapuche Confederation of Neuquén, argued that the club has “built a portal to enter the lands of the Mapuche community, crossing 800 meters of community property.“

”It is the way to protect a territory permanently attacked and where our rights are trampled upon by the private interests of those who make up that exclusive Club,“ the Mapuches said.

The Kaxipayiñ family considered that there had been “a violation of rights” which had been denounced but to no avail. “It has been demanded for 15 years that the Territorial Survey that Law 26,160 requires the province to apply to be completed. But they have permanently toyed with the patience of the community,” the statement said.

The Mari Menuco club is a development that dates back to when the lake was made a part of the Chocón-Cerros Colorados complex, and in which many citizens of Neuquén have residences, which they will now access only if the Mapuches so permit.

Photographs have gone viral of a Mapuche protest against pollution where the entrance to Villa Mari Menuco was blocked for a few hours.