MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Argentine Minister praises federal forces for Mapuche operation

The federal forces used no lethal weapons, Fernández explained

Argentina's Security Minister Aníbal Fernández claimed “there was no repression” against the Mapuches in Villa Mascardi as law enforcement officers evicted the usurping indigenist groups at Lof Lafken Winkul Mapu, which resulted in several arrests.

“There was not even a scratch,” Minister Fernández underlined. “Situation in Villa Mascardi. On this day, the usurpation known as Villa Mascardi was terminated. With the court order in hand, the Argentine Federal Police entered, with the task of complying with the court order”, informed Fernández.

The officers involved in the operation used no “lethal weapons,” Fernández also pointed out. “There has not been any kind of repression, not even a scratch,” he stressed.

”The seven arrested women are in perfect health condition, in the premises of the Airport Security Police, including the woman who is in an advanced state of pregnancy. The five children are in the same premises, with the intervention of the Minors' Department of the Province of Río Negro, the Secretariat of Childhood, Adolescence, and Family (SENAF),” said Fernández.

The Minister also explained that Judge María Silvina Domínguez and Prosecutor María Cándida Echepare had visited the area after a joint operation by National Gendarmerie (Border Guard) and the Federal Police was carried out earlier this week in Villa Mascardi, which resulted in the arrest of seven women including the “machi” of the community, Betiana Colhuan, together with five underaged suspects.

Lof Lafken Winkul Mapu community spokeswoman María Nahuel said the law enforcement officers wanted to “kill another” Mapuche, as happened to her nephew Rafael Nahuel in 2017, but added that they will not be “scared” by the police presence. ”The territory was usurped, the State stole our mapu (land) and no matter how much they remove us we are going to return, we are always going to return to our territory, I am not afraid of them,” she insisted.

Some 250 officers from the federal forces' Unified Command (Federal Police, Gendarmerie, Coast Guard, and Airport Security Police) performed the territorial recovery of the National Parks territory after blocking National Route 40 and arresting several people of the Lof Lafken Winkul Mapu Mapuche community.