MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Mapuche rebels launch warning video in Argentine Patagonia

The Mapuches hold Argentine authorities accountable for any death or injured person

The Mapuche rebel group Lof Lafken Winkul Mapu Tuesday released a new video urging members of the native community to carry out “more actions” to protect the rewe (space) the native community holds sacred.

The organization that seized property in Villa Mascardi until they were evicted by law enforcement forces also forecast “new actions” for which it held the government responsible.

“To the conscious society. On October 17, 2022, in the territory of rewe lafken, we make an urgent call to continue organizing to carry out different actions in support of the care of the rewe,” the message starts.

It was launched 48 hours after Federal Judge Silvana Domínguez ordered the restitution of the seven real estate properties in the province of Río Negro that the group had occupied for five years.

“We remain dispersed and firm in the territory,” the Mapuches say in their video, in which they claim the region has been “militarized,” for which they hold the national and provincial governments responsible for the existence of any “wounded or dead” people.

”We hold the provincial government of Governor Anabela Carreras; the national government of Alberto Fernández; the Minister of Security, Aníbal Fernández; Judge Silvina Domínguez and Yanacona (a term used to indicate 'traitors' according to Quechua etiology) responsible if there are any injuries or deaths,“ they said.

Judge Dominguez also ordered the rewe, the Mapuche sacred space, be maintained. ”I will require the [National Parks Administration] APN to duly preserve the 'anthropomorphic carving and its surrounding space' for being a place used as a Mapuche worship space (rewe),“ she ruled.

The prosecution had argued that the seizure of land had been based on ”a vision that had, in 2017, a 16-year-old girl who proclaimed herself machi, spiritual authority of the Mapuche People.“

”The young girl dreamed that her ancestors indicated to her that they should settle there,” Federal Prosecutor María Cándida Etchepare explained.