MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Argentina: Mapuches evicted from Los Alerces National Park

Torres made a distinction between peaceful aboriginal communities and the Mapuche Ancestral Resistance “made up of delinquents who consider themselves natives” to claim benefits

After four years of legal actions, a group of self-identified Mapuches was evicted from Argentina's Los Alerces National Park following instructions from Esquel's Federal Judge Guido Otranto. Chubut Governor celebrated the measure.

“We have just recovered the El Maitenal section of Los Alerces National Park that Cruz Cardenas and his self-proclaimed Mapuche entourage had been usurping since 2020. The operation continues. Within the law, everything; outside the law, nothing,” National Parks Director Cristian Larsen wrote on X. Larsen also explained that “when we took office we said that no other flag than the Argentine flag would fly in the National Parks. Today we are fulfilling it.”

The Mapuches “Lof Paillako” community headed by Cruz Cárdenas, had been illegally occupying a sector of the Los Alerces National Park since 2020.

Torres highlighted that the usurpers were peacefully removed by federal forces and questioned the illegal occupants, who -he insisted- “perceive themselves as natives.”

“The occupation of these lands generated multiple inconveniences, among them physical attacks to the personnel of the National Parks Administration and serious damage to the property rights of the National State,” Torres went on. “After many years of governments that avoided taking charge, in Chubut we managed to enforce the law.”

“We are determined to go to the bottom of this issue because Justice must be there to protect the good people,” the governor also pointed out. “The first thing to separate is the aboriginal communities that have been living together in harmony for many years, from the Mapuche Ancestral Resistance, made up of delinquents who consider themselves natives to take a national park, as in this case, or a lot of lands privately owned by people from our province who have made a great effort to have their land,” he went on.

Torres also claimed that the judiciary process took longer than it should have given “the cowardice of a sector of the Federal Justice,” which has jurisdiction over anything National Parks. “The eviction is nothing more and nothing less than complying with what the law says,” Torres stressed.

“For four years these individuals were illegally occupying the land, and successive governments did not want to take charge of the situation, and finally with dialogue, respect, and the strong conviction that the law must be complied with for all the people of Chubut, we managed to return the land to its rightful owners,” he added.

Security Minister Patricia Bullrich joined Torres and Larsen as the eviction was being carried out.