Her father died after taking over the family field in 2017 and has now denounced a new usurpation

Carolina Galván lives in Centenario, near the city of Neuquén, and is a third -generation family from the countryside. His grandfather was one of the first to settle in that town. 44 years ago, his father bought a farm near Añelo, about 100 kilometers north of the provincial capital, where he and his brother Fernando always worked.

“He bought it halfway from a neighbor because he didn’t have enough money and they did it in 1977. It came from another private owner who, in turn, bought it from another private owner,” he explains. Carolina to lay the tour. of property.

At that time there was no road, the road was full of dirt. “My father leveled the field, irrigated it, started making it, planted fruit trees; thirty people worked during the harvest season ”, he analyzed. In the family they repeatedly joked, that the farm was his father’s fourth and dearest child, because of the time and work he devoted to it.

Over the years, they had no problems with their neighbors, but the unity and happiness of working the land was violently delayed. in 2017 when the establishment was hijacked for the first time. That day, Carolina arrived, saw the Mapuche flag and turned around. “So, what can we do now? We’re a small family, who will listen to us, we’ve never been in politics”, he thought. “Suddenly, one day they kidnap you and you just won’t lose your job, the worst. the thing you will lose is your health, “sighed the maiden.

His father, according to his narrative, was a healthy and industrious man, but when they seized the field and he could no longer enter, he fell ill and died that same year. “I was just a mother and the bitterness of what we went through is over,” she recalled sadly.

In that case, Justice determined that Galván’s property title was in orderthe appropriators acknowledged that the lands belonged to that family and there was a peaceful eviction.

But the silence was only temporary. In October 2021, they re -entered the family field. “We found out when the bulldozer came in to make another irrigation channel, we had the intention to systematize and plant alfalfa, and when they saw movement, they came back, put up ruca and we couldn’t get it anymore,” Fernando reviews. . .

Those who came in and lived “were always neighbors, lifelong crianceros, they had a seat, they were prosecutors, they had hectares, which is quite a bit,” Carolina denounced. Now, he pointed out, they have presented themselves as a Treatyén community, although it, he added, is not registered in the National Registry of Indigenous Communities. “They went in and planted a Mapuche flag on my family’s farm, they locked the machines and violently evicted anyone who wanted to work the land,” Carolina said.

After they complained, an eviction order was issued but “it was never enforced by the police”Ferdinand added. From there, Justice called for mediation. At that moment, the usurpers withdrew from the property, according to Carolina “so they could verify with a notary that everything was in order and give them legal status.”

But “these people do not believe the law, they failed to do their part, broke the locks and prevented us from entering the workthen we gave up the mediation ”, Carolina explained.

So far, the Galván family has not yet found an answer or solution to the situation, and even the dominant ones are not in the field today, Carolina and Fernando have not been able to re -enter their lands since the last entry.

The law of chaos?

Make a law, make a trap, says an old saying. And it can be applied to the conflict of seizures that are currently taking place. The fact is that it is certainly a zone of uncertainty that leaves a norm, which has triggered a series of allocation actions in the south of the country. When the National Constitution was reformed in 1994, the “indigenous clause” (article 75 inc. 17) recognizing the ethnic and cultural pre-existence of indigenous peoples and reserving their right to the legal status, ownership and community ownership of the lands they traditionally occupy.

Then, in 2006, Law 26,160 (Indigenous Territorial Emergency Law) was passed, giving the National Institute of Indigenous Affairs (INAI) the power to conduct, in a maximum term of three yearsthe technical, legal and cadastral survey of the ownership situation lands occupied by indigenous communities, to define, in the corresponding cases, the right of ownership. The rule has been extended four times since then and is now fifteen years old.

This law allows indigenous organizations, national universities, national, provincial, municipal entities and non-governmental organizations to participate in the territorial survey. For that, it is already establishing communities they must have registered legal status and show that their work is up to date (during sentencing, November 2006); traditionalthat is, there are identifiable material and symbolic signs in the territory occupied by the community (this does not refer to the work of the ancestors); public and undeniably proven.

“One of the controversial aspects of this law is that it does not provide survey participation to the legal owners of disputed lands and, in addition, it suspends eviction sentences once the law is approved,” he said. explained Diego García Rambeaud. , president of the Rural Society of Neuquén (SRN). In this regard, “legislators and jurors consider this to be an advancement of Legislative Power over Judicial Power and therefore it violates the division of powers established by the Constitution,” the leader added.

For the SRN leader, another important aspect of the rivalry has to do with the word “current” of the standard which, due to extensions, is valid for 15 years. “This fact along with the way the INAI law is applied has encouraged seizures of public and private land, inquiry into legal property titles in perfect order”, He hinted. And as he said, “many judges interpret that they cannot issue eviction sentences related to indigenous jobs and when they dictate to them, the executive powers of the provinces do not enforce them because they want to prevent the spread of images of police evicting families in a seizure. “

Against this backdrop, during those fifteen years, new unregistered communities emerged on the date of enactment of the standard, demanding territorial status and recognition. In some cases, “communities with no status or prior occupation of the territory seize public and private lands with violence, secrecy, abuse of trust, and then claim ownership,” Garcia said. Rambeaud.

According to various reported cases, usurpations in the countryside not only occur in large establishments, but there are also small properties of 3 to 10 hectares allotted, where families have lived from the work of their land has not yet returned to production and they are not getting a response from the State.