Argentina: The indigenous resistance that still persists after seeing the ‘boats arrive’

«In South America we are all descendants of Europeans», affirmed in 2018 the then president of Argentina, Mauricio Macri. «The Mexicans came out of the Indians, the Brazilians came out of the jungle, but we, the Argentines, arrived on boats from Europe», said this week, the now president, Alberto Fernández, and thus, he put the controversy in the eye of the hurricane and the social media.

Fernández’s statements cause more resentment due to the context: they were said in the middle of the visit to Buenos Aires by Pedro Sánchez, the president of Spain, the same nation that carried out the indigenous genocide during the conquest of Latin America, explains journalist Leandro Lutzky in a report for RT.

These phrases not only reinforce the construction of ‘common knowledge’, of a white and European Argentina, but also make the native peoples that inhabit the territory invisible and foreign, even long before General José de San Martín started his campaign of Liberation. 

In fact, in the May Revolution of 1810, the prelude to independence, many aborigines formed the national armies to fight the imperialism of the time.

Although it is undeniable that the reception of migrants is an almost foundational and indissoluble characteristic of Argentine society, to ignore their indigenous roots would simply be untrue, and official data from various public institutions demonstrate this.

Argentina has 38 aboriginal peoples and 1,756 communities

Indeed, the National Institute of Indigenous Affairs (INAI) identifies 38 aboriginal peoples throughout the national territory: atacama, chané, charrúa, chicha, chorote, chulupí (nivaclé), comechingón, corundí, diaguita, fiscara, guaraní, guaycurú, huarpe, iogys, kolla, atacameño kolla, lule, lule vilela, mapuche, tehuelche mapuche, mbya guaraní, moqoit (mocoví), ocloya, omaguaca, pilagá, qom (toba), quechua, ranquel, sanavirón, selk´nam (onas) , tapiete, tastil, tehuelche, tilián, toara, tonokoté, vilela and wichí.

Likewise, according to data from the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights, updated on May 28, this Southern Cone country has at least 1,756 registered communities, with legal status or technical and cadastral survey. That is to say, they are Aboriginal organizations recognized by the State. Likewise, there are an uncountable number of indigenous groups that do not seek the approval of the institutions to consider themselves as such, and do not appear on any government list.

To add information, in November 2020 the INAI even prepared a map to locate these ancestral groups, under the National Program for Territorial Survey of Indigenous Communities, in compliance with local legislation.

Land Disposition and Conflict

Argentina is one of the 23 countries that ratified the Convention 169 of the International Labor Organization (ILO), on indigenous and tribal peoples. It is the main international instrument on indigenous rights. In its article 14, it clearly states that «the right of ownership and possession of the peoples concerned of the lands that they traditionally occupy must be recognized».

Natal Elkin, who was the head of the Employment Policy, Tripartite Consultations and Indigenous Peoples unit at the ILO, highlights that the Convention had a positive impact on Latin America. Specifically in Argentina, he emphasizes that there are 955,000 people who perceive themselves as indigenous –according to the 2010 national census, although the current figure could be even higher–, with more than 7 million hectares titled. To put it in a regional perspective, he explained that in Chile there are more than 2 million aborigines and only 2,600 hectares in their name, while in Brazil there were almost a million indigenous people with more than 117 million hectares.

Despite this important legal change, Argentina still has huge territorial disputes and violations of the human rights of the communities. Among the conflicts with the most resonance, the tension in Patagonia, in the south of the country, with some Mapuche groups occupying land without waiting for State authorization stands out. From the indigenous point of view, it is proclaimed that they are «recoveries» of ancestral lands, but the mayors and many neighbors affirm that «private property is being violated» and some public territories.

The conflict escalated so much that in recent years the southern area was the scene of attempted evictions and violent police deployments, mainly under the mandate of Macri and the directives of the then Minister of Security, Patricia Bullrich. These operations concluded with highly resounding deaths for the argentinian society, such as the murder of the young Rafael Nahuel in November 2017, or that of Santiago Maldonado, who that same year was found dead after spending more than two months ‘disappeared’ after he had tried to escape a violent action by the police in the Lof Cushamen community.

Regarding the context of that year, the Justice system recently confirmed the condemnation of the Chief of Infantry of the Police of the province of Chubut, Javier Solorza, for a previous strong repression in that same community: «He ordered a large number of troops to shoot Mapuche people for no reason and at close range. One of them suffered a head trauma that left her hospitalized in intensive care and permanent sequelae in her ability to hear and speak», reviews the Center for Legal and Social Studies (CELS), which participated in the case.

During those days in January, there were three intense operations by the Gendarmerie, «without respecting the standards of legitimate use of force in protests or evictions, putting the life and integrity of the community members at risk». The background context to all of this, is that the Mapuche organization tries to recover its ancestral land, in dispute with the Compania de Tierras del Sur Argentino, in the hands of the transnational Benetton.

Meanwhile, Alberto Fernández’s unfortunate phrase confirms one thing: the lack of representativeness of native peoples in the political class.

Resistance

«What got off the boats was genocide». That is how forceful Moira Millán is, Mapuche weychafe (warrior) and a reference of the Indigenous Women’s Movement for Good Living, who last month made a historic walk to Buenos Aires in which women social leaders and fighters from 36 original nations participated.

«Never, ever has any government assumed the truth: that the plurinationality of the territories has been sustained despite genocidal attempts and our existence has endured as a provocation to their failed attempts to whitewash the population component of the invaded territories», she explains in a text written about the unfortunate presidential phrase that reaffirms Argentina’s pro-European spirit.

«He despises the indigenous because it poses incomprehensible epistemological thresholds for a logic trapped in existentialist reductionism. How can they understand our world linked to deep roots in ancient territories, when they have their feet soaking in the distant waters of another continent? How can they love with the same dedication that we indigenous women do, the land they walk on?», questions Millán.

If the Argentines come from the boats, Millán warns, «then they will have rights over the seas and we, the indigenous nations, over the territories». Denialism as a State policy has been and is genocidal, she insists, despite the fact that the omission or denial of a conflict neither disappears nor resolves it, it only deepens it.

For this reason, she considers that Argentina will have to rethink its relationship with the indigenous nations that it has invaded: “The absurd narrative that Argentina is constituted only of those who descended from the ‘boats’ cannot continue, because the day will come when that State that denies us, that forces us to live our identity in a clandestine way, that deprives us of all rights, will see us united as peoples and organized as millennial nations, recovering what has been taken from us».