The Mapuche Rebound
Mapuche families celebrate Pillán Tótem Nguillatún, a ceremony to honor ancestors and pray for fertility of the land. Photo by Alejandra Bartoliche
In Argentina’s scenic Patagonia, the development dreams of a former NBA superstar are facing off with a drive by the indigenous Mapuche to reclaim ancestral lands
Basketball star Manu Ginóbili built a legendary career by overcoming challenge after challenge: He was the 57th pick in the 1999 NBA draft, then emerged as a leader on the San Antonio Spurs team that won four championships. And he led Team Argentina to Olympic gold.
The 41-year-old is likely headed to the league’s Hall of Fame.
But now the native of Argentina is facing an entirely different challenge from a very determined adversary.
The Mapuche, the largest indigenous community in Argentina’s Patagonia region, are blocking Ginóbili’s multimillion-dollar real estate venture in the town of Villa La Angostura, on an Andean mountain overlooking pristine lakes and forests. The Mapuche claim the project encroaches on ancestral land.
After more than 100 years as some of the poorest, most disenfranchised inhabitants of the Patagonia region that straddles southern Argentina and Chile, the Mapuche have begun a comeback that includes claims on what they say is their ancestral territory. They’ve staged land grabs, especially from foreign landowners like the fashion industry’s Benetton family, which owns 2.2 million acres in Argentina.
As violence has also flared up, national and local officials appear blindsided, unsure how to react as the Mapuche gain support among a wide swath of the Argentine public.
“This issue is dividing our society,” said a frustrated mayor of the city of Bariloche, the largest urban agglomeration in the Andean region. “The government needs to step in and solve this issue now. If they end up giving a big chunk of Patagonia to the Mapuches, that’s fine by me. But solve this issue before things get worse and more violence erupts around the region.”
In 2004, Ginóbili bought 12 hectares (29.6 acres) on the slopes of Belvedere Mountain, in one of the most exclusive vacation spots of the Andean region. He purchased land with sprawling views of lakes, snow-capped peaks and the occasional condor flying by.
But clearing the land for construction would involve downing native cypress, lenga, coihues and ñirre trees. The Mapuche claim these as their inalienable cultural heritage.
NBA star Manu Ginóbili led Team Argentina to a gold medal in the 2004 Athens Olympics.
“We want those trees to remain there for us and for everybody else to enjoy and cherish,” said Florentino Nawel, a Mapuche spokesman for the Lof Paicil Antriao, who lives on the footsteps of Belvedere Mountain and is among those who occupy Ginóbili's plot of land. “Ginóbili will have to understand that he cannot step over our sacred territory.”
Support for conservation
Among those sympathetic to the Mapuche cause are a large number of new residents of the Patagonia region, many of whom fled Argentina’s overcrowded cities to hike the Patagonian trails, fish in its deepwater lakes and revel in the beauty of its mountains. The new arrivals have a strong environmental outlook and generally support the struggle of indigenous people who oppose mining companies, large developers, and foreigners looking to buy -- and close off -- enormous swaths of some of the most beautiful land on earth.
Gustavo Guajardo, a Mapuche, tending his horses in Río Negro province. Photo by Chino Leiva
Foreign buyers include British billionaire Joseph Lewis, majority owner of British Premier League soccer team Tottenham Hotspur, who acquired 30,000 acres on Lake Escondido near the town of El Bolsón and proceeded to close off the lakeshore on his property. He has resisted court orders to restore public access.
The biggest name to express sympathy for the cause of indigenous people is Pope Francis, a native of Buenos Aires and well-known for his progressive views within the Catholic Church, and likely the most influential Argentine on the world stage.
“Pope Francis always says that indigenous people are the best guardians of the environment,” said Juan Grabois, the long-haired leader of social movements and a consultant on social matters for the Vatican. “They look after the territory.”
Grabois, whom Francis took under his wing in Grabois’s early days as an Argentine social activist working with street scavengers, said the occasional violence that has erupted tends to concentrate the attention of the media and conceal the more positive elements of a traditional community who cares for its surroundings.
After decades leaving his house unlocked to go tend his gas station up the road and enjoying a pastoral existence, Maison is now afraid of leaving for fear of finding his home occupied on his return.
For others, however, the violence is all too real. Carlos Maison has lived more than 70 years in Villa Mascardi on the outskirts of the city of Bariloche.
His modest home sits on iconic Route 40, a winding mountain road flanked by the Patagonia landscape in all its splendor. In 2017, a group of Mapuches took over 30 hectares (74 acres) that belonged to the National Parks Administration, after a Machi -- a Mapuche woman priest -- declared it sacred ground.
The encampment is yards away from Maison’s house, where he navigates his senior years with the help of his daughter Graciela. After decades leaving his house unlocked to tend his gas station up the road, and enjoying a pastoral existence, Maison is now afraid of leaving for fear of finding his home occupied on his return.
He said he has received numerous threatening phone calls exhorting him not to talk to the press, or suffer reprisals. When driving by the Mapuche encampment, he said, he looks out in fear of stones hurled his way, and suffers periodic road blockades from the Mapuche settlers, who uniformly don intimidating black headscarves that cover their faces, and carry stone-throwing slings.
“Our life has been upended,” said Graciela Maison. “The neighborhood has been completely disrupted.”
Money, politics, and a view
While Maison is a man of modest means, other residents nearby are among the richest people in the country. It is not uncommon to find million-dollar homes with yachts docked yards away from the front door, ready to go catch salmon and trout on the expansive Lake Nahuel Huapi.
Affluent residents of the area have been countering the Mapuche and the encampment to protect their investments. They argue the land grab is illegal, and portray the settlers as criminals who pose as Mapuches to elicit sympathy. They depict the Mapuche movement as a violent one that needs to be brought under control.
A Mapuche woman facing gendarmes during a land eviction in Río Negro. Photo by Chino Leiva
In 2017, under the administration of President Mauricio Macri, a court-mandated operation to evict the Villa Mascardi encampment ended with the death of 19-year- old Rafael Nawel, a Mapuche, who bled to death after a gendarme fired a bullet that entered his left buttock and severed a major artery in his pelvis.
Since then, the government has refrained from new measures against the Mapuches of Villa Mascardi, stoking anger among local residents who have periodically staged their own demonstrations to protest what they say is the government’s failure to address lawlessness.
While the Villa Mascardi encampment has produced some violence, most Mapuche demands have been channeled through appropriate mechanisms, respecting the country’s laws, said Bariloche chief prosecutor Martín Lozada, who has been dealing with numerous Mapuche claims.
In 2011, Lozada ruled in favor of a Mapuche woman who prevented private developers from downing a forest of cypress in order to build residential properties, arguing that the woman’s actions were in clear defense of tribal values. Lozada dismisses the harsh criticism that his decision elicited as little more than prejudice against multiculturalism.
Lozada, however, acknowledged the difficulty of ruling in these cases. At first, he said, he felt unable to interpret a worldview not his own, and had sought advice from Claudia Briones, an academic specializing in Mapuche history. Briones helped the prosecutor navigate the Mapuche belief system.
The government could settle the land disputes through an existing law, passed in 2006, that calls for a technical, legal and cadastral survey of community territory in order to determine which lands have historically been settled by the Mapuches. But over the past 15 years, little progress has been made to advance the survey.
The colors of disunity
The history of the Mapuches is a checkered one for Argentines.
Thousands were killed in the Desert Campaign of 1878, in which Argentina’s army went after the indigenous population to clear land for agriculture and livestock. War Minister Julio A. Roca, who later became president of Argentina, led the government troops. The Mapuches, who now number about 200,000 and make up 7% of Patagonia’s population, have lived a destitute and nomadic life ever since that purge. They are now subsistence farmers and ranchers and many live in squalid neighborhoods in Patagonian towns. In 1994, a constitutional reform recognized the rights of indigenous populations, but little progress has been made in settling land claims.
Moira Millán, the weichafe (warrior) of the Pillán Mahuiza community, describes the Argentine state as an occupation force. “It keeps reminding us who won,” she said.
Moira Millán, who describes the Argentine state as an occupation force, at a recent protest in the Patagonia region. Photo by Sadik Celik
While Mapuche demands have increased over the past few years, they first made headlines in 2002 when the Benetton company won a lawsuit to evict an unemployed couple who had settled on its land and began tending a small number of livestock. The government removed them, drawing international attention when Argentinian Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, the 1980 Nobel Peace Prize winner and human rights activist, accused Luciano Benetton, the Italian company’s then-chief executive, of having the “same mentality as the conquistadors.”
Benetton has fought long judicial battles with small groups of Mapuches that have settled on their lands. In Leleque, in the southern Patagonia steppes where guanacos and ostriches dot the wide, barren expanse, Benetton established a museum next to one of its ranches, depicting the region’s history. Tellingly, the main intellectual support for the curation is based on the research of Rodolfo Casamiquela, a paleonthologist and author who argued the Mapuches came from neighboring Chile and therefore should not claim lands in Argentina.
Benetton, whose advertising celebrates ethnic inclusiveness through its “United Colors” motto, has been accused by the Mapuches of wanting to bury their heritage. The website Mapuche-Nation shows a picture of a boy in full indigenous garb with a legend crossed over his body that reads “wrong color,” a response to the company’s slogan.
In July 2017, 28-year-old tattoo artist Santiago Maldonado disappeared after police broke up a roadblock on a national road where Mapuches were protesting the company’s activities. Maldonado was not of Mapuche ancestry but had been there to support the group’s demands.
Politicians who opposed then-President Macri accused him of resorting to an illegal abduction. The uproar put the government on the defensive until an investigation found that Maldonado had drowned while trying to cross the glacial waters of a nearby river and had no signs of violence on his body. Some continue to believe he was abducted.
A legal evolution
With the Rafael Nawel and Santiago Maldonado incidents still making headlines, authorities have been overly cautious in their response to violent flare-ups around the Patagonia region, said Judge Guido Otranto, who ordered the operation to clear the road blockade that ended with Maldonado’s disappearance.
“They want to avoid another death at all costs. But if you don’t solve this now, the problem will become much bigger some years down the road,” said Otranto, who remains the federal judge of Esquel, in Chubut province, despite pressure he faced to resign after the Maldonado affair. “You need to negotiate very hard and the Mapuche cause needs to be addressed fairly, but you have to put a lid on violent actions.”
Manu Ginóbili has avoided public comment on the dispute over his land. He was not available to comment for this story.
By and large, Argentine courts have evolved over the past years to a much greater understanding of Mapuche claims.
“We will prove in court that the lands Ginóbili bought on the Belvedere belong legally to the Mapuches,” said Luis Virgilio Sánchez, the lawyer for the Paicil Antriao community.
In a landmark decision last month, Argentina’s Supreme Court ruled that the rights of the Mapuches had been violated 17 years ago when the municipality of Villa Pehuenia was created without taking into account Mapuche culture and its communal form of organization. The municipality is now obliged to consult the Mapuche before making decisions that may affect them.
“It is about time that the institutions of our Republic adopt a multicultural viewpoint,” said Lozada, the Bariloche prosecutor.
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Daniel Helft is a Buenos Aires-based freelance journalist with more than 20 years experience as a reporter and editor, including eight years as Argentina bureau chief for Bloomberg News. He began his career as a reporter with Reuters and then edited the business section at Argentina’s La Nación newspaper. He has covered economic and political stories throughout Latin America. In the 1990s he also covered the debt crisis in Russia and South Korea. He teaches journalism at the Universidad de Belgrano in Buenos Aires.
Encarnación Ezcurra is a Buenos Aires-based journalist and author. She worked 15 years as a reporter at the Argentine newspaper, La Nación, and blogged about commercial aviation for the newspaper. She is a contributor to numerous publications, including Apertura and Lugares magazines. Ezcurra also co-authored a book on the life of legendary Argentine editor Claudio Escribano, which was published in March to critical acclaim.