All projects and measures adopted formally or informally by national government agencies, through which the rights recognized to the native communities in Argentina are subjugated, are openly unconstitutional and contrary to the measures established in the International Human Rights Treaties of indigenous peoples.
In our region, for several months, a series of provisions and official announcements referring to curtailing these rights have been known.
This has its reason for being in the deep racism that inhabits certain sectors of the Argentine political class, where many act out of conviction, others for electoral convenience and others undoubtedly do so to defend the interests of foreign corporations that come for water, land , gas, oil and strategic minerals.
They base these measures on the supposed defense of national sovereignty, attempting to strip women, men and children of their citizenship, considering them strangers in their own province.
On the contrary, One way to defend national sovereignty would be to denounce the presence of an English airport in Rio Negro territory. (now possibly belonging to the United Arab Emirates) with a landing strip for large aircraft, just a two-hour flight from the NATO base in the Falkland Islands. Not a single radar, not a single Prefectural office to protect Argentine territorial integrity. But they don’t talk about this and even less denounce it.
They could also try to defend national sovereignty denouncing the sale of land to Qataris, English, Canadians, Australians, Italians, Belgians, Emiratis, Americans and Dutch in our border areas, whether in the Cordillera or on the Atlantic coast of Rio Negro. But they don’t talk about that either and they don’t denounce it either.
Another good way to defend national sovereignty would be to denounce the signing of a contract with the Israeli company Mekorot on the use of water in Río Negro, without going through the provincial Legislature. Of course, they don’t talk about that either, much less denounce it.
A few days ago a fact was known that generates great concern: National Parks officials ordered workers “not” to make reference in communications or on social media to the celebration of the Mapuche New Year: Wiñoy Xipantv.
Previously, The presence of symbols that represent the identity of the Mapuche people had been prohibited in the Lanín and Nahuel Huapi National Parks, The national government promises to extend this measure to all public organizations, universities and schools.
However, in dozens of educational establishments in northern Patagonia – within the framework of the oath to the Argentine flag – girls and boys belonging to the Mapuche people presented, along with the national emblem, one of the symbols that make the right to identity and ethnic and cultural pre-existence recognized by the National Constitution: the wenufoye.
Shortly before, the National University of Comahue, by resolution of the University Assembly, institutionally adopted the “intercultural perspective” and the teachers and students of the National University of Río Negro continue to work side by side with the Mapuche people. The same thing happens in each and every one of the public schools in Río Negro.
Let us remember that, In our province, the Legislature passed Law 4962 in 2014, which establishes administrative leave for members of the Mapuche people, the days of celebration of Wiñoy Xipantv or new year and October 12 -Wixa zipan- or prayer for the fallen.
This legislation is online with art. 42° of the Constitution of Río Negro – sanctioned many years before the 1994 constitutional reform that incorporated article 75, paragraphs 17 and 22 – which recognized the Rio Negro indigenous as a testimonial sign and continuity of the pre-existing aboriginal culture, contributing to the provincial identity and idiosyncrasy.
Therefore, no lower-ranking norm can disobey the constitutional mandate.
As a consequence, any measure that attempts to make hatred prevail over peace and respect between the different cultures that inhabit our soil has NO place in Río Negro.
* Lawyer. Master in Public Policy and Government. Provincial Legislator. Vamos con Todos (Let’s Go with Everyone) Bloc.
