It was Christmas eve, “la noche buena,” 2024. Pillán Mahuiza celebrated 25 years since Mapuche Weychafe Moira Millán recovered ancestral land to establish a Lof – a spiritual communion between a people, their animals and the land and its spirits. An important ceremony approached.
On this night, Moira’s sister, Evis, used traditional pottery-firing techniques to prepare the vessels they would use during that ceremony. It was a cheerful ocassion with the whole family. Meat roasted over coals and two guitars circulated. Moira, often traveling as an activist and speaker, played with her youngest grandchildren, both of whom were born in a traditional way on this land that Moira recovered with her three young children in 1999.
Previously, the land was held by the government as a police outpost. According to the family, it was a community prior to that. Dozens of indigenous families were evicted in 1939 and their homes were erased. A building was erected and the place became semi-abandoned with time. Evidence of the community still exists, including an overgrown apple tree that Moira’s family began to prune back.
By loving the land, this family defies a dam in defense of the river Carrenluefu. They are resilient people. “Miedo no tengo,” said Moira’s son, Juan Perez, father of the two granddaughters born on this land. “No tengo miedo.” He explained that their defiance, however it results, fulfills him.
On Feb. 11, 2025, the community was raided by Commando Unificado, a recently-established federal police unit. They arrived at 7am, without warning. Members of the community, including an 80-year-old man, were held at gunpoint within their homes. Windows were smashed, weapons were planted, books and cell phones were confiscated, it was reported. Moira’s grandchildren, 3 and 5 years old, now live with the trauma of masked and armored men entering their house uninvited early in the morning, breaking everything.
The attack occurred in conjunction with several others targeting Mapuche peoples throughout the province of Chubut under the rationale that these communities are responsible for wildfires that have devastated the region this summer, destroying some 370,000 acres of forest as well as hundreds of homes. It’s a twisted logic. Within the Mapuche culture, a forest is a place of worship, a pharmacy, the source of all nourishment. For hundreds of years, the Mapuche have defended their forests from greedy invaders.
Among the places raided, Radio Petü Mogeleiñ, a community radio station based in El Maiten, was targeted and its broadcast equipment was destroyed. A report published by Radio Petu Mogeleiñ stated: “We can only be surprised to be the target of these raids, unjustly linked to events that promote these actions of incinerating the territories to which we belong, while in reality we promote their care and not exploitation, denouncing the greedy interests to which they are vulnerable.”
Meanwhile, the current government of Argentina has declared its intentions to extract the riches of Patagonia from those soils to bolster the country’s struggling economy. Argentine president Javier Milei has sought to remove limits to the purchase and possession of land by foreigners by undoing the Ley de Tierra. He has also spoken of modifying the Ley del Manejo del Fuego which prohibits land use changes after a fire for 60 years to prevent economically-motivated acts of arson. Patagonia is home to valuable minerals, fresh water and abundant arable land.
As stated by ANRed, an independent news agency, “The fires do not cease, the fire advances, but the provincial, municipal and national governments mobilize resources to persecute and criminalize communities, firefighters and supportive individuals.”
The Mapuche stand in defense of the rivers and all that is sacred. By criminalizing them, the government obscures its own complicity — allowing and even incentivizing for decades the planting of invasive pine trees which acidify the soils and attract fire, destroying all that is native.
During the raids, Victoria Nuñez Fernandez, 34, was taken into custody because her vehicle, a Renault Kangoo, resembled one captured on security footage at the scene of a fire at Estancia Amancay. She is blamed for destroying nine pieces of machinery and vehicles using molotov cocktails and she now faces pretrial detention at a police station in Esquel designated for women. According to the community, there is ample evidence to prove her innocence.
Shortly after the raids, on Feb. 13, Resistencia Ancestral Mapuche (RAM) — an organization denounced by several of the communities targeted — was declared a terrorist organization by the national government. Pillán Mahuiza and other Mapuche communities have been unduly linked to RAM.
“It’s a set-up,” said Moira. “We are not part of RAM.”
After 25 years of inhabiting at Pillán Mahuiza, building homes and establishing a connection with the land in defense of the river, an eviction notice was announced by Ignacio Torres, governor of Chubut. Earlier this year, Lof Paillako, a Mapuche community situated in Parque los Alerces, was evicted. They left peacefully to avoid violence. Moira warns that these actions are reminiscent of the dictatorship that reigned from 1976 to 1983, forcing the disappearance of an estimated 30,000 people. She also warns that the confiscation of books, including one she wrote, amounts to ideological persecution, where “thinking is a crime.”
The communities, Lof Cañio (El Maitén), Lof Catriman Colihueque, Lof Nahuelpan, Mapuche Community Radio Petü Mongueleiñ (El Maitén) and various homes in Esquel, neighbors, friends and others, are decrying these actions and asking for international support.