A Mapuche family from Chubut (Argentina), lost their case in a trial
initiated by the Italian Benetton group over land in Patagonia. The
Mapuche natives occupied land that belongs to the Compañia de Tierras Sud Argentino (South Argentinean Lands Company), owner of 970.000 hectares in the area, and controlled by the Italian corporation of Benetton.

After that, they were moved off, but the case was in a penal procedure, and now the Mapuche lost the trial for the occupation of lands.

“The law is for the huincas (white people). For us the democracy never came”, said Mauro Millán, indigenous leader from Argentina, after the
judicial sentence which restitute 300 hectares to the Italian Benetton group, earlier vindicated for a Mapuche family, according to the information from the Argenpress agency.

Justice failed against Atilio Curiñanco and Rosa Rúa Nahuelquir, a Mapuche couple who occupied the land in 2002 with their four children’s.

The Mapuche family had requested a petition to the Institute Autárquico de Colonización IAC from Chubut (Autarky Institute of Colonization) to occupy a fiscal territory in the area that their ancestors inhabited. After six months of procedures without an official answer, they decided to occupy a piece of land. They ploughed and sowed the earth, repaired some fences, raised cattle and built a precarious house.

According the Curiñancos, who send a written project to the IAC. The IAC
unofficially authorize them to move into the land in August 2002. But two
months later, twelve policemen, armed and with dogs, enter the land, in
the Leleque area, and evacuated them, arguing that this belongs to a farm
of the Benetton group.

The corporation started legal proceeding against the family because they
stood against the being removed. They also initiated another lawsuit in order to define the ownership of the land. The Curiñanco-Rúa Nahuelquir family rejected the attempts of an extra judicial agreement initiated by the company.

Alberto Mazzucchelli, the company spokesman, maintained that “now the
national and provincial government has to work on the housing problem of
the Mapuche community. We are a corporation that grants job opportunities mostly”, he emphasize.

“The Argentinean Mapuche communities were cornered and pushed to live in the worst part of the region. They are just allowed to occupy a place owned by the government, but there is no assistance to make the formal procedures for a definitive ownership as the Provincial law indicates”, explained Gustavo Macayo, defence attorney of the Curiñanco-Rúa Nahuelquir family.

for more information:
 http://www.mapuche.nl/english/benetton.htm