Several indigenous peoples´ organizations from the country expressed their solidarity and wrote a joint document. They are also planning an event to take place in the Argentinean Province.

The members of “La Primavera” community were blocking the road since July to demand lands. The families demand these confrontations to stop and that the physical safety of the members of the community is ensured, according to Félix Díaz, who spoke on behalf of the community.

Díaz and his community have denied any responsibility in the death of the police officer, and said that no members of La Primavera were armed, and on the contrary, tens of demonstrators were injured, some of them seriously.

However, this is not an isolated event in Formosa, the poorest Province in Argentina. Gildo Insfran has been governor for fifteen years, and is planning to run again for the position. The persecution against students and indigenous people from Formosa has been widely reported, but something similar occurs in other parts of the territory.

After the events, delegations of MPs and Human Rights organizations travelled to Formosa and some of them demanded the carrying out of an extensive investigation. Meanwhile, leaders of several regions of the country asked to meet with President Cristina Fernández to come up with an agenda with the ancestral authorities of the communities.

The National Peasant and Indigenous Movement (MNCI), member of the Latin American Coordination of Rural Organizations (CLOC-Via Campesina) made reference to the murder of another indigenous peasant who was demanding lands in Tucuman a year ago, and the permanent repression and persecution suffered by the communities resisting in the territory.

“Peasant and indigenous lands produce healthy food for the local market, dignified work, and respect the forests, water and lands. But when these territories are acquired by the private sector, agribusiness or mining destroy them, our production is looted and contaminated, our markets have shortages and this results in unemployment, hunger, and all leads to insecurity”, stated the MNCI.

“Legal security for companies and landowners or social security for all?, Healthy food for everyone or export commodities?, Indigenous peasant agriculture or agribusiness?. These contradictions are solved with social justice, respecting Human Rights, ending the impunity of police officers and respecting the Constitution with an adequate land distribution policy”, reads their statement.

The MNCI, that includes the Santiago del Estero Peasant Movement (MOCASE) also stated that in 2004 the federal government had to intervene as a response to the systematic repression against the people demanding land, opposing the interests of the landowners, speculators and companies which tried to displace them.

This landmark decision was “the beginning of a different relationship between the government and the organized civil society” and they suggest that a similar measure is taken in Formosa to “build another possible scenario of justice and dignity”.

Meanwhile, the Social and Legal Studies Center (CELs) submitted a document to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights where they ask the Argentinean government to “protect indigenous people and their leaders, to suspend all evictions and promote investigations and punishment for the people responsible for the attacks”.

“What has been happening since August, especially on November 23 and 24, 2010, is proof of the current threat against the right to life, physical safety and community ownership of traditional lands, in addition to the legal protection of these people”, read the paper submitted to the international body.

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