Amid escalating Mapuche conflict, Chile evaluates reopening its southern land border with Argentina

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Despite the new outbreak of Covid-19 and the tensions due to the Mapuche conflict that led to the militarization of the south of the country, the Chilean Minister of Health, Enrique Paris, acknowledged that his government is evaluating a reopening of the Patagonian border in the south of the country.

“We are going to make an announcement next Monday regarding the land borders,” Paris said.

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In various cities of the Chilean Patagonia there were demonstrations on Tuesday by residents of the Magallanes region, in the south of the country, with the demand to be able to be reunited with their relatives on the other side of the mountain range.

This was reported by Prensa Austral, which also published that this Friday there would be new demonstrations “and the delivery of a letter with signatures to the provincial government of Santa Cruz, to the Migration delegation and to the Ministry of Health”.

The Magellanic people are organized in the Facebook profile “We want to see our relatives”, an initiative that arose in Puerto Natales and has been echoed in Punta Arenas and Porvenir, as well as in cities of the Argentine Patagonia.

Paris said that he had visited this Thursday “the Region of Los Lagos, where there is a lot of contact between Argentina and Chile”. He pointed out that “many people have relatives” and that “grandparents live in Chile, children live or parents live in Argentina”.

For the same reason, he said that they are evaluating the opening. “We are studying the opening of land borders”, he pointed out. However, he said that “it will be gradual in time and, obviously, with a lot of control”.

On October 30, the decree extending the closure of land borders was published in the Chilean Official Gazette. Due to the health situation, which shows an increase in cases, land transport for tourism is not allowed.

Thus, decree 275 established the extension of the closure of Chile’s land borders, which meant that the crossing points with Argentina would not be open during November.

ENTRY AND DETENTION

Last Saturday, three Chileans from the Mapuche community were detained when they entered Argentina through an unauthorized pass in the area of the Batea Mahuida volcano, in Neuquén. They were in a vehicle carrying, in addition to personal belongings and food, ammunition of different calibers, a pair of binoculars and at least ten camouflaged military uniforms.

Two of them were expelled from Argentina by a summary order of the National Directorate of Migration. The third, on the other hand, was detained at the disposal of the Federal Court of Zapala, since he has dual nationality and his Argentinean status obliges him to answer to the local authorities.