BUENOS AIRES, Oct 8 (NNN-PRENSA LATINA) — Argentine President Alberto Fernandez accepted the resignation of Minister of Women, Gender and Diversity, Elizabeth Gomez Alcorta after she opposed the eviction of a group of indigenous Mapuche women from land in the southern Patagonia region.
According to a statement posted on Twitter by the spokeswoman for the Casa Rosada, Gabriela Cerruti, the president thanked the work carried out by Gomez, who held this position since 2019.
The lawyer resigned after the eviction of the Lafken Winkul Mapu mapuche community, in the town of Villa Mascardi, in Rio Negro province, in the Patagonian Region.
Elizabeth Gomez Alcorta, who before taking office had worked as a defense lawyer for a Mapuche leader, had on Thursday criticized the eviction and subsequent arrest in Rio Negro province of six Mapuche women, one of whom was pregnant.
“These facts and the arrests of women and children by federal forces are incompatible with the values that I defend as a political project,” Gomez wrote in a letter addressed to the head of State.
The sprawling Patagonia region, which Argentina shares with its neighbor Chile, is often the scene of clashes with Mapuche communities claiming rights on ancestral lands held by the state or by private groups.
Cerruti told the press that the procedure was carried out in compliance with all protocols, without the use of lethal weapons, or any denunciation during it.
“There was no subjugation, the court order was carried out under all the security protocol and respect for human rights,” she said. — NNN-PRENSA LATINA
