Guernica

In completely vulnerable situation, between plastic and cardboard walls, hundreds of families remain in the land grab in Guernica, they are families that lost everything in the months of the pandemic.

In a completely vulnerable situation, between plastic and cardboard walls, hundreds of families remain in the land grab in Guernica, they are families that lost everything in the months of the pandemic, although most of them were already going through a fairly serious economic and social crisis , mandatory confinement brought with it the loss of jobs for thousands of people, and this made everything worse and they had no other way out than to find a place to live, no matter how precarious it may be, in the hope that the government from Buenos Aires can help them. “I almost died of the cold with my son that night, we had to go near the fire that some neighbors made, but I almost lost the mobility of how frozen we were, and that we have to endure because we have no other option… I have to choose between eating or paying rent because the money is not enough for me and they evicted me from the place where I lived ”, tells me Susana who lives with her 3-year-old son Juan. The winter nights in which many were on the verge of freezing to death and the constant fear that some women go through who sleep alone in these boxes, are some of the living tests of strength and resistance. Not only are the families that came to the seizure Argentine, there are many Peruvian Paraguayans and even Brazilians who are here in a situation of extreme poverty. “Yesterday I did not eat, today I did not eat because I am ashamed to ask,” Neusa tells me that she is Brazilian and has lived in Buenos Aires for 25 years, she tells me that she can no longer find a job at her age and that she has no other option than come here and endure whatever it takes to survive. The land seizure began on July 20 and continues to this day. President Perón is administered by the mayor Blanca Cantero, who comes from Massismo and is a member of the Frente de Todos. For the majority, Blanca betrays the trust they had in her by having chosen her as their representative “that the mayor of us stands aside it’s painful, ”Mariana tells me. The Buenos Aires government addressed the conflict in a not very fertile attempt, offering the IFE programs and 50,000 pesos as a social assistance bonus, according to the inhabitants of Guernica it is a completely crazy proposal and that would not help in any way to solve their problem “with that money We do nothing with inflation and how expensive everything is will not be enough for us to spend more than two months and return to the same thing ”they tell me. There are representatives from the Polo Obrero, from Barrios de Pie – Libres del Sur, from the Front of Organizations in Struggle and the Darío Santillán Front. The Teresa Rodríguez Movement, the OLP – Resistir y Vencer and the Movement for Latin American Unity and Social Change, among others, are also present. They say they are supporting the inhabitants of the take, for many it is simply the desire to star in an eminently social struggle and for others their support is completely relevant, since they are the ones who, in certain cases, manage the dining rooms and help organize the meals. donations and distribute them in an equitable and orderly manner. The Minister of Development of the Buenos Aires Community Larroque assures that “President Perón is one of the three municipalities that has grown the most demographically in the last twenty years. This is an issue that is structural and that was aggravated by the policy of the previous government.” It would seem that between all of them they want to pass the ball of the deepest responsibilities that the current crisis puts us in front of. The conflict over the land seizure has grown since July, and was prosecuted. Judge Martín Rizzo has ordered, for the fourth time, the eviction for October 15. The families in Guernica do not expect any other answer to their needs than that of a space of land to be able to live with dignity, “land by land” is the phrase that they chant today every time those in charge of the negotiations sent by the Buenos Aires government approach.