Fires in Patagonia: self-management, repression and… a Zionist hypothesis?

(Photos: Argentina Indymedia /Marcelo Martínez (Tierra Viva and Revista Cítrica).

(Euskara) (Castellano)

In this week’s Amalurra programme (in Basque), we take a look at the environmental situation in Argentina.

On the one hand, we have introduced a sister programme, El Reloj en Cuenta Regresiva on Radio Comunitaria Las Chacras, in the province of Córdoba.

And along with this, a new programme this week, delving into the fires in Patagonia.

This is how our friend and colleague Juan Manuel Izzo begins the programme ‘The environmental struggle open to reflection’. In the last programme we offer here, he interviews Marcela Martín, one of those charged in the mobilisations against the Punilla highway, which we have already reported on in A Planeta. Also another interview on the extractivist plundering taking place in Argentina, which we continually address: in this case that of lithium in Catamarca, one of the most impoverished provinces in Argentina.

Finally, the fires that are currently raging in Argentina, specifically in Patagonia, in El Bolsón. These are, as he announces, ‘a tragedy foretold, a sum of irresponsibilities’. On the one hand, as we say in Amalurra, because now it is summer there, and obviously, everything is drier. Even worse as the climate crisis worsens: The warmest January ever (1.75ºC above pre-industrial temperatures) is the pattern as we progress through history. In Argentina and many other countries, this means drought and low rainfall.. But also because of the policies being promoted by the government, by forestry interests, agribusiness, speculation, tourism, etc.

As we have also echoed, these fires have a direct impact on the people who depend directly on these forests, the communities, small farmers, and native communities such as the Mapuche. In addition, in their case, the fires are also used to blame them, criminalise them or even remove them from their territory. This is what has happened with the Lof Pailako. community. These unfounded accusations have also provoked the appearance and action of thugs with hostile attitudes and a desire to lynch them.

Also in the same province, in a forum that is currently taking place in defence of the river that gives its name to the province (2nd Trawun Itinerant Forum in Defence of the Chubut River), Mapuche authorities from various communities denounced this criminalisation of the Mapuche people in the face of the fires. Lonko (chieftain) Mauro Millán said: ‘They want to conceal their suspicious incapacity to put an end to the forest fires and the permanent aggression against the Mapuche people, pointing us out once again as the internal enemy’.

But the repression and misinformation has even affected the very people who risk their lives to put out the fires: the institutions and the commercial media have spread the word that the people who caused the fires were arrested and that they were ANTI-FIRE BRIGADES!

[Update: On 11 February police raided the Mapuche community radio station, Radio Petü Mongueleiñ, in Chubut, and 4 houses in Esquel of people who showed support for Lof Paillako in their eviction, in the framework of the repression related to the fires].

These unfounded accusations have also provoked the appearance and action of thugs with hostile attitudes and a desire to lynch people. On 5 February, personnel of the millionaire Joe Lewis went to the police station in Bolsón to intimidate the people who came to support the detainees.

Moreover, the very premises of the Mallín Forestry Brigade were also consumed by fire on 1 February.

In Chile, too, many people are being prosecuted for the fires and even the land defenders themselves are being blamed, with many activists being detained.

Arrest of ANTI-FIRE BRIGADISTS! The world upside down!

This also contrasts with the government’s actions, which are highly questioned for their ineffectiveness (here we are reminded of the recent events in Valencia, and of the Peter Principle and political incompetence – by the way: February 1st was the 4th mass demonstration since that of November 14th calling for the resignation of Mazón – ¡Qué se vayan todos! (‘Away with them all’, Argentinean slogan). People feel abandoned, anguished by the proximity of the flames, and the violence and relentlessness of these. The only thing left for the families to do is to provide themselves with motorbombs and hoses.

The National Fire Management Service (NFMS) has only received 26.4% of its budget during the Milei government. The SNMF depends on the nefarious Minister of National Security, Patricia Bullrich (also an economically influential family), who spares no expense in repression and in appearing in Patagonia for evictions such as the one in Lof Pailako., but is absent in the fires.

In the meantime, the fire is fought by auto-organised citizens, volunteers. Self-organized brigades have been created in communities since the great fire of 2021. People have learned to make firebreaks and fight fires. But above all they have woven solidarity networks between neighbours. People who do not know how to use a hosepipe or are not as physically capable, collaborate by driving, preparing food, gathering resources and logistics.

As in every catastrophe, different proposals have arisen to collect aid, some of which are suspicious. The CIC del B° Primavera de El Bolsón (Cicporincendios2025) is one of these social organisations providing assistance to the people affected and to the brigadistas – they need funds to buy shoes, clothes, fuel, hoses, gloves, medicines such as eye drops, physiological solution, etc.

There is no doubt that the situation in Argentina with the fires is most surreal (on many other levels, undeniably, too). As we said in the Amalurra programme, it has to do with the fact that a madman like Miley is in power, as happened before with Bolsonaro in Brazil. Not for nothing, in addition to being a climate denier and his obvious economic interests, Miley also wants to get rid of the Law on Forests, Burning and Glaciers in order to facilitate commercial activity. Because one of the things that these first two laws prohibit is the sale of land on which burnt forests existed in order to prevent that from being the purpose of starting fires. It is obvious that behind many fires there are speculative objectives all over the planet.

So much for my understanding of what another friend, Lino Pizzolon, told me ‘We are in a situation of undeclared but real war’. The same idea is echoed by another friend: ‘Last night I thought we were in the middle of a civil war, without bombing, covered up, hidden by the smoke and flames of the fire’.

The fires had already spread to 11 outbreaks, only a few controlled, over a distance of 700 km along the Patagonian Andes (here it seems to me that there has not been much echo – perhaps we are getting too used to the recurrence of fires…).

The area burned and the location as of today (7 February) is as follows:
– 450 Ha in Caviahue (Neuquén). Extinguished
– 5,000 Ha in Lanín NP (Neuquén). Active
– 10,764 Ha in Nahuel Huapi NP (Río Negro). Active
– 3,000 Ha in Mallín Ahogado (Río Negro). Active
– 3,530 Ha in Epuyén (Chubut). Content
– 55 Ha in El Pedregoso (Chubut). Active
– 3,200 Ha in Atilio Viglione (Chubut). Active
A total of 25,999 hectares of forests, plantations and houses burned. In addition, three attempted fires were stopped in time. But the fires continue.

Searching for the reasons behind so much simultaneous arson

But in this surreal context, I was missing another element that further deepens the grotesque, namely that of Zionism. Milei’s sympathy for the state of Israel, as well as for Trump and the US, is well known.

It so happens that Argentina, and more specifically Patagonia, is a destination for Israeli soldiers on holiday. Many of the young men and women who are committing crimes in Gaza are sent here, in theory, to disconnect. It is here, above all, that they are able to enjoy the protection that many countries offer Israel at the international level, and which this government is clearly offering. Chilean Patagonia is also a recreational area. According to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz , 10 per cent of ‘Israeli military tourism’ in Argentine Patagonia is in Israeli hands. Israeli high-end tourism has also increased by 10 per cent this summer compared to last year in Bariloche, one of the most popular tourist destinations. In Chile, there is a Jewish settlement project, Raíces de Río Cóndor, which offers low-cost plots of land exclusively for people of Jewish origin.

Raíces de Río Cóndor settlement project.

But the security enjoyed by the Israeli military has been altered by a new situation: there are now search and arrest warrants for some of them for crimes committed in Gaza. The Argentine government is so far ignoring them, but others, such as the Brazilian government, have already issued arrest warrants. For example, arrest warrants are currently out for soldiers Saar Hirshoren (Battalion 749) and Yuval Vagdani (Battalion 432) and a third who is currently believed to be in Argentina. The Hind Rajab Foundation is gathering evidence and identifying soldiers involved in war crimes.

«Did you know that the fires in the South never affected Joe Lewis’ 12,000 Has and Benetton’s 850,000 Has?»

Here, in Patagonia, is one of the best known cases of community and ecological despoliation, as is the case of the mansion and land, including Lake Escondido, , of the tycoon Joe Lewis (the other known case is that of Benetton). In addition to having exclusive use and enjoyment of one of Patagonia’s most pristine landscapes and ecosystems, Lewis also controls the lake’s hydroelectric power generation. Joe Lewis is British Jewish, as well as wealthy. Lewis’ mansion is also frequented by many of these Israeli soldiers.

But millionaires from all walks of life have landed in Patagonia, including Qatarís. A news item on 8 February announced that Qatari businessman Abdulhadi Mana A Sh Al-Hajri had obtained permission to build three hydroelectric plants (ChiBa I, II and III) on the Baguales stream, between Bariloche and El Bolsón. Once again, water is in private and foreign hands.

This Israeli ‘tourism’ is accompanied by an accepted geographical exploration, as well as an investment in the purchase of territory. Such exploration has been known to have been carried out by Israeli soldiers themselves since 1976 and intensified since 1982.

Undoubtedly, the most worrying case occurred in 2012 when a fire destroyed 14,000 hectares of the Torres del Painé national park (Chilean Patagonia). The journalist and war correspondent Sebastián Salgado denounced it on Radio con Aguante in an interview that we have also transcribed here. The perpetrator was arrested and tried: Rotem Singer. He was an Israeli soldier. Unable to refute so much evidence against him, ended up admitting his responsibility, but also the fact that it wasn’t an accident. The real target was not revealed, but we have already hinted at it here. Singer was fined only 7500 dollars.

In January 2015, three Israeli tourists were also expelled from Torres del Paine National Park for lighting fires in a prohibited area of the nature reserve. While these facts do not prove any economic or political interest per se, they do confirm the prominent presence of tourists from these countries. And also their irresponsible behaviour and, as reported in many media, their cocky or even hostile attitude towards the local population, which many associate with the same attitude they have towards Palestinians.

In addition to all this, there is now the rave that an Israeli DJ, Afron Shai (Shai Avitan), staged in the middle of the environmental protection of the Laguna de los Témpanos. The DJ himself published it on social networks. In this, as in other situations, the level of impunity with which they act is shocking, as other people would have been punished for it.

Argentina was a destination for many Jews, and currently has the largest Jewish population in Latin America, and the fifth largest in the world outside Israel. In fact, Argentina was already being considered as a possible scenario for the creation of a Jewish state, before the Palestinian option materialised. Theories suggest that if the state of Israel becomes unviable in its current location due to wars and conflicts, the Argentinean option could be reconsidered – or in fact is already underway. The documentary ‘Plan Andinia’ makes this point. Moreover, in the current situation of ecological, climatic and energy crisis, the Argentinean and Chilean Patagonia, besides its beauty and its good state of conservation, offers abundant water and oil.

What is clear, whether these theories or this possible appropriation plan is true or not, is that the honest citizens of Patagonia and of Argentina in general are hurt by the plundering of their land, especially at the expense of the original peoples who have been usurped for so many centuries. But above all that, because it’s led by a state and an army such as that of Israel, which has elevated Palestinian genocide to unprecedented heights, ignoring the international community and international law. Equally, it hurts that this is happening with the complicity of their own government, which shows total disregard for its own communities, the people in general, services, the environment, and does so with such contempt.

A popular solidarity movement confronts the fires in El Bolsón (Jade Sivori)
The Shire is on fire.

(Lucho Gorrión)

La Comarca burns. It burns with dirty business, with plans for luxury hotels, tourism for millionaires, hillside plots, hydroelectric projects, and foreign business.

The usual foreigners (British and Qataris for example), those who come from far away with millions of dollars from oppression and who recruit Nazis who claim to defend the homeland, gather in Lago Escondido to plot the Fire and the Earth.

They have the help of the National Government that approves or drops laws and the Provincial Governments that initiate witch hunts against self-convened brigadistas in solidarity and native peoples.

The usual: Lewis, the Qataris, the governors, the Minister, the President and all those who surround their nefarious circle of power recruit enraged and violent settlers and sponsor them, give them money, generating traitors among the oppressed themselves.

These guys who shout ‘long live the fatherland’ and are subsidised by foreigners are fachos (fascists): those who help to trample heads and repress. It happened in Germany, it happened in Italy, it happened everywhere in the world: the fachos do not ‘grow free like mushrooms in the forest’, they are subsidised by big capital, by the bosses. And they are emboldened by that money and the false promise of a better future. That false future that promises them to stop being oppressed and become oppressors. But we know: they’re never going to be Lewis, or Qataris, or Ministers or anything like that.

All this shit that everyone already knows happens in the Comarca Andina (Andean Shire). The police are accomplices: other traitors paid to their class. The media are accomplices. Those who look the other way are accomplices, to a lesser extent, but they are.

While all this is happening, the people: class conscious workers, native peoples, dissidents, social organisations, neighbours, victims, artists, people in solidarity…. Hundreds! Thousands! They carry out the purest act of love: they fight the fire, they stand guard, they prepare food, they get supplies, they raise money, they don’t sleep or sleep badly, they defend brigadistas falsely accused, they embrace those who need it, they come from far away to help, they give up their houses to lodge, they shout truths to those who want to and can listen.

It is at these, these and these that Big Capital and its accomplices aim their guns, because they are the ones who fight them, who harm them, who do not allow their plans to be carried out.

The Shire burns. Its reality burns. Hate burns and love burns. It burns the oppressors and it burns the oppressed. It burns the friends and it burns the traitors.

It is impossible not to feel that which burns. You can’t not notice that something is burning. You can feel the fire, it is there. Luckily there are those who are like water: those who join drop by drop and form rivers, lakes, seas, oceans. That flow as a single organism and organisation and erode the hardest stone, that change The Earth.

I understand your anguish, I want to embrace you.

Let us swirl and flow together.

Water erodes the hard stone, nourishes the Earth, hydrates the forest, augurs life.

Let us flow together like water.

Let us fall together on the fire like a wished-for rain.

Let us save the forest.

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