US embassy cable - 04BUENOSAIRES2310

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 BUENOS AIRES 002310 
 
SIPDIS 
 
AMEMBASSY LA PAZ 
AMEMBASSY ASUNCION 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PHUM, SOCI, ELAB, PGOV, EAID, SENV, AR 
SUBJECT: INDIGENOUS RIGHTS SUPPLEMENT: RIGHTS TO LAND AND 
BILINGUAL EDUCATION IN SALTA PROVINCE 
 
 
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SUMMARY 
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1. Argentina's Northwest province of Salta is undergoing a 
gradual economic transformation with prices for agricultural 
products, mining, oil up, and the tourism sector growing.  Life, 
however, for the region's rural poor and indigenous communities 
remains difficult, characterized by high unemployment, low school 
retention, poor social infrastructure and urban migration.  Lack 
of bilingual education and qualified teachers is a primary factor 
in low school retention among the indigenous communities, and the 
provincial government sale of traditionally indigenous lands has 
also been identified as a serious problem affecting these 
communities.  The GOA has announced a national bilingual 
education program and education officials and non-governmental 
organizations remain committed to trying to address these issues. 
Given the complexity of the problems and the limited resources 
available, it may be too little too late. 
 
END SUMMARY 
 
 
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THE SELLING OF INDIGENOUS LANDS 
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2. Political Intern traveled to Salta Province on August 6-7 to 
investigate indigenous education and property rights issues.  She 
met with the Dean of the Universidad Nacional de Salta (UNSA) 
Stella Perez de Bianchi and professors of human rights and 
anthropology as well as the Secretary of Education Programming 
Professor Graciela Mohedas from the Education Ministry of Salta 
to discuss indigenous rights and the new bilingual program. 
 
3. The GOA's July announcement of its new, national bilingual 
program coincided with the annual publishing of the International 
Work Group of Indigenous Affairs report in Denmark, which 
criticized the GOA for not respecting indigenous rights to 
property.  On June 23, Salta Governor Juan Romero sold 16,227 
hectares of land in the Pizarro Reserve inhabited by 85 Wichis 
and 35 Creoles (people of European or mixed descent) to soy 
farmers.  The Dean of UNSA, Stella Perez de Bianchi, explained to 
the Argentine press that this land was part of the protected 
Chaco Forest.  The Chaco forest is known to be the only dry 
forest found at such a high altitude.  Due to deforestation, 
desertification is occurring at a rapid rate. 
 
4. Yet, the environmental implications are not the only concern, 
since the lands are being taken away from indigenous communities 
such as the Wichi who have held claim to them for centuries. 
Salta is traditionally considered one of the most environmental- 
friendly provinces in Argentina.  The provincial government of 
Salta has argued that the lands in question are of little 
resource value since they are in a state of environmental 
degradation.  Secretary of Education Programming Prof. Graciela 
Mohedas confirmed this view, stating her belief that the 
indigenous communities have overworked the lands.  Academics and 
international organizations share a different perspective. 
 
5. Academics and international organizations are the primary 
defenders of indigenous rights to land in Argentina.  For 
centuries, indigenes have lived off the lands and collected 
medicinal plants that are not found elsewhere.  In 1994, the GOA 
invited academics to investigate how to resolve the sales of 
inhabited lands.  UNSA provided a proposal, but the government 
has not acted on it.  This year, the National Institute of 
Indigenous Issues (INAI) decided to reconsider the UNSA proposal. 
In July, professors from UNSA and the University of Buenos Aires 
sent a letter to the government of Salta saying that the sale of 
the protected lands is not only an environmental issue, but also 
affects the lives of the inhabitants forced to leave their homes. 
Academics are working with organizations such as Greenpeace and 
Conicet, the National Council of Scientific and Technical 
Investigations, to evaluate the consequences of the sales for 
indigenous as well as Creole communities.  (Conicet has also 
expressed interest in contributing with the universities in 
strengthening the bilingual program). 
 
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A CULTURAL PERSPECTIVE 
---------------------- 
 
6. Both Creoles and indigenous groups inhabit lands sold by the 
Salta government.  Creoles have tried to initiate negotiations 
with the government to little effect.  From the indigenous 
perspective, local leaders do not traditionally negotiate, but 
rely on the support and intervention of international 
organizations such as Greenpeace.  The cultural perspective is 
also rooted in collective rights; an entire indigenous community 
often claims the right to land.  The Creoles, in contrast, 
maintain their individual claims to land.  Therefore the sale of 
land among the Creoles and the indigenous communities are treated 
separately. Furthermore, the UNSA professors believe that the 
Wichi in Salta have virtually lost all claims to land. Social 
conflict between the indigenes and the government persists.  In 
July, The Buenos Aires Herald suggested that the new bilingual 
program was announced to perhaps alleviate some of this tension. 
 
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BILINGUAL EDUCATION PROGRAM 
--------------------------- 
 
7. The GOA announced the national bilingual program to improve 
the education of indigenous students at the primary level who 
live in remote towns and villages and are isolated from daily 
Spanish-contact.  There are three kinds of public schools in 
Argentina: 1) schools with Creole students only; 2) schools with 
indigenous students only; 3) and schools with both Creole and 
indigenous students (mainly found in cities).  The goal of this 
program is to institute bilingual instruction in at least 1,000 
of the 2,500 indigenous schools and maintain the enrollment of 
the Wichi, Mapuche, Toba, Mocovi, Kolla, Guarani, and Pilaga 
students.  The program is in effect for the first through third 
grades because most children have learned Spanish on their own by 
seventh grade.  A bilingual program is already in effect in 107 
schools in the provinces of Chaco, Formosa, and Salta, reaching 
out to 20,000 indigenous students. 
 
8. The current bilingual program is limited by a lack of trained 
teachers.  Instead, a translator with little or no formal 
education is in the classroom while another teacher instructs in 
Spanish.  Scholarship and training programs will be provided for 
bilingual instructors to receive higher education and training 
and return to their native communities to teach. 
 
9. Complicating the issue is the fact that the indigenous 
languages are not written languages, making it difficult to teach 
young children who have not had daily contact with Spanish how to 
read and write (in both Spanish and their local languages). 
Universities are working with the indigenous communities to 
transform the indigenous languages into written languages. This, 
however, is a long-term process, while each year there is more 
indigenous migration to the cities resulting in an urbanization 
and hispanization of the indigenous culture. Nevertheless, the 
universities remain committed to the bilingual program. 
 
10.  The UNSA representatives said that one of the faults of the 
bilingual program is that it will be implemented on a province-by- 
province basis.  Although following national guidelines, each 
provincial Education Ministry will have different degrees of 
enforcement and success.  The indigenous communities, however, 
are not neatly divided on a provincial basis. The Wichi, for 
example, live throughout Northwest Argentina.  University experts 
are therefore concerned over the varying quality of education 
given by different provincial systems.  Therefore, universities 
are going to coordinate with the provincial ministries in 
attempts to maintain a national standard of education. 
 
11. Prof. Mohedas from the Salta Education Ministry assured the 
Pol Intern that the provincial ministries would maintain national 
standards.  She said that she believes the education program has 
improved in Salta since the 2000 Social Plan. Before 2000, many 
schools were llanchos, adobe structures of the lower class found 
in Salta that had no running water or electricity.  According to 
Mohedas, now the schools are made of good construction and 
include bathrooms and eating facilities.  She also emphasized the 
1995 law that made school mandatory up to ninth instead of 
seventh grade. 
 
12. Prof. Mohedas was adamant that the provincial schools have 
improved.  On August 7, the Pol Intern visited a school in the 
remote village of Alemania, Salta about 80 kilometers outside of 
Salta.  Once a railroad track stop, Alemania now has several 
buildings where about ten families live.  There is no electricity 
and no running water.  There is a school where thirty children of 
mixed Spanish-indigenous descent are sent to live there with the 
teacher for four days a week.  The living conditions are very 
grim and much still needs to be done. 
 
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POVERTY: THE CENTRAL FACTOR 
--------------------------- 
 
13. In Salta, poverty is a key factor in both the selling of 
lands and the education program. In Oran, Salta, 80% of the 
population is unemployed. More and more indigenes choose to 
migrate to the cities in search of work and to escape the poverty 
of their remote rural villages.  Half of the indigenous 
population of Salta lives in urban areas. Up to ten percent of 
the national indigenous population is found in Buenos Aires. 
 
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COMMENT 
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14. In Salta, indigenous communities and other rural poor are 
being displaced through the sale of their land without 
negotiations between these communities and the provincial 
government.  People are forced out of their ancestral lands into 
other lots or the cities.  The indigenous communities are at a 
particular disadvantage because their leaders, culturally, are 
reluctant to negotiate directly with the government.  Social 
inclusion of an isolated group of people involves communication 
from both sides.  Yet, when the Creoles, usually more vocal in 
protecting their rights, have tried to negotiate, the provincial 
government tends to ignore their attempts. 
 
15. Nevertheless, the GOA is making an effort to socially include 
the indigenous community through the bilingual program. The 
language issue is an interesting debate because with the 
urbanization of the indigenous community, the number of speakers 
of indigenous languages is decreasing, leading some to question 
the amount of long-term effort that should be put into 
transforming the languages into written form.  It is a 
controversial issue concerning the maintenance of culture and 
heritage versus modernization and development. 
GUTIERREZ