by “Damn it, they’re going to shoot us… And the worst thing is that no one is going to find out.” Two and a half hours after leaving the center of the city of Buenos Aires, we are at the border of González Catán, trying to reach the 8 de Diciembre neighborhood, where last Sunday, after a fierce shootout, five neighbors were murdered due to the seizure of lands. The last part of the route is done by groping, since the GPS stops working because there is no signal. Luis, the driver, suffers for his safety but also for the health of the tires and shock absorbers.
Photographer and chronicler of Clarion They have the objective of reaching the tosquera where usurped lands are sold and resold and where “the carnage” took place – as the Baqueanos will later say -, with the objective of getting to know the place and trying to talk to the neighbors. The paved and dirt roads mean that the speed does not exceed five kilometers and the destination seems unfathomable.
The first human life that appears in the last fifteen minutes – up to this point ducks, chickens and horses have been seen – is a woman with a cap that says “police.” She lives almost in a pigsty with her teenage son. “The 8th of December neighborhood?” She smiles grimly and sticks her head through the car window. “I tell you, follow me, but don’t mention me,” he murmurs.
Once he points out the place, he asks interestedly: “Is it true that they grabbed Juana, the boss?” The news had already come from neighbors posted on the Internet. Juana Correa Villalba (43) has just been captured), Paraguayan, unionized as the person responsible for the business of the sale of usurped land. There was a national and international arrest warrant against her, but she was finally able to find her parade and she was detained on Thursday in San Justo.
The geography and the sense of danger generate tension, but the driver’s grumbling makes the hair stand on end: “What am I doing here? Why did we come? I’ll get here, the car can’t go up that road.”. Some hungry and not at all fearful chickens surround us. We are in the middle of a field that, if we did not know that it has a bad reputation, we would think of it for a weekend of disconnection. We get out of the car with the photographer and start walking until Janet (31) appears, along with three children, pulling a cart with scrap metal.”
“I live further away, I come to bring my sister a stroller,” she says, half shy. He asks her permission to accompany her and she checks to see if there are any curious people. “Here the issue is screwed if you don’t pay or if you delay with the payment of the land, which today is around a million pesos. If you don’t comply, they will squeeze you and if you rebel, they will set your house on fire,” she speaks while looking around uneasily. “They can give you a week’s time, ten days, but if you don’t pay they send you to Maxi, the foreman. ‘, which is always buriedand the boys,” says Janet, who sells raffles.
He quietly mentions Juana (Correa Villalba), the one in charge, and Rosa, her right hand. “They are correct, but go contradict them… They are always surrounded by a couple of annoying guys… And here the neighbors are good people, who get up early and go to work. Now there is a lot of fear and you will notice that many left after Sunday.“Other families took their children out of here and there are others who are locked in their homes, dying of heat, but they don’t want to go out, much less talk.”
Janet despises herself, she prefers not to continue speaking “because “I saw that they are filming us.” And as he walks away he adds: “Every week you have to pay for something, electricity, cable, they always tell you that you owe something… ten thousand, twenty thousand and even one hundred thousand pesos, bill for bill.”
The thermal sensation in Tosquera seems five or ten degrees warmer than in the city. We face a road with boxes on the sides and we see people sitting breathing the oppressive smell that, when they see us, gets inside. The construction and the lots are very similar, made of brick, wood and sheet metal., with a front of about ten meters and a depth of around thirty meters. It is estimated that Between 120 and 150 families live on this property..
We continue the tour and make stops. We applaud, we whistle, but nothing. The silhouette of a woman can be seen spying behind a curtain. After several attempts, at another stop she approaches Dionisio (54), with a long-suffering look. “They sell you the bare land, you have time to build”, indicates the Bolivian bricklayer, who decided not to go to work to take care of his home that he bought almost a year ago. “I paid 500 thousand pesos and I took the money in a bag to Juana,” says the man with long silences.
What is it like to live in this place, what is day to day life like? “It is what it is, this is what we were able to achieve. On top of total poverty surrounding us, here you have the minimum of the minimum. And now, on top of that, there is a lot of fear of retaliation… We found out that Juana was arrested, but her people are here. The other day some hooded men who always lurk appeared. He says that his children and his wife are not there, “they left for a while” and he goes back to drink mate with another neighbor.
In the distance you can see a police van patrolling the neighborhood’s winding dirt roads. It gives a certain tranquility to a place that, at this moment, is scary because it is so serene. The reporter’s phone rings. “Where are they? Are they okay, are they okay?” It’s the annoying bus driver waiting a kilometer from where we are. “I’m moving, I don’t want to stay still, but put it in, crazy.”
We see a girl playing about two hundred meters from Dionisio’s house. The neighborhood knows of the presence of Clarion and the neighbors call each other to announce about the press intruders. Jazmín (5), smiling, approaches the reporter and runs out to call his father. Leonel (23) approaches, cautious. “I must be the newest one in the place. “I arrived ten days ago and here I am, grabbing the only opportunity that was presented to me.”He says with a resigned smile.
“I lived in a studio apartment in Villa Celina, I paid about 150 thousand pesos and they were going to raise it to 250 thousand. Crazy for my budget. They told me about this place, that there was a little piece of land and I came to see it. They told me to go to see juana, me He asked for a million pesos, I collected the money working on the car and bought it“says the young man from Mendoza, who also didn’t go to work so as not to leave my wife and daughter alone. “Everything is very rarefied, but I can’t talk much because I’m a newcomer. The Sunday of the shooting I wasn’t there, I didn’t ask much either, “I only know that a lot of people left.”
In a cabin, the warmest of all, where there was another investment, is Washington, the only Ecuadorian, and host, sipping mate with his Bolivian friends Félix and Marcos. We approach, they add two chairs to the round, invite a partner and ask please not to take photos. “We come together to not be alone, unity is strength… and we are afraid. We accommodate our families on the other hand, in relatives’ houses. “What happened on Sunday is not going to stay like this and we are on guard, there are a lot of soldiers walking around.”
A patrol car passes by again, the three salute, but the police presence makes them uneasy. The owner of the house kindly asks us to leave. About a hundred meters away we see a woman sitting, also an older man who does not speak. She introduces herself as Valeria Suca (36), Bolivian, who works in a community kitchen and has six children. She admits to being afraid, but she expresses her need to talk.
“It has been twenty years since I arrived in Argentina and I always lived in Capital, in Soldati, Until it became impossible for me to continue renting. I lived with my six children, I paid 150 thousand pesos and they increased it.” He says goodbye to his compatriot with whom he was, where he is spending his last nights with another neighbor, and invites us to see his roof two hundred meters away.
“I saw everything that happened on Sunday. I went to a neighborhood meeting and when I was about to arrive the shots started, crazy. I ran away but the shooting also started moving in the direction of my house. I was desperate because I have small children. When I arrived, my children were playing, but they heard the screams and saw horrible things, poor things.. I locked them in the house, but other children also came in with their parents.” Valeria breaks down when reviewing the recent images.
He went out again and helped the bleeding wounded. “I had to make tourniquets so they wouldn’t bleed to death. We called more neighbors to help, it was crazy. “We asked for an ambulance, the police never came and we ended up loading the injured into a truck and taking them to the Evita Hospital, it was a nightmare, I don’t want to experience something like that anymore.”
We are in Valeria’s house, where the temperature must be ten degrees warmer than outside. The tin roof overheats the atmosphere, there is no fan and a plant in a pot seems irretrievable. “This is all I was able to achieve in twenty years in the country. It’s the only one of mine working every day. without a rest. If I leave, what do I do? The city kicked me out for not being able to pay rent and be here. is being outside the system“His dignity, his glassy gaze, his integrity move.
He is asked about his children. “They are in Capital, in the apartment of Angel, my eldest son, who is a chef and works in a restaurant in Palermo,” Valeria says proudly. “The five of them are there, they live in one room. Yes, a little tight, but they’re going to be better than here.” A tear escapes, she wipes it away quickly. We leave in silence, a silence that is broken with a message from the bus driver: “When are you coming, damn?” .
