Benetton Sues Indian Couple Over Land

In a most unfashionable court battle, Italian clothing giant Benetton has won a court case against a Mapuche Indian couple in southern Argentina over a disputed strip of land. A judge in the town of Esquel ruled in favour of the company in the dispute over the ownership of some 500 hectares of pampa in the Patagonia region. The Mapuche are an indigenous group inhabiting southern Argentina and Chile, whose way of life is considered under threat by international human rights groups.

The story began in 2002, when the Compania de Tierras del Sud Argentino - a subsidiary of Benetton - lodged a complaint against the Mapuche couple. Rosa Rua Nahuelquir and Atilio Curinanco had occupied a plot of land known as Santa Rosa, where they began to sow fruit and vegetables and rear animals. Benetton accused them of illegally settling on the land, and they were evicted a few weeks later.

The Benetton group - run by the brothers Carlo and Luciano Benetton - owns 900,000 hectares of land in Argentina, mainly in Patagonia and the province of Buenos Aires. Alberto Mazzuchelli, a spokesman for the Benetton subsidiary, denied it was violating the Mapuches' territorial rights. "We don't want to harm this Mapuche family in any way; we are only asking for the land belonging to us to be given back," he told the Argentine daily La Nacion.

Atilio Curinanco warned of "a big dispute" with Benetton. "Let it be clear to Benetton that it's not so easy to throw me out," he said. "It didn't show me any papers saying it was the owner, and it showed a lack of respect for the whole Mapuche people."