The death of Santiago Maldonado, a crime of the state

Note: this article was published in November 2017, a few days after the body of Santiago Maldonado appeared lifeless in the river Chubut

Once again the disappearance of people and the subsequent appearance of A body without major explanations go through the political debate in Argentina. Santiago Maldonado was missing for 78 days and was later found dead at the place where he was last seen, although the government came to deny the young man's presence there.

The disappearance is one of the methods security forces used as a form of concealment of a crime, as well as to generate a particular terror among those who are around the missing.

Beyond the qualification that finally did, the gendarmerie and Patricia Bullrich have always known the fate of Santiago, it was in the social protest that they were repressing, but they were planting false leads to infinite, leaving in suspense a whole society mobilized by its appearance. The State and the Gendarmerie (GNA) are responsible for the negation of his destiny throughout the duration of his disappearance and death.

We talk about the responsibility of the state and not just the government because the judge Guido Otranto and the prosecutor Silvina Avila It was clear that Santiago Maldonado had participated in a demonstration with the Mapuche community on Route 40 and was victim of the necessary blanket of impunity, which allowed the plan to divert research from Santiago and the responsibilities of his disappearance.

A planned and savage repression, executed under the political orders of national officials such as Patricia Bullrich and Pablo Noceti.

In this setting, he reaches the river. He did not walk, he did not fish, he did not take a step and he fell. Santiago arrived at the persecuted river, fleeing and disappeared.

His death was not accidental, he was caught by an operation of more than 100 gendarmes, of which 50 entered the Mapuche territory in an absolutely illegal manner, with trucks

He was chased a short distance by a platoon of ten to twelve gendarmes who were insane, armed with shotguns and fired towards the river, reaching his shore with the express order to arrest the protesters. Some even entered the Pu Lof with 9mm weapons.

Second Lieutenant Echazú was wounded and yet he seems to laugh with sarcasm. Several gendarmes left the area and returned to their bases at dawn on August 2. The reports from the trucks indicate that they were washed before. Eurocargo appears on photos with part of the wet canvas

However, neither the prosecutor nor the judges of the case have deepened the scope of this action and the strong contradictions between the statements of the leaders and gendarmes.

This could not have been done without the order of Commander Juan Pablo Escola, who has never ceased to be in touch with his superior, Diego Balari, and the l & # 's; 39, Security Officer Pablo Noceti.

Consent, complicity and concealment gain outrageous limits Gonzalo Cané, who holds the title of Secretary of Cooperation with the Judiciary, Public Prosecutors and Legislatures of the Ministry of Security, told the media that vans have been washed because the van must be delivered clean. there is a regulation; The Force must comply with the regulations. "Unusual

Cané sits in Esquel and personally coordinates the presentation of gendarmes' testimonies and media operations that began from day 1. In case something was missing at the Ministry of Security, Cané was the Illegal spying operator of the Maldonado family

There were no errors or excesses of which the government is a victim, as its subsequent action demonstrates. With all this evidence on his desk, Minister Bullrich exclaimed, "I will not do the injustice of wanting to throw a policeman out the window and blame him."

And that's it. it was because they politically decided that the best they could do was to demand this violent operation against the Mapuche community in which they burned their belongings, stole their belongings and brutally repressed

to the gendarmerie for the plans that this government has, "said Bullrich. Because they feel it necessary to sow fear in the population and that no one protests or opposes their plans for adjustment and delivery.

It is therefore not a coincidence that since the disappearance of Santiago, the arrests have become common after each mobilization. in complaint for his appearance. Even entrapment was customary. Because they also want to scare.

It is also shown that there have been no errors and excesses in examining how this repressive operation was prepared for the community of Cushamen. Previously, Pablo Noceti gathered all the repressive forces of the region in Bariloche and said: "That the members of the Mapuche community know that they will all be imprisoned", "we will arrest each member of the RAM.

Thus, he harangued his troop, who, the next day, showed his fury against the Mapuche community and took Santiago at his death. "We gave them corchazos for what they have," "we have one," "that the boys executed shots, executed," and several statements in the same direction, are included in the report. business and express hatred and impunity with which they went to suppress, end the lives of young people.

Noceti was encouraged by the Rural Society of the region. This entity has already participated in two genocides: the first, which was carried out to found the Argentine nation-state; and the second in the 70s. Why, with this trajectory, would they support the recovery of the lands of their friend Benetton?

Without errors or excesses. Ready for everything.

How can they not defend the Gendarmerie? How are they going to "throw a policeman out the window"? Why not say that Santiago Maldonado had a relationship with a terrorist organization and took advantage of the excuse to increase internal repression?

That's what they did. The biggest representative of this policy was the deputy Elisa Carrió when, during a debate with Marcelo Ramal, FIT candidate, he told her that she was investigating because Santiago "could be in Chile with RAM", with the "terrorists" …

We talk about "state crime" not only because of the characteristics of the event itself, but also because of the speech and media that l & # 39; 39; surround. "No state crime is committed without repeating a rhetoric speech," says Eugenio Zaffaroni, adding that "the denial of the victim is the most common incapacitation technique in crimes of badual violence. State."

In his work "The Crimen of State as the Subject of Criminology" * stresses that denial, erasing reality and l & # 39; Eradication of remains and remnants of absolute truth are integral to the crime perpetrated by the state. It also tells how the media, the spokesmen of the state, naturalize a certain use of the language to neutralize the crime.

A legitimizing speech of action then installs, in this case the GNA. Like the crime committed, the speech is planned and has the same danger: thus seek to avoid the responsibility of the agents who participated in the disappearance and death and, in addition, seeks to install new values ​​legitimizing a level of repression more elevated as enemies

This is how the government of Cambiemos gave precise orders – and continues to provide information about the cause or often false intelligence – to its media so that whenever this mapuche community was persecuted with what Santiago sympathized with, is mentioned as part of a terrorist network.

Sow false leads, demonize the victim and his family, human rights organizations and claim to configure an "enemy" in the figure of the Mapuches are part of the manual to cover a crime of state . In this case, the disappearance and death of Santiago.

The government has opened a new stage that makes us vigilant. Now the new Defense Minister, Oscar "el Milico" Aguad, is preparing the amendment to the decree by which former President Néstor Kirchner has regulated the defense law to now allow the armed forces to intervene in the suppression of terrorism . Luck? We do not believe it: the orders of the master of the North

The practice of the security forces

A huge media device is deployed to install the idea that Santiago simply "drowned".

With precariousness to all that we say attentive to the fact that the cause is still at the stage of expertise, it is almost impossible to make strong statements, see some examples that show how the final cause of the death of a person victim of the actions of the security forces

And how, in a large part of the cases occurred during the constitutional governments after the civil-military dictatorship, these mechanisms of neutralization of the responsibilities to protect the agents of the State have used a lot.

"He drowned, he was run over by a car, he died of hunger …", among so many other despicable excuses. Ivan Torres, Miguel Bru, Luciano Arruga, Ezequiel Demonty, Sebastian Bordon and Franco Casco, to name just a few of the most scandalous cases, were victims of the police brutality with which they exert a bloody social control over the poor young people.

On October 2, 2003, the Comodoro Rivadavia Police Department removed Iván Torres Millacura from the glacier gate where he was with friends.

He worked as a bricklayer and was constantly harbaded by the police in Chubut: false executions, false accusations, and restraints that his mother had already denounced, until he was kidnapped and never heard of him. What was known to the witnesses who were with Ivan, is that he was brutally tortured. His mother began an indefatigable fight, undergoing all kinds of threats and police persecutions.

At least 6 witnesses were murdered until their oral trial, which ended in July 2016 with the convictions of Commissioner Tillería and Agent Chemin at 15 and 12 years in prison , respectively, as participants necessary to the enforced disappearance of Ivan. His case is one that forced the Argentine state to clbadify enforced disappearance in the Penal Code – Article 142 ter –

Miguel Bru was a journalism student. On August 17, 1993, he was arrested at the 9th police station in La Plata and witnesses reported that he had been tortured to death with the practice called the dry submarine, also used under dictatorship. The body to this day still does not appear. Rosa, his mother, continues to demand justice.

Ezequiel Demonty, 19, was kidnapped by federal police with his friends in the Illia neighborhood at dawn on September 14, 2002. Eight days later, he was reported missing. He died drowned in the stinking waters of Riachuelo after being tortured and forced to enter the river because he could not swim. The body appeared on the shore several days later. "Nadá or I'm shooting you in the head, now you'll learn to swim, black shit," they would say as one of the policemen pointed his gun at him. The fight of his family and his friends gave the truth and the condemnation to the men of the Fed.

Luciano Arruga, harbaded by the police after refusing to steal for them, after 5 years he disappeared he was found at the Chacarita cemetery. He had been knocked down on Gral Paz Avenue while he was fleeing the police. "Our complaint about the actions of the province of Buenos Aires has not changed.Luciano did not cross Gen. Paz early this morning," said his sister Vanesa Orieta.

Sebastián Bordón was beaten and tortured by Mendoza police at El Nihuil police station on his graduation trip. After the wild hype, they left it abandoned near a ravine on the Atuel River. Sebastián died of hunger and thirst.

Franco Casco went to Rosario to visit his uncle. On the night of October 6, 2014, Franco had to take the train that brought him to Buenos Aires. It never happened because the staff of the 7th police station kidnapped him. His body appeared a few days later, floating in the Paraná River. With this macabre message, the Santa Fe police attempted to erase blows, torture and forced disappearance of Franco. They were 23 days of Calvary for the family of the young man of 20 years, in which they had to endure the humiliations of the judiciary, the police and the state, all responsible for the disappearance and death of Franco.

Julio López, a survivor of the dictatorship, was a plaintiff in the case against Miguel Etchecolatz. He disappeared on September 18, 2006. He tried to portray him as a lost person, who could be anywhere, "in the aunt's house," said Anibal Fernandez. But no: he was kidnapped by a gang of repressors linked to the province of Buenos Aires. 11 years after his death, we are still struggling to find out what happened and to punish the guilty.

The Tablada. Under the government of Raúl Alfonsín, at the end of January 1989, a group of Movimiento Todos por la Patria (MTP) activists attempted a coup d'état at La Tablada Mechanized Infantry Regiment III (Buenos Aires). Aires). The attempt was repressed in a bloody manner. The siege of two thousand security forces allowed the suppression of blood and fire for 36 hours, even the use of phosphorus bombs, prohibited by international conventions. The fight left a record of 33 militants, 7 members of the army and 2 dead policemen. Among the MTP activists, Berta Calvo and Pablo Ramos were shot at close range. But four people were missing: Iván Ruiz, Jose Diaz, Carlos Samojedny and Francisco Provenzano. Ruiz and Díaz were captured alive, which could be reconstructed through photographs, film recordings and testimonies of neighbors. They were tortured and disappeared.

General Alfredo Manuel Arrillaga, who commanded the operation, was convicted of three crimes against humanity committed in Mar del Plata in the so-called Night of the Links. Major Jorge Eduardo Varando, identified by the executions of Iván Ruiz and José Díaz, also acted in the repression of December 19 and 20, 2001: he killed the demonstrator Gustavo Benedetto

Already in 1997 the Inter-American Commission Human Rights (IACHR) had issued a report in which it referred to human rights violations committed in the barracks and considered the state responsible for these cases.

If they drowned, why did they spy on the family? The huge spying system deployed against the Maldonado family and all those involved in the case shows that the government had a lot to lose if the truth of the facts came to light. It is unthinkable that such a criminal act be perpetrated, involving dozens of agents and deployed by several provinces, without fear of finding evidence that would harm the gendarmerie or the government.

More seriously, this espionage was perpetrated by the own force involved in the disappearance. And they did everything under the eyes of Justice, which did not take a single step to prevent it.

The Santiago family, the Permanent Assembly for Human Rights (APDH) and all those involved in the search for Santiago are spied rigorously. This is why we have filed a criminal complaint in the "Project X" case, which investigates this illegal espionage system that the Gendarmerie has, through its Information Meeting Centers. (CRI) and other mechanisms.

documentation proving that Gonzalo Cané, an official sent by Patricia Bullrich to Esquel, has appeared in the courts that have existed since the disappearance of Santiago and, arguing the maintenance of "secrecy and confidentiality required by the information concerning homeland security "He asked to limit the inspection of cell phones, computers and other devices removed to the members of the gendarmerie, very frightened that the espionage carried out is emerging.

The government and the gendarmerie claim that it has not transcended what finally came out light in the investigation: that there were illegal intelligence tasks on the part of the gendarmerie on the family of Santi Aug Maldonado, the mapuche community and the human rights organizations

By way of colophon

The cases we evoke are very different; political contexts too. But what is clear is that the practice of enforced disappearance and / or large-scale concealment of a crime involving any state apparatus has never been abandoned by security forces and armed forces. Today, still try to cover the sun with your hand, putting thousands of obstacles, editing operations, and even a powerful intelligence and spying, so that we do not know what happened to Santiago Maldonado. His family took the lead in the fight and sparked tremendous solidarity across the country. For Santiago, for all the missing under constitutional governments, because the victims are always put by people, those who fight and complain, we will not give up.

* To Sebastian Alejandro Rey and Marcos Filardi (coordinators), Human Rights. Reflections of the South, Buenos Aires, Infojus, 2012, pp. 1-18