2024-02-17 14:15:00
Matías Santana, the Mapuche who became known for declaring that he saw when the National Gendarmerie took Santiago Maldonado, was arrested this Saturday in Bariloche following remaining on the run for a year and four months, within the framework of the investigation into illegal settlements. damage and terrorist attacks that occurred in Villa Mascardi.
The “Mapuche with the binoculars”, as he was nicknamed following that statement – for which he was prosecuted for false testimony – was a member of the Lafken Winkul Mapu group, which in 2017 usurped two National Park properties in Villa Mascardi and claimed responsibility for arson attacks. and was involved in numerous episodes of violence in the Patagonian landscape.
In October 2022, during the eviction of the public and private properties that the same self-proclaimed community had usurped, Santana escaped from the place along with several accomplices, some of whom still remain at large.
However, hours later, that same day, she reappeared at a demonstration to demand the release of the seven women who had been detained during the eviction. No authority noticed his presence and it was the last public appearance of the individual.
Infobae surprised Santana while demanding the release of the women detained in Villa Mascardi
Federal Police officers identified him this Saturday morning in a commercial artery in Bariloche and transferred him to that force’s office, from where they notified the Federal Justice of his capture.
During his stay in the Lafken Winkul Mapu group, Santana established a sentimental bond with the “machi” Betiana Colhuan, the highest spiritual authority of the community, with whom he had two children.
Due to this relationship, the government of Alberto Fernández – in the figure of its Secretary of Human Rights, Horacio Pietragalla Corti, planned to benefit Santana and the other members of the group, even though they remained fugitives. He offered them to return to the properties that they had usurped and from which they had been evicted in 2022. He also offered the construction of homes for the residence of the “machi” together with Santana, his family and his collaborators, and a clinic to assist their “ patients.” The same proposal included the delivery of another 10 hectares of public lands for the installation of the rest of the members of the same group.
In the judicial proceedings following the eviction, the officers who carried out the operations found in the homes – which were later demolished by order of former judge Silvina Domínguez – a large amount of Santana’s documentation, including his identity document and bank cards. The information was incorporated as evidentiary evidence within the framework of the unified case for the usurpation of the property, damages and attacks, among other crimes.
Villa Mascardi Bariloche Mapuche fugitives
The residents of Villa Mascardi, who closely follow the evolution of the case, denounced during the course of this week that Santana – for whom an arrest warrant was in effect – was circulating through Bariloche “with total impunity.” “No one is interested in stopping him,” denounced one of them. They even released images of the fugitive accompanying his partner, whom they easily recognized by his “ancestral” attire.
From the list of fugitives and defendants, the Río Negro Police had previously arrested Jéssica Bonefoi, another member of the group, who tried to evade a checkpoint established by the police force in the southern area of Bariloche.
The group’s criminal raid began in November 2017 with the usurpation of two lots belonging to National Parks. The frustrated attempt to evict those lands, in the context of which the Mapuche Rafael Nahuel was murdered, gave rise to an unbridled advance by the group to other properties. Thus they vandalized and usurped the facilities of the former IOS hotel – where the installation of the Park Ranger School was planned – and the La Escondida property, belonging to neighbor Juan Greham and his wife. Then they continued with the lot belonging to the Bishopric of San Isidro and two lots belonging to the Union Personal Superior de Gas del Estado.
Damage to the cabins on the property of the Bishopric of San Isidro in Villa Mascardi
Another cabin affected was Los Radales, property of the current president of the Villa Mascardi Neighborhood Council, Luis Dates, where they also set fire to a post that the National Gendarmerie had installed in the place, as a preventive measure. They also advanced and damaged La Cristalina, belonging to the former neighborhood leader, Diego Frutos.
The Unified Command of federal forces that formed the Ministry of National Security maintains its presence on the site to guard the public lots that are in dispute. However, the neighbors who had to leave their spaces assure that they have no guarantees to return. Furthermore, they say, “we have nowhere, they destroyed everything.”
Matías Santana (Nicolas Stulberg)
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