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On the morning of Saturday, February 17, the Federal Police arrested Matías Santana, a young Mapuche man, in Bariloche. He was wanted on an arrest warrant. Federal Judge Gustavo Villanueva of Bariloche had charged him with the arson of a Gendarmerie post in 2020. 

At the time of his arrest, Santana was with his two children, ages 1 and 5, whom he has with his partner, Betiana Colhuan, a machi (Mapuche medicine woman) . He had dropped her off early that day at the Bariloche market. The couple works as silversmiths. Colhuan was one of the women brutally evicted during the raid on October 4, 2022. Colhuan was arrested along with other Mapuche women and spent more than eight months in prison, accused of trespassing.

“We cannot usurp what is our territory. We are not terrorists or criminals; we defend life,” Colhuan said on Saturday, when he went to the PSA headquarters in Bariloche to visit Santana, in a video he uploaded to social media. Colhuan urged his community to be vigilant and united. 

The reasons behind the arrest

The charges against Matías Santana stem from the case known as Los Radales, named after a property located in Villa Mascardi. There, the Mapuche community is carrying out what they consider an ancestral land reclamation.  

The owner of Los Radales, Luis Dates, belongs to Consenso Bariloche, a group led by concentrated sectors of the provincial economy that invited Bullrich in October 2022, when he was campaigning, to a caravan with xenophobic slogans against the Mapuche such as “terrorists” and “hooded criminals”. 

Santana is also accused of the usurpation of land in La Escondida in the same area, and of the former Mascardi hotel, facts accumulated in file 16.149, the same one that was invoked to order the violent eviction of October 4, 2022 in Lof Lafken Winkul Mapu , where the Unified Command of police and security forces participated.

Disputed territory

“They have no proof but they ordered his arrest. When that fire happened, Matías was working in El Bolsón,” Laura Taffetani, the lawyer representing him from the Lawyers' Association, told Presentes. 

The first complaint that initiated the main case for the crime of trespassing—all the others were subsequently filed—was submitted by the state agency National Parks. In that disputed territory, Rafael Nahuel was killed on November 25, 2017, shot in the back by the Naval Prefecture as he and his companions were fleeing. 

Santana's arrest is not an isolated incident. It is linked to other cases in recent years, and to recent public statements that stigmatize the Mapuche people and portray them as an "internal enemy." This is nothing new either. 

Ties to the cause of Santiago Maldonado

Santana became publicly known when he testified in court in August 2017—and later in the media—that the Gendarmerie had taken Santiago Maldonado, an anarchist tattoo artist, after the force's repression of the Mapuche community in Resistencia de Cushamen on August 1, 2017. With the help of binoculars, he claimed to have recognized him because he was wearing the light blue jacket that Santana had lent him the night before. This occurred when Maldonado had gone to show solidarity with the blockade of Route 40, which the young Mapuche had set up to protest the imprisonment of their lonko (chief), Facundo Jones Huala. Santiago's lifeless body was found in the Chubut River on October 17 of that year, and indeed, he was wearing that jacket.

However, in those early days of the Maldonado case, which shook all of Argentine society, officials in Mauricio Macri's government and the mainstream media sought to discredit Santana's testimony. They even resorted to mockery when they asked him for the binoculars and he didn't have them. He thought he had lost them. The family's lawyer, Verónica Heredia, said that in reality, the Gendarmes themselves had stolen them. Heredia stated that the public defender, Fernando Machado, documented the theft of that item in the case file. 

The ridicule campaign

Despite the campaign of ridicule—some media outlets even portrayed him as a flogger—another witness came forward in November 2022. A civilian employee of the Gendarmerie corroborated Santana's statement: that Maldonado had been taken by the gendarmes. His brother, Sergio, considered Santana's arrest "no coincidence" as it comes just days before an important hearing in the Comodoro Rivadavia Court of Appeals, where the closure of the case regarding Santiago's disappearance and the dismissal of charges against four gendarmes, including Emmanuel Echazú, ordered by Chubut Federal Judge Gustavo Lleral, will be reviewed.

On Saturday, Security Minister Patricia Bullrich posted on her X. account: "The man with the binoculars. Matías Daniel Santana, one of the leaders of the land seizures in Villa Mascardi, has been captured. He was a fugitive with an arrest warrant issued in 2022. Excellent work by the PFA (Argentine Federal Police) who, after a long investigation, arrested him in Bariloche. Those who do wrong will pay the price!" 

A few days ago, the governor of Chubut, Ignacio Torres, blamed the RAM—an organization of dubious existence—for being behind the fires in Los Alerces. And an anonymous source in the newspaper La Nación pointed to Moira Millán as its leader, something she herself called absurd. 

Santana gave a statement under investigation

Santana gave a statement yesterday but did not answer questions. Attorney Taffetani will request another hearing to expand on that statement and present evidence that he was not at the scene of the fire for which he is accused. “The prosecution is supposed to gather evidence to charge a person with a specific crime, not have the person prove their innocence. But this has always been the case when it comes to the Mapuche,” the attorney stated. 

Santana told his lawyer that he feels "fine." Since Saturday, he has been held at the Bariloche Airport Security Police (PSA) headquarters, but he may be transferred to the Esquel Penitentiary Unit, where Gonzalo Coña, accused of trespassing in the same case, is also being held. 

Lawyer Gustavo Franquet, also from La Gremial, didn't hesitate to declare that "these are all fabricated cases, without evidence." In fact, except for the main case concerning the land seizure in Villa Mascardi, reported by the National Parks Administration, which was largely resolved through a political agreement at the Dialogue Table, all the others were combined into a single file that is being used for all the recent arrests: Gonzalo Coña, Jessica Bonnefoi, and now Santana. These cases all relate to events that occurred in territories adjacent to the Lafken Winkul Mapu community and Lake Mascardi. 

Jessica Bonnefoi Carriqueo Antimil was arrested in August 2023. She was accused of minor injuries and resisting authority for scratching a policewoman during the eviction of Lafken Winkul Mapu Rafael Nahuel was killed . 

In September, suspended prison sentence , which she is serving under house arrest in Bariloche. One of the demands of the Plurinational Meeting of Women, Lesbians, Transvestites, Transgender, and Non-Binary People held in that city in October 2023 was for her release.

For her part, María Nahuel, Rafael Nahuel's aunt, told Presentes that “this isn't just about Santana or Coña; it's part of a persecution of our Mapuche nation by the State, the Minister of Security, and the government. Even if they continue to harass, imprison, and kill us, we will continue to defend all that has life. And when we are gone, our grandchildren will.” Nahuel mentioned the fires that “have damaged nature” and added, “They've tried to blame us for that too, when it's what gives us life.”