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Just days before the trial that disregards prior agreements with the State and accuses members of the Lof Lafken Winkul Mapu community, two Mapuche women learned yesterday, in a somewhat unclear manner, that arrest warrants had been issued against them. They are Romina Rosas and Luciana Martha Jaramillo. The cases had different outcomes. Neither of them was a fugitive. Luciana is currently being held in a police station in Bariloche. Romina, on the other hand, was released today at 1 p.m. in El Bolsón. 

Luciana and Romina had already spent eight months deprived of their freedom, along with other women from the community and their children. This followed a violent eviction operation of the Lof Lafken Winku Mapu community by the Unified Command of the Ministry of Security in October 2022 , which prompted the resignation of the Minister of Women, Gender and Diversity, Elizabeth Gomez Alcorta. At that time, Romina was 40 weeks pregnant and was taken to give birth at the Ramón Carrillo Hospital in Bariloche, where her worldview and wishes regarding how to give birth were disregarded, and she suffered obstetric violence. The women were only released in June 2023. Since then, they have been required to appear before the court on the first Monday of each month. The State, for its part, has failed to comply with a series of agreements to which it committed.

Romina's arrest was lifted

In response to reports circulating in the media and on social networks about arrest warrants, Romina, who is seven months pregnant, voluntarily turned herself in to the Gendarmerie's Squadron 35 in El Bolsón on the evening of Tuesday, September 10. There, she was told that they were unaware of any arrest warrant against her. 

This morning Romina returned to Squadron 35. The order did exist. Around midday, she was released after receiving notification of the trial, which will take place on September 26, 27, and 30 in Bariloche. It will be held at a Gendarmerie barracks, and she and other members of the group are accused of trespassing . She left with a document signed by the judge lifting the arrest warrant issued by the Bariloche prosecutor's office. "Prosecutor Siciliano was unaware that she was pregnant," a source who accompanied Romina told Presentes.

They are calling for Luciana's urgent release 

Meanwhile, in Bariloche, Luciana has been detained since yesterday. On Tuesday, Luciana was at the Gender and Diversity Directorate in Cushamen, and, according to what she told her colleagues, police officers told her she had to go to Bariloche for a medical examination. She was forcibly taken to that city, without being able to refuse or contact her family. That's why they maintain she was tricked. 

At the Bariloche police station, she received visits from other Mapuche women, including the machi Betiana Colhuan. Betiana was also detained along with them and faces the same charges in the trial scheduled for the end of September. “We just came from visiting Luciana . She is in good health. She confirmed that she was deceived at the time of her arrest in Cushamen. They practically forced her into the patrol car, without her being able to refuse. She asked for the arrest warrant, but they didn't show it to her because they obviously didn't have it on hand, and they took her away by force, without her being able to speak with her children, who were left in the care of her mother and sister, or with her family. She was only able to communicate with them today,” Betiana said this afternoon.

The machi said they were informed that Luciana will be transferred to the PSA (Airport Security Police), awaiting her release before the trial. “She is unjustly imprisoned; the orders are unjust. She has always acted within the law and has been reporting to sign in,” Betiana said. She asked anyone who wants to join to sign a petition “to demand the release of the lamien .

Racist violence against the Mapuche people

The Puelmapu Committee for Mapuche Political Prisoners, which shared the petition, denounces: “ the racist violence perpetrated by the current government and its judicial apparatus against the Mapuche people . They are committing an abomination in terms of human rights, gender rights, the right to motherhood, children's rights; absolutely all rights are being violated with impunity by the justice system.”

The statement recalls that “ none of the Mapuche women were fugitives . The situation our sisters are facing is tragic. They were already repressed, tortured, and imprisoned under the previous government, their childhoods and their children's lives were ruined, and they suffered terrible trauma due to this institutional violence. Now they are being forced to repeat the same crime. Governments change, but the intention to exterminate the Mapuche people remains.”

The prosecution had requested the arrest of all those accused by the Lof Winkul Mapu: Martha Luciana Jaramillo, María Isabel Nahuel, Yéssica Fernanda Bonnefoi, Romina Rosas, Mayra Aylén Tapia, Betiana Ayelén Colhuan, and Joana Micaela Colhuan, “in order to guarantee the holding of the trial hearing.” The argument is that arresting them is necessary to ensure their attendance at the trial. In the words of the order: “it would be necessary to guarantee the defendants’ appearance at the trial, which in this particular case would require ordering their arrests.” However, on September 2, the federal court determined that of all these individuals, “only two warrant arrest, considering that they ‘may flee’: Romina and Luciana.”.

These arrests are occurring within a framework of criminalization against the Mapuche people , and not only because these are bailable offenses. The Lawyers' Association, which is supporting the community in this case, has been denouncing "the application of enemy criminal law": "The only argument is 'to guarantee their presence at the trial,' when all of them, like Gonzalo Coña (arrested a few days ago), were already available to the court. It is impossible to be more malicious and deceitful than these judges and prosecutors. We just finished a hearing and set a date for another. Everything was 'normal' and calm. The prosecutor requested the arrest of all the Mapuche people."

"The prosecutor makes any conjecture and requests the arrests of all of them. Since they supposedly cannot find Luciana and Romina at their homes, the judge accepts their release," explains Laura Taffetani, one of the lawyers involved in the case.

The "good" judge only ordered two arrests. Romina Rosas and Luciana Jaramillo will appear in court in custody. "We will leave no stone unturned until we achieve their freedom," the union stated. 

Less than a month ago, the Court of Cassation overturned the ruling that ratified an agreement reached by a negotiating table comprised of representatives from the State, including the National Secretariat for Human Rights, and a delegation of Mapuche authorities linked to the Lof Winkul Mapu . The agreement included a settlement before the courts to end the legal proceedings that had kept the Mapuche women—including Romina, Luciana, and Betiana—incarcerated and granted them a territory belonging to the National Parks Administration for their relocation.

But the current president of Parks, Cristian Larsen, had been announcing since he took office that he would disregard the agreement and maintains a position of not negotiating, stigmatizing the Mapuche people whenever he can. 

The signed agreement also recognized the rewe (ceremonial space) on the lands from which the Lof Lafken Winku Mapu community had been evicted. But the sacred space remains militarized.