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The narrative of the Chubut Judiciary and Executive Branch yesterday deepened its strategy of associating the Mapuche Tehuelche people with the fires. At the hearing following the arrest of Victoria Núñez Fernandez, a member of the Lof Pillañ Mahuiza (a member of the Lof Pillañ Mahuiza) deprived of her liberty following the raids on Mapuche communities in Chubut, she was ordered to be held in preventive detention for two months. Her public defender emphasized that there is no evidence of her participation in the events attributed to her . However, Judge Jorge Criado, at the request of the Public Prosecutor's Office, ordered her to be held in preventive detention for 60 days at the Esquel Police Station 1.

Hours after the hearing, Chubut Governor Ignacio Torres (PRO) presented a chronology at a press conference connecting different events and distant locations—the eviction of Lof Pailako in January, the fire at the Amancay ranch in Trevelin, and various fires, including those at El Bolsón in Río Negro province—to blame them for the fires ravaging Patagonia in various locations. 

Torres was accompanied at the media event by Esquel Mayor Matias Tacceta, Minister of Security and Justice Héctor Iturrioz, Commissioner General Andrés García, and Attorney General Jorge Luis Miquelarena. The day before, the Attorney General had refused to receive in his office the members of the Mapuche Tehuelche people who had come to respond to the raids.

Also participating in the conference were Prosecutor Ismael Cerda and Esquel Prosecutor María Bottini. These two are the same individuals who support Victoria's accusation and imprisonment, based on a line of argument constructed from misinformation and distortions. They all subscribe to the hypothesis presented by the governor, who yesterday repeatedly called the Mapuche criminals, terrorists, dangerous, and extremists, blaming them for coordinating a strategy with ties to Chile. The governor repeatedly targeted Moira Millán and announced that he will initiate legal proceedings to evict Lof Pillañ Mahuiza. 

The accusation against Victoria and other Mapuche people

Victoria Núñez, who has lived in the Pillañ Mahuiza Lof (Corcovado, Chubut) for five years, is being investigated and charged with setting fire to machinery and trucks at Estancia Amancay, on the outskirts of Trevelin. The Prosecutor's Office says it has evidence pointing to her as a participant along with others. According to the published investigations, the attack occurred simultaneously on several parked vehicles in two areas, and at least three people were involved. But all the evidence to charge her comes from the testimony of a person who said he saw a white, unoccupied vehicle similar to Victoria's, a few meters from the ranch on the night of the fire.

Victoria's travels in a white Kangoo are the thread that connects a series of serious accusations against her, but also against Moira Millán, who has lived in the same area since 1998. 

Millán attended the hearing yesterday in Courtroom No. 2 of the Esquel courthouse. Public Defender Valeria Ponce and Laura Carpinetti participated, and Public Prosecutor Maria Bottini, Ismael Cerda, and Cecilia Bagnato participated. He had previously given a press conference at the courthouse entrance (see below). 

Due to the room's capacity, only 12 people, including the press and human rights organizations, attended. In the front row were Chubut's Minister of Security and Justice, Hector Iturrioz, and Commissioner García, who listened attentively to the entire hearing, seated next to sisters Moira and Evis Millán. 

Prosecutor María Bottini and the prosecutors from the Prosecutor's Office, Cecilia Bagnato and Ismael Cerda, presented the evidence gathered so far, following 12 simultaneous raids carried out on Tuesday. Judge Criado, in agreement with the Public Prosecutor's Office, ordered the man to be held in pretrial detention for 60 days. He also rejected the proposal for house arrest at the home of a resident of Esquel.

“Nuñez was not at the scene”

So far, the prosecution is relying on dubious evidence that, according to the defense, does not provide conclusive proof of Victoria's presence at the scene. 

The public defense attorney stated that Núñez was not present at the scene and cited compelling evidence they will present to prove he had nothing to do with the fire. Public defender Ponce also stated that "the conduct of other people is being attributed to him," referring to absurd allusions to his belonging to groups like the RAM, simply because he accompanies and visits other communities, as is the case with the Mapuche people who live on both sides of the mountain range.

Victoria's arrest is part of a broader persecution targeting the Mapuche and Mapuche Tehuelche communities in Chubut. It is also part of a media campaign to arbitrarily associate Indigenous communities with acts of violence in a context where the national and provincial governments prioritize extractive and capitalist interests over Indigenous territories. This was denounced in two press conferences held simultaneously this morning outside the Courts in Esquel and outside the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights in Buenos Aires. 

While one of those conferences was being prepared outside the Ministry of Justice, Mariano Cúneo Libarona, published in X: “We will include in Extraordinary Sessions a bill to increase the sentence for those who intentionally start fires, eliminating the possibility of release. Terrorists disguised as Mapuches set fire to our Patagonia to extort the government and demand privileges. They will pay behind bars.”

We will include in the Extraordinary Sessions a bill to increase the penalty for those who intentionally start fires, eliminating the possibility of release.

Terrorists disguised as Mapuches set fire to our Patagonia to extort the government and demand... pic.twitter.com/cTBPo3ib1p

— Mariano Cúneo Libarona (@m_cuneolibarona) February 11, 2025

Security Minister Patricia Bullrich directly accused Victoria of being a “terrorist arsonist and pseudo-Mapuche.” “They set fire to Patagonia, believing they could get away with it,” she wrote on her X account, but linked it to Nahuelpan. “The arsonists are not activists. They are criminals. And we will arrest them one by one. Law and order,” Bullrich wrote, appealing to the law that the State itself ignores. Victoria spent hours detained incommunicado, without knowing what she was accused of. And the raids did not follow protocols. 

“A falsely fantastic story to incriminate her in the fires”

In Esquel, members of the raided communities and radio stations held a press conference outside the courthouse before the hearing. “Victoria Núñez was brought in unjustly. She is imprisoned, and a fantastic story is being falsely spun to incriminate her in the fires that occurred at the Amancay ranch, in which she had nothing to do,” said Moira Millán. “The ineffectiveness, the lack of funding and responses to combat the fires by the State are causing the State to put on this show that brings pain and outrage, this show that erodes the foundations of democracy .”

She also reported that weapons were planted in the community, and that in the search for "ideological and terrorist elements" "like during the dictatorship," books were seized, including Black Feminism by feminist and anti-racist philosopher Angela Davis, and Terricidio, by Millán. She also recalled that community members were beaten, thrown to the ground, and sealed during the raid.

Millán called on society: “I want to tell the country: this is not an isolated case. If you normalize what happened with the Pu Lof, it will be the prelude to a dictatorship that will be established for all Argentines. Today they are coming for our lives and for our safety. Victoria is here illegally; all the elements are fictitious. It's a Facebook-created novel to detain our lamngen. Today they are coming for my library, for my books. Tomorrow, what are they going to do? Are they going to raid everyone who owns books like Hitler did? Go out, demonstrate, let's stop this madness, now. Tomorrow may be too late.” 

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Fake Mapuche terrorist

At Torres's conference, where he dedicated himself to defaming the Mapuche people, the governor of Chubut celebrated that "in three months, our prosecutors in the Chubut ordinary courts have done more than the federal courts have done in the last 10 years." The governor never missed an opportunity to denounce the judiciary's slowness in resolving their complaints.

Torres, trampling on the principle of innocence and in an attempt to confuse, asked "especially the media in Buenos Aires, not to confuse when talking about indigenous peoples and pseudo-indigenous peoples . These criminals we are referring to have nothing to do with the Mapuche Tehuelche communities that live together in harmony in the province."

" The 'false Mapuche terrorist' argument is as exhausted as the possibility that indigenous peoples in general are capable of destroying the place where they live ," said the Movement of Indigenous Women and Diversity for Good Living, which had called for the conference in front of the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights in Buenos Aires this morning.

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There, along with about twenty people, they demanded the release of Victoria and Nicolás Heredia, accused of being involved in the El Bolsón (Río Negro) fires. They also raised questions about the days-long silence maintained by the provincial and national governments regarding the fires, which they decided to break two days ago with the operation against the Mapuche communities. "Who is putting out the fires? Are there terrorists in Entre Ríos? In Catamarca? In San Luis? Are there false Mapuche terrorists in Corrientes, Ignacio Torres? The plot they set up was premeditated and crude," the Movement expressed. Various people have said it many times, including Moira Millán, in another summer, in response to other fires: "The Mapuche people would never set fire to the forests."