The Federal Court of General Roca sentenced six members of the Lafken Winkul Mapu Mapuche community to suspended prison terms of up to two and a half years. This is the second trial the members have faced following the evictions and militarization of their territories.
The trial—supposedly oral and public—began on February 25th before the General Roca/Fiske Menuco courts and is taking place behind the scenes. The head of the National Parks Department—a plaintiff in the trial—filed a lawsuit seeking to remove the sacred ceremonial space, the rewe.
Following the withdrawal of agreements between the State and the Mapuche community of Winkul Mapu, the courts convicted seven members for "usurping" territory they claim as their own. The machi (Mapuche spiritual leader) was 17 years old at the time of the events but was only acquitted on the first day of the trial.
The trial against the Lafken Winkul Mapu Mapuche community began yesterday. They accuse eight people of "usurping" a National Parks property 40km from Bariloche. Betiana, the machi (Mapuche spiritual leader), who was a teenager at the time of the events, was acquitted yesterday at the first hearing.
Bariloche will host two trials that reflect the current climate: two Mapuche communities that suffered evictions, violence, and the death of two young people will be tried for the territories they have been claiming for years in the province of Río Negro.
Matías Santana became known to the media through the Santiago Maldonado case, a crucial witness in a case that the courts recently ordered reopened. He was caricatured as "the Mapuche with binoculars," but his activism began several years earlier. He has been held in pretrial detention for three months at Unit 14 in Esquel. Mapuche communities are calling for his release.
Matias Santana has been detained in Bariloche since Saturday. His lawyer says it's a fabricated case. The plot involves Santiago Maldonado and Rafael Nahuel, the Ministry of Security, and a series of stigmas against the Mapuche people.
The on-site inspection of the territory where Rafael Nahuel, a 22-year-old Mapuche man, was murdered in 2017 proved invaluable in the pursuit of justice.
It described the incident as "a chase with gunfire up the mountain" involving at least "130 bullets fired with the intent to kill."
Chronicle of the visit to the Lof Winkul Mapu, 35 kilometers from Bariloche, where the machi Betiana Colhuán and her community resist.
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