From the International Network for the Liberation of all Political Prisoners - August, 2017
Santiago Maldonado was arrested and disappeared a month ago. It has been a month since gendarmerie forces took him and kidnapped him. It has been a month since that the state and the Argentine government, represented by President Macri, the security minister Bullrich and Judge Otranto, know where he is and they do not return it. They were the ones who gave the order for the repression carried out by gendarmerie on August 1st to the Mapuche community Pu Lof who was protesting for the freedom of one of his comrades, Jones Huala.
The arrest and disappearance of Santiago is not an isolated fact: it is an attempt to terrify those who raise their voices and fight against the conditions of misery and slavery that Macri’s government has come to deepen.
We, who come out to denounce that the Argentine state is responsible for the forced disappearance of Santiago Maldonado, are persecuted and imprisoned. That is why the government, with its police and gendarmerie dogs, launched a brutal repression last September 1st against those who by the thousands took the streets in different cities of Argentina a month after the arrest and disappearance of Santiago to demand their appearance alive. In Buenos Aires, 31 comrades were detained and held in solitary confinement for two days. Thanks to the struggle and mobilization, they were released on Monday.
But at the same on September 1st a demonstration was held in El Bolsón, with the war cry of "assassins!". They went to the Gendarmerie to denounce that they were the ones who took Santiago. A brutal repression was also launched. The attack on those who went out to fight and claim our rights was also seen last Thursday in the city of Córdoba, where the police, with the order of justice, made 11 raids on offices of workers' organizations, social movements and left parties that participated of the national march against the "trigger happy" by the murderous police.
This proves that, in the forced disappearance of Santiago Maldonado, we are not facing any "excess" of any member of the Argentine national gendarmerie, as the officials and journalists of the mass media -real operators paid by the government- want to believe. It is a plan of punishment to all workers and fighters.
The gendarmerie, like the police, is one of the armed forces of the Argentine state which -with the different governments that have been in charge- has been and is the one that represses and pursues daily, with total impunity, all the exploited sectors that claim for their rights. As the Mapuche community does by defending their lands. The repressive forces of that murderous state are in charge of defending the interests of the transnational companies like Benetton and the great imperialist oil and mining companies that plunder the Patagonia and the whole nation. They are the same forces that repressed on September 1st in Buenos Aires and El Bolsón.
What the Argentine state does today is neither an "excess" nor an isolated fact: we are talking about the country where a genocide was committed against the 30,000 comrades who disappeared during the last military dictatorship in the 1970s and then, under the "Democratic" governments, where there are martyrs killed for fighting like Darío Santillán, Maximiliano Kosteki, Carlos Fuentealba, Teresa Rodríguez, Aníbal Verón and many others.
The current government of Macri, along with the presidential staff, received as a "inheritance" from Kirchner governments more than 7,500 prosecuted for fighting; workers condemned to life imprisonment and jail as the oil workers of Las Heras and the workers of Tierra del Fuego; disappeared as Daniel Solano, Julio López and Luciano Arruga (whose body was found almost 6 years later buried as NN in a cemetery). The famous "protocol" of the security minister Bullrich is to demonize the struggle of workers and popular fighters to legitimize the repression. It is the modus operandi of all regimes and states at the service of imperialist transnationals. We saw it with the disappearance of the 43 students of Ayotzinapa whom the Peña Nieto government show as "drug traffickers"; just as they do to disappear, assassinate or imprison the workers and peasants’ resistance in Colombia, or with the 34 miners who were killed in 2012 in Marikana (South Africa) by ANC police or with Syrian refugees fleeing the genocide of Al-Assad and Putin and were welcomed by the governments of Europe with repression and concentration camps.
Today in Argentina, after the arrest and disappearance of Santiago, they want to show Mapuche or Wichis communities in the north of the country as "terrorists" to whom they are also robbing their lands in the service of the great imperialist loggers and they have imprisoned Agustín Santillán (who is on hunger strike with his health deteriorating), Hugo Delgado, Roberto Frías and the Luna brothers. The harassment to the Wichis communities is deepened day by day in the north of the country and in the province of Formosa in particular by Governor Insfrán, ally of the Kirchner during their mandates.
This is why from the "International Network ..." we take as our own the words of Maldonado’s family who, from their home town 25 de Mayo, mobilized and affirmed: "We do not know where Santiago is but we do know who knows where he is: the security minister, the whole lower dome and the 140 gendarmes involved in the repression." Together with the relatives of Santiago, from the "International Network ...",we accuse the Argentine state, Macri´s government, security minister Patricia Bullrich and Judge Otranto for being responsible for the arrest and disappearance of Santiago. They are guilty until they prove otherwise. We accuse them of knowing where he is and keep him 30 days abducted and set up a totally fake "search" whose only purpose is to criminalize the struggle of the Mapuche communities and Santiago, to stigmatize the family for "not collaborating" in the search, and to defend and legitimize the gendarmerie that carried out the operation. They have done this by mounting a new provocation to the family and to those who fought for the appearance alive of Santiago in the meeting carried out between government officials and members of human rights organizations. There, the minister of security Bullrich and the minister of justice Garavano, defended the gendarmerie. They defend their repressive forces because those are their forces against the workers and the people to impose their plans of hunger, exploitation and misery. They want to guarantee impunity and immunity to suppress, imprison, disappear and eliminate the worker and popular fighters.
The search for Santiago cannot remain in the hands of those who kidnapped him and made him disappear. For an Independent Investigation Commission headed by Santiago's family, together with delegates from the workers' organizations, student militant centers, human rights organizations, etc., with full powers to investigate where Santiago is and to trial and punish the responsible for their forced disappearance. The Argentine state is directed by the US Embassy, which is where the order to unleash the repression of August 1st occurred, when the Gendarmerie kidnapped Santiago. An Independent Investigating Commission of these characteristics could, for example, impose the delivery of the de-transcriptions of the telephone communications that took place that day between the Yankee Embassy, the Casa Rosada, the Ministry of Security, the judges and prosecutors and the Gendarmerie and in this way to know what happened and where Santiago is.
One month after his disappearance, the war cry of "Apparition alive now of Santiago Maldonado!" is the feeling and claim of millions of exploited and of thousands of organizations of struggle throughout Argentina. These forces that have stood up have put at the top of the agenda the possibility of taking a step forward, which is decisive so we can have Santiago back: the imposition of the National Strike. It is necessary to ensure that trains, buses and subways do not work and that planes do not take off, that all factories in Argentina stop, that the unemployed workers movement blocks all routes and streets, that no classes are dictated and all universities and schools be occupied.
And throughout the world we have in our hands the chance to deepen the path that has already begun with dozens of actions of struggle that were developed by the appearance alive of Santiago as in Chile, Peru, Colombia, Spanish State, etc. From the "International Network ..." we have been part and propel all these actions of struggle. That is why the motion to all working and student organizations is to promote an international day of struggle throughout the world until Santiago appears alive.
Let’s forge an international day of struggle where we surround all the embassies and consulates of Argentina around the world and in Argentina let’s guarantee the national strike!
Throughout the world we fight for: Appearance alive of Santiago Maldonado, Julio López, Daniel Solano and the 43 students of Ayotzinapa! Freedom to Jones Huala, Agustín Santillán, Milagro Sala and all political prisoners in Argentina! Freedom to the young anarchists imprisoned in Syriza’s prisons in Greece, to the more than 7 thousand Palestinian prisoners locked in the dungeons of the Zionist occupier, to the more than 30 young people imprisoned in Hamburg for participating in the mobilizations against the G20, Alfon (prisoner of the Bourbons) and all the political prisoners of the world! Acquittal of the oil workers of Las Heras and drop all charges against the more than 7 thousand workers and popular fighters in Argentina! Judgment and punishment for the killers of the Marikana miners, by Kosteki and Santillán, by Heather Heyer murdered by the fascists in the USA, and by all our martyrs! We do not forget, we do not forgive, we do not reconcile! Enough genocide and massacre in Syria, Iraq and Yemen!
The rebellion of the slaves is not a crime, it is justice!
A injury to one, is an injury to all!
International Network for the Liberation of all Political Prisoners
