Moira Millán’s community, Lof Pillañ Mahuiza, has been targeted and raided by government authorities. This piece was republished from the Esperanza Project, who translated the original Spanish with permission from the author.
In a press conference, the Governor of Chubut Ignacio Torres claimed –without evidence, and based on disinformation and distorted data– that Mapuche people are causing fires in the provinces of Chubut and Río Negro.
This hypothesis, which strategically associates Mapuche Tehuelche people with the fires, is another chapter in the anti-Mapuche narrative developed by the Judicial and Executive Courts of Chubut.
Moira Millán’s ecovillage, a self-built traditional lof and site of a planned Indigenous women’s university, has been targeted by authorities, who raided the area on 11 February as part of a broader crackdown. The raids reflect a pattern of violence against Mapuche communities in Chubut, Argentina, intensifying concerns about Indigenous rights.
In a court hearing in Esquel following the raid, the governor repeatedly called the Mapuche criminals, terrorists, dangerous people, and extremists, holding them responsible for coordinating a [unsubstantiated] strategy. The governor repeatedly pointed to Moira Millán and declared that he would initiate a judicial process to evict Lof Pillañ Mahuiza.
The Mapuche people would never set fire to the forests.
Victoria Núñez Fernandez, a lagmien (sister) of Lof Pillañ Mahuiza where Moira Millán lives, was deprived of her freedom after the raids on Mapuche communities. In the hearing following her arrest, she was ordered to be held in pre-trial detention for two months. The public defender emphasized that there is no evidence of her presence at the events attributed to her. But Judge Jorge Criado ordered, at the request of the Public Prosecutor’s Office, 60 days of pre-trial detention in police station number 1 of Esquel.
In a press conference just hours after the hearing, the Governor of Chubut, Ignacio Torres (PRO), presented a chronology connecting different events and distant places – the eviction of Lof Pailako in January, the fire at the Amancay ranch in Trevelin, and various fires including those of El Bolsón in the province of Río Negro – to accuse the Mapuche Tehuelche of Chubut as the authors of fires ravaging Patagonia in various locations.
The accusation against Victoria, Moira and other Mapuche people
Victoria Núñez, who has lived in Lof Pillañ Mahuiza (Corcovado, Chubut) for five years, is being investigated and accused of burning machinery and trucks at Estancia Amancay, on the outskirts of Trevelin. The Prosecutor’s Office says it has evidence that points to her as a participant in the crime, along with other people. According to the reports, there were simultaneous attacks on several vehicles parked in two sectors, and at least three people took part. But all the evidence to accuse Núñez comes from one statement, from someone who said they saw an empty white vehicle similar to Victoria’s a few meters from the ranch the night of the fire.
Victoria’s detention should be understood as part of the broader persecution of the Mapuche and Mapuche Tehuelche communities in Chubut.
The storyline that supposedly connects this series of heavy accusations against her and Moira Millán, who has inhabited that same territory since 1998, is the fact Victoria drives a white Kangoo.
Only 12 people, including the press and human rights organizations, were able to attend the hearing. Chubut’s Minister of Security and Justice Hector Iturrioz and Commissioner García were sat in the front row next to sisters Moira and Evis Millán, and attentively listened to the entire hearing.
The prosecutor María Bottini and peers from the Prosecutor’s Office Cecilia Bagnato and Ismael Cerda, presented the evidence gathered so far, after 12 simultaneous raids were carried out on Tuesday. Judge Criado, in agreement with the Public Prosecutor’s Office, ordered Victoria to pre-trial detention for 60 days. And he rejected the proposal of house arrest in a home in Esquel.
Nuñez was not at the scene
So far, the accusation is based on dubious indications that, according to the defence, do not present conclusive evidence of Victoria’s presence at the scene.
The public defender gave conclusive evidence to prove that Núñez had nothing to do with the fire. The defender Ponce also stated that the conduct of others is being attributed to her, in relation to outrageous allusions of Victoria belonging to groups such as the RAM [Resistencia Ancestral Mapuche, a group the government has labelled as radical, violent, and a terrorist organization], for the mere fact of Núñez accompanying and visiting other communities, as occurs regularly in the Mapuche culture where neighbours inhabit both sides of the mountain range.
Victoria’s detention should be understood as part of the broader persecution of the Mapuche and Mapuche Tehuelche communities in Chubut. One arm of this persecution is the media campaign that her arrest feeds into. This campaign seeks to arbitrarily associate Indigenous communities with acts of violence, in a context where the national and provincial governments prioritize extractivist and capitalist interests over Indigenous territories. This was denounced by Moira Millán in press conferences held simultaneously this morning in front of the Courts in Esquel and at the door of the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights in Buenos Aires (see below).
While one of the press conferences was being prepared at the doors of the Ministry of Justice, the Minister Mariano Cúneo Libarona published on X: ‘In Extraordinary Sessions, we will include a project to increase the penalty for those who intentionally cause fires, eliminating the possibility of bail. Terrorists disguised as Mapuches set fire to our Patagonia to extort the Government and demand privileges. They will pay behind bars.’
Incluiremos en Sesiones Extraordinarias un proyecto para agravar la pena de quienes provoquen incendios intencionalmente, eliminando la posibilidad de excarcelación.
— Mariano Cúneo Libarona (@m_cuneolibarona) February 11, 2025
Terroristas disfrazados de mapuches prendieron fuego nuestra Patagonia para extorsionar al Gobierno y reclamar… pic.twitter.com/cTBPo3ib1p
The Minister of Security Patricia Bullrich directly accused Victoria as an ‘arsonist terrorist and pseudo Mapuche.’ She posted on her X account: ‘They set fire to Patagonia believing they were immune’ and declared in a sensational video soundtracked with electric guitars that the group are terrorists and that the only flag that will fly in the country is the Argentinian flag. The post, however, accuses Nuñez of the fires in Nahuelpan, which is about 100km from Lof Pillañ Mahuiza. Victoria spent hours detained and incommunicado, without knowing what she was accused of. And the raids did not respect protocol.
INCENDIARIA TERRORISTA Y PSEUDO MAPUCHE: DETENIDA
— Patricia Bullrich (@PatoBullrich) February 12, 2025
No fue un accidente. No fue un descuido. Es TERRORISMO. Prendieron fuego la Patagonia creyéndose impunes. Se equivocaron.
Tras 12 allanamientos simultáneos, la Policía Federal Argentina y la Policía de Chubut detuvieron a una… pic.twitter.com/7vtNukoxFS
A false and fantastical story to incriminate Victoria
In Esquel, members of the communities and radio stations that were raided held a press conference at the Court’s entry before the hearing. ‘Victoria Núñez was brought in unfairly, she is imprisoned and a fantastic story is being falsely fabricated to incriminate her in the fires that ocurred at the Amancay ranch. She has nothing to do with it,’ stated Moira Millán. ‘The ineffectiveness, the lack of budget and responses to combat the fires by the State, means that the State is putting on a show that brings pain and much indignation, a show that is eroding the foundations of democracy,’ she continued.
In addition, Millán denounced that weapons were planted in the community, and that in the search for ‘ideological and terrorist element’ – ‘just as happens in a dictatorship’ – they seized books from her, including Black Feminism, by the feminist and anti-racist philosopher Angela Davis, and Millán’s own book Terricidio. She recalled how members of the community were beaten, thrown to the ground and restrained during the raid.
Millán made a call to society: ‘I want to say to the country: this is not an isolated case, if you normalize what happened with the pu lof [the communities], it will be the prelude to a dictatorship that will be established for all Argentinians. Today they are coming for our lives and for our safety. Victoria is illegally detained, all the elements are fictitious. It is a novel put together on Facebook to have our lamngen [sister] detained. Today they are coming for my library, for my books, what are they going to do tomorrow? Are they going to raid everyone who has books, just as Hitler did? Get out, demonstrate, let’s put a stop to this madness, but now. Tomorrow it may be too late.’
‘False Mapuche terrorist‘
In the Torres conference, where he dedicated himself to defaming the Mapuche people, the Governor of Chubut celebrated that ‘in just three months our Prosecutors in Chubut did more than the federal Justice system has in the last 10 years.’ The governor does not miss an opportunity to denounce the slowness of the Judicial Courts in resolving lawsuits.
Torres, trampling on the principle of innocence and in an attempt to confuse by separating their victims from other Mapuche, Torres appealed ‘especially to the media of Buenos Aires’, ‘that we do not get confused between Indigenous Peoples and pseudo-Indigenous peoples, these criminals have nothing to do with the Mapuche Tehuelche communities that we live in harmony alongside in the province.’
‘The argument of the “false Mapuche terrorist” is as exhausted as the possibility that Indigenous peoples in general are capable of destroying the place they live,’ the Movimiento de Mujeres y Diversidades para el Buen Vivir (Movement of Indigenous Women and Diversities for Good Living) expressed. This movement, which Moira is part of, convened the conference in front of the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights.
There, together with 20 people, they called for the release of Victoria and Nicolás Heredia, who is accused of starting the fires of El Bolsón (Río Negro). The group raised questions about the inaction of the provincial and national government in response to the fires, until 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 set-up they put together was premeditated and crude,’ the Movement expressed. ‘The Mapuche people would never set fire to the forests.’
