This 1st of August marks the first anniversary of the murder of Santiago Maldonado (aka ‘Lecho’/’Brujo’), an anarchist comrade from the region of Argentina who was ‘disappeared’ by the repressive forces of the State for acting in solidarity with the Mapuche community in the region of Cushamen.
The following article and extracts from Santiago’s work are translated from the first page of the bulletin “La Oveja Negra” n.56, July 2018, (Rosario, Argentina):
The presence of an absence
Just short of the anniversary of that 1st of August in which they took Santiago, it’s important that the commemoration be accompanied by revolutionary memory and the extension of the social conflict. Santiago was a sensitive person, a rebel, his writings and raps speak so strongly that the wind doesn’t carry them. They agitate and move us, against the pope, the presidents, the megaprojects and against the existing order, with humor, with certainty.
They tried to make Santiago disappear two times: firstly the armed forces and later others, hiding his struggle, his life, his ideas.
For Santiago, the anarchist who stood in solidarity with the prisoners for the sackings in Bariloche, who fought in the assemblies and the barricades of Chiloé, who cut the route 40 for the liberation of Facundo, (TN1) they organized church masses and they inserted him into electoral discourses. They tried to reduce him to a victim: of the gendarmes, of Bullrich,(TN2) of Macri, or even of the mapuches themselves as the officialist slant pushed. Meanwhile, his comrades in struggle were pursued by the police and branded as infiltrators in the mobilizations, something which still continues today.
“It’s notable, that the repression suffered daily by the mapuche communities in the south, imprisonment of Facundo Jones Huala, and above all, the profound social content of the Autonomous Mapuche Movement of Puelmapu, is in the same or worse grade of obscurity and misinterpretation as before the disappearance of Brujo.” We said this last year, and it hasn’t done anything more but get worse since then.
Recently, we are being witness to a new campaign of lies in which they try to establish the mapuche as those who fooled and abandoned Santiago, at the same time as they lied to the family. Santiago was not fooled in Cushamen, he knew what he was doing and not doing. Those that don’t know anything are the killers and their accessories who think that with force and lies they can stop the struggle and the solidarity. For that reason they publish phone-taps made on Sergio Maldonado and on Ariel Garzi, who has already come out to say that those transcriptions are in part false. These phone-taps are one more part of the permanent mafioso message of the State, not only to the mapuche, but to the whole social movement. Like when they planted the dead body of Santiago, they want to sow the example of what can happen to us when we disobey, when we fight for a different reality. Just like on the other side of the the wire, it is sought to break apart the groups that tender support to the territorial recuperations, to isolate the communities in conflict, their authorities, spokespersons and combatants.
Like a year ago, like always, the State, it’s Justice and its jails can’t give any other response but violence, against all those who confront their terrorism and their world of death and misery.
TN1: Facundo Jones Huala, incarcerated mapuche activist and tribal leader
TN2: Patricia Bullrich, Argentine Minister of Security
The God of Business
O God! Who is in the heavens of your empire.
You that are the guardian of the safes,
you that sleeps among the bricks
of gold, silver, titanium and copper!
You that are sheltered from the earthly crisis
when there is hunger, collective hysteria,
natural and artificial disasters!
You that sees it all and knows it all!!
You that can judge the mortals,
say who may enter and who may not,
who may rejoice in happiness
and who shall grovel in the dirt, putrid and precarious!!!
You, king of kings, we defy,
under that varnished cross
of deforestation for the civilization and modernity!
Your temples will be occupied by the barbarians
and will be pockets of resistance,
flames in the darkness with protective sparks,
the force and the energy must accompany us
in the paths of life which we have chosen
in order to confront adverse situations
and the obstacles which present themselves
through the length and width of the course of the trails….
life is for living and enjoying,
not to watch as it passes by,
it’s not disney, it’s not big brother, it’s no bestselling novel…
it’s simply unique above all…
Vote For Me
Why do we insist that you vote?
Because we want to subject you in the present
so that in the future you will continue being subjected.
We think that by blocking your mind and alienating you
with our projects in health, education,
work, security, comfort and technology,
we will secure the bank, the social status
and the power that we so dearly covet.
We believe in the social hierarchy
and that we must order and you must obey,
because like so a fatherland for every man and woman is achieved.
Someone must govern and it’s for this reason that we’re here,
if not everything would be in chaos
and freedom would reign,
everyone would do what they wanted
and we would not exist.
We also believe that with the money
collected from the slavery that we want to impose
we can control every corner of the planet Earth,
reinforce the surveillance with security cameras
at every step that you take,
more police, military, armies and terror.
To make more jails and jobs in order to torture,
silence and isolate those who don’t adapt to the rules of the game.
Fire to the ballots, democracy, the parliament,
to the Nazional Constitution!!!
Neither votes nor boots.
Nobody represents you but yourself!
No bosses, no leaders.
Texts by Santiago Maldonado
Extracted from his zine “Vagabun2 de la Idea”, Mendoza, 2015
Argsesina (TN1)
Here in Argsesina 2016,
A mediocre country as you see.
To the right or in reverse, what is it that you see?
Everyone thinks that that had it good before.
Now appears the corruption, the unemployment,
the inflation and the intoxication.
Look at the TV, everyone’s distracted by the dollars
that appear hidden in mansions, in convents.
This money was already robbed from me,
from you and from our forerunners.
Nature demands revenge!
The extractivism increases their profits.
Some businessmen have their their bellies swelled.
Others malnourished, preoccupied with a balance.
What is it that’s happening?
In this world in trance, some are dying
and others have hope in democracy.
Everything is already said.
If you give yourself they will fuck you.
The people buy the discourse of progress,
what do they understand by this?
That the yuta (TN2) comes and she breaks your bones.
Or that they fool you in a church,
on bended knee with the wooden cross.
And if the priest wants he’ll get sex from you.
That’s what it is, that’s progress.
The profit Pablo communicated his utterances.
And there’s many witnesses of so many sacrifices,
as if now they don’t sacrifice you in your workplace.
Don’t be foolish, open your eyes and your ears.
Progress is your enemy!
They contaminate a sea with dead salmon.
They destroy a mountain for a thermoelectric dam.
This is progress.
It demolishes everything, it doesn’t care at all,
if you’re a girl or an old lady.
It destroys life within seconds.
That which takes years to grow,
can disappear in an instant.
That they dynamite a mountain for a mega-mine.
Or also that they make a highway to accelerate the commodities.
It’s the magic of capitalism.
Mickey Mouse with his cynicism.
Rockefeller dancing in the abyss.
Likewise the struggle continues, in this era and right now.
Later in the church they speak to you of prophesy.
That everything is being fulfilled
according to what the messiah foretold.
Here and now, the struggle continues!
I’m beginning to distrust in what was premeditated,
dictated so that now we put the blame on the devil.
Do you understand what I mean?
TN1: Argesina is a conglomeration of the words ‘Argentina’ and ‘Asesina’ (Killer)
TN2: A yuta is a shaman priestess
Lyrics of the song Argsesina, from the rap duo Santa Blasfemia of which Santiago Maldonado formed a part. The song can be found here.
Other recordings by Santiago can be found here along with memorial statements from his friends and comrades (in spanish)
