MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Argentine authorities take action against RAM for Patagonia fires

“I am a militant of the Mapuche cause,” Jones-Huala insisted

Argentine Security Minister Patricia Bullrich said Tuesday that the Libertarian Government of President Javier Milei would be declaring the Ancestral Mapuche Resistance (RAM) a terrorist group, in addition to other measures against lonko (leader) Facundo Jones-Huala, who claimed responsibility for the arson-caused wildfires in the Patagonian province of Chubut and urged his comrades to up the armed struggle because all those “tools are valid for the liberation of our people.” Jones-Huala also denied any involvement in the fire affecting El Bolsón in the province of Río Negro. “Against landowners yes, but not against our environment,” Jones Huala said earlier this week.

“We will declare the RAM as a terrorist organization and we will register this group in the Register of Terrorist Organizations. We will file a criminal complaint against Facundo Jones Huala as head of this organization, for direct incitement and explicit call to armed struggle,” Bullrich announced Tuesday. “In the Argentina of President Javier Milei there is no place for violence, neither for criminals nor for terrorists,” she also pointed out.

“Last week they let him loose after trying to steal cars. Now, Jones Huala vindicates the armed struggle and the attacks committed against individuals, as well as the fires that destroyed properties and cost the life of a citizen in the area of El Bolsón and Epuyén,” the Minister went on.

Also Tuesday, criminal complaints against the Mapuche leader were filed by the federal government as well as by that of the province of Chubut, which released a communiqué announcing that “we have become aware through the media that Mr. Facundo Jones Huala has claimed responsibility for arson attacks in Patagonia and has publicly called for armed struggle, acting with public intimidation and inciting collective violence.”

Jones Huala claimed responsibility for the arson attack weeks ago in Trevelin (Chubut) out of spite for “the infrastructure of the capitalist system, the transnational corporations, and the landowners.” After being released last year from prison in Chile where he was convicted for arson attacks in the commune of Río Bueno, in Valdivia, back in 2013. Days ago he was arrested in El Bolsón after trying to steal elements from parked vehicles.

The government of Chubut linked his presence in the area with the fire that broke out in the town of Epuyén and also with the arson attack on Estancia Amancay, in Trevelin, where they threw Molotov cocktails and caused damage to trucks and road machinery.

Jones-Huala has also supported attacks undertaken by the “Facción Autónoma de Liberación Mapuche Puelwillimapu”, which recently claimed responsibility for the attack on a ranch near Esquel.

The activist made those derogatory remarks about land ownership in Patagonia in a video recorded by his mother Isabel during the presentation of his book “Entre Rejas, Antipoesía incendiaria” (Between Bars, Incendiary Antipoetry), which he wrote during his incarceration.

“I am a militant of the Mapuche cause, I am revolutionary, anti-capitalist, anti-system. I vindicate sabotage, the actions of resistance, of self-defense, the rebellion against the oppression to which we have always been subjected,” Jones-Huala insisted.

Chubut Governor Ignacio Torres has long repeated that “behind the forest fires is the RAM.” (See also: Argentine Patagonia wildfires man-caused)