Document of the 8th National March against Gatillo Fácil
Once again, we take to the streets to carry out this, National Day of Struggle, that makes visible and repudiates the repression that the State has historically exercised against our sons, daughters, and families. Here we meet to unify the cry of anger, love and resistance.
The impunity that they try to impose on us has as a response this initiative of the families of victims of trigger-happy violence and state repression, a march that is being replicated in different parts of our country.
The situation of impunity deepens year by year. No government, even the one that calls itself “progressive”, has put an end to the policy of applying the death penalty, i.e., “trigger-happy”.
It is not only the police, prefects, gendarmes, civil servants or penitentiaries that murder, torture and disappear, but the state as a whole, of which they are an essential part, that we denounce.
The state is also responsible for deaths in the context of imprisonment. The prison system reflects a scenario of social inequality, discrimination, racism and selectivity, which punishes the most socially and economically vulnerable groups. These groups do not have VIP cells and do not enjoy any benefits.
Deaths in police stations and penal institutions are disguised as “suicides” or “accidents” that all families report.
The majority of persons deprived of their liberty are young, poor, and generally charged with minor property crimes or drug offences. Very few prisoners are public officials, police officers, big businessmen or drug lords. For many of our children, the circle is closing, combining institutional violence (discrimination, lack of hearing, neglect, insufficient programmes in health, education, work) with state repression (persecution, harassment, murder). This circle often leads to death.
Comparing figures from the National Ministry of Security, we can see the hypocrisy of the supposed fight against drug trafficking: around 100,000 cases are opened each year for drug offences, but this contrasts with less than 400 cases for crimes against the economic and financial order, for money laundering. The number of young people detained is on the rise, but the number of cases involving the famous and apparently inexplicable “money trail” is minimal.
It is common for family members and friends, as well as condemning us to investigate on our own, to be ignored and even threatened. This is what happened to the family of Facundo Ferreira, the 12-year-old boy shot in the head in Tucumán in 2018. Throughout the judicial process, the family members were harassed. In the first trial, the perpetrators received a higher sentence, but then the family members had to go through a second trial, going over and over again; in this second trial, the sentences imposed were lower.
In other cases, such as the murder of Gabriel Gusman in Entre Rios, the Public Prosecutor’s Office decided to close the case and never charged the police officers who were on board the car and chased Gabriel through the neighbourhood. The family has succeeded in getting their lawsuit to proceed with the criminal action despite the complicit role played by the Prosecutor’s Office, and the prosecutors were removed from the investigation. These prosecutors ignored all international human rights conventions.
Photo International Campaign ERAN NIÑAS. Lichita’s return alive and Freedom for Laura Villalba
The message of “mano dura” (iron fist) has intensified in the days before and after the PASO, always associated with the children in the neighbourhoods. There is no fight against the massive robbery of our people by big business, the liberated zones where trafficking and corruption networks operate.
If we hear the mass media, it would seem that the country’s ills are the fault of the kids in beanies in the neighbourhoods. For every conviction that we wrest from a slow, negligent and even complicit judiciary, there are hundreds of cases that do not reach trial, suspicious losses of evidence that benefit the murderers, or where there are ridiculous sentences compared to the seriousness of the death of our boys and girls.
This is why we salute the convictions for the Massacre of Monte, and for Lucas Gonzalez; in the latter case the racial hatred of the repressive forces is pointed out, which is present in hundreds of cases. However, these punishments of the forces are totally exceptional: what abounds is impunity. This impunity has manifested itself in the cases of Carlos Bocacha Orellano and Franco Casco in Rosario, among many others. At the same time, the judge in Rawson, Gustavo Lleral, acquitted absolutely all the gendarmes who were being investigated in the case of the disappearance and death of Santiago Maldonado, which occurred in 2017 during a Gendarmerie repression of the Mapuche community of Cushamen.
Recently, the trial against Pedro Arcangel Bogado, the police murderer of Brandon Romero, took place in Mar del Plata, a trial that was reached, as always, through the struggle of family and friends. In this trial, plagued by institutional violence against the family members, the murderer, who was never separated from the police force, was found “not guilty”.
Disguised as “more democratic”, the Jury Trial that favoured the policeman is actually very dangerous in a society bombarded by anti-children, messages from the state and the mass media.
In the jury trial, we are not allowed to know the number of votes that led to the decision of not guilty. Nor does the prosecution have the possibility of appealing the decision. The prosecutor, an accomplice of impunity, not only did not accuse but also offered to be a witness for the police officer’s defence (which did not succeed).
The defendant, in addition to shooting Brandon, then shot him while he was on the ground, and in his 911 messages admitted “I shot him and he’s not moving, I must have killed him”.
Every time we mention the case of a child, unfortunately, it is not an isolated case, but a sample of what happens throughout the country.
It is clear to us that the murder of our children is not the result of the malfunctioning of institutions, but of the state repression that is necessary in a society with an unjust system. In this system, the worst crime is social inequality, which is deepening.
The more hunger and poverty, the more adjustment, the more outbursts, the more indignation, and therefore the more repression.
International campaign THEY WERE CHILDREN. The appearance alive of Lichita and Freedom for Laura Villalba
A few days ago, and with the excuse of the looting, the Minister of Security, Aníbal Fernández, announced that a Unified Command of the four federal forces (Police, Prefecture, Gendarmerie and PSA) will be formed.
And both Berni and Bullrich, from two supposedly opposing political forces, return to the need for an “iron fist” and defend the lowering of the age of criminal responsibility and the use of tasers.
The repressive forces of the City of Buenos Aires murdered Facundo Molares a few days ago during a demonstration. His cruelty and cowardice was filmed, and denies the shameful police version.
Different ways of killing are being added to the most well-known ones: for some time now, we have been seeing police cars jumping over kids, cornering them, running over them, running over them and killing them. Surely this is to avoid being classified as “trigger-happy” when it comes to judging them or to try to make them appear as “accidents”. But we already know: it is repressive action by the forces of the State.
This August, the trial for the death of Rafael Nahuel, murdered by the Gendarmerie, has begun, and it is taking place far from the place where the event occurred, so as not to facilitate the participation of the family. Rafael’s father demanded that the defendants – who have been granted the possibility of testifying in zoom mode – show their faces. As they have nothing to disguise to explain the 130 bullets that came out of their guns, they have invented, without any proof, that Rafael could have been killed by his own comrades.
As repressive action has no borders, Laura Villalba is still imprisoned in Paraguay. Laura is the mother of one of the girls murdered in Paraguay in 2020, and aunt of Liliam Mariana, the other murdered girl, and of Lichita, disappeared by the state. The Villalba family has gone so far as to accuse Laura of “violation of the duty of care and domestic violence”. While she awaits trial, we must denounce again and again her conditions of detention: isolated 23 hours a day, prevented from seeing her children, monitored by cameras. Free Laura Villalba! Investigation of the girls’ crime!
We are in this unequal struggle, in this unequal struggle we find ourselves, in this struggle we make ourselves visible.
The Malón de la Paz, which is currently in Buenos Aires, is also trying to make visible the circle of injustice to which the people of Jujuy are subjected. The powers that be are brazenly indifferent to crimes against humanity, racism and extreme mistreatment. We say with them: Down with the reform! Up with the whipalas!
We family members know that collective action is the only thing that empowers our struggle. It is against the impunity of yesterday and today. We don’t distinguish between first or second class victims, for us all children are equal.
We continue to look for ways to denounce and organise ourselves, and we offer a space of struggle to other relatives who want to join us. Because we fight for sentences, but above all for consciousness, we shout:
NO to the lowering of the age of criminal responsibility. No to the discourses that criminalise our children.
NO ONE LESS in prisons too
ENOUGH of trafficking networks
ENOUGH of persecution and stigmatisation of lesbians, gays, transvestites, transsexuals and all sexual diversities.
ENOUGH of feminicides and transvesticides!
ENOUGH of torture and deaths in places of detention.
ENOUGH of forced disappearances
ENOUGH of arbitrary detentions and armed cases!
ENOUGH of easy triggering
NOT ONE BOY LESS
NOT ONE GIRL LESS
NOT ONE MORE BULLET
THE STATE IS RESPONSIBLE