Buenos Aires Herald 
Former President Mauricio Macri called activist and craftsman Santiago Maldonado, who went missing during a police operation under his administration in 2017 and was found dead days later, a “salame” — Spanish for “salami,” a term used in Argentina to refer to dimwitted or stupid people.
Maldonado went missing on August 1, 2017, after a group of gendarmes (military police) broke up a roadblock by the Indigenous Pu Lof Mapuche community in Cushamen, and then pursued the protesters. Maldonado was found dead 77 days later, on October 17, 2017, floating in the Chubut River within the limits of the Mapuche lands.
“The craftsman disappears and the first hypothesis was that he may have drowned,” Macri said on Wednesday in Montevideo during the presentation of his book on leadership, Para Qué (“For What” in Spanish). “The rivers of Patagonia are rough, they are not for just any distracted salame to cross, even if they are ten meters wide, they will carry you away.”
Macri said this while arguing that the management of public affairs requires “courage,” a word used by his security minister, Patricia Bullrich, who presided over the deployment of Gendarmería at the time. She is currently the presidential candidate for Juntos por el Cambio (JxC).
Maldonado’s case sparked a public outcry, as human rights organizations and opposition politicians also demanded justice for Maldonado, and the United Nations Committee Against Enforced Disappearances issued a petition for urgent action to the Argentine government.
“The guy disappeared and of course, all this network of evil and destruction began saying that the Gendarmería had made him disappear,” he said at the Study for Development Center (CED, by its Spanish initials), an Uruguayan non-profit that researches and analyzes political and economic issues.
“I called Patricia and told her — the pressure was coming from the bad guys, who then infect people who want to do what’s politically correct” Macri said, contending that the then-opposition parties convinced part of the population and political authorities that the best course of action would be temporarily suspending the Gendarmería leadership until the case was clarified.
Macri didn’t yield to the pressure, he said, and accused Amnesty International of being coopted by opposition parties during that time. He said that Gendarmería deserved respect because the force had helped the government fight drug dealing nationwide.
“If we did not give them [respect] everything would fall, the bad guys wanted everything to fall because populism everywhere is implicitly or explicitly associated with drug trafficking,” he said and claimed that he ordered Bullrich to defend Gendarmería’s actions in Chubut and not suspend anyone until a “single piece” of incriminating evidence appeared.
“I’m not going to throw a gendarme under the bus,” Bullrich famously said.
Maldonado’s brother, Sergio, responded to Macri. “Santiago Maldonado was no salame, he was disappeared for 78 days by Bullrich’s Gendarmería,” he wrote on Twitter. “The incredible thing is that a salame as useless as you was president of Argentina.”
Human Rights Secretary Horacio Pietragalla Corti also condemned the former president, saying he showed no respect for Maldonado’s family.
“Santiago didn’t ‘try to cross a river,’ his death was the result of an unlawful, repressive operation carried out by his government and federal forces that responded to then-Security Minister Patricia Bullrich, who is a candidate today,” he said on Twitter. “We continue to demand clarification of those responsible and accompanying the call for truth and justice for Santiago.”
Macri’s remarks come one week after Trelew judge Gustavo Lleral acquitted all four military police officers who were under investigation over Maldonado’s disappearance and death.
“The desperation, adrenaline, and excitement naturally provoked by the escape; the depth of the river, the thick branches, and roots crossed at the bottom; the cold, icy water wet his clothes and footwear until it reached his body,” the judge wrote in his ruling.
Human rights nonprofit CELS, which is a plaintiff in the case, appealed the ruling.
— with information from Télam
