Valen Iricibar By Valen Iricibar and Martina Jaureguy
Two unarmed young men in two provinces died after being shot by security forces on Thursday in what human rights organizations have condemned as egregious cases of institutional violence. Buenos Aires Province Police shot Martín Paredes, 26, in Mar del Plata, while Iván Rodrigo Torres, 22, was shot by the military police near the border with Bolivia in Jujuy.
“Fortunately, these cases had media coverage, but they are just two of the over 150 shootings in institutional violence cases we have registered since the start of President Javier Milei’s government,” said María del Carmen Verdú, head of police watchdog group CORREPI. She accused the administration of being enthusiastically trigger-happy, which “promotes violence by state forces against the general population.”
“We are living through a severe paradigm shift in terms of human rights and democratic freedom that is reflected in those numbers,” Verdú added.
The Security Ministry did not immediately respond to requests for comment and at press time had not publicly addressed the deaths of Paredes and Torres.
‘They shouldn’t have fired’
In the early hours of Thursday, Paredes was allegedly leaving a club in a car with two friends in a Mar del Plata residential area when the group noticed they were being followed by two vehicles with no plates. They thought the car chase was an attempted robbery, so the driver sped away.
However, the men inside the other cars were five Buenos Aires Police agents out of uniform. They got out of their cars and started shooting. Paredes, who was in the backseat, was hit by two of those bullets and died of his injuries.
“They didn’t identify themselves, the police are lying. We thought they wanted to rob us, so we tried to escape,” said Emanuel Astate, Paredes’ friend who was driving the car, according to the Center for Social and Legal Studies (CELS by its Spanish initials).
The policemen were arrested on Friday and suspended from the force. According to Infobae, the officers testified they shot Paredes because they confused him with a man who was wanted for killing a drugstore employee on Monday. The alleged mix-up happened because Paredes was wearing the same football jersey the other man had last been seen wearing.
“Almost 70% of these shootings happen with police dressed as civilians,” Verdú told the Herald. “It doesn’t matter if they were looking for a thief and they got confused, if there wasn’t a dangerous situation because nobody was shooting at them, they shouldn’t have fired.”
From Mar del Plata to La Quiaca
Hours after Paredes’ murder, Torres was killed by the military police in La Quiaca, Jujuy. Military police allegedly chased the 22-year-old student when patrolling the border with Bolivia: local media reported that he was also fatally wounded by two bullets, although his motorbike showed evidence of more shots.
Four gendarmes were later arrested and charged with aggravated homicide. Torres was carrying a bag with regional sweets and coca leaves — used in northern Argentina to avoid altitude sickness. Human rights organizations believe this may have been the reason why the chase began, although the circumstances are unclear.
“Carrying and consuming coke leaves in their natural form for chewing or making tea is not banned by law,” wrote the Jujuy branch of human rights organization HIJOS in a statement on Saturday, highlighting Torres’ Kolla Indigenous heritage. “However, the state continues to act in arbitrary, criminal, and racist ways, carrying out acts of extreme violence and murdering young people for no reason.”
Security Minister Patricia Bullrich launched the “Güemes Plan” in December alongside Salta province to strengthen border controls using federal military forces. That same month, Fernando Gómez, 27, was killed by gendarmes in Orán, Salta, while crossing the border. Over 10 officers are under investigation.
Following the announcement of the Güemes Plan, an Argentine town called Aguas Blancas launched a tender to build a 200-meter fence to strengthen immigration controls, which sparked diplomatic tensions with Bolivia.
“The Güemes Plan was launched to combat drug trafficking and related crimes. But instead of those operations, what increased was persecution episodes and attacks against informal workers that trade in the area,” wrote CELS in a statement on Friday.
For Verdú, tightening border controls is “just an excuse.”
“If what they want is to stop organized drug trafficking, they should start looking into the military police, not a 22-year-old kid who legally bought some coca leaves.”
