A mysterious death in Argentina calls attention to indigenous land struggles

[Judi Lynn]

October 27, 2017 7.48am EDT



Argentine campaigner Santiago Maldonado was last seen alive in public in Patagonia on August 1 at a protest for the land rights of the Mapuche, a group of indigenous peoples from Chile and Argentina. Various witnesses recount seeing him being detained by military police and loaded into a van during a raid by state authorities, but there is no official record of his detention, and no information was provided to his family.

On October 17, after 81 days “missing”, Maldonado’s body was found abandoned in a river near the Mapuche settlement. While government officials claim that he “drowned”, with some even blaming Mapuche activists for his death, human rights groups insist that the area had already been searched thoroughly and that there is no way the current could have carried the body to where it was found. In other words, they argue that the government planted the body.

For the three months since he went missing, there have been widespread and large-scale protests across Argentina asking the simple question: “Where is Santiago Maldonado?”. Led not only by Maldonado’s family, but also national and international human rights organisations, the protests focused on on the disappearance, the government’s delay in investigating, and the alleged cover-up. Some involved are accusing state police of infiltrating their protests.

This affair is about much more than Maldonado’s mysterious death in itself. The raid during which Maldonado disappeared was one of many organised against Mapuche communities in southern Argentina – and yet another flashpoint in a long struggle for indigenous rights.

More:
http://theconversation.com/a-mysterious-death-in-argentina-calls-attention-to-indigenous-land-struggles-86028

[sandensea]

1. Planting his body in the river seemed to do the trick for Macri.

The news that Maldonado's body was "found" - just four days before the election - really helped neutralize the issue, and thus contributed to their good showing in Sunday's mid-terms.

It was only after the elections that coroners revealed that the body had been there no more than 5 to 7 days (Maldonado had vanished nearly three months earlier).

Thank you for keeping up with this story, Judi. Now that they've gotten away with it, it'll probably not be the last.