The Santiago Maldonado case refers to the disappearance of an Argentine backpacker on August 1, 2017. The disappearance happened under suspicious circumstances after Maldonado was allegedly detained during the repression of a protest in the Pu Lof Mapuche in Cushamen, located in the Argentine province of Chubut. The repression was carried out by the Argentine National Gendarmerie, a security force that operates under the direct command of the National Security Minister, Patricia Bullrich, under the control of President Mauricio Macri.
> The Event
Santiago Andrés Maldonado (born 25 July 1989) is a craftsman and tattoo artist from the town of Veinticinco de Mayo, province of Buenos Aires. A few months before his disappearance he had moved to El Bolsón, province of Río Negro, about 70 kilometers north of the Lof of Cushamen. Maldonado supported the aboriginal communities in their land claims, but, according to his family, he had never before been politically active because "he does not believe in politics".
The event in dispute took place on July 31 and August 1, 2017, at the Chubut Province. The location was the Pu Lof de la Resistencia of Cushamen, a mapuche establishment built in territories seized from the Benetton family by Facundo Jones Huala, leader of the Resistencia Ancestral Mapuche (RAM) separatist group. Huala was jailed because of the violent activities of the RAM, and members of the Pu Lof organized a picketing protest at the National Route 40, advocating for his liberation. The people in the demonstration were hooded, and had partially blocked the road with trees, stones and fire. The protest was carried out by eight people, Santiago Maldonado among them. Judge Guido Otranto instructed the Argentine National Gendarmerie to disperse the protesters, who escaped. He had also instructed them to use minimal violence, and film the operation in video. The protesters tried to block the road again some hours later, on August 1. The protesters reacted violently to the Gendarmerie this time, and attacked them with stones. Commander Juan Pablo Escola reported that two gendarmes were gravely injured in their faces during the attack. He sent a group of 30 gendarmes to the Pu Lof. Although he did not have a judicial warrant to do so, he considered that the attack could be considered as in flagrante delicto, which would have allowed to skip that requirement. Some protesters attempted to escape by swimming across the Chubut River, and others tried to hide in a forest next to the river. Maldonado could not cross the river because he cannot swim. The whereabouts of Santiago Maldonado are unknown after that point. Some say the protestants seemed to been have killed by the own government.
The disappearance of Maldonado took place shortly before the 2017 midterm elections. Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, leader of one of the opposition parties, mentioned the case repeatedly during her rallies. Kirchner and several Kirchnerite politicians used it to draw controversial comparisons between the presidency of Mauricio Macri. . However, political analysts consider that the case is unlikely to have an impact on the election results, and that the aggressive rhetoric of Kirchner may actually scare independent voters and increase the chances of the Cambiemos official coalition.
August 30 is the International Day of the Disappeared, and several teachers affiliated to the CTERA union mentioned the event during school classes.
The Macri administration first negated the disappearance of Maldonado. As the days went by, members of Mr. Macri's cabinet send contradictory messages.
On August 23, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, of the Organization of American States, also took a precautionary measure asking the Argentine state to "adopt all the necessary measures to determine the situation and whereabouts of Mr. Santiago Maldonado" and to "inform about all the measures that have been adopted to investigate the facts".
Argentine human rights organizations condemned the disappearance, demanding the national government to adopt measures to bring back Maldonado alive, find who is responsible for the disappearance, and keep the Gendarmerie away from the investigation. They have also accused the government of not acting diligently to find Maldonado.
People also marched to demand that Santiago Maldonado is brought back alive in Bogotá (Colombia), Asunción (Paraguay), Montevideo (Uruguay), Canelones and Fray Bentos (Uruguay).[ In Spain, several Argentine residents marched to Plaça de Catalunya to ask for Santiago Maldonado.On August 11, there was a large mass demonstration in Plaza de Mayo, Buenos Aires. On August 21, during the 49th ordinary session of PARLASUR, in Montevideo, Argentine representatives condemned the disappearance of Santiago Maldonado.
Altough Through DNA tests it was proved that Santiago Maldonado was not injured in said episode.
Then, i have another theory -Maldonado may still be alive, hiding in the Mapuche territory. A search with search and rescue dogs conducted on August 16 suggested that he would have been in the area in the previous 24 hours. However, those dogs are not considered a conclusive evidence.
The government also considers that Maldonado may have never been in the protest to begin with. As all people in the protest were hooded, it is not possible to properly recognize him in photos or filmings of the event. The Maldonado family reported that he was a quiet and peaceful man, which would make it unlikely that he would take part in a violent protest in a road. The mapuches Beatriz Garay Neri, Soraya Noemí Guitart and Nicolás Jones Huala reported that they talked with him on August 1, in the morning, but did not provide further details about his presence or the topics of discussion. They did not report his absence either, and ignored his full name.
The RAM operates in both Argentina and Chile, and knows several unguarded passages though the Argentina–Chile border. It is thus suspected that Maldonado could have escaped to Chile. Argentina requested the INTERPOL to search him. As of August 31, no NN bodies resembling Maldonado were stored in South Chilean morgues, and the search continues. It is also suspected that he may be alive in Chile.
One of my theories is that Maldonado could have received a mortal wound during the escape, which would have caused his death at some later point. The Mapuches may have buried the body and then made up an accusation about an alleged forced disappearance in order to advance their political agenda. Another theory is that, Santiago Maldonado used his cell phone for the last time on July 21, 2017. That day, four or five hooded members of the RAM invaded the small house of Evaristo Jones, a worker for the Benetton family. Jones reported that he tried to defend himself by stabbing one of those people with a knife. As there are no cases of knife injuries treated in nearby hospitals on that day, or info about Maldonado's activities in the immediate days prior to the August 1 protest, it is suspected that he may be the stabbed thief, and that he had bled to death days before the protest. The family of Maldonado tried to refute this theory by providing a video of another picketing protest of the RAM that took place on July 31, which would have been attended by Maldonado. They also provide testimonials from numerous people who saw Santiago after the supposed attack. In addition, Evaristo Jones, the attacked worker, denied having hurt any of the attackers. The Maldonado family also affirms that they had telephone conversations with Santiago on July 25 (his birthday) and on July 27.
It is suspected that Maldonado could have escaped from the Gendarmerie by trying to cross the Chubut River. He would have received a stone throw that had rendered him unconscious, and he would have drowned in the river afterwards. As of September 17, the judge Guido Otranto considers it the most likely case. On September 22, 2017, judge Otranto was taken off the case after Santiago Maldonado's family complained that he was not impartial. In dialogue with La Nación newspaper, rescue experts from Esquel confirmed that it is highly unlikely that Santiago Maldonado might have drowned in the Chubut river. The government, however, considers it a likely possibility, and asked for further searches. The presence of many aquatic plants and the strong flows would make it more difficult to find a corpse.
A new search revealed a corpse in the river on October 17, whose identity and autopsy is under investigation. There were no reports of other deaths or missing people in the area, and it was confirmed that it was a male, with light blue clothes as those that witnesses reported that Maldonado was wearing.The corpse was found 300 meters upstream from the area of the events. It is unknown if the body is or isn't maldonado's
Ariel Garzi, a fellow craftsman from El Bolsón, called Santiago Maldonado's cellphone on August 2. The call was answered by an unknown person. It lasted 22 seconds, during which Garzi heard the sound of steps. Ariel Garbanz, an engineer from the Communications Security Lab of the National Technological University, investigated the call and claims to know the location where the phone was answered. Judge Otranto refused to look at this evidence.
The prosecutor Silvina Avila made a report that established that there are no solid evidences that link the Gendarmerie with Maldonado. As of September 17, the judge does not consider the theory of a forced disappearance to be likely.
Audio files were taken from WhatsApp conversations held by those involved in the operation on the day. One of the files, sent by a member of the gendarmeria, states that a sergeant had "Maldonado in a truck". A more detailed analysis revealed that the comment was made on August 16, only as part of a private joke between members of the Gendarmerie while Bullrich explained the case to the Congress. All 70 cell phones of the gendarmes were investigated, and none of them had been used to discuss an actual forced disappearance operation.
According to witnesses, after the Argentine National Gendarmerie stormed the Lof, agents from this security force carried somebody to a truck. The Gendarmerie denies having detained Maldonado, so does the minister of security, Patricia Bullrich.
The witnesses made public comments, but refused to testify in court. They proposed to testify while concealing their identities with hoods, which was rejected by the judiciary. Other witnesses told before justice that Maldonado was taken by Gendarmerie agents.
Eighty biological samples were retrieved from the vehicles used by the Gendarmerie during the operation, and used for a DNA test. Another fourteen samples were ignored, as they were unsuitable for testing. The results were released a month later: none of them matched the DNA of Maldonado. The value of this evidence has been disputed by public defender Fernando Machado, who argued that the samples would have been taken after the trucks had been washed. The judge dismissed those concerns.
