Santiago Maldonado

The UN and the IACHR closed those cases in January 2018, a pair of months after Maldonado was found.

On October 20, 2017, Santiago's family confirmed that the body found floating in Chubut River was indeed his. On October 21, a twelve-hour autopsy revealed no lesions in his body, leading experts to conclude that he had drowned. On November 24, 2017 the verdict of a commission of 55 forensic experts confirmed that Santiago Maldonado died by asphyxia and hypotermia; different studies showed that the corpse at the time of the autopsy was between 55 days and 72 days old. The experts also confirmed that there were no blows or injuries. Nevertheless, the defense insists that the case is a forced disappearance. The case was closed on November 29, 2018, when judge Gustavo Lleral ruled that there was no forced disappearance.

The event 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 Italian clothing company Benetton Group by Facundo Jones Huala. Huala, member of the Resistencia Ancestral Mapuche group, was jailed because of the violent protest activities including destruction of properties that undertook in several locations, 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 completely blocked the road with trees, stones and fire, thus not allowing any transit through the road. The protest was carried out by eight people, Santiago Maldonado among them. Judge Guido Otranto instructed the Argentine National Gendarmerie to clear the blockade and disperse the protesters, who escaped. The judge had also instructed them to use minimal violence, and film the operation on video.

On 21 October 2017, after a 12-hour autopsy involving 52 experts, including those appointed by Maldonado's family, Judge Gustavo Lleral confirmed that Maldonado's body did not have any signs of violence and the cause of death was established as death by drowning. On November 24, 2017 the verdict of the 55 experts confirmed that Maldonado drowned and that there were no signs of violence on his body. How, when and why he died is still on investigation.

The prosecutor Silvina Avila asked in December 2017 to change the folder of the case from forced disappearance to suspicious death, on the grounds that the investigation did not reveal any clue that may support the forced disappearance hypothesis. There was a similar request from the Ministry of Security in May 2018. The judge Lleral rejected both requests. He pointed that the folder of the case is inconsequential, that changing it before the case was closed would be an improper advance of opinion, and that the case is not guided by the folder's name but by the results of the investigations. There are no specific members of the gendarmerie formally accused of wrongdoing or called for inquiry, which turns it into a moot point.

On August 7, 2017, the UN Committee on Enforced Disappearances expressed its "concern about the physical and psychological integrity" of Maldonado and requested the Argentine state to adopt "a comprehensive search strategy", taking "all the urgent measures that are necessary to search for him and find him, taking into account the information provided by the members of the Pu Lof Mapuche community that were present at the moment of the repression". The UN committee also requested that the Gendarmerie does not participate in the search and investigation of the disappearance and that the Argentine government protects all the evidence that may help to identify those responsible for the disappearance. The same day, the Minister of Security offered a reward to those who "while not having participated in the crime, offer useful information that can help find the whereabouts" of Maldonado.

Newspaper Clarin said that the hypothesis of the government was that the presence of many aquatic plants and strong flows could make it difficult to find the corpse. The autopsy conducted on 21 October 2017 confirmed forensic evidence clearly pointed to drowning and hypotermia as the cause of death The autopsy, witnessed by 52 experts including that of the Maldonado family and international organizations, revealed no evidence of injuries. The corpse was acknowledged to be Maldonado's by the 52 experts witnessing the autopsy. On November 29, 2018 Judge Lleral closed the case citing no further evidence pointing towards anything different to an accidental drowning.

Santiago Maldonado used his cell phone for the last time on July 21, 2017. That day, four or five hooded members of the Resistencia Ancestral Mapuche 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 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 and the 1970s Dirty War. However, political analysts consider that the case is unlikely to affect the election results, and that the aggressive rhetoric of Kirchner may actually scare independent voters and increase the chances of the Cambiemos official coalition. the corpse of Maldonado was found a few days before the elections. By the time of voting, the Maldonado family had confirmed his identity and the initial autopsy revealed no signs of violence against the body; the official results of the full autopsy would be released a pair of weeks later.

On September 1, 2017, a month after Santiago Maldonado's disappearance, thousands of people expressed themselves through rallies and demonstrations asking for his appearance alive. The largest demonstration took place in Plaza de Mayo and was organized by Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo, Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo (Línea Fundadora), Relatives of the Disappeared and Imprisoned for Political Reasons, HIJOS, the Center for Legal and Social Studies (CELS), the Argentine League for the Rights of Man, and the Permanent Assembly for Human Rights, among other organizations. In other cities, such as Mendoza, Mar del Plata, San Luis, San Juan, Neuquén, Salta, Posadas, Jujuy, Santiago del Estero, Villaguay, Concepción del Uruguay, Gualeguaychú and Concordia there were rallies and demonstrations with the same demand. In Rosario and Córdoba there were rallies with an attendance of 40000 each. There were also protests in Spain, Brazil, France, Uruguay, Chile, Mexico, Austria and the United States which were organized through social media. In London, São Paulo, Berlin, Montevideo, Rio de Janeiro, Madrid, Barcelona, Sidney, Santiago, Mexico City, Vienna, Washington DC and New York City, groups of people expressed their solidarity with the demand for the appearance of Santiago Maldonado alive.

The disappearance of Maldonado has also mobilized international human rights organizations, such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. In Buenos Aires, La Plata, Bariloche, Mar del Plata, Bahía Blanca, General Madariaga, Mendoza, Malargüe, El Bolsón, Rawson, Viedma, Gualeguaychú, Rosario and Neuquen thousands of people marched in demonstrations demanding that Maldonado appears alive and the resignation of Bullrich. 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.

Santiago Andrés Maldonado (born 25 July 1989) was 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 a Mapuche settlement named 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".

Kirchnerism and human rights organizations exploited the case to advance a political discourse against Macri. Treating the case like a forced disappearance allowed to draw comparisons between his government and the Dirty War that took place during the National Reorganization Process, in the 1970s. According to this narrative, Macri would have a covert plan to kidnap and kill demonstrators, the gendarmerie, the judiciary and the media would be working alongside Macri in such a plan, and Maldonado would be just the first victim of it. Human rights organizations had aligned themselves with the Kirchners during the government of both Néstor and Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, even in topics unrelated to human rights, and often worked as their spokesmen. They kept this role since 2015, when Macri defeated Cristina Kirchner in the presidential elections. This, however, undermined their legitimacy in the Argentine society, as an increasingly portion of the population loses interest in the events of the 1970s, and their public image got tied to that of Cristina Kirchner.