Campaigners blame state for disappearance of Argentine activist

The case of an Argentine activist for indigenous rights whose family says he disappeared while in police custody is raising dark memories of the country's years of dictatorship.

Everywhere from hospitals and bus stations to football grounds, signs have appeared reading: "Where is Santiago Maldonado? The state is responsible."

Campaign groups say Maldonado, 27, was detained by state forces on August 1 after joining in a protest march by the Mapuche indigenous group.

Protests

On Friday, marking a month since his disappearance, mothers with babies, retirees and students joined a rally for Maldonado in Buenos Aires' Plaza de Mayo — the symbolic site of protests for victims of the dictatorship.

"This transcends the issue of political affiliation," said demonstrator Aepa Espinoza, 45, accompanied by his wife and two small children who held a picture of Maldonado.

"This case shows that there are deep divisions in the country because we should all be here," he said.

Forced "disappearances"

For decades, relatives have been rallying on the square for the thousands of people killed or "disappeared" by the military regime from 1976 to 1983.

Campaigners say 30,000 people were victims of forced "disappearances" under the dictatorship — and hundreds of others even afterwards.

President Mauricio Macri has been in power since 2015. His backers accuse supporters of the previous government of Cristina Kirchner of putting together a campaign to discredit the government by comparing its actions with that of the dictatorship. 

The Coordinator Against Police and Institutional Repression, a non-government campaign group, says 210 people have disappeared while in police custody since the dictatorship ended.

State's responsibility

But the case of Maldonado is the first one where state institutions, rather than individual officers, have been seriously accused of involvement in a disappearance.

These accusations of state responsibility have been vociferously backed by campaign groups, including the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo.

The Grandmothers have campaigned for decades for the victims of the country's 1976-1983 dictatorship.

Maldonado is said to have last been seen being put into a military police vehicle by officers who broke up a demonstration in the southern province of Chubut.

For Amnesty International, the state has a clear case to answer.

"The state must make every effort to find Maldonado, even more so if it is taken into account that Santiago disappeared in the context of a social protest where Gendarmerie intervened," said Mariela Belski, Amnesty's executive director in Argentina.

Maldonado moved from the Buenos Aires area to Chubut last year.

He arrived in Patagonia as a backpacker, and joined the demonstration purely out of a sense of social justice, his family and friends say.