As the Argentinian Election cycle draws near, there has been an incident in finding the body of a prominent Argentinian “Native Rights” activist named Santiago Maldonado in Patagonia (Southern Argentina). In his background prior to the disappearance/murder, he was an activist that wanted to help the Mapuche who were facing trouble when a clothing company attempted to interlope on their land claims. Ultimately, the Mapuche people were evicted from the premises by security forces. Santiago was last seen protesting with the Mapuche as the eviction took place and that had occurred two months ago on August 8th, 2017.
There is some speculation that the Argentinian ruling party known as The Republican Proposal, would have done this since Santiago and the party often collided with each other in regards to native rights infringements. The case is described as being a thorn in the Marci Governments side since people speculate that the case isn’t be handled well enough by investigators. But, the Election is temporarily shaken by this event and it could lead to some drastic political results. Otherwise, this is an ongoing story that is going to affect Argentina greatly. 
- This image was taken in August and it shows protestors protesting the disappearance of Santiago. (Image is taken from the NY Times Article)
- This is a picture of the current President of Argentina, Mauricio Marci (taken from the NY Times article)
This relates to what we are talking about in class today since it’s about the treatment of native peoples in colonized territories. Some people are activists who want to help the native people get their well-deserved lands back. Others not so much, they want the resources to go to the government and their pockets. It is still an ongoing issue that is clearly still with us in the 21st century. Historically, the Argentinian government has done a lot of infringement on native treaties to get much-coveted resources in their given territories.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/aug/08/argentina-santiago-maldonado-benetton-missing-activist Article about the disappearance/eviction two months ago
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/19/world/americas/argentina-santiago-maldonado.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Famericas&action=click&contentCollection=americas®ion=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=7&pgtype=sectionfront October 19th, 2017)