On August 3, a 15-year-old named Juana Gómez was found dead in the town of Quitilipi, province of Chaco, in northern Argentina. With this case, the death toll “would reach 80 or 90 in the last year and a half” said Felix Diaz, a leader from “La Primavera” Qom community to Red Latina sin Fronteras. These numbers are the consequences of land disputes as well as lack of basic access to public health, causing diseases such as infections, malnutrition, Chagas disease and others, the Médicos del Mundo Argentina and a 2012 Report from Telenoche Investiga confirmed. One example of the community’s suffering under such conditions is the case of Paul Sanaguchi, a young native who died on February 20 because of extreme malnutrition and tuberculosis.

Many Qom (also known as toba) communities are not part of Aboriginal reserves (although there are some 365,000 hectares officially recognized for them) nor do they hold an official title of their lands (as they were passed down from generation to generation)—which is why the State claims the right to develop real estate or agricultural plots and evict Qom members. Cases of deaths, threats, evictions and attacks on these rural communities have increased as demand for the soybean crop and more land to grow it have increased.

The demand for soy production has increased in the last ten years—especially from China— and has aided the 2002 Argentine macroeconomic recovery. But this scheme does not work alone, it requires political support. Formosa´s governor, Gildo Insfrán, has managed to remain in power for 18 years through strong media control, voters´ cooptation (through social programs and state jobs) and by seeking a shift in national governments. At present, he is facing misappropriation of public funds, money laundering, concealment, embezzlement and drug trafficking allegations.
Argentine President, Cristina Fernandez, refers to the governor with confidence in official events, calling him simply “Gildo,” and offering mutual praise and official funds.

“When the President talks about governing for 40 million Argentines, I don´t know if indigenous people are included in them,” said the Nobel Peace Prize, Adolfo Perez Esquivel, awarded in 1980 for his resistance to the last military dictatorship.
This economic and political partnership between national, provincial and private powers (especially because Monsanto corporation, a multinational agricultural biotechnoloy corporation at the head of soybean production, produces a glyphosate product, which causes environmental damage) is the key for understanding why the Qom claims.

In Argentina, according to the Complementary Survey of Indigenous Peoples (ECPI in Spanish), from 2004-2005, 600,329 people described themselves as proper indigenous or first-generation descendants. Of those, 179,501 live on reservations, while 420,401 indigenous are integrated into the general population. In the case of ethnic group kom, Qom also known as toba, are people who began to inhabit the Argentine provinces of Salta, Chaco, Santiago del Estero and Formosa in the sixteenth century. Their language, the “Qom”, means “man” and is completely different from Spanish. According to the 2011 national census there are 69,452 members of this community, scattered mostly in northern Argentina or in rural communities governed by leaders.