In the 1880s, the Argentinian Army began a campaign with one sole purpose: to subjugate the Indigenous people of the northern region of Chaco. This campaign murdered and displaced thousands. The survivors, from communities like the Qom and Moqoit, were forced to live on plantation compounds, growing cotton and other such products for the European settlers. When a strike sparked in July of 1924, it quickly became about more than the new 15% cotton tax the settlers imposed on the Napalpí reservation. The people were done tolerating the slave-like conditions they were forced to labour under.

The police force and the European settlers responded with guns and machetes. Almost all of the protesters were murdered, leaving nearly 400 people, including children and the elderly, mutilated and buried in mass graves.

“The massacre of the [I]ndigenous people by the Chaco police continues in Napalpí and the surrounding areas,” political activist Enrique Lynch Arribálzaga wrote, 40 days after the initial carnage. “[It] seems that they want to eliminate all potential witnesses to the carnage of July 19, so that they cannot testify to the investigative commission.”

For the next 98 years, nothing was done to support the few survivors or to prosecute the perpetrators. A federal judge named the massacre a crime against humanity, but a criminal trial was never held. When the case was finally tried in 2022, 114-year-old Rosa Grilo was the only survivor left to give her testimony.

In May, after a month-long trial, the court concluded that the State of Argentina was guilty of the massacre. This, the first trial of its kind in South America, could set a positive precedent for other Indigenous Latin American communities seeking justice.

The police coverup Arribálzaga named is a major reason why it has taken Argentina so long to form a trial. It is also why the judge, Zunilda Niremperger, was only able to rule that historic reparations be paid. While this would include the massacre being added to the school syllabus, along with mandating that the State make an effort to find the victims’ remains, it does not include any form of financial compensation for the pained or any punishment for the perpetrators: all of the attackers from 1924 have passed away.

“[T]he massacre provoked grave consequences,” Judge Niremperger said during the trial. The Qom and Moqoit “suffered the trauma of terror and were uprooted with the loss of their language and their culture.” This would suggest that, even though only one survivor of the massacre is still alive, all members of the Qom and Moqoit communities have been deeply affected by this tragedy, and are owed more than just “historic” reparations.

Whilst “historic” reparations are extremely important and necessary for Argentina to heal and move on, the omittance of financial reparations to the victims’ families is untenable. It is the fault of the State that the trial took place after those who physically carried out the massacre had died without bearing responsibility. Those murderers were still representatives of a state which currently exists, and Argentina should not be able to use their passing as an excuse to avoid repaying the victims.

May’s verdict cannot be seen as a total victory. Justice has not truly been served, and what justice was meted out has taken far too long to arrive. Nevertheless, the outcome of the Napalpí trial is an incredibly important step forward for Indigenous rights in Latin America. Hopefully it will begin a trend of similar trials giving voice, honor, and a future to the victims.