Guardian special report on transitional justice

I thought it was worth linking to this special report from the Guardian newspaper on how various countries, including Chile and Colombia, have dealt with their traumatic pasts. The article is necessarily an overview so it doesn't reveal much to someone who is already well-read about a particular country - but I'd be surprised if anyone was well-read about all those countries, and the transcontinental comparison is really interesting.

[Colombian] President Juan Manuel Santos, re-elected in June to a second term, denies impunity is on the table, but says demanding full punishment would derail peace. "If you ask a victim today he would lean towards having more justice," said Santos. "If you ask a future victim, he will lean more towards peace."

Special report: Truth, justice and reconciliation (Guardian)

"Escrache" is word of the year for Fundéu BBVA

The foundation Fundéu BBVA has chosen escrache as its word of 2013. Escrache refers to demonstrations held in front of the homes of public figures - in particular, in the Argentine context, it refers to the public shaming of dictatorship-era human rights abusers. There is a corresponding verb, escrachar, which has twin meanings of break/destroy and photograph. This fits in well with the public nature of escraches, which are centred on making visible the presence of perpetrators in civil society. HIJ@S, the organization of children of the disappeared, use the motto "Si no hay justicia, hay escrache" (If there's no justice, there is escrache). The Fundéu BBVA notes that the term has migrated from Argentina and Uruguay to Spain. In Chile, an escrache is known as a funa, and in Brazil, it's an esculacho.

Incidentally, I've never seen the word translated into English, it is usually retained in Spain and explained, but if anyone has suggestions for a good translation, please leave a comment.

Escrache, palabra del año para la Fundéu BBVA (Fundéu BBVA)
La política y la lingüística (Pagina/12)

Peru: The calm before the storm

The Centro Cultural Ramón Alonso Luzzy in Cartagena (Spain) is presenting a photography exhibition of the work of Baldomero Alejos. The photos were taken in Ayacucho, Peru, up to 1976 - before the region was hit by the conflict triggered by the uprising of Sendero Luminoso.

Some of the images are beautiful family portraits of a bygone age, like the one above, while others have historic interest, like the early passport shot of Sendero founder Abimael Guzmán:

How amazing that this unremarkable-looking man in a suit would soon unleash unparallelled violence in Ayacucho.

The exhibition runs until the end of August, if anyone is in the Murcia region!

El Perú en que nació Sendero Luminoso (La aventura de la historia)

Chile recommends dropping extradition

The Chilean authorities have recommended dropping extradition proceedings for six former members of the secret police (DINA). The men are wanted in Spain for the killing of a Spanish employee of the UN in 1976.

The accused are: Manuel Contreras Sepúlveda, José Ríos San Martin, Jaime Lepe Orellana, Pablo Belmar Labbé, Guillermo Salinas Torres and René Quilhot Palma.

Carmelo Soria's death was set up to look like a drink-driving accident.

Prosecutor Monica Maldonado said that it would not be appropriate to extradite the men as the crime is also under investigation in Chile. Moreover, several of them are already serving jail sentences for human rights abuses in the country and in particular, Manuel Contreras Sepúlveda, the former director of the DINA, has been sentenced to 150 years.

Chile to block extradition for Carmelo Soria 'killers' (BBC)
Recomiendan desestimar la extradición de seis agentes chilenos por el asesinato de un diplomático español (eldiario.es)

News round-up

Chile
A judge ordered the arrest on Tuesday of eight retired police and military officers in connection with the kidnapping and disappearance of Boris Weisfeiler, an American university professor who disappeared while hiking in Chile in 1985. 
Chilean Ex-Officers Charged in 1985 Kidnapping of U.S. Hiker (NY Times)

Colombia
Retired Colombian general Rito Alejo Del Rio has been sentenced to 25 years in prison for the murder of a peasant decapitated by a right-wing death squad in the late 1990s. Del Rio did not physically participate in the murder but allowed far-right militias to operate with impunity in the Uraba region, where he commanded the army’s 17th Brigade.
Retired General Sentenced for Death Squad Killing (NY Times)

Guatemala
A former head of Guatemala's police force, Pedro Garcia Arredondo, has been sentenced to 70 years in prison for the 1981 kidnapping of a student during the country's brutal civil war.
Guatemala ex-police chief jailed for civil war kidnap (BBC)

Spain/LatAm
This is not specifically about the disappeared children of Argentina, but a profile of Dr. José A. Lorente, whose genetics work has helped to identify missing children in various countries including Peru and Guatemala.
Putting Genetics to Work to Find Missing Children (NY Times)

News Round-up

Argentina
Cristina Kirchner: she's not just another Evita (Observer)
This profile of Argentina's president is not really one for the true LatAm-ophiles, I'm including it because I find it interesting when the mainstream English media go a bit further in-depth on someone like this and it has a lot of background info which isn't seen that often.

Central America
New Knight Center map chronicles attacks on journalists in Central America (Journalism in the Americas)

Guatemala
Long-hidden archives help Guatemala war crimes trials (Reuters)
Great info from Reuters here on the uses of and practical challenges posed by Guatemala's archives

For the first time in Guatemala's history, a former police chief now faces trial based on evidence collected from the national police archives, a labyrinth of dark rooms found by chance in 2005 when an explosion tore through a dilapidated building being used as a munitions dump.

...which makes it particularly disappointing to contrast with this story about possible legal limitations to the use of official documents in the country:
Guatemalan bill would classify military, diplomatic records as confidential (Journalism in the Americas)

For recent news on Guatemala, see also Mike's round-up at Central American Politics.

And I can't end before remarking on the conviction of judge Baltasar Garzon in Spain. This is a blow for human rights, memory and justice across the world, if you ask me, and Pagina 12's title page just about says it all.

Baltasar Garzón, judge who pursued dictators, brought down by wiretapping (Guardian)

Spain's Stolen Babies

I just watched the episode of BBC2's This World: Spain's Stolen Babies, and it was pretty amazing, especially viewed through the lens of my interest in Argentina.

In short, it seems that many babies were taken from new mothers during the Franco regime and sold. The women were told their babies were stillborn or had died shortly after birth. Although they were not disappeared people as in Argentina, there are a number of startling parallels, such as:

- The involvement of the Catholic church. Several witnesses said that they had bought babies from priests or were told of their child's "death" by nuns working in the hospitals.
- An ideological aspect in which children were taken from "unsuitable" (left-wing, unmarried) parents and placed with more "appropriate" (pro-regime) parents.
- A fear of/respect for authority which made it difficult to question what was said by doctors and other professionals, coupled with a certain amount of turning-a-blind-eye from certain sectors. In Spain, the situation has been complicated by the fact that mothers did not have to enter their names on the birth certificate - this was supposed to "protect" unmarried mothers - and that adoptive parents could be entered as biological parents. That makes DNA testing the only hope for a clear answer, and as I'll note below, that's not so easy either.

There was some mention that the number of children taken from their biological parents could run into the hundreds of thousands. That is a truly huge figure and there was little indication of how it was arrived at, so I'll reserve my judgement until I see some proof on that, but really, it doesn't matter. The stolen children of Argentina are a huge issue and there are "only" around 400-500 of them. Even if there was only a handful, it would still be a big scandal.

Unfortunately, as yet the Spanish government has resisted opening a full investigation into the stolen children. As the BBC points out, data protection laws prohibit DNA banks from sharing or cross-referencing data and the Spanish government has yet to fulfil its promise to set up a national DNA database. It sounds like the Spaniards affected need to take a leaf out of Argentina's book and protest very, very loudly to get this situation changed.

Spain's stolen babies and the families who lived a lie (BBC)

News Round-Up

Latin America and beyond

I've linked repeatedly to the Journalism in the Americas blog over the past few days because, it seems to me, freedom of the press/pressure on and threats against journalists is one of the major threats to democracy in the region. Mexico and Honduras were named as particularly problematic countries in this regard (see also Nicaragua link below)
2010 press freedom report highlights setbacks and dangers for journalists (Journalism in the Americas)

Chile

Chile's draconian anti-abortion legislation is a legacy of the dictatorship
Chile: where abortion isn't an option (Guardian)

Colombia

Colombia may be able to move on from its extended period of civil conflict, conference attendants hope
A Chance for Peace (IPS)

Nicaragua

The headline speaks for itself
Nicaraguan journalist reports new death threats after investigating electoral finances (Journalism in the Americas)

Peru

Yep, filling your armed forces with violent criminals who didn't choose to be there sounds like an ideal way to create a modern, ethical army
Fujimori to evaluate military draft proposal for criminals, gang members (Peruvian Times)

Spain

No, Spain has not suddenly jumped continents, but it's interesting to draw parallels, and to my shame, I had never heard of the [attempted] coup of 23 February, 1981
February 23, 1981: "El 23-F" (Memory, Amnesia and Politics)

HRW Film Festival, London 23 March - 1 April

If you're in the London area around the end of March, you may be interested in the Human Rights Watch Film Festival. Latin American related films are:

Familia (2010, dir. Mikael Wiström and Alberto Herskovits, focusing on Peru/Spain)

Granito (2011, dir. Pamela Yates, focusing on Guatemala)

Impunity (2010, dir. Juan José Lozano and Hollman Morris, focusing on Colombia)

When the Mountains Tremble (1983, dir. Pamela Yates, focusing on Guatemala)

'Desaparecidos' by Gervasio Sánchez

The work of Spanish photographer Gervasio Sánchez is displayed in an exhibition being held simultaneously at three sites in Spain. Sánchez draws parallels between incidences of forced disappearance in countries such as Argentina, Chile, Guatemala, Iraq and Cambodia.

El Pais has done a multimedia special on the exhibition, which looks beautiful.

Thanks to Kathy Korcheck and Amazilia for drawing my attention to this.

Spain: Against Impunity

Here's a video from Spain with famous figures including Pedro Almodóvar and Javier Bardem drawing attention to the disappeared from the Franco era (Spanish only). Very moving.



Thanks to decolonizing solidarity for drawing my attention to this one.

Argentina/Spain: Turning the Tables

Spain's adherence to the principle of universal justice led judge Baltasar Garzon, now himself facing trial, to pursue Argentine human rights abusers, among others. Now it's Argentines who are looking for redress for crimes committed during the Spanish Franco regime.

The three cases being presented in Argentina on Wednesday are the civil war shooting deaths of Spanish citizens Severino Rivas, Elias Garcia Holgado and Luis Garcia Holgado, and Argentine Vicente Garcia Holgado. The plaintiffs, both Argentines, are Dario Rivas, son of the first victim, and Ines Garcia Holgado, the niece and grand-niece of the others.

The plaintiffs want the Argentine courts to expand the case to include any murders and disappearances committed by Franco's forces between July 17, 1936, the day before Franco's military turned against Spain's Republican government, and June 15, 1977, when Spain held its first democratic elections following the dictator's death in 1975.

Argentines Try Probing Crimes of Franco's Spain (NY Times)

Argentinian Court Considers Spanish Civil War Inquiry (Guardian)

Relatives of Franco's victims file lawsuit in Argentina (AFP)

Spain/Lat Am: Good News/Bad News

First the good news: Spain has approved the extradition of Julio Alberto Poch to Argentina. The Dutch-Argentine pilot is accused of flying some of the 'death flights' in which prisoners were thrown, still alive, into the Rio de la Plate estuary during the dictatorship. Ah hem, I am aware that I have reported this before, in January, but extradition procedures are long and convoluted things; at least it seems that progress is still being made.

Spain Approves Extradition of Pilot to Argentina (NY Times)

Now the bad: renowned Spanish judge Baltasar Garzón is apparently to face trial on charges of overreaching his powers in his investigation of the disappeared from the Franco regime. This will be close to the hearts of many Latin Americans, and others, who have followed Garzón's tireless pursuing of Pinochet and Scilingo, among others. One can only echo the words of the New York Times editorial:

The real crimes in this case are the disappearances, not Mr. Garzón’s investigation.

An Injustice in Spain (NY Times)
Spanish Judge Garzon Faces Trial over Franco Probe (BBC)
Profile: Judge Baltasar Garzón (BBC)

News Round-Up

Brazil

A bill awaiting a vote in the Chamber of Deputies would permit documents classified as "ultrasecret" to remain sealed forever by allowing an unlimited number of 25-year renewals

Brazilian lawmakers want to keep documents secret for 75 years (Journalism in the Americas)

Colombia
Mass graves uncovered in Colombia (Presente!)

Peru

Gen. Delgado is accused of aggravated homicide of 11 students and kidnapping of six others, Gen. David Jaime Sobrevilla of the murder of one student and the kidnapping of five, and Gen. Pérez of the kidnapping of eight students.

Generals on Trial for Murders of 36 Students (IPS)

Spain/World
Spain's Most Famous Judge May Be Suspended (IPS)

News Round-Up

Chile
Looking for the Pinochet link in false accounting plea by British arms giant (Mercopress)

Guatemala
Eterna Primavera, Eterna Tirania (Guatemala Solidarity Network)

Peru
La Teta Asustada y las mujeres victimas de violencia sexual (CNDDHH)
Comision Vargas Llosa convoca a todos los arquitectos y arquitectas (Espacio de memoria)

Spain/Latin America
Spanish Judge Baltasar Garzon Could Go on Trial (Memory, Amnesia and Politics)

News Round-Up 30/08/2009

Argentina
The Unfinished Story of the "Disappeared" (IPS)

Colombia
Justice for Indigenous Leader's Murder - 21 Years On (IPS)

Guatemala/Spain/Latin America
Spain Steps Down: Universal Jurisdiction and the Guatemalan Genocide Cases (Dirty Wars and Democracy)