Brazil: 50th anniversary of coup

Here is a round-up of some of the coverage of the 50th anniversary of the overthrow of Brazilian president Joao Goulart.

The BBC reports how current president Dilma Rousseff stressed the importance of remembering the coup, explaining "We owe this to those who died and disappeared, owe it to those who were tortured and persecuted, owe it to their families. We owe it to all Brazilians." It also provides a video on the "house of death" and how its sole survivor has been helping the truth commission to identify torturers. There are plans to turn the site into a memorial.

In addition, BBC Brasil's Pablo Uchoa recalls the story of his father, who was detained during the dictatorship. Inocencio was long reluctant to discuss his experiences but is now also helping the truth commission.

The day after the coup anniversary, Brazil's defence minister agreed to investigate military facilities where human rights abuses were believed to have been committed during the dictatorship, reports the New York Times.The news was revealed in a statement on the truth commission's website. It is a step forward against impunity, as also discussed by The Pan-American Post.

At the National Security Archive, Peter Kornbluh discusses attempts to achieve the declassification of U.S. documents on the covert operations that contributed to the Brazilian coup and argues that now is the time to use declassified U.S. historical records as a unique diplomatic tool.

Transitional Justice in Brazil provides a far fuller round-up than I have done...

Peru: The Quipu Project

The New Internationalist has an article on Peru's Quipu Project, which brings together new technology and an old idea (the Inca mnemonic device of knotted strings known as the quipu).

Combining low-tech (mobile) phone and high-tech (VOIP) internet technology, survivors are able to record and listen to themselves and each other, and to connect with the rest of the world. - See more at: http://newint.org/sections/agenda/2013/12/01/peru-women-cellphone-justice/#sthash.pKOe2oTt.dpuf

Combining low-tech (mobile) phone and high-tech (VOIP) internet technology, survivors are able to record and listen to themselves and each other, and to connect with the rest of the world. - See more at: http://newint.org/sections/agenda/2013/12/01/peru-women-cellphone-justice/#sthash.pKOe2oTt.dpuf

Combining low-tech (mobile) phone and high-tech (VOIP) internet technology, survivors are able to record and listen to themselves and each other, and to connect with the rest of the world. - See more at: http://newint.org/sections/agenda/2013/12/01/peru-women-cellphone-justice/#sthash.pKOe2oTt.dpuf

It involves using mobile and internet technology to record the testimony of victims of forced sterilization, who are largely women from isolated areas. What a great idea to allow their voices to be heard. 

Cellphone justice for sterilized women (New Internationalist)
Quipu Project

Cellphone justice for sterilized women

Combining low-tech (mobile) phone and high-tech (VOIP) internet technology, survivors are able to record and listen to themselves and each other, and to connect with the rest of the world. - See more at: http://newint.org/sections/agenda/2013/12/01/peru-women-cellphone-justice/#sthash.pKOe2oTt.dpuf

Combining low-tech (mobile) phone and high-tech (VOIP) internet technology, survivors are able to record and listen to themselves and each other, and to connect with the rest of the world. - See more at: http://newint.org/sections/agenda/2013/12/01/peru-women-cellphone-justice/#sthash.pKOe2oTt.dpuf

Combining low-tech (mobile) phone and high-tech (VOIP) internet technology, survivors are able to record and listen to themselves and each other, and to connect with the rest of the world. - See more at: http://newint.org/sections/agenda/2013/12/01/peru-women-cellphone-justice/#sthash.pKOe2oTt.dpuf

Combining low-tech (mobile) phone and high-tech (VOIP) internet technology, survivors are able to record and listen to themselves and each other, and to connect with the rest of the world. - See more at: http://newint.org/sections/agenda/2013/12/01/peru-women-cellphone-justice/#sthash.pKOe2oTt.dpuf

Peru: Not one, but 15,000 voices

I had an email from the guys at EPAF, the Peruvian Forensic Anthropology Team, bringing my attention to their campaign "Not one, but 15,000 voices", which focuses on the more than 15,000 Peruvians that were “disappeared” during the period of political violence (1980-2000). It includes a series of videos, of which I've embedded one above, with some relatives telling their experiences in their own words, subtitled in English and with images by photographer Jonathan Moller (whom I've written about before).

The clips are sobering, but it's also important to hear people testifying about their experience. In the English-speaking world, I think we still don't really have an idea of Peru as a country particularly affected by "disappearance" - Argentina, perhaps, yes, but Peru? - and we also don't have much opportunity to hear people speaking directly about what happened, especially Quechua speakers. Check out more of the videos and information at EPAF's English-language page: Not one, but 15,000 voices.

Argentina: Victoria Montenegro

The online edition of the New York Times yesterday published a detailed article on Victoria Montenegro, a disappeared child (now adult, of course), which discusses very well the complexities and emotional turmoil of such cases.

Brought up by a military father who recounted his involvement in "battles" against "subversives", Montenegro eventually had to learn that he had been involved in the killing of her biological parents and she ultimately testified against him in court.

“I grew up thinking that in Argentina there had been a war, and that our soldiers had gone to war to guarantee the democracy,” she said. “And that there were no disappeared people, that it was all a lie.” [...]
By 2000, Ms. Montenegro still believed her mission was to keep Colonel Tetzlaff out of prison. But she relented and gave a DNA sample. A judge then delivered jarring news: the test confirmed that she was the biological child of Hilda and Roque Montenegro, who had been active in the resistance.

This is a good illustration of why the Grandmothers support compulsory DNA testing, I would say. It's all very well for us to say that adults should have the right to choose; but people who have been indoctrinated their entire lives by people they believe to be their parents cannot very easily just turn around and change that point of view. Obviously, they are likely to see DNA testing as a betrayal of their "parents".

Slowly, she got to know her biological parents’ family.
“This was a process; it wasn’t one moment or one day when you erase everything and begin again,” she said. “You are not a machine that can be reset and restarted.”

Daughter of Argentina's "Dirty War", raised by the man who killed her parents (New York Times)

Guatemala: Testimonies of Indigenous Rape Victims

“I didn’t speak to anyone, I kept my mouth shut and suffered all the pain alone. I went to Mexico to escape, but today I’m here to demand justice so that people know what I suffered,” she said.

Indian Women Raped by Soldiers Seek Justice in Guatemala (Latin American Herald Tribune)

Guatemala: Genocide Trial

A quick link to Kate Doyle's excellent account of testifying as an expert witness in the Guatemala genocide trial in Spain. I was also interested to read that another expert testimony came from Pamela Yates, who was co-director of the superb documentary on Peru, State of Fear.

A Personal Account of Testifying at a Guatemalan Genocide Trial (Unredacted)

See also:
Guatemala: Army Records Spur Hopes for Justice (IPS)

Chile: Ex-conscripts Willing to Testify

"Our mission was to stand guard outside, and listen to their screams," said former draftee Jose Paredes, who described his service at the Tejas Verdes torture center in an AP interview. "They would end up destroyed, torn apart, their teeth and faces broken."

"There are things that I've always said I will take to the grave," Paredes said, his grizzled face running with tears as he named a half-dozen officers who he said gave the orders. "I've never told this to anyone."

Some Chilean former conscripts are saying that they will testify about their actions under the Pinochet regime in exchange for immunity from prosecution. Now, in general I'm against amnesty laws and the like, but I can see that there is an argument for protecting these, the lowest ranks of the machinery of terror, in order to receive valuable information about the major perpetrators. Many of the soldiers were just teenagers and clearly under extreme pressure to carry out the orders given to them - refusing could well have been fatal.

Chile: Old soldiers ready to tell secrets of coup (AP)

Peru: Edilberto Jiménez

I tend to write about photographers in preference to other types of artists. It's what I know. But I'm going to make an exception for Edilberto Jiménez, known principally as a retablista*, whose drawings of Ayacucho are some of the most moving I have ever seen [full disclaimer: I have met Jiménez, but only briefly].

His book Chungui: Violencia y trazos de memoria, which I have in the first edition, has now been reissued in a corrected and extended version. It's a combination of reproductions of his drawings and testimonies of local people from Chungui about their experiences at the hands of both Shining Path and the armed forces. Warning: it's strong stuff. In the region of Chungui, an estimated 1,300 people died in 1983-84 alone. Top academic on Sendero, Carlos Ivan Degregori, notes that if this proportion of the population was transferred to Lima, it would be the equivalent of wiping out the entire districts of La Molina, Miraflores, San Isidro, Surco, Surquillo, Villa María del Triunfo and Villa El Salvador (source of states and image above, this article).



Correspondingly, the book contains details of truly nightmarish proportions. The images shown here are by no means the most explicit. The simplicity of the black and white drawings only serves to highlight the horrors they depict, just as the direct, understated nature of the testimonies accentuates their contents. Photographs are fascinating documents, but for obvious reasons, there are no photographs of Sendero massacres actually taking place; this artwork is a different way of expressing memory, but one which can have a truly important connection to emotion.

More information on the book and images here.

* A retablo is a box with modelled figures inside, often of religious or everyday scenes. In recent years some examples have included scenes of the violence of past decades.

Guatemala Update

Further to my post on the sentencing of Felipe Cusanero for forced disappearance in Guatemala, I've come across an excellent post by an observer at the trial, read it here. (via the Guatemala Solidarity Network)

Peru: 15 Years with Sendero

La Republica's cover story today is the testimony of "Pedrito", who has spent almost his entire life as a slave of the Shining Path.

Pedrito was part of what was known as "la masa", the mass, charged with carrying equipment and provisions from main bases to temporary encampments and with the transportation of drugs.

According to the report, he was just 8 months old when he was abducted with his family by senderista forces in Huancavelica in 1991. Pedrito, his parents and brother were then forced to work for the guerrillas. His mother and brother died, the whereabouts of his father are unknown.

Pedro relates that his 'service' initially consisted of carrying firewood and water, then when he was 10 years old they taught him to fire a weapon, but this was only for training since he never participated in a terrorist attack. When he was 13 years old he learnt to read and write.

And Maoist doctrine? Pedro says that the 15 children, later adolescents, who were brought up with him in the 'support base', received two hours of doctrine by a teacher, but he didn't let them read a book. [...]

"You saw injustice in the food, our lunch was almost always a soup with maize or yuca, despite the fact that we knew there was a lot of money because the drug traffickers paid very well for the transport of drugs", he said. [trans mine]

Eventually, despite knowing virtually no other way of life, the teenage Pedro seized his chance and escaped. He remarks that he has no official documents, which will prove an obstacle to him in any attempt to found a 'normal' life.

"Todo mi vida vivi como un cautivo de Sendero Luminoso" (La Republica)

Peru: Putis Witness Testimony

Spanish-language media and blogs have been turning their attention to Putis again in the past week as the devastated community prepares to bury its dead, finally. Now, English speaking readers have access to a heartbreakingly moving account of the horror of the massacre and its aftermath.

Aside from Bertha Fernandez's story, I was also struck by her mention of being reunited with her cousin through the National Victims' Registry - a perfect example of why this is an important service which deserves consistent, adequate funding.

It was 25 years ago but we can never forget what happened there. Sometimes I try to forget it but I can’t. I relive it in my dreams. We can never really live a normal life because the memory is always with us.

Almost all my family were killed. Only we three sisters survived – my younger siblings together with my parents all died. My uncles and aunts and their families were all killed, all of our family. Only we survived and here we still are, just three....

'Almost all my family were killed' (Guardian Weekly)

Argentina: Victoria Donda (2)

I've written about Victoria Donda before (here and here), but now there is an extract from her new book, 'Mi nombre es Victoria', in today's Pagina/12. As a member of the Argentine Chamber of Deputies, Donda is a public figure, so it's hardly surprising that her history at the child of disappeared parents, brought up by a military repressor, causes interest.

My name is Victoria. That is the title of the book. It contains the story of the woman who was always Victor but was Analía as well. Who was Analía without stopping being Victoria. The story is told by Victoria Donda, the young woman who recovered her identity* in 2004 and shortly afterwards became the first appropriated child of disappeared parents to become a national Deputy.

Victoria's family history covers a truly extraordinary cross-section of Argentine society. Her biological parents were María Hilda Pérez and José María Donda, both murdered because of their political activism. She was born in the ESMA and, in the little time available before she was killed, her mother named her Victoria. But José Donda's brother Adolfo - Victoria's biological uncle - was a torturer and may even have been involved in the torture of his sister-in-law, so her family really crosses the dividing line of ideologies in Argentina. This is really unusual since military men very often came from military families, and similarly political leftists ('subversives') were often targeted as families, so one family with both extremes among such close relations is rare.

"My story... is not just mine, that of Victoria or Analía, but it is the history of Argentina, a history of intolerance, violence and lies which continues today, and which will not end until the last of the babies stolen during the dictatorship can recover his or her true identity, until the last of those responsible for that barbarity is judged for their crimes, until the last of the thirty thousand disappeared can be given a name, a history and a cause of death, and until the last of their relatives can mourn."

Victoria was brought up by the man known in the book as Raúl, real name Juan Antonio Azic, a torturer in the ESMA. She acknowledges that her feelings towards him are still mixed.

"I'm very clear about the fact that I was appropriated*... but yes, I feel ambiguous towards my appropriator... Nobody says that you necessarily have to hate your appropriators, not even the Grandmothers."

The article then provides a series of extracts from the book, beginning in July 2003 when a judge ordered the arrest of Raúl, who Victoria, then known as Analía, believed was her father.

At one in the morning the phone rang.

"Analía, it's me", said Raúl, in a tone even more serious that the one he had had a few hours previously. "I need you to wait at home a little longer. In an hour, call this number - " and he gave me the number while I noted it down like a machine, with one eye on the television.

An hour later I called, always with my eyes fixed on the television screen, without having been able to sleep or do anything other than wait. Before they picked up the telephone I knew, from the shivers which ran over my spine, from Raul's tone the last time he had called, that it wouldn't be good news. When I heard that the voice which answered the phone was not his, it confirmed my worst fears.

"Is that Analía? Your father is in hospital. He has just shot himself."

Raul had tried to commit suicide, shooting himself in the mouth with his regulation revolver. Maybe he thought he didn't have the strength or the will to face his past, to see the dead return to the silent tombs, and he thought that the best way for his family was to free them from what was to come: jail, the neighbours' looks... and more. Much more.

But he failed. The bullet had not damaged his brain, and Raul was in an induced coma in a room in the Naval Hospital. I didn't have time to cry. Not yet. Graciela [her adopted mother] had always been a woman of fragile health and I had to take care of everything. I went upstairs to wake my sister and my boyfriend, who had stayed over; together we woke Graciela and I called a taxi to take us to the hospital. When I entered the room where my father I just went in without thinking about what I was going to find. There, opposite me was my father, who I had seen just a few hours before, unconscious and without a face. The shot had disfigured him.

Almost as if it had been planned from the start, at the very moment that I left the room and went into the waiting room, the explanation for Raul's actions was to be seen in a television mounted on the wall. On the screen was an information red and yellow table from Cronica TV detailing the extradiction request, the list of the wanted and in the list, Raul's name. It didn't take long for his suicide attempt to take its place in such a table, completely exposing our family to the eyes of the entire country. Then I finally understand why he had taken this tragic decision, but I didn't know why to cry: for my father's suicide attempt, for the suffering of my mother, or for the reasons for his suicide attempt? Suddenly, my father was no longer an innocent fruit and vegetable merchant from Dock Sud, but one of those people whose incarceration I had been campaigning for for years. The images of Raul helping me out with money, some old furniture, or just giving me lifts to and from places like the Azucena Villaflor become incongruous and strange when one thought that the woman who gave her name to the cultural centre was a disappeared person, abducted by the task forces during the dictatorship. The same task forces to which Raul had, apparently, belonged.

Full of guilt about her newly discovered family connections given her own involvement with the human rights movement, Analia/Victoria contacts the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo. They reassure her, but little does she know that they already suspect that she herself is a child of disappeared parents and are investigating her case.

The article concludes,

It was two years since the girls from Hermanos [the organisation of siblings of the disappeared] contacted me for the first time, and more than a year since they told me that I was the daughter of disappeared people. And that 8 October, with 99.99% certainty**, finally I could say it, yell it to the four winds if I wanted. And I wanted to say it:

Now, my name is Victoria.

En primera persona (Pagina/12)

* Some of this vocabulary may not be totally familiar to those who have not heard much of the disappeared children of Argentina, but terms such as appropriators, repressors, recuperation of identity and so on are standard for the field.

** I assume she is referring to the results of the DNA test.

Bolivia/Argentina Testimonies

I was just browsing the Guardian Weekly online and found two pieces that may be of interest. In both cases, you don't often get to read such detailed first-person accounts (the result of interviews) in English.

The first is the story of Rufo Yanarico, a member of indigenous group the Red Ponchos in Bolivia.

The second is the testimony of Victoria Donda, the daughter of disappeared parents who only discovered her true identity as an adult.

Growing up with guerrillas

The Guardian reviews Laura Alcoba's book The Rabbit House, an account of her childhood in Argentina with her Montonero mother.

"People have said this is a story of stolen childhood," Alcoba says. "But I think it would be obscene to complain of my lost childhood when so many people lost their lives. It was violent, but it was a childhood all the same."

Growing up in Argentina's dirty war

Argentina: Death of Alleged Collaborator

An ex-disappeared person accused of collaborating with the military regime has killed himself before he could be arrested, according to Pagina/12. Their story, aptly headlined "a tragedy within the tragedy", details the life of Jose Baravalle, known as "El Pollo" (the chicken). He was abducted in 1976 and endured five days of torture before allegedly "breaking" and collaborating with the chief of police in Rosario. He is accused of then subsequently even participating in torture sessions himself.

After being located by Interpol in Italy, he threw himself off a bridge before he could be taken into custody.

Some of his former comrades condemned him; others saw him as a victim as well.

From the descriptions of torture which I have read - which included the technique known as "waterboarding", beatings, sensory deprivation, sexual assaults, and perhaps most horrifically electric torture with a cattle prod - I have no idea how many people could withstand this for any length of time. Naturally some people would have said or done anything to make the pain stop; this is, after all, the "point" of torture. I don't know how we can judge a person in such a position; even those who experienced it themselves cannot know how another person would react the same situation. There are no winners in this story.

Baravalle left a brief note which I will translate below:

I don't know what they think I know. This story will never end. I'm really sorry, but I think this is the only way to end it (...). It's terrible to go from being a victim to a villain. Some will celebrate: the true villains. I hope I'm the last victim of this barbarity(...).

My only crime is that I couldn't resist the torture. What is the human breaking point? I apologise to all my family and friends. I've already been through that and I was forgiven. I'm not going to go over it again. I'm going because this has to end. Goodbye.

Historia de una tragedia dentro de la tragedia (Pagina/12)

La carta que dejo El Pollo (Pagine/12)

Updated: here is a link to the blog of Baravalle's son. I am very touched by this story and have every sympathy for the Baravalle family.

Colombia: Witnesses to a Massacre

Video and (abridged) translation of a massacre by paramilitaries in Colombia in 2000, touching on issues of witnessing, human rights abuses, torture, and impunity:

"Everytime they killed someone, they played drums" (Plan Colombia and Beyond)