No Justice for Putis?

A moving piece by Beatrice Merino, Peru's Ombudswoman (Defensora del Pueblo)...

Imagine that one day you answer the military’s offer for protection from terrorist attacks. Imagine that because you were convinced that you were protected beside the military base, you headed back to your town to bring other campesinos, including your wife and children, along with you.

Imagine that after a few days tragedy strikes, that the military from whom you expected protection turned into criminals. The women are raped before being killed, the men are deceived into digging their own graves and 19 children under the age of seven are killed to make sure there will be no trace in the future. Can you imagine something like this? Well, this is how it happened...

Full translation in the Peruvian Times

And the original, No hay justicia para Putis? (La Republica)

Peru: Putis

Just a brief note that La Republica has assembled its articles on the exhumations at Putis into a special section.

Putis, 24 años despues.

Argentina: Menendez Gets Life

General Luciano Benjamin Menendez, who had ultimate responsibility over detention centres including La Perla, has been sentenced to life imprisonment for his part in the killing of 4 'dissidents' in 1977. And, what is more, he will actually spend the rest of his life in jail: not under house arrest, not in a military institution, but in an actual jail.

Anyone who feels a mite sorry for the octogenarian prisoner might consider his own closing statement to the court:

Menéndez justified the repression of "Marxist subversion," describing it as "defensive efforts" in response to guerrilla attacks. He said Argentina "is the first country to bring victorious soldiers to trial."

Completely unrepentant, the former general said "the terrorists who were illegal before are now legal" and "the guerrillas of the 1970s are now in power."

But "I am confident that they will not be able to carry out their aim of imposing their authoritarian regime on us," he added, to the indignation of the families of the dictatorship’s victims.

Would he have shown any mercy to an infirm 'subversive'? I don't think so.

No House Arrest for Elderly Former General (IPS)

Peru: Quick Link Time

I came across this blog by Ash Kosiewicz who has been working with the Peruvian Forensic Anthropology Team on exhumations in Putis; although this has been widely covered by the international media, it's interesting to read the perspective of someone involved in the work.

El Salvador: Holocaust Hero Remembered

Thanks to Tim's El Salvador Blog for drawing my attention to the story of Jose Arturo Castellanos, a Salvadoran diplomat who issued fake Salvadoran papers to Hungarian Jews, saving from the gas chambers:

Unsung Saviour (Washington Post)

Argentina: Biblioteca Nacional

It veers a little from the usual subject of this blog, but not too much: Clarin has a photo slideshow of the wonderful Argentine national library today, where I was lucky enough to spend a little time researching the 1976-1983 dictatorship, and which definitely holds memories for me. The library is a huge concrete pile, certainly not pretty, and staffed with the standard officiously bureaucratic types you often find in Latin American institutions, but it does have wonderful views from the inside.

Silencio, biblioteca (Clarin)

News Headlines

Argentina: on the hunt for Aribert Heim, Nazi-hunter says he's closing in on 'Dr Death' (Yahoo)

Argentina: the 14th anniversary of the attacks on the AMIA, Jewish cultural centre in Buenos Aires, in which 85 people died.
En un nuevo aniversario del atentado a la AMIA, volvieron los reclamos al Gobierno y la Justicia (Clarin)

Peru: this can't be good for Peruvian President Alan Garcia. IPS is reporting that members of the shadowy paramilitary group Rodrigo Franco Commandos (CRF) are to be prosecuted for crimes committed during Garcia's first administration (1985-90). There are also alleged links between the CRF and the Colina Group.
Aprista Party Members Under Investigation for '80s Crimes (IPS)