Argentina: "Malevo" Ferreyra

After the suicide of Mario "Malevo" Ferreyra, here are the verdicts on him:

"He did it to live on, to become a part of history. En Tucumán, after the character of [Antonio Domingo] Bussi and the dictatorship, a lot of people have internalised the theory of the 'firm hand', of law and order. And in this context, for a lot of people, "Malevo" Ferreyra wasn't a murderer, he administered justice."
- a journalist, who didn't want to give his name

"He wasn't a murderer like the human rights people say"
- a member of the police

"When we went into one of the dangerous areas, the criminals respected us, because he knew how to get respect"
- another police officer, presumably recalling how extradjudicial executions got things done in the barrios

"I'm going to make sure that there is justice. If I have to kill the son or the grandchild I'll do it"
- Ferreyra's widow

"The atmosphere is very tense and everyone knows that the people who surround el Malevo are people of action. The situation is complicated because, before he died, Ferreyra had threatened those who were accusing him."
- Laura Figeroa, human rights lawyer

All taken from:
La ultima amenaza del Malevo (Pagina/12)

Could there be a better illustration of the deep divisions in Argentine society?

El Comercio has an article on the military headquarters where part of the APEC summit is taking place. It's interesting although rather too optimistic at the end, to my mind. Here's my translation:

The Pentagonito, the military bunker in Lima in which the APEC summit is taking place, has a history of terror behind it. According to witnesses, various people were murdered there during the Fujimori regime (1990-2000).

The Ecuadorian sergeant Enrique Duchicela was one of them. As a worker at the embassy of his country in Lima, he was a spy. The Peruvian military discovered him and, with the help of torture carried out in the Pentagonito, obtained his confession. In the same location, he was incinerated, without complaints from Quito, for obvious reasons.

This story was told by Intelligence agent Jesús Sosa, one of the participants in the execution, and it, among other cases, is related in detail in the book "Death in the Pentagonito", by renowned investigative journalist Ricardo Uceda.

The Pentagonito is, in fact, the headquarters of the Peruvian Army. It got its popular name because of its pentagon-shaped perimeter. In its place for the summit has appeared the euphemistically named Convention Centre of the Ministry of Defense, because it was the location which could offer the most security for the important visitors.

During the government of Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000), which was so closely allied to the armed forced, it was a strategic centre. Even the head of state had an apartment there, in the tower from which there is a panorama over much of the city.

According to the testimony of Sosa, who is now in jail, there were Army Intelligence Service cells in the basement of the Pentagonito, where the baker Justiniano Najarro and students Keneth Azualdo and Javier Roca, who were suspected of being to the extremist armed group Sendero Luminoso, were held, tortured and murdered.

Their bodies were never found because, according to Sosa, they were cremated there too. In fact, this was the speciality of Sosa, an ex-member of military organisation the Colina Group, who was known in military circles by his alias "Kerosene".

After Fujimori's "self-coup" in 1992, prestigious opposition journalist Gustavo Gorriti and Samuel Dyer, a businessman who had clashed swords with presidential aide Vladimiro Montesinos, were taken there. Some say that their captors intended them to disappear, but they did not succeed as the case was made public and their location was leaked.

In any case, the illegal detention of Gorriti and Dyer has been classed as abduction and is part of Fujimori's trial on human rights charges.

But times have changed. Peru, with all its limitations, is now a democratic country, and the Pentagonito and its occupants are no longer feared [Ed. I wouldn't be so sure about that]. In fact, the site, in the middle-class district of San Borja, is favoured by hundreds of athletes who spend their weekends practicing in its grounds.

El Pentagonito, una historia con ingredentes de terror (El Comercio)

Argentina: Wanted HR Abuser Kills Himself on TV

This sounds incredible, but it's true. Former police chief Mario Ferreyra, who was about to be apprehended by his own former subordinates as he was wanted on charges of kidnapping and torture during the dictatorship, climbed on top of a water tank on his roof to give an interview to TV cameras. He then expressed love for his wife, produced a gun and shot himself in the head while the cameras kept on rolling. Um, wow.

The victims' families say the suicide was part of a pact of silence - that the ex-police chief would not testify against former colleagues accused of kidnapping and killing some of the tens of thousands of Argentines who died during a period that became known as the "Dirty war".

This may sound excessively cynical to outsiders, who would perhaps also suspect that few people would kill themselves rather than talk. But for the families who have spent the past thirty years battling repression, bureaucracy, impunity, and a wall of silence - sometimes at risk of their own lives - this is a soberly realistic judgement. Ferreyra was obviously heavily involved in the human rights abuses of the military regime, and he has effectively cheated the victims' families out of the chance to hear him testify in court.

Argentine man kills himself on TV (BBC)

And the Argentine media:
Un final a toda sangre para la television (Pagina/12)
Perseguido por la Policia, se suicido "el Malevo" Ferreyra ante la television (Critica Digital)

SOA/WHINSEC

Oh, by the way, this weekend is the annual vigil by School of the Americas Watch and friends, aimed at closing WHINSEC, formerly known as the SOA, in Fort Benning, Georgia. Just sayin'. There's a rather nice article on the subject linked to below, which does give both sides of the debate. I'll just leave you with this piece of astute analysis from the institution's public relations officer:

When asked about the negative aspects of WHINSEC, Rials said, "I don't believe there are any negatives."

Controversial school raises human rights questions, concerns (Marquette Tribune)

Related posts here and here.

Peru: Legacy of Forced Sterilizations

Peru's health ministry, known as Minsa, is to carry out a campaign focusing on the mental health of women who were forcibly sterilized during the Fujimori regime. The campaign, centred around the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, will enlist the help of Quechua-speaking medical personnel. According to congresswoman Hilaria Supa Huamán, there are many cases of women presenting symptoms of depression and resentment, as well as indications that the victims are discriminated against for not being able to conceive.
Realizarán campaña de salud a favor de víctimas de la anticoncepción forzada (La Republica)

Yes, I think I would feel pretty depressed and resentful if I had been tricked into a tubal ligation or a hysterectomy during a Caesarian section, or because I had been ordered to sign a blank consent form, or because I was desperately poor and the local health centre had promised me gifts if I underwent the procedure, or because the powerful local doctor had told me I had "too many children already". All these were reasons given why impoverished, highland women were sterilized. Some of them testified that they were literally physically forced into the operating theatre, but more commonly they were pressurised, coerced or deceived. They described not finding out what the operation meant until later. Again, it's no coincidence that the main targets of the sterilization campaign were indigenous women, whose very existence as poor, non-Spanish speaking, and with a tendency to have large families made them a problem for the State. In a widespread or systematic form, forced sterilization is classed as a crime against humanity.

Using gifts as bait, Peru sterilizes poor women (NY Times)
You can also watch a full half-hour documentary on the subject on Youtube here.

Peru: Fujimori Update

It is with a tired sigh that I report that Alberto Fujimori isn't feeling too well, again. This time,

A report from a medical team in the National Institute of Neoplastic Illnesses (INEN) was read in court, indicating that Fujimori has vascular insufficiency and high blood pressure, as well as risks of developing thrombosis and severe gastritis.

OK, a few more vague diagnoses and "risks", resulting in the usual recommendations that sitting in court isn't good for the poor baby. I seriously am getting impatient with this, mainly because if the court case somehow fell through at this stage it would be a disaster.

And, possibly for connected reasons, Fuji didn't show up for old pal Montesino's trial this week either, where he has been called as a witness. The trial is postponed until next week though, because Montesino's lawyer didn't turn up either(!).

Fujimori's defense begins presentation of evidence and medical report indicates health complications (Fujimori on Trial)

Fujimori is no-show at former spy chief Vladimiro Montesino's trial (Peruvian Times)

Argentina: Ulises Gorini on the Madres

"The Madres de Plaza de Mayo movement marks a before and after in Argentina history, in many respects. In this sense, you could say that its role is underestimated in our history. Perhaps the fact that it is a political movement which is still active, and that the history is too recent, leads certain political factions to obscure or underestimate the role played by the Madres de Plaza de Mayo in the last thirty-odd years."

This comment [trans. mine] is from Ulises Gorini, who has just published a second volume of his research into the Argentine Mothers. This book, La otra lucha (The Other Struggle) will continue the story from the transition to democracy in 1983 to 1986, when the Madres split into the two organisations which exist today.

Here's an extract from an interview with Gorini published in Pagina/12 and translated by me:

- What impression did the Madres have of the new era which began with the return to democracy, understood as the postdictatorial period?
- The Madres remain on alert, because when Alfonsín takes over he isn't a new character for them. They know him well. They also know his policies quite well. As well as the national government, they also know many members of parliament. And they also know that the judiciary will continue to be made up of an enormous majority (over ninety percent) of the same people were in office during the dictatorship. It was practically an unchanged judiciary, with some exceptions which Alfonsín introduces in the Federal Court in the capital city, which is going to be responsible for the famous Trial of the Junta. Therefore, they are on alert because they notice that there are a lot of people, too many, who they know how they acted under dictatorship and fear that ties and complicity remain. And so they remain in a state of alert. And what does this mean? Well, this is what they say during the last march under the dictatorship. They announce that the next week when they meet in the Plaza again, with Alfonsín in the Casa Rosada, "another struggle" will begin.

- Did Alfonsín's government see it as a contradiction that, under democracy, there was a resistance movement that was looking for "the impossible"?
- In the first place, Alfonsín's government - including before it even was the government - begins to put pressure on the Madres movement, with the idea that when the new constitutional authorities assume their offices, the Madres must change its role, its behaviour in politics. That, from when the new authorities take power, the Parliament, judiciary, and national government are those charged with managing the problems and legacy of State terrorism in Argentina. And, in any case, the Madres may play an accompanying role to these institutions, supporting the actions of these institutions.

- And how do the Madres react?
- The Madres aren't going to agree with this, on principle, because this pressure begins before the assumption of power and the Madres are not at all sure how Alfonsín is going to act. They aren't sure if they are going to agree with his policies or not. And in fact, the differences do show themselves very soon. Therefore, they plan for the resistance to continue. [...]

- What was the debate that occurred around the term "Aparición con vida" [literally "appearance with life", one of the Madres' main slogans]
"Aparición con vida" is born in the middle of the dictatorship. And it is born as a literal demand. That is to say, in the face of the all the dictatorship's announcements that all the disappeared were dead (sometimes, these were informal announcements, leaks, and at other times more formal attempts to establish the death of the disappeared), the women coin this phrase. But at the same time its meaning changes over time. When Alfonsín takes power, the Madres are aware that the majority of the disappeared have been murdered. But they were not trying to claim something absurd, impossible. Rather, this slogan stated the necessity of reconstructing everything that had happened and not simply using the word "dead" as the only word which is used for a situation which is much more complex, in which there had been abductions, tortures, oppression, hiding of bodies, and above all, people who had committed these crimes. Therefore, “Aparición con vida” raises the possibility, at this early moment, that the Conadep commission will end up by saying simply "they are dead" and will not take account of a much more complex reality.

"Se sigue subestimando el rol cumplido por las Madres" (Pagina/12)

Seriously, ladies and gentlemen, I've been messing with this translation all week and it's still rough around the edges and incomplete, but I think if I don't post it now the moment really will have passed. So here you go, and if you speak Spanish why don't you follow the link and read the bits I didn't get to translating...