Peru Event: Arte por la memoria

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)

Peru: Museum of Memory Update

The 'Museo de la Memoria' will now, apparently, be named 'Lugar de la Memoria' (place or site of memory).

"The word museum is associated with an institution that preserves the past and we want the "Site of Memory" to be a reconstruction of the violence in Peru, giving a more worthy, fairer, more accurate view of the historical facts", said Vargas Llosa in a press conference.
(trans mine from El Museo de la Memoria en Peru cambia de nombre por Lugar de la Memoria)

The term is, of course, familiar to those interested in memory studies, coined as it was by French historian Pierre Nora. Nora's lieux de memoire are not necessarily actual places, but can be objects or ideas. According to Nora, however, these sites of commemoration are only needed because 'true' memory has been lost.

Modern memory is, above all, archival. It relies entirely on the materiality of the trace, the immediacy of the recording, the visibility of the image. What began as writing ends as high fidelity and tape recording. The less memory is experienced from the inside the more it exists only through its exterior scaffolding and outward signs-hence the obsession with the archive that marks our age, attempting at once the complete conservation of the present as well as the total preservation of the past.
(Nora, 'Between Memory and History: Les Lieux de Memoire', 1989, p. 13)

One can somehow sympathise with this view when thinking about the setting up of memorial exhibitions. But I can only assume that Vargas Llosa and his fellow commissioners do not regard the act of collecting and displaying material about the past with quite the same suspicion that Nora does, or they would hardly be bothering in the first place. It remains to be seen, however, how the new museum will engage with the thorny business of memory and official history in a post-conflict society.

Vargas Llosa is making a start by meeting with the commanding general of the Peruvian army, Otto Guibovich, today. Guibovich, naturally, wants to promote military interests in the potential contents of the museum. The meeting is strictly behind closed doors, and it remains to be seen what will come of such discussions.

Vargas Llosa se reune este jueves con general Guibovich (La Republica)

Argentina: Campo de Mayo Trial Update

The prosecution today demanded a jail sentence of 25 years for Argentina's last dicator, Reynaldo Bignone, and five other former generals. The elderly men are accused of being ultimately responsible for 25 cases of forced disappearance and dozens of cases of torture, illegal detentions and robbery committed in the detention centre known as Campo de Mayo.

Pedido de 25 años de carcel para el ultimo dictador (Pagina/12)
El estado pidio 25 años de prision para Bignone (Critica Digital)

The disappeared were also present in the public gallery of the trial:

(image from Colectivo Ex Presos Pol. y Sobrevivientes Rosario)

The photographs of the disappeared, which have featured in the marches of the Madres de Plaza de Mayo, on the bodies of relatives, and on the Internet, are now watching over the courtroom, having lost none of their symbolic power.

In another act of public, visual protest, the organisation of children of the disappeared, HIJ@S, is also drawing attention to the ongoing legal process:

Guatemala: Military Archives

"The release of the military archives would be a historic act of respect for human rights in Guatemala," the Dec. 21, 2009 letter says. "National security would be strengthened by reaffirming a state of law and bringing to justice those responsible for massive human rights violations."

Human rights groups call for greater openness in the treatment of military archives in Guatemala.

The Best-Kept Secrets - The Military's (IPS)

Argentina: Von Wernich Still Saying Mass

More than two years after he was sentenced to life in prison for crimes against humanity committed during the 1976-1983 dictatorship in Argentina, former police chaplain Christian von Wernich has not been penalised by the Catholic Church.

IPS found out that the 71-year-old priest even celebrates mass in prison.

Von Wernich was sentenced on Oct. 9, 2007 by a court in the city of La Plata, 57 km southeast of Buenos Aires, as an accomplice in the murders of seven members of the Peronist guerrilla organisation Montoneros, which was active in the 1970s, 31 cases of torture, and 42 cases of deprivation of freedom during Argentina's dirty war.

Torture Priest Still Celebrating Mass - Behind Bars (IPS)

Argentina: RIP Tomas Eloy Martinez

The fine Argentine author Tomas Eloy Martinez has died aged 75. Martinez's works are highly relevant for the themes of this blog and he was himself forced into exile during the Presidency of Isabel Peron in 1975. I read Santa Evita just before I started my Master's on Argentina and it impressed me deeply - I may need to dig it out again in his memory.

Argentine author Martinez dies at age 75 (AP)