Chile: Memoria Rebelde

I had to post this video linked to by Adriana Goñi Godoy on Twitter, from Chilean hip-hop artist Subverso. The version I've found has subtitles in either Spanish or English, but also just visually the clip is amazing...

Uruguay: Amnesty law ruling

In an important ruling, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights has said that Uruguay must remove obstacles to prosecuting human rights offenses committed during its "dirty war" in the 1970s.

The case related specifically to María Claudia García Iruretagoyena de Gelman, the daughter-in-law of Argentine poet Juan Gelman.

As the New York Times explains,

Ms. Gelman was abducted in Buenos Aires in 1976 at age 19 while seven months pregnant. She was later transferred to a clandestine detention center in Uruguay. Her daughter, María Macarena Gelman, was born in captivity and left in a basket at the door of a Uruguayan police officer; the couple adopted her, giving them their name. The child’s grandfather, the Argentine poet Juan Gelman, tracked her down more than 20 years later and she restored her identity.

The court has now ruled that Uruguay must ensure that the amnesty must never again become an obstacle for investigations into the events of the dictatorship.

Human Rights Court calls on Uruguay to remove ‘dirty war’ amnesty law (Mercopress)
Court Condemns Uruguay for a Disappearance (New York Times)
OAS court: Uruguay must drop 'dirty war' amnesty (AP)
Macarena Gelman "conmovida" por la sentencia de la CIDH (Pagina/12)

And the truly interested can read the full ruling (in Spanish) here.

Argentina: 35th anniversary of the coup

Yesterday, 24th March, was the 35th anniversary of Argentina's last coup. First let's take a look at the front pages:
Anyone familiar with Pagina/12 editorial stance won't be surprised that they devoted their entire front page to the anniversary.
Tiempo chooses an interesting photo for its front page - the late president Nestor Kirchner supervising the removal of the official portraits of the junta leaders in 2004.

La Nacion and Clarin did not flag up the anniversary on their covers, but the former does have this very interesting video of the ESMA.

See also:
Argentina probes role of US financial institutions in dirty war (Latin America Activism)
Argentina recalls 35 years of one of its darkest periods in recent history (Mercopress)

Peru Round-Up

Alleged Shining Path terrorist is captured in Huanaco, Peru (Living in Peru)

Fujimorismo Candidates Allegedly Tied to Drug Trade (IPS)

Authorities investigate 18 police officers in VRAE (Peruvian Times)

Peruvian prosecutor charges owner of award-winning radio station with broadcast piracy (Journalism in the Americas)

Peru: Blog recommendation

Spanish speakers interested in Peruvian memory issues shouldn't miss Un dia en la memoria, which daily publishes illustrated pieces about some aspect of Peru's political violence that happened on that day. I'm not going to copy their images regularly, but here is an example below, and I encourage you to go and check it out for yourself.

Argentina: The night before the coup

"The commanders suggested, gently but firmly, that if the president holds power what she has to do is wield it."

On the eve of the anniversary of the 1976 coup, Argentine paper Perfil carries extracts from an interview with one of the leaders of that coup, Jorge Videla. He answered the questions in writing from his prison cell where he is serving life for crimes against humanity.

This is a really interesting account of the final months of 1975 and the beginning of 1976, when top army figures began holding private meetings in the face of president Isabel Peron's manifest lack of leadership. Videla describes a meeting in January 1976 in which the three leaders of the armed forces were asked what suggestions they could make to solve the political crisis. He claims that they produced a document to this effect, but the matter was then immediately dropped and never mentioned again.

The day before the coup, on 23 March 1976, they met with the defence minister José Alberto Deheza and told him they could not give Peron their support, saying it was her job to exercise power. And the rest, as they say, is history. But this stresses the combination of factors that go into provoking a coup: Argentina had a shaky democratic tradition and there had been five previous coups that century; institutions were weak; inflation was very high; the Montoneros had committed some emblematic acts of political violence; and Isabel Peron was undoubtedly an incapable president. None of this is to excuse Videla and co., on the contrary, but it is to see how these events could come about.

Videla: “Le dijimos a Isabel que no sabíamos cómo darle nuestro apoyo” (Perfil)
The night before the Argentine military coup 24 March 1976, according to Videla (Mercopress)

Chile: Obama's visit (2)

So, here's an update on how Obama's trip to Chile turned out. As expected, there was no apology, but Obama did say that would consider requests for US information regarding the deaths of Salvador Allende and another former Chilean president, Eduardo Frei Montalva, who died in suspicious circumstances in 1982.

Piñera responded that he would formally request the intelligence material on the matters. He also stressed the "equality" of the relationship between the two countries. To be frank, I don't imagine for a second that Obama sees Chile as an equal to the US, but I do agree that a great deal of progress has been made. A prompt request for any classified documents which could shed light on the Frei and Allende cases, and a swift reponse to this, would be another positive step.

Obama cites Latin Americans as examples for others (NY Times)

Frei Montalva, Allende's predecessor, was a leading Pinochet critic when he died in 1982 after hernia surgery in what many people consider mysterious circumstances.

Pinochet agents allegedly hung his body from a ladder, drained it of fluids and removed organs. Six people were charged last year in an alleged poisoning of Frei Montalva and a cover-up, but the judge in the case has failed to get formal support from the governments of Chile and the U.S. for uncensored files and other evidence.

Frei's son Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle, a former center-left president who lost to Pinera last year, met briefly with Obama on Monday. Chilean media quoted him as saying that he personally asked for help solving his father's murder and that Obama promised to cooperate.

Pinera's government formally supported the Frei investigation this year after a leaked U.S. Embassy cable suggested the case would never be solved.

Obama says US ready to help Chile in rights cases (AP)
US ready to help Chile solve human rights crimes but no apology for 1973 events (Mercopress)

Chilean President Sebastian Pinera said Tuesday that he'll accept President Barack Obama's invitation to formally request classified U.S. intelligence documents that may identify Chilean agents responsible for more than 1,200 human rights violations during the Pinochet dictatorship.

Pinera made this pledge — his most specific yet on Chile's unresolved human rights cases — during an interview with The Associated Press in which he described Obama's visit as a validation of his country's regional leadership and rejected complaints that it was short on concrete results.

[...]"If there's information that a friendly government such as the United States can provide to us, that advances the speed and strength of Chilean justice, of course we're going to ask for it," Pinera said.

AP Interview: Chile president to ask for CIA files (AP)