News Round-up

I've been offline for a few days. Here's the best of what I found in my reader when I got back and what I wish I had more time to write on:

Argentina
Argentina identifies Dirty War victim from 1976 (BBC)

Brazil
Appeal Case For Notorious Torturer Postponed and Double Agent Denied Compensation (Transitional Justice in Brazil)
Brazil Amnesty (Two Weeks Notice)

Chile
Victims of Forced Disappearance Eligible to Vote in Chile (IPS)

Colombia
Amnesty Denounces Impunity for Human Rights Crimes (IPS)

Peru
Humala: Government Won’t Allow “Status Quo” In VRAE (Peruvian Times)
Peru Forced to Confront Deep Scars of Civil War (New York Times - there's a lot in this article: MOVADEF, Putis, the Lugar de la memoria...)
In Peru, wounds of civil war - Slide Show (New York Times)

Brazil: Medical expert promises revelations for truth commission

O Globo carries an interesting interview with retired medical examiner Harry Shibata, which Portugese speakers can read here. I've had a go at translating it (see also note):

 

The former director of the Medical Legal Institute (IML) in the 1970s, medical law expert Harry Shibata, says that he has revelations for the Truth Commission, which is investigating the crimes of the dictatorship. Aged 85 and living as a recluse in a two-storey house with a swimming pool in Alto de Pinheiros, Shibata denies the major accusation against him, that of falsifying reports and death certificates to cover up torture and deaths during the military regime.

The medical examiner carried out the autopsy on the journalist Vladimir Herzog, known as Vlado, who died under torture, but whose death was reported as suicide. Shibata is accused of having falsified numerous other reports. He conducted the report on Sonia Maria de Moraes Angel Jones, who, after being tortured, had her breasts pulled and was raped with a truncheon. In Shibata's version, she died in a shootout. Shibata was charged with hiding bodies by the public prosecution service following the discovery of the bones of political prisoners in the clandestine cemetery of Perus in São Paulo. In an exclusive interview with O Globo, he confirmed having carried out the report on Herzog, but denied having seen his body.

 

"I did not do the autopsy because the second expert does not participate, that is normal. He reads the report and talks to the person who did the examination. If he agrees, he signs. I did not say that it was suicide. The report said that he died of asphyxiation caused by hanging. Whether they hanged him or not, if it was suicide, homicide or an accident - this is not the function of the medical expert. That is for the inquest to say."

In spite of giving assurances that he had not seen Vlado's corpse, the medical examiner said that he had secrets to tell the commission and the widow of Vlado, Clarice Herzog, who lives 300 metres from his house. Asked if he would make a revelation, he answered:

"If I am asked to, yes. I don't want you to publish anything before the Truth Commission knows it. For you, it's a scoop, for them, it's a confusion. I don't know what they are really going to be looking for."

Although he denies having seen signs of torture on the political prisoners, Shibata says that it exists "everywhere in the world":

"I don't believe that there is any police force which does not torture," he says, without dismissing the method as a form of investigation. "Look, you have to think in terms of fighting rapists, murderers, evil, in a way that may be cruel, I don't know.

Shibata says that he never made a false report:

"Absolutely never. Think about it. I have to be true to myself. Spiritually, I have a strict doctrine. Jesus always preached the truth, 'Truly, truly, I say to you'," he said, adding that he was going to "correct the media": "It's all lies".

The most famous medicolegal expert of the military dictatorship says that he never saw a "dragon's chair", used for the administration of electric torture.

"What is the dragon's chair? Do you have any idea? I never saw one," he says in conclusion, after the report mentions the electric shocks. "Oh, it gives shocks? So it's a sort of electric chair? If you're saying that the dragon's chair, the electric chair... Shocks don't leave any trace."

Despite having said that he had "honestly" never found any trace of torture, the expert confirms,

"I know that there was torture, but I'm not getting into it".

Shibata denies that the IML received instructions not to describe the general state of the bodies it autopsied and ignore signs of torture.

"There was no interference. The police always asked if the police request had been received, the request for autopsy. If you have a haematoma, we describe the haematoma. Whether you fell or were beaten - that's not our job."

If it's down to Harry Shibata, the whereabouts of the disappeared from the military dictatorship will remain unknown.

"What often happens is that those who do these things do them very well and we will never know. Disappeared is disappeared. I don't know where they are. It's difficult to speculate on how the disappearance was done, isn't it? If the guy was buried under a false name, that happens a lot," he says, talking about the bones in Perus. "The problem has nothing to do with me or with the IML. Burying people is the job of the cemetery."

The expert says that he did not know the president Dilma [Rousseff] during the military regime because he does not follow politics.

"I think she's doing a good job. I voted for [Jose] Serra. I don't know Dilma, I never heard of her in the '70s. I'm not really political. When Carlos Marighella died, I did the autopsy. I didn't know who he was. He died of gunshot wounds. I only found out later when asked to rush the report, the police asked for it urgently.

Shibata explains that, on the orders of the police chief Celso Teles, he did not carry out the autopsy on the body of Sérgio Paranhos Fleury, one of the greatest symbols of the repression, who supposedly died falling off boat in Ilhabela in 1979. According to Capixaba police chief Claudio Guerra in his book "Memories of a dirty war", Fleury was killed by the military and the accident was staged:

"Teles said, look, there's no need for an autopsy. That was wrong. When the death is violent the medical examiner always has to be called. But they called an ordinary doctor. The law says that if there is no medical examiner, the report needs to be done by two doctors. I think it's a fantasy [the assassination theory], but the suspicion exists because the autopsy was not done properly."

Note on the translation: This has been done to the best of my ability and as far as I'm aware, it is correct. However I'd like to be clear that Portuguese is a relatively new language of mine and I cannot rule out the existence of errors. Comments and corrections welcome, anyone wanting to use this translation themselves takes responsibility for doing so and would be well advised to check it first.

Legista da ditadura prometerevelações na comissão (O Globo)

Brazil: Dilma Rousseff to receive apology for torture

Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff is among a group of people to receive apologies and reparations from the state government of Rio de Janeiro for torture suffered during the military dictatorship.

120 people are to be compensated in June, according to a spokesperson. Brazilian daily O Globo reports that 244 people will be issued reparations by 2013. Of the 1,113 victims of the regime who had filed claims, 895 have had their cases approved by the relevant commission and 650 have already been compensated.

The president is said to be donating the money - BRL 20,000 or around $10,000 - to the organisation Torture Nunca Mais. 

"It is an acknowledgement of those who fought for democracy. The money does not solve anything. What is important is the recognition of the state. We cannot forget the past," said Andrea Sepulveda, head of Defence and Promotion of Human Rights in the Rio government.

O Globo also notes that the president has filed similar claims in the states of São Paulo and Minas Gerais, where she was interrogated, tried, judged and sentenced. Rousseff was imprisoned in 1970, served three years, and was tortured.

Brazil: An Apology for Torture (NY Times)
Brazil: Rousseff to receive apology, compensation for torture during dictatorship (Global Post)
Dilma Rousseff será indenizada pelo governo do Rio (O Globo)

Peru: MRTA/Shining Path

This post is just to flag up two detailed articles in English which I've come across.

The first is from AP and deals with the Japanese embassy hostage raid. It has long been suggested that at least some of the MRTA hostage-takers were summarily executed during the process of freeing the hostages - I, for one, have little doubt that that was the case. As forensic pathologist Clyde Snow pointed out,

in the case of [Eduardo] Cruz, a single bullet entered through the back of his neck, "which I've always said is the hallmark of extra-judicial executioners throughout the world." 

The article gives a good overview of the different points of view in the case and the snail's pace of the investigations.

Peru's famed hostage raid investigated (AP)

Then the BBC looks at the latest developments in the struggle against the Shining Path. The group has experienced a limited resurgence in recent years, linking primarily to drug trafficking in the VRAE. The article quotes two analysts, Ruben Vargas and Carlos Leon Moya.

so far in the VRAE, says Mr Vargas, all good intentions have yet to materialise to persuade farmers to switch from coca, the raw material for making cocaine, to cocoa and other alternative cash crops.
"They [the government] talk about projects as if they were already functioning, whereby in reality there's nothing on the ground."
"They have a plan but they've failed to execute it," concurs Carlos Leon Moya. "They lack the ability to do so." 

 It's certainly not possible to write about the Shining Path completely in the past tense. We're a long way from the threats on the capital city which were possible at certain points in the '80s and '90s, but given the geographical remoteness of the VRAE and the persistence of drug trafficking, rooting out the "remnants" is certainly going to be a difficult, and expensive, job. 

Peru faces rethink in fight against Shining Path rebels (BBC)

Argentina: New human rights secretary

Juan Martín Fresneda has been appointed the new Argentine Secretary of Human Rights, taking over from Eduardo Luis Duhalde,  who recently died.

Fresneda is just 36, a lawyer and a child of the disappeared. His parents were abducted in 1977 during the so-called Night of the Ties (Noche de la corbatas), during which the regime went after a group of lawyers who had themselves been investigating forced disappearances. Fresneda is a founding member of HIJOS, the organisation of children of the disappeared. These factors are bound to make him a popular choice for the post among Argentina's human rights community.

You can read more about La noche de las corbatas (in Spanish) here and here. 

Juan Martín Fresneda appointed Human Rights Secretary (Telam)
La agrupación H.I.J.O.S. de Córdoba expresó su satisfacción por la designación de Fresneda (Telam)

Argentina: Madres' former financial director arrested

Nearly a year after a scandal broke concerning financial irregularities at the Madres de Plaza de Mayo, the organisation's former financial manager has been arrested. Sergio Schoklender has been charged with embezzlement of funds intended for use in social housing. Sergio was arrested following a court hearing, while his brother Pablo also turned himself in to police later and a third man, Alejandro Gotkin, has also been detained.

The leader of the Mothers, Hebe de Bonafini, said she was "satisfied" with the developments. The BBC rightly points out that the scandal has not been good for the group.

Meanwhile, the Buenos Aires Herald notes that the judge in the case has defended himself against accusations that it has not been making fast enough progress.

Argentina ex-human rights official charged with embezzlement (BBC)
Los Schoklender, presos por el caso de las Madres (Clarin)
Detienen a los Schoklender por desviar $ 280 millones (La Nacion)
Oyarbide justifies time it took to arrest Schoklender brothers (Buenos Aires Herald)

Brazil: Truth commission comes together for first time

Brazil's truth commission members are meeting for the first time today at a ceremony led by president Dilma Roussefff. It is being attended (as I write) by former presidents Fernando Henrique Cardoso, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, José Sarney and Fernando Collor.

The BBC focuses on the commission's difficult task of balancing the opposing demands of human rights activists and the military.

"Of course there were terrible things that happened in this period but there were victims on both sides and they only want to tell one side of the story," says retired Vice Admiral Ricardo Antonio da Veiga Cabral, chairman of Rio de Janeiro's Navy Club.
[...]
The Navy Club has designated seven of its members - "seven trusted officers", according to Vice Admiral Veiga Cabral - to form a "shadow commission" to counter whatever accusations may come their way.
[...]
"We wanted a 'Truth, Memory and Justice' Commission. With the resources and powers given to the commission I doubt very much they will be able to come up with anything groundbreaking," says Victoria Grabois, president of Rio de Janeiro-based organisation Tortura Nunca Mais (Torture Never Again). 

 Brazil's truth commission faces delicate task (BBC)

Dilma instala Comissão da Verdade nesta quarta-feira (O Globo)