Chilean human rights abusers continue to receive military benefits

Chilean online paper Cambio 21 reports on calls for former high-ranking military officers to be demoted to prevent them from receiving military pensions and benefits.

Jailed human rights abusers including former DINA head Manuel Contreras apparently continue to receive pensions - in the case of Contreras, amounting to 3,000,000 pesos a month. Human rights groups want them to be stripped of such benefits, as well as the right to use ranks, uniforms, etc. A proposal for demotion was made by deputy Gabriel Ascencio in 2010, but has yet to be carried out. Lawyer Nelson Caucoto says that the problem would be making the decision retroactive, ie, applying to those perpetators already jailed and not just those affected by future trials.

Pedirán degradar a Manuel Contreras para que no siga recibiendo un sueldo cercano a los tres millones de pesos mientras está preso (cambio21.cl)

Uruguay's army chief wants to "turn the page"

Uruguay has a new army chief, Juan Villagrán, replacing Pedro Aguerre. Villagrán has already stirred up controversy with his remarks about the disappeared.

On taking up his role, he said there was "no further information" about those disappeared by the State during the dictatorship. He added that "96% of those in the army joined after 1985, so they are not likely to know much about it". He denied that there was an internal order not to reveal any such information.

Subsequently, in an interview with Uruguayan paper El País, Villagrán said that "as a private individual", he believes it is time to "turn the page" on the events of the past. He said that the dictatorship is now a matter for historians; as far as the institution of the army is concerned, it has been dealt with.

Not surprisingly, the families of the disappeared were not so pleased by these statements. One relative, Oscar Urtasún, said that to turn the page, "it was first necessary to read the book". "We are the victims and he is part of the victimizers," he summed up.

It's disappointing, but not surprising, to hear such statements from a high-ranking military officer in Latin America. How about leaving it to the victims to decide if they are ready to move on for a change?


Jefe del Ejército: "no debe quedar información" sobre desaparecidos (elpais.com.uy)
"Creo que hay que dar vuelta la página y mirar hacia el futuro" (elpais.com.uy)
Hijos de desaparecidos respondieron a jefe de Ejército (espectador.com)

Sebastião Salgado as migrant

The Lens blog of the New York Times has an interesting piece about Sebastião Salgado's early work. It notes that he led dictatorship-era Brazil in 1969 for France, where he came into contact with other Latin American exiles.

“We were migrants and we settled in a world of migrants,” he recalled. “We worked a lot at that time with Brazilians who arrived in France after having been tortured. Today we don’t talk very much about this period, but it was brutal. All those people who in 1973 left Chile and came here after the overthrow of Salvador Allende. And Paraguay, Uruguay. …” 

The photography that came out of this period - immigrants at work and at home with their families in the high-rises of the Parisian outskirts - seem a far cry from the work of Genesis, but I think you can see the echos in the landscape shots of the tower blocks.

See more:
Sebastião Salgado: Migrant in a World of Migrants (NY Times)

Argentina: Remains of vice-governor of Tucumán discovered

It has been confirmed that the remains discovered in the Pozo de Vargas, Tucumán, include those of the former vice-governor of the province, Dardo Francisco Molina, who was murdered during the dictatorship. The identification was carried out by the Argentine forensic anthropology team EAAF.  He was found in a common grave from which a futher 12 victims have also been identified so far.

Molina, senator and vice-governor of Tucumán under Amado Juri, was relieved of his post following the 1976 coup. He was abducted on 15 December that year by an armed group identifying themselves as members of the federal police. The task force is said to have been under the control of the late Antonio Domingo Bussi. 

His daughter, Josefina Molina, said "He didn't go to Spain like they said, they tried to make him disappear but they couldn't. Dad is here". She also reiterated her commitment to finding out the details of what happened to him and pursuing justice.

Memoria y verdad en Tucumán (Pagina/12)

Argentina: Trial of the judges

A high-profile human rights trial opened this week in Mendoza, Argentina. It is the "trial of the judges" (juicio a los jueces) of the last dictatorship and interesting because it focuses on complicity from outside the armed forces.

The around 40 defendants* include former judge Otilio Roque Romano, who was extradited from Chile last September, Luis Miret, Guillermo Petra, Rolando Carrizo and Gabriel Guzzo. They are accused of not having investigated reports of illegal detentions, disappearances and murders relating to over 200 people.

The images of the courtroom are quite striking (see both La Nación and Diario Uno, linked below), with the men in their 70s and 80s surrounding by uniformed guards. As the trial is forecast to last around two years, it seems likely that some of the accused will not survive to hear the sentence. The case is still symbolically important, but of course, like all the current human rights trials, it comes late and progress is slow.

At the initial hearing on Monday, Romano raised his handcuffed wrists as he left the courtroom, to competing cries of "hero" and "murderer" from his supporters and opponents in the visitors' section. Luis Miret was reprimanded by the presiding judges for photographing the public prosecutor.


Jueces de la última dictadura, en el banquillo en Mendoza (La Nación)
Al grito de "asesinos, asesinos" terminó la primera jornada del juicio histórico a los jueces (Diario Uno)

*Media reports vary from 39 to 41.

Argentina: Devoto prison deaths to be reinvestigated?

Nearly a year ago, I blogged about the so-called "mattress riot" - motín de los colchones - which occurred at the Devoto prison in Buenos Aires in 1978 and led to the deaths of around 60 prisoners. Renewed interest in the case seems to have been provoked by a book written by lawyer Claudia Cesaroni.

Yesterday, federal prosecutor Federico Delgado called for the case, which has been shelved twice in the past, to be reopened. In recent months, he has heard 17 testimonies on the case, four of them from survivors. He points to the contrast between the "official history" of the prisoners' riot and the accounts of survivors. He also complains that previous investigations were biased. He also believes that some of the prisoners were shot, rather than having burnt to death as had been previously stated.

Delgado does not believe that any intervention of the State in a crime necessarily turns it into a crime against humanity, and in this case he does not see a clear link with the systematic repression of the State during the dictatorship. He will pass on the baton to federal judge Daniel Rafecas, who will have to provide the definitions. Cesaroni believes the incident did constitute a crime against humanity and she has been trying to demonstrate how the situation of "common" prisoners under the dictatorship mirrored the sufferings of the "political" prisoners.

Piden investigar lo que ocurrió en Devoto (Pagina/12)

Argentina: More on museum project for ESMA

Pagina/12 provides more information on the memory museum project for the ESMA site in Buenos Aires.

The curators of the place of memory will be Alejandra Naftal - herself a former detained-disappeared person - and Hernán Bisman. Naftal was one of the founders of the Memoria Abierta archive. She explains that the museum project will draw on documentary evidence as well as legal, academic, artistic, journalistic and audiovisual sources, plus testimoney from the victims and relatives. The members of the navy "never talked and never told the truth", she said.

For Naftal, sites of memory are different to articles, books or films, because they are places of "authorised" truth. "You can argue, what is the truth, right? But we are determined enough to back up what we know with documentary sources. We use the testimonies from the courts, the trial of the Juntas in 1985 and the various trials of the ESMA from recent years".

In reply to the question of who the museum is for, Naftal replies "For many people. For millions. For those outside. For young people, old people, children, Argentinians, foreigners."

Daniel Tarnopolsky, of the Instituto Espacio de la Memoria who lost numerous relatives during the dictatorship, explains that the intention is not to "reconstruct" a detention centre in the ESMA. There will be no recreating torture equipment, for example. However it may be that, for example, the photos of Víctor Basterra can be shown in the places where they were taken.

Naftal says:The ESMA is the symbolic centre for Latin America and needs to have international exhibition standards.

Tarnopolsky says:
The ESMA is the Auschwitz of the [Argentine] dictatorship.

More detail in the full article:
“El museo será para millones” (Pagina/12)