Guatemala: A forensic anthropologist who brings closure for the "disappeared"

Thanks to Mike from Central American Politics for drawing my attention to this TED talk by Fredy Peccerelli on his work as a forensic anthropologist in Guatemala, which is so relevant to this blog that I'm reposting it here. I can only echo his admiration for the work of these incredible, dedicated people.

Guatemala: New memory museum opens

A new museum called La Casa de la Memoria Kaji Tulam has opened in Guatemala. Kaji Tulam means "so as not to forget" in the Quiché language, apparently. It deals with the country's history from the arrival of the Spanish, but with a particular emphasis on the civil war of 1960-1996 and its aftermath.

AP notes that there are two other museums dealing with the period in the country already, but they are very small and poorly funded.

The design of this one sounds interesting, with spaces for reflection and visitor response, use of images, furniture, and a wall with names of the disappeared. It also includes military plans, victims' testimonies and information from reports from the Catholic Church and UN.

Museo en Guatemala honra a víctimas de la guerra civil (Elnuevoherald.com)
Inauguran museo de la memoria (Prensalibre.com)

Read more here: http://www.elnuevoherald.com/2014/02/07/1674032_museo-en-guatemala-honra-a-victimas.html#storylink=cpy

News round-up

Argentina
The head of the Argentine-Jewish Community Centre (AMIA), Guillermo Borger, warned the government of President Cristina Fernandez that the organization’s members are concerned by the lack of information regarding ongoing negotiations with Iran over the 1994 terrorist attack on the AMIA headquarters, which killed 85 people.
Jewish community protests for being kept on the dark on Argentina/Iran negotiations (Mercopress)

Colombia
A US court has sentenced General Mauricio Santoyo, who was President Alvaro Uribe's security chief, to 13 years in jail for links with paramilitaries.
Colombia general sentenced in US for paramilitary links (BBC)
Colombia will be removed from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights “blacklist” next year, but “the fact that a country report is being drawn up, rather than a country being included or not in Chapter IV, does not imply an improvement in human rights,” IACHR commissioner Felipe González said.
Off the Blacklist Doesn’t Imply Improvement in Human Rights in Colombia (IPS)
On Colombian refugees in Ecuador:
Cocaine's Forgotten Victims (COHA)


El Salvador 
On the 31st anniversary of the El Mozote massacre, the Inter-American Court for Human Rights ruled against El Salvador and ruled that the country's amnesty law, enacted after the close of the civil war, should not impede investigations of the responsible parties.
International court condemns El Salvador for El Mozote Massacre (Tim's El Salvador Blog)
El Salvador: Court Orders Investigation of 1981 Massacre (NY Times)

Guatemala

World Bank must pay for Guatemala ‘terror loans’ (Guatemala Solidarity Network)

News round-up

Argentina
I wrote about the Blaquier/Ledesma case some time ago; now here's a story in English.
Argentine magnate Blaquier charged over disappearances (BBC)

Chile
The granddaughter of Salvador Allende last month won a mayoral election by a tiny number of votes; now the result has been reversed following a re-count. The Guardian comments, "The vitriol and hatred of the comments [of the opposing sides] leave little doubt that, even after 40 years, the wounds of the Pinochet and Allende years remain painful and have yet to heal".
Chilean electoral tribunal overturns Fernández Allende's mayoral victory (Guardian)

Colombia
Tanja Nijmeijer, the only known foreign FARC guerrilla from outside Latin America, is involved in the peace talks. You hear little about her compared to Lori Berenson in Peru, but she's obviously of interest to the media.
Dutch fighter in Colombia peace talks role (AP)

El Salvador
The blog of the National Security Archives turns to El Salvador for its regular series highlighting particular historical documents.
Document Friday: El Salvador’s Debate on Amnesty and Historical Memory (Unredacted)
New developments in the case of one of the most notorious war crimes committed by the Salvadoran security forces during the twelve year long civil war: the massacre on the campus of the José Simeón Cañas University of Central America (UCA) in San Salvador on November 16, 1989.
Holding Salvadoran War Criminals Accountable: The Massacre at University of Central America, San Salvador, 1989 (COHA)

Guatemala
In September, the Inter-American Court on Human Rights (IACHR) found Guatemala guilty for the Rio Negro Massacres.
IACHR Guatemala Guilty for Rio Negro Massacres (Central American Politics)
Americas Quarterly classifies assassinated Guatemalan Bishop Juan José Gerardi as a leader of social and political change.
Monsignor Juan José Gerardi: A Martyr for Truth (Americas Quarterly)

Mexico
Alma Guillermoprieto is an outstanding writer and this article on the dangers of being a journalist in Mexico contains a lot of detail that those of us in the English-speaking world don't think about often.
Mexico: Risking Life for Truth (The New York Review of Books)

Peru
Fujimori isn't allowed to give an interview.
Prison Authorities Reject Fujimori’s Request for Radio Interview (Peruvian Times)
Photos of a mural project in La Oroya by Arte por la memoria.
Mural en La Oroya: por la vida y los derechos humanos. (Museo Itinerante Arte por la memoria)

News round-up

Chile
A judge ordered the arrest on Tuesday of eight retired police and military officers in connection with the kidnapping and disappearance of Boris Weisfeiler, an American university professor who disappeared while hiking in Chile in 1985. 
Chilean Ex-Officers Charged in 1985 Kidnapping of U.S. Hiker (NY Times)

Colombia
Retired Colombian general Rito Alejo Del Rio has been sentenced to 25 years in prison for the murder of a peasant decapitated by a right-wing death squad in the late 1990s. Del Rio did not physically participate in the murder but allowed far-right militias to operate with impunity in the Uraba region, where he commanded the army’s 17th Brigade.
Retired General Sentenced for Death Squad Killing (NY Times)

Guatemala
A former head of Guatemala's police force, Pedro Garcia Arredondo, has been sentenced to 70 years in prison for the 1981 kidnapping of a student during the country's brutal civil war.
Guatemala ex-police chief jailed for civil war kidnap (BBC)

Spain/LatAm
This is not specifically about the disappeared children of Argentina, but a profile of Dr. José A. Lorente, whose genetics work has helped to identify missing children in various countries including Peru and Guatemala.
Putting Genetics to Work to Find Missing Children (NY Times)

News Round-up

Brazil
Truth commission to investigate Operation Condor (Transitional Justice in Brazil)

Colombia
Document Friday: The Mapiripán Massacre “Cover-up” (Unredacted, the National Security Archive)
The Colombian military falsely blamed a junior officer for complicity in a 1997 paramilitary massacre “as part an effort to confuse and cover up the responsibility of others,” according to a 2003 State Department letter.

Guatemala
Guatemala frees ex-colonel who killed campaigning bishop (Guardian)
Byron Disrael Lima Estrada was in jail for killing of Bishop Juan Jose Gerardi, who wrote report on civil war crimes by army

Peru
Peru's anti-riot tactics unmatched in lethality (AP)

Since 2006, bullets fired by Peruvian security forces to quell protests have killed 80 people and wounded more than 800, according to the independent National Coordinator for Human Rights watchdog.[...]

"These numbers would be a scandal abroad. And I'm not talking about a comparison with Europe, but with Bolivia, Ecuador, Chile, where there are protests but not so many deaths," said Jorge Mansilla, investigator for Peru's national ombudsman's office.

News Round-up

A few bits of recommended reading for today:

Argentina
Argentina declassifies scathing review of blunders committed during Malvinas war (Mercopress)
As the article points out, little "new" info here, but the declassification is still a good thing. For the seriously interested, you can download the whole thing from the official presidential website - transparency in action.

Brazil
Brazilian Supreme Court Will Consider Continuous Crimes (Transitional justice in Brazil)

Guatemala
Guatemala ex-police chief Marlene Blanco arrested (BBC)

Guatemala: Documentary could help nail Rios Montt

I just have to flag up this comment piece from the Guardian about Pamela Yates' documentary film Cuando las Montañas Tiemblan, for which Efrain Rios Montt was interviewed.

Although Ríos Montt's defence claims he did not have command responsibility over his officers in the highlands, and that he is not responsible for the massacres and human rights violations, Yates's interview suggests otherwise. On camera, Ríos Montt states: "If I can't control the army, then what am I doing here?"

I haven't seen the film myself, but I can't speak highly enough of Yates' film about Peru, State of Fear (Estado de Miedo), which I have mentioned repeatedly here. It's certainly interesting to think that the footage could contribute to evidence against the former dictator.

US film could help nail Guatemala's former dictator Efraín Ríos Montt (Guardian)

Guatemala: Legacy of the civil war

The recent long jail sentence for Pedro Pimentel Rios for his role in the massacre of 201 people has been widely reported, but I just wanted to highlight two articles that go a bit deeper into the aftermath of the violence for English-speaking readers.

IPS does its usual sterling job at discussing the issue of reparations.

"The programme distributed 576 housing units here in 2011, but they were only half-built," another survivor, Manuel Tay, told IPS from the northwestern province of Chimaltenango. "We had to buy cement and steel, pay a builder, and even haul in construction materials to finish the houses."

Tay, who lost five of his siblings during the conflict, said the houses are made of such "simple materials that some of the houses weren’t even three months old and the floor was already cracked."

Victims of war, victims of oblivion (IPS)

Meanwhile, the BBC turns its attention to the pyschological consequences of the war with the story of former guerrilla and pyschologist Maria Tulia Lopez Perez.

"Judicial justice is the best form of compensation for victims, much better than money or anything else," says Maria, but she says too few people have been tried.

[...] But she says there in post-war Guatemala there has not been enough focus on healing people's psychological wounds.

"We must liberate the victims from all this weight they are carrying which stops them from living normal lives."

Healing Guatemala's emotional scars from the civil war (BBC)

Guatemala: Sexual violence

The Invisible Genocide of Women. by (Ofelia&Zurita) from Ofelia&Zurita on Vimeo.

A video from the Women Under Siege Project about rape as a weapon of war in Guatemala.

News Round-up

Argentina
Cristina Kirchner: she's not just another Evita (Observer)
This profile of Argentina's president is not really one for the true LatAm-ophiles, I'm including it because I find it interesting when the mainstream English media go a bit further in-depth on someone like this and it has a lot of background info which isn't seen that often.

Central America
New Knight Center map chronicles attacks on journalists in Central America (Journalism in the Americas)

Guatemala
Long-hidden archives help Guatemala war crimes trials (Reuters)
Great info from Reuters here on the uses of and practical challenges posed by Guatemala's archives

For the first time in Guatemala's history, a former police chief now faces trial based on evidence collected from the national police archives, a labyrinth of dark rooms found by chance in 2005 when an explosion tore through a dilapidated building being used as a munitions dump.

...which makes it particularly disappointing to contrast with this story about possible legal limitations to the use of official documents in the country:
Guatemalan bill would classify military, diplomatic records as confidential (Journalism in the Americas)

For recent news on Guatemala, see also Mike's round-up at Central American Politics.

And I can't end before remarking on the conviction of judge Baltasar Garzon in Spain. This is a blow for human rights, memory and justice across the world, if you ask me, and Pagina 12's title page just about says it all.

Baltasar Garzón, judge who pursued dictators, brought down by wiretapping (Guardian)

News Round-up

Here goes:

Latin American region
No military coup deserves a parade (Bloggings by boz)
A statement taken for granted on this blog but still worth repeating!

Argentina
Falkland tensions grow ahead of invasion anniversary (BBC)
This article touches on the complications of remembering both the Falklands/Malvinas war and the military dictatorship in Argentina.
Plus, in astonishing news:
Argentinian critics pan Margaret Thatcher biopic The Iron Lady (Guardian)

Chile
Chilean journalist charged with covering up human rights abuses in 1975 (Journalism in the Americas)

Guatemala
How will Montt defend himself in Guatemala? (Al-Jazeera)
By Mike from Central American Politics
Genocide Trial against Ríos Montt: Declassified Documents Provide Key Evidence (Unredacted)
Ríos Montt’s Incriminating Self-Defense (Latin American Thought)
A Testament From Guatemala’s War Years (Lens blog at NY Times)
With excellent photos by Jean-Marie Simon

Mexico
'In Mexico, reporters are hunted like rabbits' (Guardian)
This one is in here because the past issues I deal with on this blog are not gone, they keep happening in various countries - that's one (just one) of the reasons we need to remember them.

Peru
Shining Path affiliate drops bid to become party (AP)
Movadef Ends Attempt To Register As Political Party (Peruvian Times)

Guatemala update

Two of the "disappeared" have been identified in Guatemala. Union leader Amancio Villatoro and student leader Sergio Linares are the first victims that scientists have matched to Guatemala's military journal, known as the "death squad diary", a list of 183 citizens who disappeared at the hands of the army between 1983 and 1985.

Guatemala: War Victims Found (NY Times)
Guatemala identifies victims from death squad ledger (Reuters)

At the same time, a debate has broken out about a proposal to allow the over-80s to serve jail sentences under house arrest, rather than in prison - something which would obviously affect the aging human rights abusers in the country. This has been an issue in Argentina as well, and some of these supposed incidences of "house arrest" were so lax that the retired generals in question barely needed to adjust their social lives despite being convicted of the most serious crimes. I'm always opposed - a standard prison cell for the lot of them, regardless of age, I say. Nevertheless, I agree with Mike from Central American Politics that getting convictions at all must be the priority.

Guatemala proposal for aged inmates draws anger (AP)

Meanwhile, Guatemalan Attorney General Claudia Paz y Paz has called for justice for the victims of the war.

"We want it to be clear that you can't use terror as a control mechanism," Paz y Paz said.

She also mentioned the problem of financial resources in battling organised crime.

Top Guatemala prosecutor warns on war crimes cases (Reuters)

News Round-up

Argentina
I did not know that UN special rapporteur on torture, Juan Mendez, was a victim of the Argentine junta:
Argentina's Dirty War lessons for the world (BBC)

Guatemala
Reuters profiles new Guatemalan president Otto Perez and discusses his role in the country's civil war
Special report: Guatemala's new leader faces questions (Reuters)

Paraguay

Paraguay: no money to identify dictatorship dead (AP)

Peru:
Colina victims laid to rest
Nineteen Years Later, Death Squad Victims Given Burial in Santa (Peruvian Times)

News round-up

Argentina/US
Obama asked to declassify documents on children’s disappearance in Argentina (Mercopress)
Congressman to Obama: Declassify Argentina files (AP)
And here's the official website of Congressman Maurice Hinchey

Colombia
Colombia: Spy Agency Dissolved (New York Times)
Forced Disappearances in Colombia (COHA)

Guatemala
The Guatemalan Government’s Apology for the 1954 Coup (Americas Quarterly)
Guatemalan journalist receives threats after reporting on forced disappearances (Journalism in the Americas)
Mejia too sick to stand trial (Central American Politics)

Guatemala: President Colom apologises

Guatemalan President Alvaro Colom has apologised to the family of former President Jacobo Arbenz who was ousted in a 1954 coup backed by the United States. Arbenz died in exile in 1971.

Colom announced on Thursday that he will name a federal highway after Arbenz, notes the Associated Press. Not to make light of an absolutely serious issue, but that does seem a slightly odd tribute.

The New York Times, which calls the ceremony "muted", takes the opportunity to remind readers of a little of the history surrounding the Guatemalan coup.

The Eisenhower Administration painted the coup as an uprising that rid the hemisphere of a Communist government backed by Moscow. But Mr. Arbenz’s real offense was to confiscate unused land owned by the United Fruit Company to redistribute under a land reform plan and to pay compensation for the vastly understated value the company had claimed for its tax payments.

Arbenz's grandson also said that the family would like an apology from the US for its role in the coup.

Guatemala apologizes to ex-president's family (AP)
An Apology for a Guatemalan Coup, 57 Years Later (New York Times)

Mike from Central American Politics has also blogged on the issue and rightly points out that such state apologies are no replacement for real responsibility-taking by the perpetrators. Of course, I agree, and a "sorry" in itself is not justice. However, I always like to note these steps taken and I find the public engagement with memory issues interesting - even further afield, if you think of examples like the NY Times.

Guatemala: Video of mass grave

Looking down into this mass grave is incredible, as is the presenter's casual tone when she says "The team try to ignore the death threats...".

Thanks to Mike at Central American Politics for posting this.

Picture of the Day: Guatemala

A little late, but I have to draw attention to this fantastic photo of a woman celebrating the 6,060-year sentences in the trial of four former soldiers in Guatemala.

6,060 year sentence in 1982 massacre in Guatemala (LA Times blog)

News Round-Up

Argentina

Just in case there was any possibility of forgetting Evita...
Giant portrait of Eva Perón unveiled in Argentina ministry (Guardian)

Guatemala

Guatemala massacre trial begins (AFP)
Ex-soldiers link troops to Guatemala massacre (AP)

Peru

This is an update of a previous post of mine; the actual number of missing books may not sound that large in the great scheme of things, but as it says, these were selected, valuable works
932 books stolen from the National Library of Peru (Living in Peru)

This is a very interesting look back on Garcia's presidency as he leaves office:
Peru's Garcia leaves conflicts unresolved (AP)

Media Round-Up

Brazilian daily Folha de Sao Paulo took the occasion of its 90th anniversary to admit that it had supported the 1964 coup in the country. It also wrote that it changed tack in 1976 to become one of the main catalysts of the opening up of the political sphere. However, the paper sparked controversy in 2009 when it described the Brazilian military regime as a "dictablanda" - soft dictatorship, in comparison to the "hard" dictatorships of its Southern Cone neighbours.
Brazil's main daily admits having supported military coup in 1964 (Mercopress)

Peruvian journalists protest harassment from regional government (Journalism in the Americas)

Paramilitary group threatens five more Colombian journalists (Journalism in the Americas)

Threats, bribes and other challenges of reporting Guatemala's elections (Journalism in the Americas)