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)

Buenos Aires detention centres transferred to nation

The government of Buenos Aires and the Argentine federal government came to an agreement, announced this week, to transfer the former detention centres in the capital city to national control. These include the former ESMA site, where a new museum project is planned.

The aim is for the sites to be visited by many more people than before, and for them to become a tool to be used by schools to a greater extent than previously, Argentina's human rights secretary, Martín Fresneda, told Pagina/12. 


Also affected are the centres known as Virrey Cevallos, Atlético, Olimpo and Automotores Orletti. All of them were previously administrated by the Instituto Espacio para la Memoria (IEM) under the Buenos Aires government.

According to the paper, many of the buildings have not been adequately preserved thus far. It also reports that the plans are supported by the Madres, Abuelas and HIJ@S groups. However, the IEM is opposed. Nobel peace prize winner Adolfo Perez Esquivel has expressed his concern about the "politicisation" of memory sites and the "forcing" of a museum on the ESMA in an op-ed for Perfil.

The idea is to fully open the ESMA site, which is currently only available for guided tours and events and is not fully accessible to the disabled.

There does not seem to have been much reporting on this besides the two articles linked below. I do not pretend to have a clear overview of the actual consequences for the memory sites in the Argentine capital, but my initial reaction is to note that the major relatives' organisations do not seem to be objecting to the plans and that the idea of a permanent museum on the ESMA site is a good one. Of course, it would need to be sensitively done, but ten years after the ESMA was semi-opened to the public, it seems strange that you need to book a guided tour in advance to get in. That is just not the way to maximise the number of people who visit. Moreover, Argentina could do with an emblematic museum along the lines of the Chilean memory museum, I would argue, and what better site than the country's biggest detention centre?


Cambio de órbita para los sitios de la memoria (Pagina/12)
Negocios que afectan la memoria histórica (Perfil.com)

Argentina: Devoto prison - deadly riot or massacre?

Argentina's worst prison disaster took place on 14 March, 1978, at the Devoto prison in Buenos Aires. It affected so-called "common prisoners", ie not political prisoners. I stumbled across an article about it and then it occurred to me that there seemed to be little material in English available on it, so I thought it would make a good post. It turns out that there's not much agreement on the actual events of the incident either.

Clarin notes simply that the incident is known as the "mattress riot" (Motín de los colchones) because detainees set fire to their mattresses; around 60 of them died of asphyxiation and burns, while another 85 were injured, according to the paper.

Historias de fugas y motines sangrientos (Clarin)

In a 2005 article calling the riot "a tragedy", La Nación notes that the riot was sparked by an apparently minor incident; a prison refusing to turn off the television, having been ordered to do so by a guard. Other prisoners backed him up, and the following day (14 March) made barricades of mattresses and other flammable materials and set fire to them. They were trapped by the smoke and flames; the paper reports that there were 61 dead. 

It also states that following autopsies, the prison service found that there was no evidence the victims had been killed by shots, but rather that they were burnt to death or died of smoke inhalation. 

La peor tragedia, en la cárcel de Villa Devoto (La Nacion)

However, other sources suggest a very different story. In February 2013, for example, Daniel Enzetti wrote an article for Tiempo which claims that 64 prisoners were murdered by the State in Devoto. This report repeats the assertion that there was an initial arguement over television on 13 March, but then states that the argument was brought to an end, until state officials came in the next day with the intention of committing deliberate "genocide".
In this version of events, many of the victims were shot, the fire service was prevented from entering the building, and the crimes were covered up.
Some human rights organisations now want the case reopened. Supporters of this version call the incident the "massacre of pavilion 7".

Piden reabrir la causa por el "Motín de los Colchones" (Tiempo)
Una masacre que fue disfrazada de "motín" (Tiempo)
MASACRE EN EL PABELLON 7 (CEPOC)

Pagina/12 puts the number of dead at "at least 64" in one article and "at least 65" in another. It reports on efforts to instigate legal proceedings against the supposed perpetrators of the massacre, the heads of the prison service at the time and the officials present at the time when the deaths occurred.


Más que motín, una masacre (Pagina/12)
Masacre del Pabellón 7 (Pagina/12)


One of the few descriptions of the deaths in English appears to be from former political prisoner Margarita Drago in her book "Memory Tracks", although she remembers the incident taking place to be in July, not March. She writes,

One cold July day, from the solitary confinement chamber where I found myself being punished, I heard a series of gunshots which came from the vicinity of the prison, and I thought that the shots were directed towards the windows of the cells. [...] After a few hours, the matron opened the door to my cell, and without any explanation told me that I had to go back downstairs to where I normally stayed [...] Once in my cell, the women gave me the news. The prisoners had rebelled and burned mattresses in protest of their living conditions. The response was their wholesale murder. For this reason, they kept us incommunicado, forbidding visits and canceling recreation. In repudiation, we refused our food and declared ourselves in mourning. 
In time, after they had lifted the sanctions, we learned that one hundred unarmed civilian prisoners had been massacred by their jailers. [p. 97-98] 

Elias Neuman wrote a book on 14 March 1978 called Crónica de muertes silenciadas and now apparently out of print.

It would be irresponsible of me to comment on what I think is the "true" version, because I honestly don't know. Certainly, 1978 was an extremely violent period in Argentine history and a great deal of atrocities were taking place at this time; however, this event would be unusual since generally speaking, being a "common" prisoner was a much safer situation to be in than being a "political" prison, which could easily turn you into a disappeared person. Some (few) disappeared people survived because for one reason or another, they were transferred to normal jails and given a standard record as a common prisoner. Certainly, though, even these regulated jails had standards way below those which were either desirable or safe (almost all accounts mention that Devoto was overcrowded, for example, surely heightening the fire risk). What is clear is that even with deaths on this scale, even the most basic facts such as the number of victims are not really agreed on.
 

Argentina: What happens to clandestine detention centres?

Two recent stories have raised the issue of what happens to clandestine detention centres (CCDs) and other significant places of memory. While some key sites, such as the ESMA, are preserved and used (in the case of the ESMA, as a museum and social centre), there were many more, smaller CCDs - see for example Memoria Abierta to find out more. Some of these are now kept as sites of memory, some might have a plaque or a small memorial and others have been completely destroyed or converted.

On Saturday, social and human rights organisations held a festival at the former CCD El Olimpo in Buenos Aires to raise awareness of what they criticise as the neglect of the site. El Olimpo was dedicated as a Site of Memory in 2005 at the instigation of local residents and human rights organisations. Last year, the city authorities made the decision to replace security personnel there with CCTV cameras. Since then there have been break-ins and broken windows.

Soledad Adeira, a representative of HIJOS (the organisation of children of the disappeared), claimed that the city has a practice of "emptying out" the detention centres, ie making their use impractical. Isabel Cerruti, a former detained-disappeared person, condemned the "lack of protection" for the site.

Meanwhile, last week demolition work started on another former CCD in Merlo, also in Buenos Aires province. The site was controlled by the air force during the dictatorship and is still the subject of legal proceedings. Again, it was local residents who saw what was going on and mobilised to get the work stopped - but by the time the legal order arrived, the building was two-thirds gone.

I've written before about the problems of preserving these sites, but it seems that these problems go on.

Un reclamo por la memoria (Pagina/12)
En Merlo, intentaron demoler un centro clandestino de detención (Tiempo Argentino)

Argentina: Is it possible he didn't know?

One of the major trials currently taking place in Argentina is the so-called "Circuito Camps". This encompasses the cases from the detention centres under the control of general Ramón Camps (who died in 1994). It includes some of the emblematic cases of the dictatorship: the students taken during the Night of the Pencil (Noche de las lapices); the stealing of the grandchild of María Isabel “Chicha” Chorobik de Mariani; the abduction of Jacobo Timerman; the disappearance of Adriana Calvo, later a key figure in the human rights movement.

There are 26 people on trial - and one of them was never a member of the armed forces. Jaime Smart was a civilian member of the military government of Buenos Aires between 1976 and 1979. His defence is that he claims that he knew nothing of the repression that took place during this period. In fact, all he knew was "what was reported in the papers" - which was, of course, almost nothing at all. He is facing charges of illegal deprivation of liberty and aggravated torture against 61 people in eight detention centres. The court will have to decide whether it is reasonable to believe him that he could have known nothing.

Circuito Camps: el dilema judicial por el único civil acusado (Clarin)
Los crímenes del Circuito Camps (Pagina/12)

Argentina: Verdict in Vesubio Case

As promised in my post on Elisabeth Kaesemann, the verdict is in in the El Vesubio case. Although the camp commander died during the trial, two other former officers, Hector Gamen and Hugo Pascarelli, were sentenced to life imprisonment. Five former prison guards also got custodial sentences.

Sebastian Soler's son, now 41, clearly remembers the day his father and mother were kidnapped.

"A group of men entered the house breaking windows and doors," he said.

"They dragged my mother out to the street by the hair. They left me and my two siblings, ages four and six, with a neighbour and the next day she took us to our grandmother. We never knew anything more about my parents."

Argentina dictatorship officers get life in prison (Telegraph)

Life sentences given in Argentine torture trial (AP)

Vesubio: perpetua para dos militares (La Nacion)

El general y el coronel, de la casa a la cárcel (Pagina/12)

Tracing the Shadows of Operation Condor

Please check out this stunning photo slideshow by João de Carvalho Pina of clandestine detention centres, victims and perpetrators of the abuses of Operation Condor.

Tracing the Shadows of Operation Condor (NY Times)

(thanks to Prison Photography for drawing my attention to this)

Argentina: Ex-detention Centres Under Threat

Los ex centros clandestinos estan en riesgo (Critica) - trans mine

The Former Clandestine Centres are at Risk
They are buildings where torture took place during the dictatorship. The Buenos Aires government is supposed to maintain them, but it is not using its budget

Seven of the clandestine detention centres (CCD) which functioned in Buenos Aires city are spaces of memory today. In the majority of these, time and lack of maintenance is wearing away their structure on a daily basis and with it, their legal and historical value. In 2009, the Buenos Aires administration used just 6% of the budget intended for the conservation of the sites where thousands of people were tortured and disappeared. To guarantee their preservation, a bill is proposing to declare the structural conditions an emergency. "The maintenance work for the detention centres is really behind schedule, often because the necessary funds aren't available and in other cases because the local executive branch is using the budget earmarked for this end for other purposes," according to Social Equality deputy, Martín Hourest, who also warned that the Buenos Aires government may not avail themselves of these funds without prior authorisation from the legislature.

The Instituto Espacio para la Memoria (Memory Space Institute, IEM) is a decentralised organisation which is tasked with "ensuring the preservation, protection and valuing of the various sites where CCD functioned", such as Olimpo, Atlético, Automotores Orletti, ESMA y Virrey Cevallos. However, this often does not happen and the deterioration continues.

Hourest's proposal intends to provide the IEM with the necessary resources to attain the objective which is not expressed in concrete works, generally because the city authorities have not transferred to it the funds already approved by law. In some cases, also, a lack of staff has caused delays to the tendering process.

One of the most urgent cases for conservation is the site on which El Atlético was situated, at the intersection of Paseo Colón and Cochabamba. The demolition of the building to construct the motorway 25 de Mayo, which occurred during the dictatorship, meant that only the basements where the detained-disappeared prisoners were held could be saved. This space is open to the elements. Exactly two years ago, the space in front of it was inaugurated as a Memory Square, which remains closed until today due to lack of funds. It is essential that restauration takes place to save the remains which are already 33 years old. In the past year, inscriptions made by disappeared persons have been found on the walls of the Capuchita (Little Hood) in the ESMA. Even more than artefacts for memory, such marks and any object which can be identified in the detention centres becomes evidence in the trials of the murderers.

Argentina: Another Anniversary Looms

This is the high season of memory in Argentina, where many events are based around the anniversary of the 1976 coup on 24th March (now a national day for memory, truth and justice).

One of them is the inauguration of the former Campo de la Ribera, in Córdoba, as an official site of memory. This site was used as a clandestine detention centre from 1975-79. Since the return to democracy in 1983, the space has functioned as various schools and educational establishments. This redeployment of torture camps is one of the more shocking aspects of Argentine redemocratisation. Can you imagine saying, "Hm, Auschwitz? Could we not make use of it, as a sports centre perhaps? How about putting a cinema in?" Yet Buenos Aires schoolchildren were expected to attend swimming competitions in the ESMA until about 2004.

Finally, this situation in La Ribera was resolved, and the space will now be officially devoted to photographic exhibitions, memory and human rights related events and so on.

Ex-CCD/La Ribera

Argentina: Major Trials Open in Santa Fe & Rosario

Three major cases of crimes against humanity are starting trial in Argentina this week.

In Rosario, the cases refer to the detention centres "Quinta de Funes" and "Fábrica de armas"*. For the purposes of the trial, 22 victims are identified from the former and seven from the latter. Proceedings started today. Three army officials and two civil intelligence officers are in the dock, among them retired colonel Pascual Guerriri - already serving a stretch of house imprisonment for other crimes - and Eduardo Constanzo, who in recent years has given information about dictatorship-era activities.

Tomorrow, the trial opens in Santa Fe in the "Brusa" case - so called because of the involvement of former Santa Fe governor Victor Brusa.

Sentences are due by the end of the year.

Llego la luz a la noche mas oscura (Critica Digital)
Comenzo el primer juicio a represores en Rosario (Pagina/12)
Proceso a la patota de Galtieri (Pagina/12)

*Also known as "Fábrica militar de armas" and "Fábrica militar de armas portátiles Domingo Matheu".