Chilean exiles in East Germany

I was really interested by this half-hour documentary on Chileans behind the Berlin Wall which I found via Memoria documental.

Peru: Armed internal conflict

[Spanish speakers might want to skip directly to the links given below; in this post, I'm not claiming to be original. I just feel that the issues raised are interesting and worthy of flagging up on an English-language forum]

In view of the upcoming tenth anniversary of the final report of the truth and reconciliation commission (CVR), a debate has been ignited (or rather, reignited) in Peru regarding the use of the term "armed internal conflict" (conflicto armado interno) to refer to Peru's period of political violence.

Some would prefer the term "terrorism" to emphasise the fact that the main culpable parties were the Shining Path and MRTA. Others suggest "civil war".

This piece on Facebook from El utero de marita expresses the debate really well, pointing out that "terrorism" excludes the large numbers of victims caused by the actions of the state (think Accomarca, Los Cabitos, La Cantuta) and those who do not fall easily into either of the two categories (e.g. Uchuraccay). "Civil war", meanwhile, suggests a conflict with two more or less equally-matched and well-defined "sides", which is also not accurate. He concludes "armed internal conflict includes terrorism, but terrorism excludes many victims that we should not forget". Exactly.

Language is always a contentious issue in these contexts. As far as Peru is concerned, I've always acknowledged the particularly bloody violence of the Shining Path, in particular, by referring to them unequivocally as a terrorist group. I don't refer to the Montoneros as such, for example, nor do I call the Argentine dictatorship the "dirty war" (except occasionally in inverted commas). Argentina did experience some terrorist acts before the 1976 coup, but it did not suffer indiscriminate mass murder of unarmed civilians and the response of the state under the military regime was completely disproportionate. This is why, in Argentina, the armed forces were the primary human rights abusers. In Peru, the Shining Path (and to a far lesser extent, the MRTA) were the primary violent actors, but the state contributed a very significant number of victims as well.

So yes, Shining Path were (are) terrorists, but Peru's armed internal conflict had several actors.

Does it matter? I would suggest it does, since the label we give the period is connected to which victims we decide are worth remembering.

See also:
Sobre el termino conflicto armado interno (Desde el Tercer Piso)

Peru: Exhumations of prison massacre dead

Peruvian prosecutors have been overseeing exhumations of victims of the Peruvian prison massacres of 1986 over the past month.

AP reports that over 100 bodies of Lurigancho prisoners were recovered. In addition, El Comercio writes that eight former inmates of El Frontón were disinterred. The massacres occurred when the military put down coordinated uprisings of Shining Path prisoners in various jails.

Security surrounding the exhumations, which are part of the investigations into extrajudicial executions, was apparently tight.

More Than 100 Bodies Exhumed in Peru (New York Times)
Exhuman cadáveres de presos asesinados 1986 (Terra.com.pe)
Fiscal exhumó restos de ocho muertos en El Frontón (El Comercio)

Peru: Museum of Memory 'Must Emphasise Work of Armed Forces'

This article had me seeing red today:

"The Work of the Armed Forces Must be Emphasised in the Museum of Memory"

Chief of the Armed Forces, Francisco Contreras, has insisted that the sacrifice of the military must be given a 'dominant' role in the future Museum of Memory in Peru.

"We want reconciliation to be fair and to emphasise the work of the Armed Forces and to give the ones who defend the Nation a dominant place in this museum (...) We hope and request that the Museum of Memory gives us the place we deserve".

Contreras further said that the process of selecting photographs to present to the museum was continuing. This is a reference to the armed forces' belief that the Yuyanapaq exhibition is 'biased'. In fact, it shows all aspects of political violence, including members of the military murdered by Shining Path, and their relatives.

State agencies were responsible for around 45% of deaths in the civil conflict - that's over 30,000 people (total number of deaths estimated by CVR at 69,280) [stats here, p. 4-6]. The great majority of these were Quechua-speaking, indigenous citizens from Ayacucho and other rural regions. National institutions have a responsibility to protect civilians; instead they slaughtered them with impunity.

But now it's all unfair and they are not going to come off well in the museum so they go whining to the media that people need to be grateful? I find this incredibly infuriating, and the persecution complex ("oh, the human rights organisations are out to get me!") is just sickening. Please, let's take them at their word and cover the work of the armed forces during the 1980s and 1990s - the extrajudicial executions, the torture, the unfounded arrests, the disappearances, the total disregard for democracy and decency.

And, in case anyone misunderstand, let me spell this out (again): I am no fan of Sendero. I fully accept and agree that individual members of the armed forces, who were real people with families, were murdered by the two guerrilla groups, Shining Path and the MRTA. I fully condemn these crimes. And who cares what I think? The CVR condemned and condemns them too [here, note 53]. This should have its place in the museum. If only we could leave it at that. Sadly, these personal tragedies are overshadowed by the institutional failings which led to mass crimes against humanity committed by the military - and that, we must not forget.

"Se debe resaltar la labor de las Fuerzas Armadas en el Museo de la Memoria" (El Comercio)

Colombia: 'False Positives' Convictions

A Colombian judge has sentenced 15 soldiers to up to 30 years in prison for killing civilians and presenting them as rebels.
[...]
Among those sentenced on Saturday were an officer, three subordinates and six ordinary soldiers who were found to have taken part in the killing of the two restaurant workers and were sentenced to 30 years. Five others were sentenced to four years in jail for covering up details about the case.

Judge Jails 15 Colombian Soldiers (BBC)

Peru: Pucará Trial Begins

28 members of the military, including 4 former generals, are on trial for the massacre at Pucará in 1989. The prosecutor is asking for 20 years in prison for all the accused.

On 4 November 1989, 8 civilians in Pucará, Junin, were shot at close range by a group of around 30 soldier who accused them of belonging to the Shining Path.

Empieza juicio por crimenes de Pucará (La Republica)

Argentina News Round-Up

The testimony presented to the federal judge included accounts of a soldier who was shot to death by a corporal, four soldiers who starved to death, and fifteen alleged cases of torture in which conscripts were staked to the ground as punishment, according to Argentinean media reports.

Officers To Be Tried For Crimes Against Humanity During Falklands War (Impunity Watch)

Editor's Story of the Argentine Dirty War (The Latin Americanist)

Huellas policiales del terrorismo de estado (Pagina/12)

Colombia News Round-Up

First off, I've updated the post below to include an English transcript of the disgustingly racist and dishonest propaganda put out by the Peruvian government.

Then, it's off to Colombia for a lovely juxtaposition of articles:

Colombia's False Positives (CoHA)

Colombia Anti-Labor Violence Up Says ITUC (The Latin Americanist)

Colombia 'Working Everyday to Overcome Impunity': Uribe (Colombia Reports)

See also the official Colombian government news portal for the original of this story - sorry, but I just find the writing style of the Colombian journalists hilarious, in particular referring to Uribe as "the Leader". Marvel at his explication [sic] of how nice the Colombian government is to workers.

Argentina: Icon of Repression

Thanks are due to the Collective Memory Project for sparking my thoughts on the Ford Falcon, primarily green, and its role in repression in Argentina. Check out Lucas' post for testimony regarding this particular car, so beloved of the state-sponsored death squads.

“Whenever a Falcon drove by or slowed down, we all knew that there would be kidnappings, disappearances, torture or murder,” reflects renowned Argentine psychologist and playwright Eduardo “Tato” Pavlovsky in a recent article. “It was the symbolic expression of terror. A death-mobile.”
[Robert, p. 12]

See for example,
Argentina: Coming to Terms with the Past (BBC)

Argentine death squad cars try for new image (Reuters)

The memory of the Falcon is a cultural icon in Argentina - see this work by sculpture Daniel Acosta;

But this goes further than the Falcon. Ford's involvement with the military regime ran deeper than just selling them cars.

[Former Ford employees] say local managers conspired with the security forces to have union members taken to a detention centre on the premises, where they were tortured.
Ford has in the past denied torture took place on its property.

Ford Sued over Argentine Abuses (BBC)

Pedro Troiani says his supervisor had advance notice of his abduction on April 13, 1976. Far from warning him when he arrived at work that morning, the supervisor ordered Troiani not to move from his place on the line: “You can’t move because they’re watching you.” When a truckload of soldiers descended on the plant, the factory foreman, Miguel Migliacchio, identified Troiani to them. The plant manager came out of his office to watch as they pulled Troiani off the line and paraded him around the factory, hands behind his head.
Troiani, Carlos Alberto Propato and five others rounded up that day were taken to the same makeshift detention center within the plant’s athletic facilities, where they were kept for seven hours.
[Robert, p. 15]

Karen Robert (2005) The Falcon Remembered, NACLA, pp. 12-15

Colombia: Making People Disappear

This week, Cambio has been tracking down one of the furnaces used to cremate Colombian victims of the paramilitaries.


There is one association and one association only with images like this, and you know it before I say it: the Holocaust. People whose lives somehow, in the view of the state at the time, don't matter any more, are pushed out of sight and then murdered, incinerated, and swept away.

Sure, we are not talking Auschwitz statistics: the estimation is that this furnace, built in an old sugarcane mill, was used to dispose of around 200 people. But you know, 200 is really a lot if you actually stop and think that each one was a living, breathing individual with a family. And this isn't the only furnace in Colombia; the article hints at others.

As is usually the case, local people knew what was going on. There is sometimes the misconception that state-sponsored acts of terror take place in utter secrecy. They don't, and they aren't supposed to. Establishing a state of generalised fear requires that people know that there is something to fear, and that they have some idea what it is. Their terror then turns them inward, away from society - people stop speaking and socialising freely and simply keep their heads down and concentrate on surviving. In this case, there were witnesses when the paramilitaries arrived and built the furnaces, but they haven't spoken about it openly until now.

This is a long article with some distressing details in the various testimonies, but worth reading for the Spanish speakers.

Cambio conocio los hornos crematorios que construyeron los paramilitares en Norte de Santander

Donde hay cenizas

Mexico: Tracing Aleida

This is a trailer for the documentary Trazando Aleida (Tracing Aleida, dir. Christiane Burkhard), which focuses on Aleida Gallangos Vargas, the daughter of disappeared parents, and her search for her brother. Gallangos is Mexican, and Mexico is not often one of the countries traditionally included in the list of Latin American nations which suffered mass politically-motivated disappearances in previous decades. Recently however, more information has been coming to light on Mexico's own 'dirty war'. Anyone familiar with Argentina's dictatorship will be nodding in recognition at the images in this clip, which looks very interesting.

Film Chronicles Woman's Search for Identity after Mexico's 'Dirty War' (LA Times blog)

Colombia: Is the Net Closing on 'False Positive' Perpetrators?

In the Guardian this morning, a letter from 5 British MPs supporting the decision to withdraw military aid from Colombia, but concerned that the government

continues to supply secret and unconditional counter-narcotics assistance to unspecified units of the Colombian army.

Meawhile, the excellent Colombia Reports indicates that 67 members have been convicted of so-called 'false positive' killings - murdered civilians and dressing them up to look like guerrillas. The BBC has also picked up on the story, noting that there has been a number of arrests.

It's pleasing to see proceedings being brought against these criminals, although I fear that it's quite easy to start this many trials because there are simply so many perpetrators out there. One of them, for example, has apparently admitted to killing over 150 people. Never fear, though, Uribe wants to ensure that they all get a fair trial.

United States: History of Involvement in Torture

U.S. has a 45-year history of torture (LA Times)

Yes, it's important to keep repeating this. In the communal handwringing over the recent torture memos and their possible aftermath, let us not forget that the United States' involvement in state-sponsored torture is not a new aberration, but a longstanding policy.

Link found at Latin America News Review

Colombia: Britain Cuts Military Aid

Last week, the British government announced sent a small memo to parliament saying that its military assistance programme to Colombia would end following repeated concerns about human rights abuses committed by the Colombian military (see this post and this article for a small selection of examples).

UK Ends Bilateral Military Aid to Colombia (Guardian)

Boz noted that

The projects included a landmine clearance programme that had been under way since 2000 and a human rights training project that began in 2006.

and commented

The UK is cutting assistance to programs that would save civilian lives and prevent future human rights abuses. The government says that none of this money was going to units accused in the scandals, but they're cutting it anyway.

If the UK wants to make a statement about human rights, they should target their cuts more carefully towards the training and equipping of the units actually involved in the scandals and continue the funding of military programs that actually help fulfill human rights objectives. Otherwise, this is just a budget cut wrapped up in some pretty language.

These seemed like legitimate concerns, so I tried to find out more. I turned to Justice for Colombia's report [pdf] on UK Military Aid to Colombia, written before the end of the aid, and note the following:

The UK plays a role in the conflict by providing assistance to the Colombian military. Very little detail about this assistance has been made public, though the UK is reportedly the second largest donor of military aid to Colombia after the US. (p.4)

- Why the secrecy when it's UK taxpayers' money being used?

Troublingly, there are no conditions of any sort attached to UK military assistance to Colombia.
This gives the regime no incentive to improve their behaviour as they know that irrespective of their performance, the UK aid will keep flowing. (p.6)

HMG [Her Majesty's Government] says that some of the assistance provided to the Colombian military is for human rights training. However, HMG has refused to reveal what proportion of UK assistance is for this type of training nor to which units/personnel of the Colombian Army it is provided.
This human rights training does not appear to be working as abuses perpetrated by soldiers, including cases of torture and extra-judicial executions of civilians not only continue, but are increasing.... Indeed, the only Colombian Army unit that HMG has confirmed receives UK assistance in this area has, in recent years, been implicated in grave violations... The fact that HMG refuses to disclose exactly who receives the human rights training also makes any independent monitoring of its impact or effectiveness impossible. (p.7)

So much for the human rights training. There appears to be no clear evidence on what it is, how much it is, or how successful it is, and financial aid does go to units implicated in atrocities.
And as for the de-mining,

HMG states that approximately 8% of their military assistance to Colombia is focussed on humanitarian de-mining work. There is concern that UK assistance in this area is not aimed at clearing mines from areas where civilians are at risk (humanitarian de-mining) but rather for offensive operations (i.e. rapid clearance of mines during pursuits).
Evidence for this is provided by the ‘Colombian Campaign Against Mines’ which lists several countries, but not the UK, as assisting with humanitarian de-mining; and the ‘International Campaign to Ban Landmines’ (ICBL) which lists countries such as Canada, the USA, Germany, Italy, Spain, Norway and Switzerland as assisting with humanitarian de-mining, but makes no mention of any UK assistance.(p.8)

So, if the £190,000 per annum sum is correct, the de-mining programme is the equivalent of a paltry £15,200 per year - and in any case, civilians may not benefit from it. I am unconvinced that the funding would save lives or prevent abuses - and very possibly, quite the opposite.

On balance then, I support the stance of the British government, since the money - while not a particularly large amount - would have been taken as tacit support for Uribe's policies. Besides that, there is a lack of transparency in revealing what the money was actually used for. Ideally, however, I back Boz's call for better targeted funding rather than none at all - but it seems to me that the existing funding programme was wholly inadequate and should be replaced rather than upheld.

My analysis here seeks to go somewhat beyond the Guardian article, but it still isn't ideal since I haven't found too much information outside Justice for Colombia. If readers have improved sources, they are very welcome to add links in the comments section or email me and, if appropriate, I'll update the post.

Good Friday News Round-Up

There are several quite interesting articles on the reactions of various groups to the sentencing of Fujimori in Peru from the BBC and IPS.

Secondly, I'd like to draw attention to a moving photo essay about the Rio Negro massacre in Guatemala, and its commemoration (Upside Down World).

And finally, British MPs and trade union representatives from Britain and North America have accused Colombia's Alvaro Uribe of crimes against humanity. It's hardly surprising that they were horrified - they just visited the most dangerous place in the world to be a trade unionist. I doubt that their strong words will make any immediate difference, but every little helps.

News Round-Up

And, in other news (yes, other things are happening in the world apart from Fujimori's sentence):

There are apparently more bodies in the Putis area which have not yet been exhumed. In addition, the major has complained that the community is still lacking basic facilities such as medical posts and schools.

Plus,

Manu Chao could have got into hot water after describing the actions of the Mexican state in Atenco as 'state terrorism'.

Chao was referring to the events of May 2006, particularly a demonstration by Atenco flower-sellers against a commercial development. Mexican police intervened, sparking riots. Over 200 people were injured, two killed and 27 women sexually assaulted in the ensuing conflict, according to Mexico's National Human Rights Committee.

The problem is,

Article 33 of the Mexican constitution states that "foreigners cannot in any manner interfere in internal political affairs" and the government carries "the executive power to force them to leave national territory".

However, he seems to have got away with it.

Peru: Annual Report on Human Rights (2)

Part (1) is here. From the report of the CNDDHH, chapter 2, the following important points:

1) Attempts on life by presumed state agents:

- in 2008, there were at least 42 deaths by presumed state agents, considerably more than in each of the previous 6 years.

The deaths were caused as followed (p.36):

Counterinsurgency measures by the armed forces: 7 (17.1%)
Routine control by the national police: 3 (7.3%)
Evictions by the national police: 3 (7.3%)
Social cleansing by the national police: 20 (48.8%)
Protests by the national police: 8 (19.5%)
Total: 41 (100%)

93% of these were adult males. 83% were caused by the police (in violent evictions, through repression of protests, and so on) and the remainder by the armed forces (p45).

2) At the same time, at least 25 people were killed by 'subversive agents' - basically Shining Path remnants. This is almost twice as many as in the previous year. 81.5% of victims were members of the security forces (p.47).

3) The Defensoria del Pueblo is aware of 80 cases of torture in 2008, of which 68 were committed by the police and the remainder by the armed forces (p. 65). Some of these have taken place within military establishments or penitentiary units. Most of those tortured by the armed forces were conscripts on their military service. From a torture point of view, a police station is one of the most dangerous places to be in Peru.

4) There has been an increase in the number of arbitrary detentions and deprivations of liberty as part of the government's criminalisation of protest. Community leaders are the most vulnerable to this sort of abuse.

5) There has been a general increase in attacks on freedom of expression and the press. These attacks include death threats, physical assaults, cutting off means of communication, blackmail, and others. They number at least 100 in 2008 (p.92). The perpetrators were sometimes unknown but apparently included members of the security forces as well as local officials, businesspersons, and others.

Peru: Attacks on Integrity of Yuyanapaq

Last week, I posted a partial translation of an article protesting the aspersions that military amnesty supporter Edgar Núñez was casting against the photographic exhibition Yuyanapaq (Para recordar/For remembering). Núñez is President of the Defense Committee of the Peruvian Congress. Now, on the website of magazine Caretas, you can see a video of the incident in which he discusses this image by Oscar Medrano (who works for Caretas, hence their particular interest):


Holding up the photograph, he stresses that its subject, Edmundo Camana, is still alive and in possession of his two eyes. I'm not sure who ever denied that; here is a range of photographs taken by the same photographer:


In her article 'Making Yuyanapaq', Robin Hoecker notes that

The photograph was taken by Oscar Medrano for the magazine Caretas, but it was never published. Instead, another image ran of the man where his bandage is raised, showing a gruesome and disfigured eye. Mohanna explained why the Yuyanapaq editors chose to use the version with the bandage: "For us, this photo [with the bandage] dignifies the victim. And the other one [without the bandage] documents the evidence of what happened, of the pain. But you can still see the pain in this [good] eye. And for us, this one [with the bandage] is much stronger than the other one [without the bandage]. We made decisions like this all the time. "

For Núñez to claim, therefore, that the image is a 'trick' designed to make the audience believe that the man had lost his eye is a nonsense. He goes on to state that the problem with the subject's eye is not that he had been attacked by Shining Path with a machete; oh no! He just had a stye, a simple eye infection. This is absurd. Finally, Núñez repeats that the man is still living - again, who denied that? Caretas sent Medrano to catch up with him last year, on the 25th anniversary of the photograph:


Núñez also states, with emphasis, that Camana has never received any compensation from anyone. It was not the CVR's job to hand out financial compensation; they recommended that the government do this.

After Núñez and a response by Ayacuchan congresswoman Juana Huancahuari, fujimorista Cecilia Chacon de Vettori shouts and waves her pen around while proclaiming that it is impossible to talk of state terrorism and that Peru was merely defending itself against terrorists. At the end of the video, Huancahuari takes the microphone again and begins by saying that some politicians feel a profound contempt for indigenous highland people (campesinos, lit 'peasants'). Quite frankly, given the ingrained racism in Peruvian society, I took this as a simple statement of fact. There are cries of protest and she is ordered to retract her statement. When she refuses, the session is called to a halt.

The whole scene is rather bizarre. But one thing is clear; Núñez is attacking the integrity of the photographer Oscar Medrano, of the curators of Yuyanapaq Mayu Mohanna and Nancy Chappell, and by extension of the truth commission (CVR) itself, which authorised the photographic exhibition. He shows a clear desire to undermine the memory of the Peruvian conflict itself and remember only one side; those unambiguously murdered by the Shining Path. The fact is that the state did commit crimes during the conflict as well and it needs to face up to the memory of those, but it will struggle against amnesia while those in power oppose an honest assessment of the past.

Video of the session of the congressional committee here, in Spanish:
Este ojo llora (Caretas)

Bolivia: Torture Cells Found

I learnt from Impunity Watch that evidence of torture during military dicatorships has been found in the basement of the Ministry of Government in Bolivia. The secret cells may contain human remains.

Clearly these rooms have been there under the ministry for decades and were not completely secret; it's always interesting to wonder who knew about them and how the decision was made to do something about them now. Apparently some human rights organisations have been lobbying for action. But the reaction of the Bolivian government now is exemplary, I think:
- They have brought in victims' organisations to help clarify exactly what was where
- They have asked for help from bodies from other countries experienced in this work, including the Madres de Plaza de Mayo
- They have announced plans to commemorate the victims with a memorial

Torture Rooms Discovered in the Minstry of Government (Impunity Watch)

Descruben sotanos de tortura en el ministerio de Bolivia (El Universal)

Sospechan que victimas de la dictatura estan enterrados en el sotano del Ministerio del Gobierno (Erbol)

News Round-Up

More on commemorations of the Uchuraccay massacre (in which protesters correctly criticise the woefully inadequate Vargas Llosa report, but seem not to address the far more measured and comprehensive Truth Commission report on the incident):
Peru journalists remember fallen colleagues on 26th anniversary of Uchuraccay massacre (Peruvian Times)

In Colombia, a group of soldiers suspected of involvement in murder are now wanted men:
13 More Arrest Warrants for Extradjudicial Killings (Impunity Watch)

Oh, and I've also been reading about Tim's meeting with the US ambassador.