Peru: Afro-Peruvians Receive Apology

Public apologies are not particularly unusual these days. The UK has recently said sorry for its treatment of Alan Turing and both it and Australia have apologised to those citizens who were abused in state care as children.

Now it's Peru's turn; it is to apologise to its black population for the centuries of discrimination they have faced.

Women's and Social Development Minister Nidia Vilchez said the government wanted the apology to promote the "true integration of all Peru's multicultural population," Associated Press news agency reported.

Peru apologises for abuse of African-origin citizens (BBC)

Unfair treatment is not merely a historical shame; even today, black Peruvians are often disadvantaged:

...only 2 percent of Afro-Peruvians obtain technical training or higher education, and just 27 percent finish high school.

Government Begs "Historical Pardon" from Afro-Peruvians for Past Abuses (LAHT)

I'm in favour of symbolic gestures such as apologies as part of other state measures such as truth-telling, reparations, and measures to ensure that injustices are not repeated.

See also The Age of Apology: Facing up to the Past ed. by Mark Gibson et al.

News Round-Up

Argentine Dirty War Victims Cautiously Embrace Trials, Hope for More (truthout)

Former Argentine dictator denies stealing babies (AFP)

Medellin to hold truth commission on violence (Colombia Reports)

News Round-Up

Argentina

First Argentine marine commander to land in Falklands in April 1982 arrested (Mercopress)

Chile

Chile murder mystery: Who killed Victor Jara (AP)

Peru

Estadio de San Marcos hace 20 años (PeruFotoLibre)

IACHR Calls for Justice for Victims of Force Sterilisation (IPS)

News Round-Up

Argentina

Argentine veterans' divided over Falkland 'abuse' case (BBC)

Chile

Film revives story of cameraman killed in Chile while covering 1973 coup attempt (Journalism in the Americas)

El Salvador

Despair and hope: looking back on the 1989 killings of six Jesuit priests in El Salvador (LA Times)

Peru

Defense asks court to annul Fujimori's sentence and order a retrial (Fujimori on Trial)

The Fujimori Trial: An Exemplary Process (WOLA)

"Shining Path" guerrilla launches new political party (Living in Peru)

Former presidential advisor Vladimiro Montesinos publishes a book (Living in Peru)

Argentina: El Olimpo Trial to Start

Tomorrow sees the start of a major human rights trial in Argentina, in which alleged perpetrators from the detention centres of Club Atlético, El Banco and Olimpo will be in the dock. They include Julian the Turk. Here's the full list:

Accused	Alias	Authority
Raúl Guglielminetti	Mayor Guastavino	Civil
Samuel Miara	Cobani	PF [Federal Police]
Julio Simón	Turco Julián	PF
Raúl González	Negro or Mayor Raúl	PF
Eufemio Uballes	Führer or Anteojito	PF
Eduardo Kalinec	Doctor K	PF
Roberto Rosa	Clavel	PF
Juan Carlos Falcón	Kung Fu	PF
Luis Donocik	Polaco Chico	PF
Oscar Rolón	Soler	PF
Ricardo Taddei	Padre or Cura	PF
Juan Carlos Avena	Centeno	SPF [Federal Penitentiary Service]
Guillermo Cardozo	Cortés	Gendarmería [Gendarmerie]
Eugenio Pereyra Apestegui	Quintana	Gendarmería
Enrique Del Pino	Miguelito	Ejército [Army]
Carlos Tepedino		Ejército
Mario Gómez Arenas		Ejército

La banda de Suarez Mason en el banco (Pagina/12)

Argentina: DNA Debate

I have mentioned several times ([1], [2], [3], [4], [5]) the recent court ruling that allows the compulsory DNA testing of suspected disappeared children (i.e. the now-adult adoptees who may be the biological offspring of parents killed by the military regime). The issue of forcibly taking DNA samples from hairbrushes, toothbrushes or underwear (not from compulsory blood tests) is obviously a thorny one upon which prominent human rights activists disagree.

"It's an absolute invasion of the right to biological privacy," constitutional lawyer Gregorio Badeni told The Associated Press. "No one has the right to know what I have inside my body. That belongs only to me. I can give it up voluntarily, but no one can obligate me to deliver it."

Estela de Carlotto, who heads the grandmothers group, disagrees.

By allowing officials to extract DNA from personal effects, the law "doesn't violate in any way the body or the privacy," she said. "It will surely help discover the identity of the grandchildren we have been searching for for so many years."

"If an adult doesn't want to know his origins, you have to respect it," said Julio Strassera, a former prosecutor who put top military leaders on trial.

"The state cannot leave in the hands of a young person, raised by a member of the military, manipulated by guilt, the decision of whether or not to learn his true identity," said Horacio Pietragalla, who learned in 2003 that he was taken as a baby from his biological mother, Liliana Corti.

Argentina forces dirty war orphans to provide DNA (AP)

I am sympathetic to the Grandmothers' position on this one, although I think Carlotto is a little disingenous to suggest that the privacy of the person in question is not violated. I think it certainly is, it's simply an issue of deciding that this problem is outweighed by the importance of the truth. The situation must be agonising for all those involved, and particularly for the potentially disappeared 'child' at the centre of it. When one considers how many of their adopted parents were personally involved in the crimes that led to their adoption, and that crimes against humanity were being committed, I think the genetic origins need to be clarified. One does not force a victim of abduction to decide whether or not to prosecute their kidnappers.

The majority of the disappeared children who speak in interviews speak of their gratitude in finding their biological families - but of course, it is likely to be the most confident and well-adjusted individuals who are going around giving interviews (and becoming politicians, etc).

Argentina: Honour for Victor Basterra

A survivor of the ESMA torture camp, Víctor Basterra, received an award for valour today in Buenos Aires - and well-deserved it is too.

Basterra was imprisoned in the ESMA in 1979 and, like some other skilled detainees, put to work. In his case, he was forced to photograph the military personnel working there, for ID cards and the like.

Some trusted prisoners were occasionally allowed out of the detention centres without being granted their true freedom - and if you wonder why they would ever return, you can only imagine what would have happened to their families and friends if they had not. Basterra was one of these, and he secretly smuggled out the photos he had taken and other negatives of the prisoners themselves (it is often reported that he took those images too, but he testifies otherwise - a military photographer photographed the disappeared and Basterra made copies). These photographs are essential evidence of who, both victim and perpetrator, was incontrovertibly in the ESMA during the dictatorship and were used during the Trial of the Juntas.

There is not a shadow of a doubt that Basterra was risking his life in removing evidence from the Navy's major detention centre. Moreover, this brave man continues to struggle for justice by talking about what happened to him, taking tour groups around the ESMA, and testifying in legal proceedings.

Basterra's work
The photographs of the Navy personnel can be seen here
The photographs of the disappeared also feature in the book Memoria en construccion edited by Marcelo Brodsky. Brodsky's disappeared brother Fernando is on the poster you can see in the small image above.
For background on Basterra and the ESMA, see also this article from the Washington Post: Torture Center to Bear Witness

El que "saco" las fotos (Pagina/12)
La Legislatura distingue a un sobreviviente de la ESMA (Critica Digital)