Post on 16-Jul-2020
transcript
HUMR5132 Human Rights Law in Context (Autumn 2013)
Enforced Disappearance : Latin America experiences
Jemima García-Godos
Dept. of Sociology and Human Geography
18.10.2013
In this lecture:
What does enforced disappearance actually involve?
Modus operandi of enforced disappearance
Looking for the disappeared
Implications of been ‘absent’
Exhumations - Inhumations
• Closure?
• Examples from Peru, Chile and Guatemala
Desaparecido - Missing
http://www.criterion.com/films/769-missing
A sad Latin American background
Enforced disappearance: a widespread practice during military
dictatorships in Latin America 1970s-1980s.
Features of enforced disappearance
• A complex crime: the detention of a person followed
by refusal to acknowledge her detention and/or
absence of information about her whereabouts.
• A crime that continues until the person or her body is
found.
• Combines with other crimes.
• Also victimization of the victims’ family.
Why disappearing the enemy?
• To obtain information from detainees.
• To get rid of opposition or subversives without the
entanglements of rule of law
• To frighten local population and get their tacit
support.
• Peru, Guatemala: part of counter-subversive strategy
against guerrilla members, collaborators, suspects
• Chile, Argentina: against «communist threat»
How many disappeared in Latin
America?
Country # disappeared
Argentina 30000 aprox
Chile 3216
Peru 5972
Guatemala 40000 aprox
Colombia 3459 / 15600 / 57200
Paraguay 377
Honduras 200 aprox
Uruguay 200 aprox
Brazil 475
Modus operandi
Often - but not only - during state of emergency.
Identification of the victim, and subsequent detention.
Often at night, during raids; but also at daylight.
Kept in detention in one or several sites; transfers usual.
Interrogation; torture.
Processing information obtained, if any.
Decision to execute the detainee or let her go.
If executed or died during torture, dispose the body.
Destroy remains of victims.
Say ‘No’ no matter what.
Looking for the disappeared
With or without witnesses?
Where to look when there are several detention sites?
How long to look for?
What about the public prosecutors, can they help?
- Civil liberties under siege
- Military high command
Who else can help?
- the church
- Human rights organisations
- NGOs
- media
How long does it take to find them?
Truth commissions in Latin America
• TCs focus on the past
• TCs investigate a pattern of abuses over a period of time
• TCs are independent bodies limited in time
• TCs are officially sanctioned and authorized by the state.
Mandate, composition, methodologies, recommendations,
follow-up.
Truth commissions in 15 Latin American countries since 1982.
Followed by 8 victim reparations programs,
Prosecutions Military regimes and state of emergency:
limited access to courts
Denunciations archived or blocked by procedural bottlenecks
Protection from judicial prosecution through amnesties.
IACtHR 2001 Barrios Altos case – amnesties do not apply
Chile: Pinochet case 1998/1999
Peru: Fujimori case 2008
Guatemala: Police Archives 2005
New wave of trials in Latin America, most consolidated in
Argentina, but progressively moving forward in other
countries. (one step forward, two steps back, and so on…)
Implications of been ‘absent’
Civil status: can your wife remarry?
Property: can your children inherit?
Social benefits for your family, in absence of a death
certificate?
Your family: keep searching or moving on?
Living without knowing
Exhumations - Inhumations
Exhumations and Inhumations are complex processes involving:
Victims & witnesses to denounce and identify mass graves and clandestine burial sites.
Judicial process: requires presence of prosecutor/judicial authorities.
Technical expertise: forensic science, labs, systematization, archives.
Logistical expertise: interagency coordination, funding, sharing information, outreach.
Human compassion.
What exhumations involve
From Colombia’s Special Prosecutor for Justice and Peace (Sept 2012):
GESTIÓN EXHUMACIONES – Fosas exhumadas 3.806
– Cadáveres encontrados 4.792
– Cuerpos con identificación indiciaria
(con muestra de ADN y esperando resultados de laboratorio) 737
– Cuerpos plenamente identificados por pruebas de ADN o Carta Dental 1.965
– Cuerpos entregados a familiares 1.801
– Cuerpos identificados y pendientes de entrega a familiares 190
JORNADAS ESPECIALES DE ATENCIÓN A FAMILIARES DE
DESAPARECIDOS – No. de Jornadas 248
– No. de Personas Atendidas 42.973
– No. de Muestras Biológicas tomadas 17.230
http://www.fiscalia.gov.co:8080/justiciapaz/Index.htm
J. García-Godos, ISS-UiO
Closure?
• Will all the disappeared ever be
found?
• Challenges to criminal
accountability
• The right to truth
• Who decides when it is time to
move on?
• What about the disappeared
today?