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?