I Don’t Remember How . . . But the Terrorists Are Dead

This entry is immensely long, and it's also about one of the top two most interesting things I've experienced in Argentina.

In Full View

Twice a week Tribunal Oral en lo Criminal Nº1, a courthouse in La Plata, Buenos Aires closes off the street in front of it, and holds a trial on the rights abuses during the late 70s. This period in Argentina, from 1976-1983, is often called the “Dirty War”, except for by its victims, who claim it was not a war, because a war needs two armies. Instead they use the term “el Proceso” (“the Process”) to refer to 7 years of a government preying on any citizen who spoke against it. While it is important to remember that the citizens’ opposition was not pacifistic, they did not deserve what happened.

            The trial my class and I went to see was for information, not for a verdict. The defendant on the stand Miguel Osvaldo Etchecolatz, the Director of Investigations for the Police of Buenos Aires during the Proceso, had already been condemned to life in jail in 2006. The trial was purely to find information, about a particular occurrence during those years.

            Anyone with identification can enter a courtroom and watch a trial, and my school group was joined by art students and some middle aged observers. One woman with long white hair was a founding member of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, a group that still demands justice for the children the government secretly kidnapped during the Proceso. The only rules the courthouse gave us were you must be over fourteen, because the themes were so heavy, and you could not bring in food or water, lest you throw them at someone. This implied the due bitterness surrounding the trials. The courthouse staff gave us official wristbands and let us enter.

  

Set the Stage

The courtroom itself appeared to be an old theater. The seats the public sat in looked just like those for a play-going audience, and a red curtain was pulled to the side above the stage where sat the judge, defendant, and lawyers. Despite its theatrical origins, it was a very plain building, devoid of any decorations. A somber place dedicated to a practical job: finding the truth.

            The judge sat facing the audience, along with two assistants. (It surprised me to see that one had dyed her hair magenta). On the right, rows of prosecuting lawyers with laptops and coffee cups, faced inwards, towards center stage. On the left, a cage jutted out into the audience, and here, protected by five guards in bulletproof jackets reading “SPF”, sat the defense. One guard had a riot shield, and they spent the time watching the audience and the case. Throughout the trial more guards with radios and black berets walked the floor.

            Etchecolatz rose, a normal looking older man with white hair and a gray suit, and sat at a desk, his back to the audience, facing the judge. This is what evil looks like, I told myself, knowing I was seeing a man who had presided over murder and torture, and yet I felt no repulsion. This was just a man.

Clara Anahí as photographed by her grandmother days before the attack. I borrowed it from: http://www.apdhlaplata.org.ar/espacio/n31/esp12.htm

Memory of Family
Etchecolatz had been called in from prison to give his account on the case of Casa 30. This house had been home to five Montoneros, anti-government rebels, and two of theirs baby girl. Most importantly, the house hosted a secret printing press the Montoneros used to distribute their political flyers. To cover it up, they raised and sold rabbits (as food, not pets). Because of this, the novel written about Casa 30 is called “Casa de Los Conejos”, or “House of Rabbits”.

Etchecolatz and the police attacked the house in 1976, killing everyone inside it, save, perhaps, for the three month old baby, Clara Anahí Mariani. Neighbors reported seeing the police take the baby from the house, and it was not an uncommon practice for police to kidnap children and raise them as their own. Estimates say 400 of these “disappeared” children are going about their lives today, completely unaware of their real identities. Clara Anahí’s grandmother is still looking for her; if she has survived this long, she turned 35 last August. But even if Clara Anahí was taken alive from the house, she could have been hit by a car at age 15 and died, or died of cancer at age 30; if alive she might not even still be in the country. It soon became clear that Etchecolatz’s objective in the trial was to say the daughter was dead, and thus that the search should stop, and that he was not complicit in anything blameworthy. 

Designing Justice
Trials in Latin America follow a different structure from the U.S.’s precedent-based system. The codified system in Latin America places more trust in written evidence and reviewing data, while the USA emphasizes oral evidence from witnesses. Watching this case, another difference became obvious: in Argentina, the judge, in addition to the lawyers, has a chance to examine the defense, and the defense can be brought in to be questioned again, if new evidence appears. For an hour or more, our judge questioned Etchecolatz           

Summary: Ray of Truth, Fog of Lies
The events of the day at Casa 30 began to become clear as the trial proceeded. The facts that Etchecolatz and other accounts agreed upon were that Etchecolatz had arrived at Casa 30 along with other military officers, that several officers entered the house, and that the five Montoneros were killed. During the attack on Casa 30, Etchecolatz was on the roof of the adjacent house, along with a man with a bazooka.

Etchecolatz handwaved over his involvement, trying to suggest that his entire participation in the conflict had been to merely exist on the roof, instead of having any job assigned to him, or having been involved with organizing the event. The police director also attempted to put a nationalistic, positive spin on the actions of the police in the Proceso, presenting them as a civilian, humanitarian group, and putting all blame for torture on the military. Part of Etchecolatz’s aim was also to insist that the Proceso had not been unilateral aggression: “[Los Montoneros] también tenía resistencia”  (“The Montoneros also had resistance”) he said, and claimed the guerrillas had killed 270 policemen.

There were a few notable flaws with Etchecolatz’s account. First, he, the director of police, had followed someone else’s orders to go to the house, and yet had not been assigned any role to do while there. He hadn’t been on the roof to catch people fleeing, he insisted, nor even really to observe.  Secondly, all the Montoneros were to be killed and their bodies burned, Etchecolatz reported, yet he claims neither saw bodies nor flames nor heard shots. In regards to the detention centers, in Etchecolatz’s world, the police were merely there to take care of the abducted people’s health and nutrition, the rest was the military’s job. Finally, despite physical evidence and numerous first hand accounts, Etchecolatz denied that torture was a common occurrence.  

In Defense of a Nation

When Perón ran for president in 1945, it was immediately after World War II and photos of the concentration camps were just leaking out to full public view. The U.S. ambassador, Braden, accused Perón of supporting Hitler and harboring Nazis. To explain to the class why this was such a harsh, campaign-damaging accusation, my history teacher clarified: it would be like saying you supported the ESMA, a major detention center used in the Proceso. Argentina is a place where those responsible for the Proceso draw a quicker gut reaction, a more immediate repulsion, than Nazis. In my human rights classes and history classes, no one could even question that the military committed horrors.

Just thirty years after the Proceso, and in a society where everyone knows the full extent of the abuses committed, I heard Etchecolatz continue to assert that his actions were fully justified. While I had been warned that most of the Proceso’s human rights criminals were unrepentant, it still felt unreal. Etchecolatz referred to those kidnapped by the government as “terroristas” (terrorists), and “prisioneros de la guerra” (prisoners of war”).

“Tenían que perseguirlo [y] matarlos como ratas” (“We had to chase them [and] kill them like rats”), he insisted; The Proceso was a campaign to protect country’s institutions, and allow Argentina to live in peace. 

Words for War
Among Etchecolatz’s description of the military government, stark nationalistic phrases continued to pop up.  He told how the military government had tried to “recuperar la verdad” (“to recover the truth”), “recuperar lo que ha perdido” (“to recover what had been lost”), “[asegurar] respecta para sus instituciones” (“to ensure respect for its institutions”), “[asegurar que Argentina puede] vivir en paz” (“to makes sure that Argentina could live in peace”), “sofocar una situación de ofensa” (“to suffocate an offensive situation”), and “afrentar el enemigo” (“to confront the enemy”).

Brainwashed Language
During the Proceso itself, the government enacted a huge propaganda campaign in which they repeatedly used nationalistic images to present their work as glorious and righteous and encourage belief in their side. If the police and guerrillas clashed, the newspaper was bound to report that the police had eliminated a subversive, or, if luck went the other way, that a policeman had been murdered by terrorists.

Euphemisms made torture seem less offensive: a “sumbarino” (submarine) is a tasty treat similar to hot chocolate, made by dropping a bar of chocolate in warm milk. When the government attached the name “submarino” to a form of torture, it became easier for soldiers to distance themselves from what they were actually doing: waterboarding a victim in water tainted with feces and urine.  In a 1984-esque attempt to cut down on subversive thought, the word “revolution” was banned, even including in reference to science.

Play by Play

It feels the most honest representation is to report the event as straightforwardly as possible, including giving the original Spanish, as that is the most accurate and true wording. I will translate as closely as I can.

What Did You Do?

It began with the judge questioning:

“¿Cuándo se producen muertes era porque hay sido resistencias?”

When killing occurred was it because there had been resistance?

I didn’t catch all of Etchecolatz‘s response. It was something like:

 “Somos ciudadanos .. . . no es así permitir abusos, no recibí ningún orden de torturas. . .”

We are citizens . . .it is not so that abuses were allowed, I didn’t receive any order to torture. . .

In a somewhat jumbled way, Etchecolatz went on to detail the event. The government forces attacked Casa 30 because it had a printer for “panfletos terroristas” (“terrorist pamphlets”) in the house. He believed that everyone in Casa 30 was killed, as the order had been to leave no one alive (“nadie quedar con vida”). Officers entered that house, the Montoneros inside resisted (at least he emphasized that he thought this was what happened), and, presumably, said Etchecolatz, the officers killed them all. Still, he reminded his listeners “no vi nada” (“I didn’t see anything”), and “no oí disparos” (“I didn’t hear shots”). Etchecolatz said that  “fueran carbonizados a todos en la casa” (“Everyone in the house was burned to ashes”), but when the judge asked he admitted that he had not seen fire or felt heat. Witnesses in other meetings on this case had also not seen fire. According to my human rights teacher, it was a common practice for the military/police to take away the bodies of their victims, so as to leave no tangible evidence. If Etchecolatz could suggest the bodies were burned, he would not have to explain what actually happened to them. But he could not blatantly contradict the testimonies of other witnesses.

The judge picked at the story:

“¿Por qué estabas allá si hiciste nada? ¿Cómo fue estar en el techo sin ver nada? ¿Por qué estabas en el techo? Los disparos de afuera . . .estabas allá parar matar a alguien que saliera de la casa?”

Why were you there if you didn’t do anything? How was it that you were on the roof and saw nothing? Why were you on the roof? The shots outside . . .where you there to kill anyone who left the house?

Etchecolatz:

 “Estaba allá por parte de posición en la policía”

I was there as part of my position in the police.

He continued, saying that he was only support and that no one gave him an order.

Judge:

“¿Dices que no hecho ningún tipo de exceso? ¿Nunca influido por exceso del gobierno de este época?”

You said that you never committed any type of excess? You were never influenced by the excesses of the government of this time?

Etchecolatz:

“Lo que cumplí estaba acuerdo del ley”

What I did was in agreement with the law.

Judge:

 “Si recibió un orden a matar, debió negar”

If one received an order to kill, one should refuse it.

Etchecolatz:

“¡Ningún orden matar!”

There wasn’t any order to kill!

Etchecolatz continued, saying that he had only received orders to go to the roof. 

Vanished Children

Judge:

“¿Hijos de personas desaparecidos eran recobrados?”

Were the children of the disappeared recovered?

Etchecolatz:

“No sé.”

I don’t know.

In regards to the child Clara Anahí, Etchecolatz merely mentioned that the people in the house “enseñaba a niña revistas subversivos” (“taught the girl subversive magazines”); this is no doubt a major reason the military would have taken her. El Argentino, a newspaper present at the trial that day, quoted Etchecolatz as saying “No puedo asegurar que la criatura estaba adentro, pero si estaba adentro, la criatura no pudo salir con vida” (“I can’t be sure that the child was inside, but if she was inside, the child could not have left with her life”). Despite this claim, it is known, thanks to a testimony in El Argentino, that the police had at one point attempted to sell Clara Anahí to her grandmother, something that strongly suggests the child was not killed at the house. Relatively recently, it was thought that the daughter of the owner of Clarín, an important newspaper, was in fact Clara Anahí. The daughters looked similar, were of the right age, and it was known that the newspaper owner’s daughter was adopted under strange circumstances. For much time the newspaper owner’s lawyers stalled and resisted requests for a DNA test, then suddenly agreed to it, presumably because they discovered through other evidence that the daughter was not a match.

A Skeptical Audience
In response another line of questioning, Etchecolatz told the judge that whatever happened to pregnant women was the decision of the clandestine detention centers that held them, and was not his fault. The police, he said, were only responsible for the health and food of the prisoners, nothing else. The police’s orders, he reiterated, were to “mantener higiene, cuidar salud física, no interrogar” (“to maintain hygiene, to take care of physical health, not to interrogate”). The military was the one who had the responsibility for the prisoners and the detention centers.

However, Etchecolatz said he did remember one instance of a pregnant prisoner. When this girl gave birth, he said, the staff at the detention center bought her presents and a card. Groans of disbelief rose from the audience when they heard this. He couldn’t remember the girl’s name or last name. But she was from La Plata, the neighborhood the trial was in, he said, and the police, because it was a humanitarian issue, took charge of letting her family know.

By this point, the audience had seen thousands such trials, and knew to expect these sort of responses from the accused. In 1986 it was prohibited to try anyone for human rights abuses committed during the Proceso and since then many criminals were pardoned. About a decade ago, then-president Néstor Kirchner re-opened the trials. The lying and lack of repentance was nothing new to the audience of this trial, and the bitterness was clear. When Etchecolatz announced that “caminaba en lo más sucio de la sociedad y no me contaminaba” (I walked in the filthiest part of society, and it didn’t contaminate me”) members of the audience laughed aloud in scorn. 

Remember with Care
When the judge returned to asking Etchecolatz about the events on the day at Casa 30, Etchecolatz tried to say he didn’t remember much of anything. Occasionally, in the trial Etchecolatz  would get flustered responding to questions, would answer in a stream of “Sísísísísí” or “Nononono.” After prodding, he admitted he did remember how he arrived (in a car), but not who drove it, and admitted that he did now remember that others were in the car with him. He did not remember, however, who ordered the attack on the “casa de los terroristas” (“the terrorists’ house”).  As Etchecolatz was the director of the police, it is a fair bet that he himself ordered the attack.

Here the lawyers took over.

One asked:

“¿Si no estaba parte de investigaciones, si solo cuidaba salud física, porque estaba a la Casa 30?”

If you weren’t there as part of the investigations, if you only took care of physical health, why were you at Casa 30?

I don’t believe Etchecolatz answered this one. 

The white building or this flat roof here is likely where Etchecolatz was during the attack.

House of Holes

After the trial, we went to see Casa 30, a small gray cement building. A whole window and most of the wall was blasted out, presumably by the bazooka, and deep holes marked around the door and wall. Glancing through a bullet hole on one wall we could see inside the house, a wall similarly pockmarked by bullets. The roof Etchecolatz must have stood on could not have been more than 8 feet from the door of Casa 30.
 

 The house itself has been preserved as it was since the attack

Epilogue: The Curtain Doesn’t Fall
The face and name Jorge Julio López is something I've seen graffitied all across Buenos Aires, on walls, on tiles in La Plaza de Mayo, and especially in La Plata. Eventually, I learned why.

in La Plata

at Plaza de Mayo

This man had been kidnapped and personally tortured by Etchecolatz from 1976-1979. During the first trial of Etchecolatz, López was a major witness, and his testimony against Etchecolatz was invaluable: In addition to recounting to his own horrific experience, López had seen Etchecolatz execute five people.

Though the Proceso trials offer a form of resolution and validation, testifying is nonetheless extremely painful for the victims. In a documentary on this trial, called “Un Claro Día de Justicia” (“A Clear Day of Justice”), I saw López struggling to get the words out. He remembered a woman named Patricia who was imprisoned with him; he was the only one of them with a chance of leaving the detention center alive, she told him, and she begged López to find her parents or her brothers and tell them to “dame un beso a mis hijas” (“give a kiss to my daughters for me”). Recounting, reliving, this moment, López’s voice almost failed him, it was with painful effort that he managed to speak. The older man’s hands trembled, like a hummingbird flapping, so much that he couldn’t pick up a glass of water; someone had to hold it out for him to sip. 

López during the trial. (Photo credit to Haydeé Dessal y Elena Luz González Bazán at http://www.villacrespomibarrio.com.ar/2011/septiembre/ciudad/derechos%20humanos/lopez%20en%20fotos.htm)

           During the days of this trial, López, a white haired, 77 year old man with children, vanished. In the midst of recounting his horrifying disappearance, disappearances ceased to be a memory and became the state of his life once again. (The trials continued without López, and Etchecolatz was sentenced to life in prison.) This was five years ago. López still has not been found.
            It was 23 years after the end of the Proceso, supposedly in a better government and better world, and yet, with López’s abduction, the disappearances were re-opened. Since then, there have been accusations the police’s fruitlessness in the case is deliberate. The satire magazine, Revista Barcelona, publishes a weekly piece ridiculing the police’s attempts to find López. Clara Anahí and Jorge Julio López have still not been found, but until they, or their final resting places are, the trials will still go on, and the protests will continue in the Plaza de Mayo.

           
            

                 Calendar titled "How many days without López?"; Displayed in ESMA, previous site of a navy clandestine detention center.

Links:

López’s testimony (in Spanish): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ayyh_169cF8

López’s disappearance (in English): http://www.argentinaindependent.com/currentaffairs/analysis/leave-no-stone-unturned-the-disappearance-of-jorge-julio-lopez-/

Clara Anahí (in Spanish): http://www.elargentino.com/nota-152530-Los-chicos-recuerdan-a-Clara-Anahi-a-35-anos.html

The trial, El Argentino article (In Spanish): http://www.elargentino.com/nota-165038-Etchecolatz-a-Chicha-A-Clara-Anahi-se-la-quito-la-subversion.html

GayZombieLaws

                                          Yum yum diversity.

Gay Pride

Yesterday, I went to a gay pride parade, which turned out not to be a parade, but a plaza full of stands selling rainbow colored goods. Given Argentina’s love affair with fairs, it was actually rather fitting. A few of the more interesting merchandise included rainbow colored alfajores and chocolate popsicles shaped like penises.  The event also attracted a few elaborate costumes, such as a woman dressed solely in one yellow thong and gold sparkle body paint, and a variety of drag queens.  (One man, dressed in a dominatrix costume, was immediately encircled by cameras. He kept having to turn and turn to face each new camera that surrounded him. I felt like I was watching  a captured animal, that instead of frightened, was sultry). 

Gay pride is different in Argentina, where although prejudice still exists, gay marriage is legal throughout the country. There was one stand protesting against the church and calling for a greater separation between church and state, which leads me to believe the marriage is still a big issue, just civil unions are legal. Still, the focus of this event was transgender people. They are not allowed to change their national IDs to state their preferred gender, which in many ways can make them easy targets (as any police can see, for example, that Laura looks feminine, but her ID still says “male”), and it can cause hassles. One of my friends’ professors at the UBA is transgender, and the bathrooms are swipe-to-enter. Though the professor looks male, he can only access the women’s bathroom, and the police have been called on him twice for being a man in a woman’s bathroom. (Why you would call the police about this is another question . .. .). Tuesday, the government votes to change this transgender-ID policy.

                                 The fair! I still find it odd to see alcohol sold at booths

Abortion

Another vote that recently failed by just 2 signatures was to legalize abortion. Right now, you can only have an abortion if you are both mentally disabled and raped. (It used to be either disabled OR raped, but in a rewriting of the constitution, someone changed it. Or thus says my history teacher).

Economy

In other legal news, a few days back Argentine prohibited it’s people from buying U.S. dollars. The peso’s value is based on the dollar, so many people, not trusting the Argentine economy, have been just buying dollars hoping they’re more secure and because they’re rising in value (much like we’d buy gold). It’s also important, because here you can only make major purchases in dollars (for instance, buying a house), and other countries won’t accept pesos, so if you travel to Uruguay, for example, you’ll need to change currency first.

I’m not quite sure why Cristina blocked purchases. According to an economist I met on the street, it costs a government a lot to keep buying foreign currency to supply to their citizens (likely that, just like banks mark up the price when they sell you currency, other countries do this too). Also, forcing people to use pesos means that money stays in Argentina and gets invested here, instead of sent out of the country. Still, the lack of being able to buy costly things is going to be a major problem.

School

Friday there were only about 7 students who came to the school I help out with. It turns out, the teachers in the village are on strike so the kids neither have classes or homework. Apparently this is common; the teachers are always negotiating better deals, and if they don’t like the compromises, they strike. I know in the U.S. some Sates legally prohibit teachers and other public employees (like postal workers and police) from striking.

Zombies

The lack of marching at the gay pride parade also reminds me of the lack of walking at the zombie walk last weekend. It seems Argentines are a sedentary people. The zombie “walk” was still an interesting event: a plaza full of costumes, and Argentine geek culture. Those who didn’t dress up often wore metal band T-shirts (Iron Maiden seems to be popular here), and I caught a glimpse to El Eternauta. I didn’t dress up, but I did dance Thriller.

Flash History Lesson: ESMA

Friday I went to ESMA, a startlingly beautiful complex of buildings, full of green, graceful trees and the smell of lavender. The place itself was home to a large Navy school, and a center where kidnapped civilians were routinely tortured and imprisoned before being thrown into the ocean to drown.

Argentinean had essentially it’s mini version of the Holocaust, in which the national government turned on its own citizens.

The short version of events:

1. Juan Domingo Perón, beloved by the left and the right, returns to Argentina from exile.

2. Fighting breaks out between the left and right Peronists, resulting in combat between terrorism by leftists Peronists, and equivalent violence by the Peronists government, who sides with the right.

3. Perón dies shortly after, leaving his third wife in office. While Perón’s second wife, Evita, had left behind women’s suffrage, workers rights programs and the like as her mark, Isabel leaves behind an government run death-squad, the Triple A.

4. To everyone’s relief, the military overthrows Isabel Perón.

5. Promising to return stability, the military government begins pursuing leftists. And people who know leftists. And people who generally walked on the same street a leftist walked on. This quote in a newspaper pretty much sums it up:

“First we will kill all the subversives, then we will kill their collaborators, then their sympathizers, then those who remain indifferent and finally we will kill those who are undecided.” – General Ibério Saint-Jean (March 20, 1977)

The junta also make sure to remind the public that it was the citizens who voted for Perón, and thus the Triple A is the public’s fault. Like a parent taking away a child’s toy because it’s dangerous, the junta condescendilyg reminded Argentineans that they weren’t responsible enough to have a democracy yet.

5. A decade of secret abductions begins, in which plain clothes policemen break into people’s houses at night, kidnap them, rob their houses, and occasionally take the children for their own. The desaparecidos or “disappeared” are held and tortured in secret detention centers around the city, while the government completely denies knowledge. Children born in the centers are adopted by military personnel and raised with false identities. When the military decides it’s done with a  desaparecido, he or she is drugged, loaded into a plain, and thrown alive into the ocean to die. Usually his or her stomach is cut open to facilitate it being eaten by fish.

6. There’s a fantastic slew of propaganda insisting that the desaparecidos are merely run-aways, who abducted themselves, and that countries calling for an end to this military regime are really anti-Argentinean and completely ignorant about Argentinean life.

7. Due to economic problems, mismanagement, the government’s not doing so well. They decide to war with Britain for the disputed Malvinas/Falklands Islands, which causes the nationalistic fervor the government had hoped for. Until Margaret Thatcher resoundingly defeats Argentina, and the public add the soldier’s deaths to the blood on the government’s hands.

8. Declaring their mission, their “Dirty War” a victory, the junta government shuts down.

Later, when the government attempts to try the torturers, the military, appalled, marvels that Argentina is the only country that would try it’s “victorious heroes”.

The scariest part:

These events still haven’t been resolved.

Democracy returned in 1983, and the president, Alfonsín, began to try the military perpetrators. The military grumblings got loud enough that the president feared the democracy was at risk of being overthrown again if he didn’t quit it. So he pardoned everyone who could claim to be “just following orders” (that has a Holocaust ring to it, no?) and promises to end trials by 1987.  And that was it for a while; the military went free to wander in the same society, go shopping in the same supermarkets, as their victims. Only the cases of kidnapped children could still be tried, as those were counted as on going crimes, because the kids were still living with false identities.

Carlos Menem became president next, and, presumably thinking this would let  Argentina move on, pardoned everyone. Spain and England were rightly horrified, and, calling the military’s actions “human right’s abuse”, insisted they would try anyone they could catch. So the military perpetrators hid in Argentina, from which the president declines to extradite them.

Néstor Krichner became president and re-opened trials. The only reason the military didn’t freak out this time is that being tried by their home country beats being tried by Spain. They trials are still going on. According to our guide at ESMA, who himself had been imprisoned there for 2 years, 100 kids have recovered their identities, and 400 are still living, unwittingly, with the people who murdered their biological parents. A few months ago, a witness in a desaparecido trial testified about being tortured and kept in one of the detention centers. During the weeks of the trial, he was disappeared again. He still hasn’t been found.

New and Interesting Info:

Desaparecidos at ESMA were forced to work falsifying documents, something I hadn’t heard about before. In general, they made fake passports and visas for members of the military, so the members could go abroad (including to the US) and use information they found in other countries to help them spy on their own people. Argentina, who at the time was in conflict with Chile, also made counterfeit Chilean currency to drop into the country and damage its economy. (Always an interesting military tactic. I hear the Union did this to the Confederacy during the US’s civil war. The Union’s counterfeits were so much better quality, that no one would accept legitimate Confederacy bills, thinking they were fakes). Our guide told us that anyone sent to work counterfeiting currency knew it as a death sentence. The operation was so secret, they would never be allowed to live. 

ESMA is a chilling place, whose museum includes photos of the murdered, and photos of the military abductors. They offer a guided tour of the detention center, two cultural arts centers, and a fantastically cheap café.  

To Twitter or Not to Twitter

In order to keep the internet a free space for everyone, Argentina’s justices decreed that political candidates and their parties cannot write anything in Twitter that might influence voters. (The average Juan can write whatever). It’s an odd interpretation of the situation when the government sees intellectual freedom as contingent on restricting others’ free speech.  Still, it’s produced some interesting Twitter posts, as candidates search round-about ways to speak their mind:

 * Frente de Izquierda (Leftist Front, abbreviated FIT): “How do you say “foot” in English?? FIT, right?”

 * Binner-supporter (socialist): “I have my first car. I bought a model K”

(Binner had commented earlier that the K (Krichner) model of government goes hand in hand with mass poverty;  Link to that comment: http://www.binnerpresidente.com/binner-el-modelo-k-convive-con-10-millones-de-pobres/)

* “How do you make a  (“RICA”) DELICIOUS pizza (“CARDITO” )COUNTRY STYLE?”

This seems to reference RICrdo Alfonsín, and, somehow, Cristina Kirchner (I feel like something is lost in translation here . . . )

Are you persuaded?

The full article: http://www.pagina12.com.ar/diario/elpais/1-179493-2011-10-22.html

¡Pólitica!

I’ll get back to writing about glaciers soon, but first: politics! This Sunday is the presidential election, and it’s just starting to get exciting.

Cristina, the incumbent, is the wife of Néstor Kirchner who was president before her. I’ve seen a good deal of signs reading “vuELve” (“he returns”) or the slogan “Nésto viva” and Néstor’s face next to Cristina’s running mate. (The background you should know is that during Cristina’s first term, Néstor died). I find theses adds odd, and insulting to quite a variety of people.  On the one hand, they seem to imply that Cristina’s not a valid candidate, or at least not good enough, without her husband, and imply that he was always the power behind the throne/democratically selected chair. According to my creative writing teacher, Néstor’s death did the opposite of this: her smooth continuation with her presidency definitively proved that Cristina governed in her own right. The signs also seem disrespectful to the dead, as they march around Néstor’s face as an advertising tool. Still, the seem to work.

If no one wins the majority vote this Sunday, there will be a new vote held between the top two contenders .Unlike the U.S., there are a plethora of candidates, and it’s impossible to vote on party lines because the Peronist party alone has 3 candidates. (Of course, Peronism is such an ambiguous force,  they could well be very different. Think of Peronism as a authoritative social welfare party. Instead of the revolution of Socialism, Peronism believes in a strong state, and Juan Domingo Perón, for which the party is named, brooked no strikes, but did create worker protections, retirement rights, and more days off. Both the extreme right and the extreme left loved Perón, something that ultimately blew up violently and jump started the descent into a decade of appalling murder and torture   . . . . but that’s for another day, or another paragraph).

I'm pretty certain Cristina will win. In her favor she has support programs for the poor, workers, and students (although many complain about her passing out cash instead of creating societal structures that would make a more permanent change. As the unemployed told their provinces in the 90's, "create jobs not soup kitchens"). My new door guard also believes she has a lot going for her in relations to human rights. It was her husband who re-opened the trials of those responsible for desaparecidos (the institutionalized violence in which the military government kidnapped, tortured, and secretly murdered anyone seen to be potential opposed to them or to be neutral). As for the other candidates, I can't say I know much. I know a socialist, Binner, and Duhalde (I believe he's a type of Peronist, from the "Popular Front") are rumored to be doing well.

The plaza by my house was crowded with flag waving youths playing drums, cymbals, trumpets, and whistling. Most flags were of the Argentinean flag with references to Juan Domingo and Eva Perón, or to Cristina, and some rainbow flags represented the diversity of Cristina’s supporters. My favorite flag displayed the “Nésternaut” Néstor Kirchner’s face on El Eternauta, a comic book time traveler. (I just began reading that book today.

Until the 90s, presidents served an unrestricted number of 6 year terms, but could not serve two terms consecutively. Menem changed that, and now Argentina is on a 4 year term system, without the break term limits. (I’m not sure if they have a max number of terms set).

Petty Crime

 I had my first brush with petty crime last Monday, at a vegetarian takeout place (actually great way to save money and stave off scurvy at the same time!). The way the system works is you take a plastic carton, put what food you want in it, and then bring it to the cashiers. One cashier weighs the food, and tells you the price, and then puts your dish on the counter, in front of a second cashier, who takes your money.

            In Argentina, the shop owners either don’t have change, or try at all costs to not to use theirs up. An exaggeration, of course, but it’s not that uncommon for people to say they can’t break 2 pesos (50 cents, American). Thus was my case. The man demanded exact change, down to the cents. I had to hunt through my money purse for coins, as people continued to slide their dishes on the counter next to mine and buy food. As I routed around for the last 10 cents, having already handed over the rest of the cash, I felt a brush of air, which I assumed was just another person taking their food. When I looked up, several moments later, my lunch was gone.           

            At first, I was merely confused, thinking that the cashier had been guarding my food until I paid him for it. He announced he didn’t have it, and rapidly lost interest, as I had already paid. The other cashier asked what was wrong.

 I told them, “I paid but I don’t know where my lunch is.” The other guy kind of nodded and decided it wasn’t his business.

But I continued bothering the first guy, “I gave you money, and now I don’t have anything.”

I wasn’t quite sure who had been robbed as the food was stolen while I was still paying. Both of us, I guess. (An odd note about this, was that the person could have easily filled a dish and walked out the door, they didn’t need to wait in line to steal anything).

“You should protect your stuff,” the cashier told me, and went on to ignore me and check out other customers. I was rather annoyed. Being an American, I was raised to think that if the customers not always right, they at least deserve some respect. I was annoyed at him for insisting he wouldn’t accept my money unless I could find exact coinage and at him for not paying attention while I was distracted by paying him in the manner he insisted. In the U.S., the restaurant staff would have been apologetic over this situation, they would have offered me a new lunch, or a discount, I assume, but mostly, in the U.S. this wouldn’t have happened. I was annoyed at the cashiers for being part of a country where people didn’t even have the respect to wait until after I’d paid to rob me (and be clear that it was me he/she was robbing). Argentina is a country where strangers will stop to offer you directions without even being asked. It’s also a country where people will seize any opportunity. In the end, I announced to the cashiers that I had paid them for food, and so was going to take food, and I went and got a new plate, and left. Maybe I was a thief now, too?

History note, courtesy of my Service Learning class: since the latest financial crisis, Argentina has become known for petty theft. Violence is rare, but stealing is high. There’s not a lot of job stability, and so the poorer classes tend to move from one type of temporary work to another, and mix in petty crime. Jobs aren’t vocations or identities: no one has a job long enough to associate with it. Instead, it’s just another way of getting money, not different from crime other than having fixed hours. It’s common for people to hold a salaried job to pay for general expenses, and a side “job” of theft, to pay for fun.

That’s not to say everyone does this, but it’s been a noted trend, say the sociologists. I saw a documentary on a group of people called “carteneros” (there’s no exact translation, the best I’d say is “cardboard people”). These incredibly poor people work searching through trash for recyclables, which they can then sell to factories. It’s an awful job, paying only $1-2 a day, but it’s work, and it’s honest. One man said that people on the street derided him as a “tramp” for doing this work, but that he was proud of it: being a cartenero meant he was supporting his family in a legal way. He was proud when kids in his shantytown stopped being thieves and became carteneros.

It’s a weird hypocrisy, but I think society respects thieves more. Because being a thief means that you have more control and dignity. As a thief you don’t work for the man, you make your own rules. You’re proactive. Sure you’re harming someone, but the very fact that you’re harming someone means that you have the ability to harm someone, you has effect. But a cartonero? You’re digging through other people’s trash, and just to scrape by; everyone realizes you’re not paid anything close to how much time you put in, and it’s not just a dirty job, you’re spending all your time searching through the stuff that society has specifically deemed “untouchable”. Sometimes, it seems people would admire you more if you robbed them than if you respected them.

Día: 1 Month+

I.               Famous

Thursday we found the Catedral, a famous cathedral, especially notable for its ability to hide in plain site. The outside of the Catedral looks more like an old bank – a large square building with pillars and a decorative top. Once inside, it transforms into a huge, multiroom church, complete with choir music playing. Mostly, it was pretty, but there was a life sized figure of a saint that I found rather tacky. It was also interesting that the confession section was not at all secretive – whereas in some churches you can’t really see the confessor, here the confessors’ head and torso where completely exposed, making  admitting your guilts a much less private act.

Earlier that day, my program visited Teatro Colon, a large, rather ornate theater, full of marble and gold fanciness. It ha one of the best acoustics in the world, which I got the impression was half do to luck and half to to conscious placement of cloths to absorb sound and metal flowers to reflect and spread sound. The first architect who started on the Teatro died at age 44, and so was replaced by another man, who was killed by his wife at 44. Fearing that all the architects were doomed to die at age 44, and that the theater would never be built, those in charge made sure to hire someone 65ys old to finish the job. 

II.               Fairs

Buenos Aires is also full of fairs, many that happen every week and a few for special occasions. Last week I went to the Ferria de los Matadores, in an area traditionally known for its slaughterhouses. There was folk dancing, which everyone generally voted a lot more reasonable than tango, and lots of stands selling crafts and food. Today I went to a fair in honor of Immigrants. There was more folk dancing, and minor acts, as each country’s booth tried to lure you over.

III. Music

Monday I saw Afrolunes, an event that takes place in a bar every Monday, and features live music. I left at 1am, too early to see the African music, but the band before that was fantastic. The singer was full of presence, and, surprisingly, sang only in English, ranging from “I Shot the Sheriff” to the Red Hot Chili Peppers. American music is popular here, to the extent that at the concert I almost forgot I was in a foreign country. In the background they played clips of animations and what looked like odd B movies, for reasons unknown to me. Probably what I appreciated most was that a good number of people were dancing, and not grinding.

IV. Sports and Death

Earlier today, I went to see two polo matches, one men’s, one women’s. It was a beautiful day for it, but it seems Buenos Aires isn’t as into polo – despite being the semifinals the stands weren’t even a quarter full.

Later we went to a murder mystery dinner,  which was pretty fun, and I appreciated the caricatured characters, but it was hard for all of us to piece together the Spanish and figure out what was going on.

VI. Language

A few decades ago (80’s mostly) there was a lot of government run torture and it’s worked it’s way into the language. Phrases like “stop cutting my face” or “don’t give me to the machine” (“machine” referring to electric prod developed for torture)

are used to mean “stop bothering me” (at least, according to my readings, I’ve never heard anyone say it).

People even have PTSD over language. For instance, in the Dirty War, or the Process, as they call the period of government run kidnapping and torture, hoods were kept over captured people’s heads to make them feel powerless, or to suffocate them. One woman who had been tortured reported that years later, she was trying to tell her kids to remember to put up the hoods of their coats because it was cold. She couldn’t bring herself to say the word “hood”, so substituted a really antiquated term for it, and the kids had no idea what she was trying to say.

VII. Politics

I have more information on the deal with Cristina and the houses.

The Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo are a civil rights group that formed to protest the government run disappearances  during the Process. In the beginning it was specifically mothers calling for information on what had happened to their children. Now, the group has split into 2, and at least one faction is more involved in general rights work. Cristina Krichner gave a lot of money to the Mothers to sponsor their building houses. However, Sergio Schoklender, (irrelevantly famous for killing his parents), was the financial manager of the Mothers and  embezzled the majority of the money. 

Día 17 - 23: Mate, Politics, and Cowboys (with a dash of death, and a side of tango)

I.   Día 17: Mate

I just finished curing my mate with mixed results. The vessel you drink from is called a “mate” (it’s also sometimes called a word that can also mean “penis”; This doesn’t make sense on many levels). My mate is made of a gourd, but you can also buy wood, plastic, or metal mates. Gourds and wood are the most popular and have different tastes. To prepare the drink, you fill the mate about 2/3 of the way with yerba leaves. You need to leave room, because the leaves will swell when heated. Shake the mate to mix up the yerba (add sugar if you like), and shake so the yerba makes a diagonal line within the gourd (not a straight line). This is supposed to ensure that not all the yerba gets wet at once, so the flavor lasts longer. Then, add the water, at about 90 degrees Celsius – if you pour water too hot, you’ll lose the taste as well. The bombilla is a special straw with a filter so you don’t suck up yerba (except, apparently, 8 peso ones don’t do this; buy a 30 peso one). 

Traditionally, one person has a mate gourd that they pass around. Each person drinks all the water, then passes the mate back to the owner, who refills it from a thermos, and passes it to someone else. I’ve encountered this in an Anthro class I sat in on, where one girl maintained the mate the whole class (I’m not sure she ever paused to take notes), and my Creative Writing teacher explained it today. It feels rather rude, but you shouldn’t say “thank you” unless you don’t want anymore.

To prepare your mate the first time, you’re supposed to cure it, which really just ensures you have a better taste. The general idea is to let your gourd absorb the flavor of the yerba more strongly. (I suppose it’s how ceramic tea pots will take on the flavor of their tea, and so – I assume - enhance the flavor of ensuing cups). Raquel’s boyfriend’s dad suggested brewing yerba in the new mate and letting it sit for three days. The internet suggested rinsing it the mate with water, letting it dry, then brushing the inside with sugar, brewing yerba for a day, dumping out the yerba, cutting any loose skin off the inside of the gourd, and repeating the process. I chose to let my first batch brew for two days, then cut loose skin and brew another day. Trying it now, it’s not the best mate, but then that could be the result of the brand of yerba I bought or the suboptimal straw.

II. Día 22: San Antonio 

Sunday I visited San Antonio de Areco, which I had heard described as a cowboy town, two hours from Buenos Aires by bus. It’s a nice small town, more enjoyable for its pretty river and relaxing atmosphere than for any particular event we did there. Upscale silver workshops are popular, as our horse rides for tourists. 

We went to a museum that was an old cowboy farm, and also stopped by the guide-book famous La Olla de Cobre chocolate store, which had a line down the block and was crowded, likely with fellow tourists. For my own tourist advice I’d say it’s fine to skip it; it smells awesome, but save for a piece of cinnamon chocolate I tried (which gave quite a kick), what I tried wasn’t particularly special, and mostly I found it too sweet.

          La Olla de Cobre ("The Copper Pot")

III. Día 23: Tango

The World Tango festival is in Buenos Aires this week, and the previous one. I went to see a competition today, in which partners dance in a circle, showing off their moves to four judges, and slowly get eliminated. Most of the dancers were young (the women often younger than the men) and from Argentina, Colombia, or Japan.

 Masterful photograpy. A TV screen highlighted one pair at a time.

Clothing seems to be important in tango, more for women than men. Men need to guide the dance, which they do largely through one hand on the woman’s back. The woman adds flourish, showing off fancier footwork. A dress that reveals her legs and is slim around the hips seems to show off the finesse of her leg movements well. There was however, one woman dancing in pants.

IV. Día 21: Death

Friday I saw the Recoleta Cemetery. The walled-in cemetery is like a ghost town of tombs, full of grand statues and marbled works. A few tray cats live there. Today it seems creepy to look into a tomb stacked full of your family’s coffins, and note that your own will soon be added, but I suppose in older times it may have been comforting to have a tradition and a sense of order in death. Still, I think this sort of cemetery adds a more personal touch than a gravestone.

V.     Politics

Last Sunday was the primary elections. Cristina had to run to qualify for the final elections, and the opposition candidates had to compete to be the one to run against her. Apparently, it was a huge election. It was a vote for the president, governor, mayor, national congress, provincial congress, and local representative. and you had to vote not just for which party for each seat, but for which candidate from each party. Parties don’t select just one representative, anyone can run, and the Peronist party had 5 candidates for mayor. The majority of the candidates shown on TV were men, but there were a number of women candidates.  One teacher told us that in the vote there were over 30 pages of names of candidates. Argentina also uses a paper vote, but somehow got all the tickets counted an hour after voting closed.

Cristina won in a landside, taking over 50% of the population, but not everyone was happy. Why not vote Cristina? I’ve heard that the upper classes, have complained that Cristina is basically stealing money from citizens in taxes, then using the cash to bribe the poor into voting for her. The issue is not that Cristina gives money directly to the poor, she doesn’t make systems to support those in poverty (or so I’m told).   For instance, Cristina gives money to families for each kid they send to school. This can be seen as helping support families who will have a kid studying instead of working, or it can be seen as a bribe. I’ve also heard rumor of corruption, and claims that while Cristina took 400 million pesos to build houses for the homeless, only 20 were ever constructed (I haven’t fact checked this).

Whether or not Cristina uses the money optimally, one professor tells me, it does save lives, especially now that mass unemployment has hit two generations of Argentineans.  This professor who seemed to respect Cristina Kirchner voted against her, partly because she’s tired of political offices staying in the hands of the city of Buenos Aires, and would prefer a candidate from the interior. In general, Buenos Aires city seems to rule the province of Buenos Aires, and in the past has been compared to a parasite on the larger province.

Voting is required in Buenos Aires, and if people are sick or had work that prevented them from voting, they have to get a certificate officially excusing them. Most shops and businesses are closed on Sunday, for religious reasons, so this should minimize the number of people who need to be excused. Still, on Sunday I saw a line stretching down 2 city blocks or more of people waiting for their certificate.

Día 11 -14 Part II: Evita

 One of the best museums I’ve been to (and I’ve been to three or four this week) was the Evita Museo. As a side note, Argentinean phones can’t handle rainy weather, something that shocked me in a country so generally modern, and also meant all plans to go together to the museum failed.

A bit about Evita: she’s the most famous woman in Argentina, and was a far more important force than her husband, the president at the time. Evita was born poor, became a mediocre actress and was involved in social activism. She met Colonel Perón, married him, and became the soul of Argentina. She was an incredibly influential first lady in a time when women had no political say.

The museum was extremely positive in its representation of her, but there were occasional hints of a undercurrent of dissent. One display mention briefly that  when Evita used her health as an excuse not to run for vice president, those who hated her would post up the slogan, “Long Live Cancer!” Never did the museum mention why anyone would hate her.

I’ve been asking others for their opinions on Evita. One host person very diplomatically noted that she was an interesting person who pioneered women’s rights. The doorsman from earlier admired Evita’s work to alleviate poverty and felt porteños, tending to be rich, disliked Evita for her emphasis on the poor. A fellow (U.S.) student told me Evita organized police squads to ruthlessly repress anyone who spoke out against her or her husband, Perón, and perhaps that’s why she’s disliked.

But now, the museum. Before he was president, Perón was a colonel and head of a governmental department involved with workers, among other areas. However, for reasons the museum stayed vague on, he annoyed many people in the government and was arrested. Workers, terrified that their support systems would be lost, rallied in mass to demand his release. It’s an interesting parallel to current fears of losing the support systems Cristina has made. When in office, Perón transformed October 17^th, the day he was freed from prison, into a holiday called Loyalty Day, on which he and Evita would give speeches to the masses.

                                                     People kind of liked Evita

 Despite this, Evita was what made Perón stand out. She was beloved to the point of near sainthood, and it’s her policies his terms are known for. Around 1948 or 1949, Evita made many social rights part of the Constitution for the first time. This included rights for children, the elderly, workers, education, and health. It was also the first time social aid had been extended to all areas of the country.

In addition the classic orphanages and schools, Evita had several very novel creations. One included a children’s touristy program that organized and funded visits to the ocean or other areas, allowing poor children, orphans, and abandoned kids to see new sites. Evita also created a foundation dedicated to aid to other countries, an interesting choice for someone already trying to make many changes to her own country. The museum had several book displays explaining what rights people deserve. The elderly have a right to moral health (the picture showed an old folks home with a library), and kids have a right to love, because “children are of God and are the fruit of love”. I don’t know what of these actually translated to law, because it certainly sounds impossible to enforce and hard to support.

                                      Her actual quote on feminism (yes, I was officially allowed to take photos)

In regards to feminism, Evita struck the perfect note. One of Evita’s causes was winning voting rights for women (she succeeded). In discussing it, she said, we women aren’t in a fight for dominance with men, we just want the chance to help our country too.

Among the museum’s odd displays were a selection of photos of Evita’s hands in different positions and several propaganda filled children’s books. I’ll translate two for you:

1.

“In an old book of stamps, Magarita admired marvelous landscapes. Mountain ranges, woods, beaches, snow. How beautiful it would be to have a vacation in one of these places! Enthusiastically, she showed the book to her mom, and asked when they would visit these sites; the woman, saddened, responded, “Workers can’t travel because we don’t have money.”

            Fortunately, this occurred a long time ago, because now, since Evita created the Foundation, all Argentinean workers have holiday camps in mountain ranges and beaches where they can have fun, together with their families, on their well deserved vacations.”

2. My favorite, it’s titled “Love Is Repaid With Love.”

            “How tenderly the mother rocks the baby” commented Miss Clara.

            “And how lovingly the child holds out its arms!” responded Lucia.

            “Love is repaid with love!”

            Our homeland also had a mommy that rocked with her unlimited kindness: Evita!

            She completely sacrificed for and loved her town, and her town returned her love.   

            Love is repaid with love!”

In the years after her death, Evita’s body was moved four or more times, in attempts to keep it safe from those who hated her. In 1957  her body was interred in Italy under the false name “Maria Maggi de Magish” and now it resides in Recoleta, my neighborhood.