Author Archives: kjhoving

Astrid Garcia ’23 – Post #3

Posted on by
Reply
Astrid

The last two weeks taught me that the CPM’s Committee Against Torture is a vital mechanism in enacting change within a static and unjust prison system.

UP 28, Magdalena
UP 28, Magdalena: worker’s pavilion

During the fifth week, I accompanied the inspections and complex cases teams to different penitentiary units to conduct interviews. The first penitentiary unit I visited, with the inspections team, was UP 28 in Magdalena. There, we conducted interviews in SAC (solitary confinement), pavilion 4 (the worker’s pavilion), and the holding cell also known as the “leonera” or lion’s cell. SAC is grossly known as “buzones” or the mailbox. The reason behind this name is that the cell door has a slot at the bottom that allows the SPB to give the detainees food and medicine. In SAC, I assisted the director of the Committee Against Torture in interviewing four inmates who were suffering from a series of life-threatening and communicable diseases. The detainee who had been in SAC the longest had not left his cell in over a month, nor did he have access to the patio or the showers. When I was leaving SAC, I noticed the detainees throwing items such as sugar and yerba mate through the slots in the cell. I found this peculiar because they devised a contraption known as “the paloma” (the dove) built out of tied rags. This device was a symbol of survival within SAC. In the worker’s pavilion, detainees seemed to be “better off” and had greater access to amenities such as the showers and kitchen area. Here, we interviewed detainees who largely needed contact with their counsel. In the lion’s cage, three detainees were being processed while living in conditions of squalor. The holding cell was dimly lit, there were oranges (the detainees’ food) on the floor, and cardboard boxes for them to sleep on.

The most unpleasant encounter I experienced during this inspection was the interaction between the director of inspections and one of the penitentiary unit’s nurses in the health wing. Throughout our encounter with the nurse, I witnessed the corruption within the unit’s health system. There was blatant mismanagement of records that led to the detainees going without necessary medication and medical attention. The nurse mansplained the situation, which the director was clearly aware of, and rudely spoke over her and another interviewer, all whilst avoiding answering the director’s questions to save face. This prison visit was difficult to endure but the inspections team made it as good of an experience as possible by encouraging me and another William and Mary student throughout the day.

Two days later, I returned to UP 28, where I accompanied the complex cases team to conduct an interview in the health wing and follow up on some of the inspection team cases. I was unable to enter the interview with a detainee because of the risk of transmittable diseases. Later that day, we encountered the same nurse who had been rude; however, he had answers to our questions this time. I was happy to learn that two of the detainees I helped interview had received their medication, and one had been transferred to another penitentiary unit closer to his family. After learning about the outcome of these cases, I realized that the Committee Against Torture’s presence causes changes to occur.

UP 40, Lomas de Zamora: This unit is a mixed-gender unit. In the front of this picture, the women’s wing can be seen

During the last week, I went to UP 40 in Lomas de Zamora to follow up with some detainees monitored by the complex cases teams. This was a smooth prison visit. For the remainder of the week I, along with two other William and Mary students, helped the inspections and complex cases team find revisions in the new Istanbul protocol that has only been released in English by the United Nations.

The last day of my internship was bittersweet. Since the start of the program, I felt welcomed by the CPM staff and made to feel like a member of their staff. I was sad to part ways with many staffers who were always receptive to my endless questions. Feeling that way, in the end, represented the close bond I had created with the CPM and showed the success of this pilot program. I was sad to say goodbye to Argentina, but after this experience, I know this will not be the last time I visit.

Giselle Figueroa ’23 – Post #2

Posted on by
Reply

Identifying Human Rights Violations in the Buenos Aires Province

On week three we worked with the reception team uploading interviews and habeas corpus to the CPM’s SISCOTT system. We read the interviews and identified the human rights violations that were brought up during the team’s visit with each prisoner. During this part of the internship, I discovered that many incidents that are common in prisons, including American ones, are human rights violations. For example, placing a prisoner in a unit that prevents them from having a relationship with their family and solitary confinement are common situations that violate the prisoner’s human rights.

One of the most common violations was lack of medical attention and medication on behalf of the health unit of the prisons. I was able to sit in on interviews with PICC on week four. Both women I interviewed had serious ongoing health issues. The interview process was an emotional experience because it was frustrating to hear that after multiple interventions on behalf of the CPM, the women were still struggling to receive the medical attention they needed. The lack of proper attention anguished both women; they both cried during the interview. This was difficult to watch because, while it’s common to villainize and dehumanize people in prison, hearing the women talk about their lack of medications and ability to get appointments and see their families humanizes them again. They claimed that the health unit used ibuprofen to solve everyone’s health issues, something we heard during our first prison visit to the university center at UP 1.

One of the women I interviewed had a terminal illness called Osteosarcoma, a type of cancer that was deteriorating her skull. She is awaiting her trial, which is programed for the year 2023. This means that she is in prison with a terminal illness without having a sentence. I admire the approach my supervisor, lawyer Augusto Infante, took during the interview because he managed to help the woman look for the good in her situation. He explained that his goal was to help her spend the time before her trial at home with her family. Because her illness is terminal, for Augusto and the CPM it is unjustified that this woman spend the last part of her life in prison, especially since she has neither been proven guilty nor given a sentence.

Something that shocked me both while sitting in on interviews and reading them was that most of the people imprisoned had not been tried and therefore had no sentence. In one case, two sisters were arrested at their aunt’s house because they were there when police ambushed the house. Because they were the only ones in the house at the time of the ambush, they were taken in as suspects of illicit drug trafficking even though they were not the people the police were after. The two sisters were placed in “preventative prison” with their children, one of them having gone into labor soon after being arrested, because the judge claimed they were a flight risk.

Many prisoners are in a similar situation; however most of the people who the justice system claims are at risk of fleeing if set free to await trial do not have the means to actually flee. Most people are working class citizens with little resources—fleeing is not an option for them. Preventative prison seems more like a tactic used by the SPB and justice system to keep people imprisoned. It is frustrating to hear that many people have been in prison for years not having had a trial.

These days that we have spent at the prisons and identifying human rights violations, I have gone home feeling fulfilled because I feel like I am doing something that is genuinely helping others. The work done by the teams at the CPM is helpful to many people and knowing that I am contributing to the effort (even if it is just a small amount in comparison to the work the team does as a whole) makes me feel grateful to be a part of such a great team of people.

The outside of UP (Unidad Penitenciaria/Prison Unit) Number 1 in Lisandro Olmos. This is one of the most populated prisons in Argentina. UP 1 was the first prison we visited—we interviewed the university students at the prison.
Poster found outside of Ex-ESMA that says “Nunca Mas” (Never Again). We visited the site in between weeks three and four. The tour we took allowed us to understand how and why state security forces target certain groups. This was useful information to us because we saw that some groups of Argentines make up more portions of the prison population than others, suggesting that the system continues to target certain groups of people.

Daniel Posthumus ’24 – Week 2

Posted on by
Reply

When writing the biographies about the two desaparecidos I had chosen from the city of Pergamino, I was immediately faced with daunting challenges. First, was the language—Argentinean court records are, obviously, entirely in Spanish. And these records are not in the conversational Spanish in which I have vastly improved over dinner with my host mom or in conversation with other Argentineans, but instead in a technical, formal, and often outdated Spanish. Second, was the lingering footprint of the propaganda of the junta. To give cover to their brutal persecution of political dissidents, the junta (or “la ultima dictadura” as it is often referred to here) crafted false stories of dissidents fomenting violence. They then used these pieces of propaganda as evidence of the “subversion” that supposedly required the draconian junta to counter. Third, was that many descriptions and biographies about the desaparecidos seemed to gloss over what made them human, instead solely focusing on political activity. It was up to us to paint the pictures of the desaparecidos in as human a way as possible.

Daniel, Silvia Fontana and Laina

This third challenge, in particular, was one that sprouted from a discussion that our team of human rights fellows had with Silvia Fontano, a key member of the organization Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo. The organization emerged during the dictatorship and consisted of women whose daughters were detained and disappeared while pregnant. The dictatorship would leave the newborn children of these disappeared mothers in the care of Junta sympathizers or with adoptive families in random places throughout the country, and it has often taken years to recover the identity of these children. In some cases, their true identity has yet to be recovered. They and the Madres de Plaza de Mayo would march in front of government buildings to protest the junta’s persecution of dissidents, boldly defying the dictatorship even at the height of its repression.

Silvia Fontano’s sister was disappeared. She is a woman marked by great tragedy and great strength, having devoted her life to telling the stories of her sister and other victims of repression to ensure that the abuses which occurred under the junta never occur again. Our conversation with her was critical for understanding how to tell the stories of these victims most effectively. Though they lost their lives for the political causes in which they were involved, they were not solely defined by their politics: they were human beings who dreamed, wept, and loved.

After our conversation with Silvia, I was inspired to be more proactive in seeking out the human details at the core of the lives of the two desaparecidos I was studying—Víctor Vázquez and María Cristina Lanzillotto.

In the case of Víctor, I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to speak with a granddaughter of his, Susana Corradini Vázquez. After a fascinating conversation that stretched nearly two hours, I came away replete with anecdotes about who Víctor was. Víctor devoted his life to the cause of the worker in Argentina, entering the Communist Party and the railroad union as a teenager and throughout his life was arrested nearly a dozen times. He was unique among the desaparecidos given his age—most on the list for Pergamino were college students when disappeared and Víctor was in his 60’s—and for his experiences—Víctor had experienced 43 years of the yo-yoing of Argentinean politics, between democracy and autocracy. From Susana, I learned of his relationship with his father, who would take the pre-adolescent Víctor to workers rallies and read with him alongside his mother. I learned Víctor once organized a peace debate with a future senator of the nation of Argentina in high school. I learned of Víctor’s love for books and how passionately intellectual he was and how he expected nothing less from his daughter or three grandchildren. How the last thing he did with Susana was take her to a book fair.

In the case of María Cristina Lanzillotto, I found two poems written by her twin Ana María, also disappeared. One described their childhood as one of many fathers and many mothers, a wondrous time in a household filled with energetic activists and a father who, from an early age, instilled a political consciousness in his daughters that would later in life sprout into deep participation in activism. Ana María’s other poems described her experiences in the ‘land of warlocks’ and the experiences of the ‘orphans’ of the junta’s crimes, experiences which María Cristina, detained in some of the same prisons and who also had two children disappeared, would have shared.

These details add to the humanity of the victims of the junta, a humanity that is essential to understand. There were 30,000 desaparecidos during the dictatorship—yet, in an oft-repeated framing by Comisión employees, these 30,000 victims aren’t just a collective but instead 30,000 individuals, individuals whose stories must be told with granular attention and detail. If we lose the individuals, we give in to the de-humanization and forgetting of the victims and do dishonor to their memory.  

Astrid Garcia ’23 – Weeks 3 & 4

Posted on by
Reply

The third and fourth weeks represented a period of growth for me. During this middle phase of the internship, I learned about the various injustices committed against people deprived of their liberty and was able to witness it first-hand. 

During the second week, I continued working with the team that interviews victims. The CPM’s committee against torture mechanisms has various teams throughout the Buenos Aires Province that interview detainees in prisons further away from the Capital and La Plata. These teams submitted their interviews which have to be loaded onto a greater database. This week, I worked independently on loading cases onto the CPM’s committee against torture’s online database. This task allowed me to identify the different forms of torture detainees face throughout their time in Buenos Aires’ penitentiary units. Although there are many penitentiary units scattered throughout the Buenos Aires province, I realize that many of the problems detainees face are congruous. The work I conducted during the third week was essential because it gave me a greater understanding of the problems detainees face daily. I also learned specific terminology which I quickly encountered during the fourth week. 

The beginning of the fourth week marked the beginning of joining both the inspections and complex cases teams in conducting interviews in different penitentiary units. Early on, I realized that working with the team that interviews victims was fundamental work that allowed me to understand the violations most detainees face. This week I accompanied the inspections team to penitentiary unit 1, and the complex cases team to penitentiary unit 33. 

With the inspections team, I joined them in interviewing detainees in the unit’s college center. There, the detainees work to complete various college degrees. Some of the detainees pursue longer careers such as law, whereas others were working towards getting their secondary school degrees. This was a unique experience because I did not expect to see the level of organization the detainees had in completing careers while deprived of their liberty. Upon speaking with a detainee, I learned about a successful case where a detainee completed his law degree and upon his release, about 6 months ago, he was able to find a job as a lawyer. This story seemed to give them more reason to work harder so that when they leave prison, they too can find a job. However, pursuing a college degree while in prison also exposes them to prejudice. I spoke to a detainee who left the prison to take an exam. He expressed that it was a very traumatizing experience because he was chained until he got to the university, and there when they realized he was a prisoner, he faced discrimination. This experience taught me a lot about the battle detainees face in order to pursue college degrees.

With the complex cases team, I accompanied them to interview two sisters in penitentiary unit 33. There, women are able to keep their children with them until the age of 5. During the first week when teams were presenting their work, they mentioned the fact that women can have their children with them. This subject intrigued me, and I realized that this was something I wanted to do more work with. I thought that prison was not a suitable place for children to grow up in during their most formative years. However, upon talking to both sisters, I realized that having their children gave them greater sanity than other prisoners who have little to no familial relations. Their children were also very happy being with their mothers because they were able to create a bond with them, had access to the patio and plazas during the day, and could leave the prison with other family members for weeks on end. Being able to join this team for this interview changed my perspective because talking to and hearing the sisters’ stories is different than reading their official law documents. 

During this last week, I was grateful to join both groups. I felt fulfilled joining these groups in their tasks because they are working with real people who have fallen victim to the violence perpetrated by the State.

Penitentiary Unit 1. The structure of this prison reminded me of Michel Foucault’s idea of the panopticon. There is a watch tower in the middle, known as “el tanque” or “the tank” that watched over the unit’s pavilions. Here, the SPB (penitentiary unit officers) can see the detainees without being seen themselves. This reinforces the idea of total control and dominance over people deprived of their liberty. (Photo credit: Emmy Giacoia)
This is a different angle that shows “el tanque” looming over the prison.
“El tanque” can be seen from different angles. It is a symbol of this prison and of the control over people deprived of their liberty.

Emily Giacoia ’22: Week 2 and Week 3

Posted on by
Reply

Week 3

This was the first full week of individual work, and the first week that I’ve felt productive and fulfilled when I leave the Commission each day. As I read more and more interviews with prisoners, I realized that they shared a feeling of resignation and dismissiveness. These people were describing acts of extreme torture and cruelty with the detachment of someone discussing the weather or what they had for dinner. What’s more, there were thousands of prisoners on file and even more thousands of interviews. Unless the prisoner was new to the system, it wasn’t uncommon to click on one’s file and see a list of at least 10 interviews, each with multiple human rights violations. It was frustrating to read an interview with a prisoner asking desperately for medical help, knowing that he got medical help because we took legal action, and then reading the next interview about how he was never taken for follow-up appointments. Although I don’t know about all the work the Committee and the Commission overall do, I wish there was something more tangible and long-term that we could do to help the prisoners. It seems like right now, we’re just putting Band-Aids on a gaping wound.

Week 4

There are two teams within the Commission that work directly in prisons. One team performs general inspections in different areas of prisons. First, they observe the prisoners’ living conditions and to what extent basic human rights (e.g. properly cooked food, mattresses to sleep on, access to showers) are being met. Then they conduct individual interviews with prisoners, who tell them what specific needs they have so their legal team can be informed. One of the materials we used to prepare for our first inspection was a manual called the Istanbul Protocol, which was written by the UN and sets global standards for investigating and documenting torture and mistreatment. I was impressed by the depth and breadth of this manual. Since I’ve never worked in human rights before, I didn’t know that there were so many guidelines. I’m happy that there are guidelines, but I wish torture wasn’t so widespread that we need them.

On Wednesday, we visited Unidad Penitenciaria No. 1 (de Olmos), about 30 minutes outside of La Plata. The plan was to visit the university center there and interview the students about both their education and the general living conditions. As soon as we drove up to the prison, I could sense this feeling of sadness and resignation. It was made worse by the SPB (Servicio Penitenciaria Bonoaerense) guards, who were all joking around with each other in the lobby and cheerfully greeted us as they unlocked each door. I saw the smiles on their faces, and I thought about all the interviews I read the week prior and how these friendly guards treated the prisoners when we weren’t there. Thankfully, the university center was lively and notably lacking SPB presence. We took a tour around the school, and we sat down in a classroom to listen to them talk about the structure of their education, the degrees they could get, and the problems they had getting school supplies and exams. Although I’m not sure why I expected anything different, the prisoners were friendly, and I didn’t feel like I was within prison walls. I know, though, that it would have felt different if we had entered the actual prison.

On Sunday, a few of us took the train into Buenos Aires to visit the Espacio Memoria y Derechos Humanos (ex ESMA), which was a naval academy turned into a clandestine confinement and torture center during the last Argentine military dictatorship, from 1976-1983. It was horrific, to say the least. We only went into a few buildings, but the Officer’s House was the most impactful. This was where most desaparecidos were first taken when they were detained. We visited the dark, cold basement where many were kept and tortured, and we read the testimonies from survivors. It was heartbreaking, and it helped me understand the impact of the dictatorships in Argentina. Knowing that people were tortured and assassinated where I was standing, less than 40 years ago, made me realize how important and relevant the work is that the Commission does.

At the end of the week, we began planning our work with the second Committee team, which works on complex cases with specific prisoners.

A mural inside ex ESMA that says “silent no more”
Outside of ex ESMA in Buenos Aires
The outside of UP 1. The university center is located behind the prison.
The view from one of the bell towers of the Cathedral
In Plaza Moreno, facing the Cathedral of La Plata

Astrid Garcia ’23 – Week 1

Posted on by
Reply

Upon arriving in Argentina, I immediately knew that I would be challenged to learn more about the Spanish language and the country’s complex history, one that continues to define society, politics, and memory. As a history major, I have always preferred learning about events and people first-hand. Coming to a country still emerging from the shadows of a dictatorship has given me a first-hand account unlike any other I have experienced. Before departing for Argentina, I thought I had a strong understanding of its 1976-1983 dictatorship; however, talking to people who lived through the dictatorship has allowed me to learn more.

During the first week, members of the CPM introduced us to two guest speakers who shared their experiences during the dictatorship; both were sisters of individuals who had been kidnapped and disappeared during the dictatorship. Silvia Fontana’s account struck me the most. She told the story of how her sister, Lili, had been taken from their home while she was pregnant. The Fontana family did not give up searching for both Lili and her son, who was appropriated by a military family. What fascinated me was the relentlessness of the Fontana family in their search for Lili’s son, whom they found 27 years after his birth. This search, to me, demonstrated the desire to return their identities to the children who had been appropriated. These kinds of stories allowed me to put the history of the dictatorship into context while simultaneously understanding how it continues to impact Argentine society.

Additionally, the end of the first week signaled the beginning of my decision to work with the Committee Against Torture. Before I arrived in Argentina, I had a different understanding of what torture was, what it entailed, and by whom it was perpetrated. While working with this team, I have learned that torture against people deprived of their freedom is perpetrated by a system of cruelty supported by the State that is designed to cause suffering. This internship has opened my mind to a more holistic definition of torture and the physical, mental, and emotional impact it has on imprisoned individuals. Although this internship focuses on Argentine prisons in the Buenos Aires Province, many of the violations against individuals here also occur in the United States.

During the second week, I started working with the team that interviews victims, and their family members, who suffer from torture in penitentiary units. I was able to read about the conditions in which imprisoned people live and how these constitute direct violations of their rights, feeding the system of cruelty they find themselves in. This week, I familiarized myself with a woman’s case who experienced torture in all the penitentiary units where she was detained. This case helped me contextualize the role gender plays in the prison system. Women and trans individuals face additional violations against them. Early on this week, I realized that the topic of pregnant women and women with children in prisons highly interested me because they were complex cases that required greater attention. Working with this team has been a rewarding experience because it has allowed me to learn more about what it means to fight for human rights within systems designed to perpetuate suffering.

Outside of working with the Comisión Provincial por la Memoria, in my first weeks here I was presented with the deep and vibrant culture of political activism. On my first trip to Buenos Aires, which also happened to be on Argentine Independence Day (July 9), I noticed the political mobilization of multiple groups in the Plaza de Mayo who were fighting for the same rights. While witnessing this march, I soon realized that these groups came together in the nation’s capital from many southern cities and other places around the country. What left me most in awe was the involvement of family units, including young children, that came together to voice their concerns, and the presence of music which made the march seem like a celebration of their fight. I was surprised, yet thrilled, to see this because it is not something that occurs much in the United States. Witnessing this march allowed me to appreciate Argentine political culture even more.

This picture was taken on the first weekend we went to Buenos Aires in front of the Juan Domingo Peron statue. (From left to right: Giselle Figueroa, Astrid Garcia, Daniel Posthumous, Laina Lomont, Emmy Giacoia)
This picture was taken in Plaza Mayo during the first weekend we went to Buenos Aires. The picture shows different political groups uniting as one in a march to fight for a common cause: “enough of adjustment, plundering, extractivism, and dependence. The debt is with the people and nature!”
This picture was taken at the CPM’s Museum of Art and Memory. It depicts the mothers and grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo marching to demand answers about their disappeared children and appropriated grandchildren.
This picture was taken at the CPM’s Museum of Art and Memory. It shows two very important factors of Argentine culture and identity: the handkerchief used by the mothers and grandmothers and Plaza de Mayo and writing that declares the Falkland Islands as being inherently Argentine.
This picture was taken in Plaza Mayo during the first weekend we went to Buenos Aires. The picture shows different political groups preparing for a march in the Plaza de Mayo. It was a unique experience to witness the preparations by different groups before the entire Plaza de Mayo was filled with people demanding justice.

Daniel Posthumus ’24 – Week 1

Posted on by
Reply

Everyone told me my first day in La Plata contained everything essential to Argentina—a Peronist rally and a football game. And choripan. After arriving at 5:00 that morning, I certainly felt welcome in this country after a whirlwind of a day, jam-packed with passion and the most Argentine of things. What struck me most was that the Peronist rally was filled with idealistic young people, motivated to come out in the cold not by an impending campaign or by any sense of self-interest, but instead because it was only natural, their civic duty.

That day, the Vice-President and former President and former First Lady Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner spoke—the same leader who was a prominent force in her husband’s Presidential administration that repealed the 1980s law that muzzled investigations into and prosecutions of the junta government. The tandem of Cristina and Nestor, who served as Presidents back-to-back, was the key stabilizing force of Argentina democracy following the disruptive December 2001 riots. Rather than a coup in response to political and economic chaos following 2001, Argentina was ushered into a period of democratic relative stability with Nestor’s election in 2003—a signal of how far the country had come in just the 20 years since the military junta fell.

The next week our cohort of human rights fellows sat through a series of lessons and chats (“charlas”) about the history of the military junta and Peronism—that indefinable force that animates everything in Argentine history yet that is seemingly possible to explain (my host mother laughed at my confusion at how the Peronist party could go from the neoliberal Carlos Menem to the thoroughly progressive Nestor in less than a decade). One of the Kirchners’ central political goals was the centering of human rights at the center of politics, a remarkable advance considering it was under Juan Peron’s second government the Triple-AAA that carried out so many brutal executions and disappearances was formed.

At the rally for Cristina, I saw a different kind of political activism than what we’re accustomed to in the United States. It was like a party—everyone had a half-dozen songs memorized, there was a full band that came along, food, and joy. At the heart of the students’ political activism with whom I tagged along, was hope, joyous hope. It was fascinating to observe this activism and learn about the historical context of Peronism and democracy here in Argentina—a useful lesson in how quickly change a political context can change and potentially a guide for strengthening the role of human rights not only in the lawbooks, but also in the hearts and minds of the people.

After the welcome wagon greeted me that Saturday, the following week we began to learn about the Comisión Provincial por la Memoria’s (CPM) work. Each day, we would meet with a different team and talk about their work, understanding memory and how memory of past abuses can be channeled towards preventing present and future abuses. The Comisión has both: a team that focuses on remembering and honoring the desaparecidos through biographies, maintaining an archive of official documents, and memory sites as well as a team that actively visits prisons throughout the province to combat the abuse of power that so thoroughly characterized the police during the time of the junta. The third option for our internship was the public-facing Communications team, through which we would largely be preparing English materials to bring the Comisión’s work to a larger, multinational audience.

Choosing the team with which to conduct my internship with was, needless to say very difficult. I am interested in being lawyer and going to law school and thus the team focusing on investigating prisons appealed to me because of how it used the law to protect the most vulnerable, a deliberate inversion of how the law was used to shield perpetrators of human rights abusers in the junta and more generally, such as in the United States. At the same time, I’ve worked extensively with Dr. Kelebogile Zvobgo at the International Justice Lab, here at William & Mary about transitional justice, at whose core is memory and centers victims of past abuses—which aligned perfectly with the team focusing on writing biographies about victims of the desaparecidos. I ultimately chose that team, looking forward to diving into the lives of desaparecidos in the city of Pergamino in the Province of Buenos Aires.

A throng of young students with flags held aloft surge to get a glimpse of the Vice President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner in a suburb of La Plata.

Giselle Figueroa ’23 – Week 1

Posted on by
Reply

Arriving in Argentina: History and Political Mobilizations

Our group’s bonding started as soon as we met up at the Richmond International Airport on July 2nd: Emmy Giacoia, Astrid Garcia, Laina Lomont, and I travelled on the same flights to Buenos Aires. From our previous experience travelling to Spain and Gibraltar together as part of an embedded program with Professor Francie Cate-Arries, Emmy, Astrid, and I knew just how important our time at the airport can be for creating a bond in groups travelling together. The three of us quickly bonded with Laina, who we were meeting for the first time. Time flew by at our layover in New York as we shared stories of William & Mary, airport horrors from our previous Spain trip, and our experience in Hispanic Studies.

Once we arrived in La Plata, our group was split up and Emmy and I went to Eliana Bacci’s house where we were greeted by Eliana and two W&M students, Zoha and Ramona, who were spending the semester in La Plata. Before we could settle down in our room, Eliana told us we were having family lunch at her sister’s house. The first lunch is memorable because we met not only our host family, but their extended family. Even though at the time it was extremely overwhelming to meet so many new people, I will always be grateful that Eliana was so welcoming and inclusive from the start of our stay with her.

Our first week at the Comisión Provincial por la Memoria (CPM) started the very next day. Like Eliana, Malena and Diego were equally as inviting and allowed us to feel part of the CPM team from the beginning. The first week, we explored the history of the CPM and Argentine dictatorships. I had never studied Argentina in depth, but I quickly found myself captivated by the stories we were hearing from the team at the CPM and the guests that they brought in to speak.

Specifically, I remember hearing the stories of two women who had family members that were disappeared during the last dictatorship. I appreciated how they emphasized that people who were disappeared cannot be assumed dead—until evidence is found, the disappeared are assumed to be alive. One of the speakers shared that many of the women disappeared by officials were pregnant and their children were also disappeared. That was very impactful, since they also noted that many of the children are still missing today. What makes this so moving is the fact that it all happened so recently, and people are still trying to cope with the trauma and grief of losing their loved ones without an explanation.

Although it is in a completely different context, I saw parallels in the stories of the disappeared in Argentina in my own research on femicidio in Mexico. Just as family investigation and unity played, and keeps playing, an important role in Argentina through organizations like the Madres and Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo, families play an important role in getting justice for victims of femicidio because of the impunity given to their perpetrators and the lack of investigation by government and security forces.

During our first weekend in Argentina, the group took a trip to Buenos Aires. We visited Plaza de Mayo and spontaneously became part of a protest. When we first arrived at the plaza, the space was calm with a few tourists dispersed throughout the area. As we were leaving, we heard drums in the distance and saw a group of people walking toward us. We stopped and observed what was happening around us. What we saw was powerful: multiple left-wing organizations were coming together at the plaza—each organization came out of a different street leading up to the plaza and met in the middle. The political mobilization was thrilling. It was, without a doubt, the liveliest mobilization I have ever been a part of. We ended up staying at the plaza for part of the event. There, we met a couple named Wally and Monica; I believe both were professors, and they explained a bit about the history of mobilization and politics in Argentina to us.

Two things I discovered these first few weeks: 1) I’m starting to love Argentina and 2) drums should be more widely incorporated in protests in the United States.

Giselle, Emmy, Laina, and Astrid at the JFK Airport patiently waiting for their flight to Buenos Aires.
All five of us in Buenos Aires
The political organizations met in the middle of Plaza de Mayo.
The group of protesters we saw as we were preparing to leave Plaza de Mayo.
The group of protesters we saw as we were preparing to leave Plaza de Mayo.

Laina Lomont ’24 – Week 2

Posted on by
Reply

One of the most impactful moments I have experienced in Argentina so far was on our fourth day in La Plata. After returning from lunch, we had the incredible opportunity to hear from two women who work as activists with the Abuelas and Madres de Plaza de Mayo. One of the women, Silvia Fontana, talked to us about the biography she wrote about her sister who was pregnant when she was disappeared in 1977. Silvia’s mother dedicated the rest of her life to finding her missing daughter and grandchild. In 2006, with the help of the Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo, Silvia’s family recovered the identity of her nephew. He became the 84th lost grandchild to be restored by the Abuelas. After her mother passed away a few years ago, Silvia explained how she now works to honor and preserve the memory of both her sister and her mother. It was so inspiring to hear from the women behind such powerful human rights organizations. Silvia came into the Commission again last week to speak with us a bit more in depth about the process of writing a biography. As she was leaving, she asked how old we were. When I told her that I am 20 years old, she teared up and said her sister was 20 when she was kidnapped and murdered.

Within our internship with the CPM, we are each working on different teams that have different areas of focus. My team is writing short biographies about people who were disappeared from Pergamino using sources we find on the internet as well as the DIPPBA archives. DIPPBA, the Dirección de Inteligencia de la Policía de la Provincia de Buenos Aires (the intelligence unit of the Buenos Aires province Police Force), operated in La Plata between 1956 and 1998. In 2001, the Comision Provincial por la Memoria (CPM) was created to preserve the DIPPBA archives, which contain hundreds of intelligence documents tracking “subversive” activity. It has been so unique to have such hands-on experience with the documents and their history. Constructing these biographies is a reminder that 30,000 is not just a number. Each number represents a person with a life, family, interests, hopes, and plans. I always think about Silvia and her family while I am working. Jorge Rafael Videla, one of the most brutal orchestrators of the “War Against Subversion,” famously said that the “disappeared” do not exist. Writing these biographies, which memorialize the lives of people whose identities were stolen, feels like a small way of helping the fight against the state terrorism which occurred in Argentina.

When we visited Buenos Aires for the first time we went to see the Plaza de Mayo, where the Madres and Abuelas have famously held protests every Thursday at 3:30 since 1977. They were not allowed to congregate in large groups when they first began protesting, so they would walk in pairs around the Plaza wearing white handkerchiefs, or “pañuelos,” embroidered with the name of their missing child. The bricks in the Plaza are painted with large white pañuelos, forever marking the Madres’ place in Argentine history. As we were leaving the Plaza, we heard loud noises coming from the streets around the Plaza. When we walked to see what was going on, we saw a mass of people carrying flags and banners. We learned that different leftist groups coordinated a protest together. A large banner in front of the Casa Rosada, the office of the president, read “No al Pago de la Deuda Externa – Fuera el FMI” (No to foreign debt payment – IMF Get out).

The idea that multiple political groups, all with different views, could organize, coordinate, and mobilize that many people was mind blowing. We saw banners for socialist groups, anarchists, Trotskyists, center-leftists, and Marxists. As the economic situation in Argentina continues to worsen, it has been incredible to see people come together. That Saturday reminded me of the power of protest and the energy of mass mobilization. It also reminded me about the importance of place and legacy. I am so excited for the rest of our time in Argentina, and I know I will be taking many powerful lessons back to the United States with me.

Laina, Daniel with Silvia Fontana
MST (Workers’ Socialist Movement) protesters in the Plaza de Mayo
A banner hanging in the Plaza de Mayo, with the Casa Rosada in the background
Protesters from the Movimiento Libres del Sur, a center-left political party, marching toward the Plaza de Mayo

Emily Giacoia ’22 – Week 1 and 2

Posted on by
Reply

Week 1

The Monday after we arrived, we began our internship at the Comisión Provincial por la Memoria (CPM), where we were welcomed with open arms. This first week was an introduction to the organization’s mission, as well as the different teams we could work with. We also had the honor of hearing the stories of two women whose siblings had disappeared during the dictatorship. This was one of the most impactful moments I’ve had this trip. Prior to coming to Argentina, I had only surface knowledge about the dictatorships, and I don’t think I understood their impact on this country until I heard these stories from real people.

By the end of the week, I had a pretty good idea of which team I wanted to work with. I enjoyed learning about archiving and writing biographies for the desaparecidos (disappeared people), as well as the outreach possibilities that would come with the communications and culture team, but I knew I wanted something more hands-on. On Friday, after we finished touring the CPM museum, we all sat down to discuss which projects we wanted to do. I chose to work with the Committee against Torture, which protects the human rights of prisoners here in the province of Buenos Aires. I knew I would have the opportunity to form face-to-face relationships, which was the one goal I had when I accepted this internship. Plus, I would get to work with three different teams within the Committee, each of which would teach me new things.

We visited Buenos Aires for the first time that weekend. None of us had seen it before, so obviously our first stop was Plaza de Mayo, where the mothers of desaparecidos have marched each week for almost 30 years. Since we visited on July 9th, Argentina Independence Day, there were thousands of people in leftist political groups marching in the Plaza. I’ve never seen such a large protest before, and I was stunned by the sheer amount of people and the diversity of the protesters – young adults, older people, teenagers, mothers with their children. We met several people in the Plaza, including a couple we talked to for almost an hour about the political parties marching, education in the US and Argentina, tango, and more. Like everyone else I’ve met here, they were extremely gracious and welcoming, and I felt like I had known them for many years.

Week 2

I spent my first week with the Committee Against Torture working with the team that receives reports of abuse and torture in prisons. At first, I felt overwhelmed by the number of prisoners and cases that the Committee works with on a daily basis, and how incredibly oppressed the prisoners are here. But we eased our way in by working together on a few cases. First, we uploaded interviews from prisoners into the CPM system so we could flag human rights violations. Then we uploaded the corresponding reports that the Committee’s legal team sent to the courts to resolve each of the violations. The interviews were difficult to read, but they allowed me to better understand the conditions inside the prison. Once I started working on my own, I was able to move through cases faster. It was the first time I felt like I was being productive and making at least some difference in the lives of the prisoners.

This week, I was able to settle into a routine and feel more comfortable with my host family. Then, I received some amazing news – that I have family here in Argentina. On Sunday of this week, I was able to meet some distant cousins (they share my last name, though!) that I never knew existed. It was incredible, and I feel much more connected to Argentina now that I know there is a piece of my family here.