Every Thursday afternoon the Abuelas de La Plaza de Mayo march in front of congress in memory of their children and relatives who disappeared under the reign of the military junta in the 1970s. Time has revealed that the capture and torture of their relatives was also accompanied by the kidnapping of the victims’ children, some of whom continue to live with the torturers themselves or with friends and families of members of the armed forces. The march is therefore referred to as the march of the grandmothers who have been forced to accept the disappearance of their children but who seek justice through the search for their grandchildren. Let me share with you the story of one such case:
In 1978, Paula Eva Logares disappeared with her parents Claudio Logares and Monica Grispon on the 18th of May in Montevideo, Uruguay. Her maternal grandmother Elsa Pavón de Aguilar, did not know what the word ‘desaparecido’ meant until that moment but knew that her daugher and son-in-law were activists who moved from Argentina to Uruguay because their lives were in danger under military rule. When they disappeared in 1978, Elsa continued to tidy her daughter’s room for one whole year both in denial of their disappearance and also with the belief that her daughter and her granddaughter would eventually return home. Paula Eva Logares was 23 months old when her parents were kidnapped, tortured and murdered in Montevideo, Uruguay. It was not until Elsa joined the Abuelas (grandmothers) de Plaza de Mayo that she discovered that while Monica was probably dead, her granddaughter, Paula was still alive, living with one of the torturers Lavallén and his wife in La Plata, Argentina. Lavallén, like many other members of the military, took Paula as a ‘war button’ and testimony of his ‘conquest’ of her activist parents. He renamed her Paula Eva Lavallén and officially re-registered her as his own daughter born 2 years after her real date of birth. He ensured that Paula had no knowledge of her real parents, teaching her that he and his wife were her parents and officially erasing any evidence of her previous life with her biological parents. It was not until Paula turned four that one of her next door neighbors identified her in a photograph that Elsa had published in their neighborhood and reported her to the Abuelas that the truth of Paula’s past was revealed.
Paula’s next door neighbor agreed to secretly meet Elsa and the Abuelas and told them that Paula’s relationship with Lavallén was frightening because he told Paula that men were disgusting and that he was the only man she ought to trust. He also told her that she would marry him when she grew up; at that time Paula was seven years old and Lavallén was forty-six. Elsa found this to be alarming and vowed to do everything in her power to rescue her granddaughter immediately. Little by little Elsa secretly began gathering information and enough evidence to take Lavallén to court but she had to wait until the ending of the dictatorship to officially press charges. When Elsa and the lawyers of the Abuelas de la Plaza de Mayo officially pressed charges and had Paula removed, their first obstacle was to prove her official date of birth as Lavallén had gotten Paula legally renamed and re-registered. With the help of scientists, photographs and radiographic tests, they were able to prove Paula’s real identity. The court ruled that Paula was to be returned to her biological grandmother and charged Lavallén and his wife for falsifying information on legal documents as well as the kidnapping of the child. However, the sentence is a suspended sentence and Lavallén and his wife continue to live in freedom even today and have continuously attempted to contact Paula over the last 20 years. Lavallén and other members of the military are yet to be charged for the murder of Paula’s real parents because the system behind the disappearances has never completely been dismantled.
Perhaps the greatest obstacle that Elsa faced was to prove to Paula herself that she was indeed her granddaughter. The day the court ruled that Paula was to be sent to live with Elsa, her grandfather and her uncles and aunts, the child threw a tantrum and cried uncontrollably. Psychologists accompanied Elsa when she first spoke to Paula who although was (biologically) 7 years old at the time, was two years behind in her mental development. Elsa said that it was as if Paula were a big baby and although she was tall for her legal age, she was still physically underdeveloped for her biological age. Psychologists explained that this was a result of her traumatic separation from her parents. When Elsa showed Paula pictures of her real parents and told her that Lavallén had lied to her, Paula screamed at her and called her a liar. Elsa then showed her a picture of herself with her mother that she had taken 2 weeks before she was kidnapped and Paula stopped crying as if she had recognized her. Elsa then said to her “Do you know what you used to call her father? Instead of saying Claudio, you would say ‘Calio.’” Paula repeated it and burst into tears. She remembered. Psychologists say that Paula remembered because she actually knew her parents at the time of the kidnapping and that the moment of re-remembering them was a terribly painful one for her. She moved in with her grandparents and psychologists stayed in the house with her for an extended period of time to ease the emotional and psychological difficulties of reintegration. Paula’s story is not the only story that I read and heard about when I was living in Buenos Aires, nor is it the only country where disappearances occurred. The military junta in Argentina collaborated with the military dictatorships in Chile, Paraguay, Bolivia and Uruguay to enforce disappearances of thousands of citizens including activists, homeless people, homosexuals, drug addicts and prostitutes. Cases are still being fought today.
When I had arrived in Argentina, the story of the 30,000 ‘desparecidos’ was just a story that I thought had already been resolved. To my absolute shock and horror, this was not the case. When my friend Erick came to visit me in Buenos Aires, we went to a gay pride rally and saw several signs saying “¿Dónde está Jorge Julio Lopéz?” At the time I didn’t take notice of it and it was only when I started interviewing popular theatre groups that I begun to ask questions. I asked the people I lived with who he was and they told me that he was one of the ‘desparecidos’ who had survived and was currently testifying against Etchecolatz, a former police chief convicted of crimes against humanity and after he testified, he disappeared. So I asked Martín and Irma (the people I lived with) in what year did this happen and Martín looked at me incredulously and said “Danielle, vos no sabes, se lo llevaron hace 3 meses.” Danielle, you don’t know? They kidnapped him three months ago!” It is only now, under Kirchners government that Argentina has really begun to prosecute members of the military and to officially search for the grandchildren of those who disappeared.
The relevance of the mass disappearance of thousands of people hit home for me when Martín and Irma told me that their brother is also one of the ‘desparecidos’ and that they too continue to search for at the very least, his body. It made sense to me because I had been renting a room in their house for two months and had met all the members of their family except him and his picture was still up in the living room. Irma explained that she was the last to see him. Her daughter Florencia was just born and she had met her brother in a park the same day. He had told Irma he needed to run an errand before going over to meet his niece for the first time. He was also an activist. She said that he asked her to accompany him but she was tired and told him that she needed to take care of Florencia. He left and took a taxi but didn’t show up at Irma’s house that afternoon. Irma found it strange until her father informed her that he had called saying not to worry and that he was okay. Irma’s father said, “Estas seguro hijo, es que te escucho la voz rara…”Are you sure son? Your voice sounds strange.” And he said he was fine and would meet Florencia the next day. Irma said that her brother was one of many victims that the military got to call home so that the family would not look for him. Martin told me that they had spoken to everyone and gone to every authority in the city to find him until the bishop from their local church told them to stop looking because the military had threatened to kill anyone who searched for their brother. For Irma, the alliance of the church with the military during the dictatorship was the most frustrating part and explains why so many people, including many of the Abuelas who used to be practicing Catholics, left the church when their children and grandchildren disappeared. The same night that Irma and Martín told me about their brother, we saw a breaking news report that another activist and peronista Luis Gerez, a key witness against another police chief Patti ‘reappeared’ after president Kirchner announced a national search for those who had kidnapped him.
My conversation with Martin and Irma and the breaking news report inspired me to interview the theatre group ‘Teatro Por [X] La Identidad,’ which is a popular theatre group that works with the Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo to use theatre to create awareness and also to find grandchildren now aged 25-30 that may be children of ‘desparecidos.’ They use their plays to provide information so that those in doubt can learn the truth of their own identity and several people have come forward after seeing their work and been reunited with their family. Patricia Ianigro, director of "Teatro X La Identidad" told me that she started working with Las Abuelas when her twin brother disappeared. She launched "Teatro X La Identidad" to participate in the search because she said that “[El teatro] es el espacio de militancia para mí…es poder desarrollarme en aquello que en algún momento fue privado…para mí era el grito que a muchos lo quedó ahogados y que el grito también fue torturado y matado" [Theatre] is a space of militancy for me, it is to be able to develop that which was private at one point…for me it was a shout/scream that was silenced/suppressed for many of us…that shout/scream was also tortured and murdered. She explained the role of popular theatre in the search for the ‘desaparecidos’ as “históricamente fue la manifestación más clara de lo que se vivía en ese momento SI...a través del teatro independiente estaba la independencia y la libertad de decir lo que se querría decir sin pocos recursos." “Historically, it was the clearest manifestation of what was lived in that moment, it was through popular theatre that there was independence and freedom to say what you wanted to say [and] with very few resources.”
To understand the function of popular theatre in this instance, we also need to understand the purpose of the disappearance itself. Why would you kill, torture, murder so many people and keep their children? The armed forces in Argentina, used enforced disappearances as a weapon of generalized terror. A former police chief and another torturer, Silvio explained that he took the child of his victims to re-train her and to instill patriotic values in citizens when they are very young. But the impact of the disappearance is even more important because when someone disappears, that entire family and those close to the individual live in total fear because they never know what actually happened to that person. Without the body of the person itself, there is no evidence of the crime committed and simultaneously there is no perpetrator. When no wrong is done, there can be no accused, no one to be held accountable and no grounds to demand justice. Also, the disappearance embodies the silence of the wrong and of the person’s life so finding a grandchild represents an acknowledgement of the parent’s life, their death and the rewriting of a personal story.
Therefore, Ianigro has explicated two things about popular theatre in Argentina as it relates both to the personal and the public impact of the disappearance of so many citizens. It is first personal for her because it allows for her to express her personal grief and loss and it is secondly public because it breaks the silence surrounding the history of the nation itself. A nation is imagined as an entity with a specific history and what is included or excluded from that history is what determines the nation’s identity. One cannot imagine Latin America as a region today without thinking about its history of colonization, dictatorships and revolution because history is the foundation upon which a nation’s identity is constructed. So when a popular theatre group like ‘Teatro x La Identidad’ decides to break a silence with its work, what is at stake, is not only the personal grief being expressed by those who participate; It is the rewriting of Argentina’s history and the creation of a space to re-imagine the nation’s identity.
©Danielle Roper
For more information:
Anything published by the Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo is useful.
Information on Paula Logares's story taken from the book Identidad: despojo y restitucion" by Matilde Herrera and Ernesto Tenembaum
Photos of Teatro X La Identidad and Patricia Ianigro
Photographer: Danielle Roper
2 comments:
wow....this was an amazing post! Now I understand that protest that Keya, you and I witnessed but hours after having arrived in Argentina.
Erick's right, this is an amazing post. There's actually an exhibit about Los Desaparecidos at El Museo del Barrio in Spanish Harlem. It's going on until June.
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