An account of Argentine death (Osvaldo Bayer)
The Disappearance Holocaust. “Disappearance”, a word with a special
meaning in Argentina. Argentina Death. Eternally a part of world history. To
show the very face of disappearance. This is what Helen Zout has set out to
do. Without concessions. Her images say it all. All that remains of young
faces is bone.
Drilled through by bullets. Step by step. The survivors carry the mark of it
all; the disappearance, the gunshot to the soul. The injustice borne. In the
eyes,. The eyes show it, in never-ending protest. The bloodstain which bears
the seal of officialdom. The young people in the demonstration, their names
noted for final torture. The sketch of the fat lady: Jorge Julio López’s
deposition. Our very own disappeared during democracy, a man we were incapable
of either protecting or finding. The same powers that be, over the power of
citizens. Democracy with the disappeared. Argentine democracy.
Helen Zout’s lens is unforgiving. This is how life was during the disappearances.
This was society in Argentina, making people disappear, or merely allowing it
to happen. There is no demagogy in her images. This is just the way it was.
No poetry, no dreams. Black and white. Naked terror in faces finally bereft
of all hope. The Camps Circuit etched on the countenance of Nilda Eloy, a survivor.
Jorge Julio López, who survived then, only to disappear now. The look
on his face says he doesn’t want to see, as if he already knew that appearing
yesterday would mean to disappear in Argentina today. He shies away from looking.
But there is no escape. Faced with the unmasked features of the eternal repressor-become-monster
in the play of light and shadow, we realize that this is no metaphor, for his
true identity is that of a uniformed monster-torturer. The bogeyman. Horror
in uniform. The most absolute hypocrite. Total, most abject hypocrisy.
The face of the torturer, veiled by the play of light and shadow and Ethics
betrayed right to the full stop. Suddenly, there is the invincible mother. Confronting
the figure of the disappearer, the nobility of the mother of the disappeared.
Her grief is not spoken out loud. But it can be seen in her eyes, in the set
of her mouth, a mouth that kissed her child when he was born, while he grew
up, and on the day he left. This is the face of a mother who will never give
up and whose unflinching gaze will haunt the disappearer for all eternity. The
Argentine armed forces, the police and all their lily-livered civilian accomplices
were nothing more than greedy cowards from the moment of their birth to their
dying day. Their tombstones will forever stand blank, always blank. Cowards.
And that’s that.
The hunt for bones, bones picked clean by the stupidity of fear and power, a
combination that has always denied Peace, denied Freedom, denied Equality, denied
Brotherhood. The search for the bones of the brave. Bones that no
longer have faces, even though their faces are smiling back at us from the future.
Eternal Ethics. The final triumph of those who struggle.
For words to have meaning. For flowers to be flowers, for love to be love, so
a tender caress may prevail over the bullet for all eternity.
We Argentines have transformed a concentration camp into a wreckers’ yard.
Quite symbolic. A concentration camp to defend consumerism. A car against
the word of Jesus , against an outstretched hand, a car against the gifts of
Nature herself. The car as an ideal based on which all torture is justified.
Helen Zout takes full advantage of this image. A woman formerly numbered among
the disappeared wandering among the wreckage of consumerism. There is nothing
left to say. Neither Hegel nor Descartes were ever able to describe more eloquently
just how far the perversions of perverts can go. The once disappeared stands
among the scrapheap of her disappearers. And then comes the task of mourning
and investigation. The concentration camps may have been swept away, but there
is always a flagstone, a piece of pipe, a tile peering through. I was in El
Vesubio. The uniformed assassins tried to wipe out all traces of their depravity,
but always something gets left behind. The fixed stare of a woman prisoner,
the anxiety of another in giving birth surrounded by beasts in uniform; the
illusions of an idealist about to die, dropped into the sea. They may have been
able to erase the proof of their infamous acts, but not the everlasting shadow
of the disappeared. The disappeared always appear again. They are eternally
present in our country’s history. Just like the Indian peoples shot down
by Roca’s Remingtons.
Helen Zout then proceeds to show us how a body “returned” by the
Rio de la Plata is translated into a police record. The entire array of criminal
bureaucracy is present. Everything is signed and sealed. Here things are done
properly. This underscores the cruelty of our society. Then comes the explanation
of the location: how the waters like a beast reached up to swallow their victim.
This is where that defenseless body was flung. But the river cried back, “Here
I return to you the bodies of those you have killed. For your future.”
Human beings thrown into the river. Depravity without limits.
Flung into the river and gone, disappeared without trace, lost forever. But
it will reappear, general Videla, admiral Massera, it will reappear. Because
ever since then, the waves of the Rio de la Plata have shown us the bodies in
its waters still alive, the shimmering eddies of its waters reflecting the faces
of all those who disappeared.
The river, and every Ford Falcon. Anybody who ever drove or drives a Ford Falcon
will always feel a pang of guilt. The trunk is just the right size. The vehicle
of disappearance death. Brutal kidnapping and bestial confinement. The horror
in its transportation towards death, towards hideous torture, towards hell on
earth.
Argentine military order. Was it for this that San Martin crossed the Andes?
1976 was the era of the pistol tucked into the waist, the cattle prod and the
peaked cap adorned with the national crest, and the salute. Disappeared. But
not for ever. Still present.
Basterra’s eyes. He who collected proof of the horror. He was compiling
the archives of the future. With patience and courage, seeking out the proof
of this blatant infamy. Beneath the hood of the torturer, the faces of the beasts
were unmasked. Pistol, face mask to hide behind, and tie. All ready for the
Festival of Indignity.
The face of Patricia Chabat. She saw death, and returned. Her eyes are haunted
by the experience. She came back to life after having been among death. Is that
possible? And what about the sequels? These will indeed be there for ever. Just
as in our pupils dance the faces of those we saw for the last time: our disappeared
friends. Rodolfo, Haroldo, Paco. There was no time to say goodbye, but we remember
the look in their eyes the last time we saw them. Noble, each one of them.
The next three images leave no room for comment. One can only gaze upon them
in silence. Close the book. Open it again. Perhaps someone who is particularly
susceptible will burst into tears. Those who do not know how to cry, but feel
it more deeply than anyone else, will turn their eyes away in shame. To look
on nature brimming with color and happiness and to see what the Argentine military
did, abetted by Argentine society. The hair and blood of the disappeared in
the fuselage of the planes of death. Let us imagine it all. Most of all, the
greatest cruelty. Argentina.
The image which bears witness. This is the daughter whose parents disappeared
on a night when the moon shone brightly on the Rio de la Plata. Emptiness. Grief.
Impotence. All mingled together. There is no explanation. How could we have
come to this? But this, of course, is the point. Anything is possible. I have
seen a Spanish cardinal make the Fascist salute as he stood next to Franco,
the executioner of poets. And Monsignor Plaza? Yes, monsignor. Jesus nailed
on the cross is looking straight at us. Jesus disappeared for ever in Argentina
in 1976.
Here is the youthful face of death. The boy opens his eyes wide, he wants to
keep on looking. He will keep on looking, for he will never give up. And he
continues to stare at Videla and Massera and their civilian informers. He will
continue to stare. He will never close his eyes. He will stand in the front
line of human protest, always. My dear boy, I would close your eyes so you can
rest. Or perhaps it is better that you should continue to look at me and show
me that the path ahead is one only: the search for justice.
A survivor. No more tears. They lie far beyond their eyes. Eyes continue to
stare.
To be the son or daughter of one of the disappeared is to be alone for ever.
But yet, it is also about being the one with the closest companion. There will
always be the example of a disappeared parent by their side. The pride of having
a father who fought for what he believed in. Somebody who gave up their life
for the most beautiful song sung by all people: liberty, equality and brotherhood.
What pride to have a parent like that! Meanwhile, the children of the repressors
spend their lives seeking out places to hide, denying who they are even in death.
Denial for ever. The stench of rotting flesh and blood, of rotting brains. The
permanent odor of a body without a soul. They are the ones who must drop their
gaze in order to pass by unnoticed. The sons of the disappeared, on the other
hand, their eyes fixed on the horizon. The son of the disappearer bows his head
to avoid recognition.
Quilmes Cemetery, with its mass grave of the disappeared. Boots have tainted
the soil forever. People cross themselves when they go by. Their dead no longer
enjoy the peace and quiet of eternity. Passers-by leave a flower. Flowers that
never wilt. Always in bloom.
The Vucetich police academy, which can never be cleansed of its past as a center
for detention, torture and disappearance. Who could possibly study there? Who
could let their hands and souls be besmirched in such a manner? What kind of
example is this for young people, unless it is the way a school should be, as
demanded by Argentine society? How can we Argentines allow a police college
to be at the same time a symbol for the most cowardly of repressions? It is
exactly like the time when we allowed the Federal Police Officers’ Academy
to be named after Coronel Ramón Falcón, the brutal assassin of
the workers’ demonstration on May 1, 1909. Of course, there must be a
reason for it. It was there that the police officers who subsequently collaborated
in Argentine death, the disappearing of people, learned their trade.
Public outrage against an assassin in uniform. His house is daubed with paint
and graffiti forever. And one phrase: “Asesino. Hijos”. The children
of the heroes have branded the soul of the repressor for all time. The stains
will remain on the front of the house, and on the face of its owner. This is
the civic courage of the children who will never give up.
Pablo Míguez was a boy of fourteen who disappeared in the ESMA, the Naval
Mechanical School. Fourteen years of age. The bronze sculpture says it all.
The beauty of adolescence. The cowardliness of his executioners.
Pablo. We will gaze upon you forever. We will think of you always. We will take
your hand as we gather flowers. Together.
The last page. The last photograph. Sara and Jaime.
A final farewell to their son at the place where he was thrown into the river.
The end. To learn what cruelty means. To learn what Argentine Death was like.
To make sure it never happens again. Ever.
