Political Report # 1304 DEA Operation Played Hidden Role in the Disappearance of Five Innocent Mexicans

By Ginger Thompson, ProPublica

At about 2 a.m. on April 21, 2010, a convoy of gunmen working for the Zetas drug cartel, one of the most violent drug trafficking organizations in the world, rolled into Monterrey, Mexico, a wealthy, bustling city considered that country's commercial capital. With brazen efficiency, they set up roadblocks at all major thoroughfares, then sent a convoy of sport utility vehicles downtown, encircling a Holiday Inn. The heavily armed men, some wearing ski masks, swarmed into the hotel's lobby and rushed directly to the fifth floor, bursting into every room and rousting the guests from their beds. The gunmen questioned the guests, then separated four of them from the rest: a marketing executive at an eyewear company, a chemical engineer for a cosmetics manufacturer, a shoe salesman expecting his first child, and a college professor who was the mother of two. Then the four were loaded, along with the hotel's receptionist, into the gunmen's vehicles and driven away. None of the hostages has been seen since. All are presumed dead. For years, their relatives and friends begged for answers. Why were their loved ones -- ordinary middle-class Mexicans with no known criminal ties -- targeted in this spasm of drug violence? The marketing executive's family futilely negotiated and paid a ransom before the Zetas cut off contact. "We could never figure out why they were taken. What made them so important?" said David Anabitarte, the marketing executive's supervisor and one of his best friends. "It was hard to accept what had happened because it never made any sense." Mexican authorities initially insinuated that the victims had brought on their own demise, adding insult to grief. The college professor, they alleged, may have been involved in a romantic relationship with one of the Zetas' rivals. And they speculated that the marketing executive, who had managed to lift his family into the upper middle class, might have had some connection to the drug trade. Without any credible explanations for why the Zetas would move military-style through a major metropolitan city to kidnap random guests at a budget hotel, some of the people close to the victims began to believe that too.

Abstract, The Araguaia Guerrilla War (1972–1974): Armed Resistance to the Brazilian Dictatorship

:::::: Abstract ::::::

The Araguaia Guerrilla War (1972–1974): Armed Resistance to the Brazilian Dictatorship
by Janaína de Almeida Teles    

The Araguaia guerrilla war (1972–1974) was an attempt to reconcile armed struggle and political awareness that became a sort of “guerrilla focus” with roots in the peasant population, which assumed a decisive role in the resistance to military repression. This period was characterized by the centralization of operations of information and repression, consolidating the tactic of “political disappearance” in Brazil. The military occupation terrorized the population to mitigate any multiplier effect of the insurgency, and its success reverberated throughout the continent. At the same time, denunciations of its human rights abuses helped to erode the dictatorship.

Abstract, Making Absence Visible: The Caravan of Central American Mothers in Search of Disappeared Migrants

:::::: Abstract ::::::

Making Absence Visible: The Caravan of Central American Mothers in Search of Disappeared Migrants
by Raúl Diego Rivera Hernández

The touring model employed by the Caravan of Central American Mothers in search of disappeared migrants in transit through Mexico creates processes of political empowerment for poor, indigenous peasant women who have no previous experience as activists and human rights defenders. Interviews and participant observation with members and organizers of the ninth caravan (held in December 2013) reveal three key moments that anchor the mothers’ transformation into political subjects and human rights activists: the creation of a collective identity based on maternal activism, the forging of an alliance with transnational human rights networks, and the emergence of a budding politics of visibility based on public acts of grieving that candidly lament the vulnerability of migrants caught in the drug war and border securitization across the hemisphere.

Abstract, Building Memory: Museums, Trauma, and the Aesthetics of Confrontation in Argentina

:::::: Abstract ::::::

Building Memory: Museums, Trauma, and the Aesthetics of Confrontation in Argentina

by Kristi M. Wilson

As Colombia’s asymmetric war has evolved, gravitating toward cities, it has become absorbed by a transitional justice system. In the process, language used to name relevant stakeholders, shape national narratives of collective memory, and activate legal infrastructure is mediated by a symbolic and often duplicitous system of governance. A history of political violence and attempts to impose security focusing on the contemporary population of Comuna 13, the fastest-growing site of urban displacement in the city of Medellín, gives context to stories of violence that are otherwise eclipsed by the process of collective memory making and describes grassroots attempts at retracing a public narrative.

Abstract, Building Memory: Museums, Trauma, and the Aesthetics of Confrontation in Argentina

:::::: Abstract ::::::

Building Memory: Museums, Trauma, and the Aesthetics of Confrontation in Argentina

by Kristi M. Wilson

As Colombia’s asymmetric war has evolved, gravitating toward cities, it has become absorbed by a transitional justice system. In the process, language used to name relevant stakeholders, shape national narratives of collective memory, and activate legal infrastructure is mediated by a symbolic and often duplicitous system of governance. A history of political violence and attempts to impose security focusing on the contemporary population of Comuna 13, the fastest-growing site of urban displacement in the city of Medellín, gives context to stories of violence that are otherwise eclipsed by the process of collective memory making and describes grassroots attempts at retracing a public narrative.

Genesis, Uses, and Significations of the Nunca Más Report in Argentina by Emilio Crenzel

Genesis, Uses, and Significations of the Nunca Más Report in Argentina
by Emilio Crenzel

| | | Abstract | | |

The Nunca Más (Never Again) report was prepared by Argentina’s Comisión Nacional sobre la Desapareción de Personas (National Commission on the Disappearance of Persons), created in 1983 to investigate the fate of thousands of persons who were disappeared during the dictatorship. It was used in the prosecution of the military juntas, to convey the past to the new generations, and as a model for the reports of truth commissions established in other Latin American countries. Because of its canonical nature, it illustrates the politics of memory regarding forced disappearances in Argentina following the return to democracy.

La Comisión Nacional sobre la Desaparición de Personas fue creada en 1983 para investigar el paradero de las miles de personas que fueron desaparecidas durante la dictadura en Argentina. Su informe Nunca Más sirvió para procesar a las juntas militares y dar a conocer el pasado a las nuevas generaciones y como modelo para los informes de las comisiones de la verdad que se establecieron en otros países latinoamericanos. Debido a su carácter canónico, sirve para ilustrar las políticas de la memoria sobre las desapariciones forzadas en la Argentina después del regreso de la democracia.

CLICK TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE:
Genesis, Uses, and Significations of the Nunca Más Report in Argentina
by Emilio Crenzel

Latin American Perspectives 2015 42: 20-38