Adolfo Perez Esquivel, who won the 1980 Nobel Peace Prize for his work exposing abuses during Argentina’s military dictatorship, finally testified against his captors on Tuesday, describing his torture and crediting international pressure for saving his life.
Perez Esquivel recounted the blows, screams and repeated torture sessions in which guards pounded him and other naked prisoners with fists, boot heels and other weapons, then made them take cold showers before pummeling their injured bodies again.
“With the club they poked my ribs and asked if it hurt. I would say yes, and then they’d say: ‘Now you know how you should behave here.’ And then they would pound me with their heels, which made me think of those Nazi movies,” Perez Esquivel testified.
‘A LONG TIME’
However, after more than three decades, Perez Esquivel told the judges, he can no longer identify his torturers in the courtroom.
“It’s been a long time,” said Perez Esquivel, who is now 89.
Perez Esquivel is one of many witnesses in the trial of 14 former prison officials charged with crimes against humanity at the feared Unit 9, where many political prisoners were held during the 1976-to-1983 dictatorship.
Others include Argentine Foreign Minister Jorge Taiana.
HUMAN RIGHTS
Perez Esquivel founded the Permanent Assembly for Human Rights in 1975 and traveled around Latin America alerting the world to rights violations by the region’s military juntas.
In April 1977, Argentine military authorities took him into custody when he tried to renew his passport.
He wasn’t released until 1978.
“I was a person known at an international level, but in this jail I was tortured anyway, although there were many people who suffered more than me,” Perez Esquivel told reporters outside the court before testifying for more than two hours in the provincial capital of La Plata, where Unit 9 was located.
PEACE PRIZE
While in prison, Perez Esquivel was given a peace prize by the Vatican, which did not go unnoticed among his torturers, he recalled.
“At one point the deputy prison chief took me to his office and told me: ‘Not even the pope will save you. Here, we decide whether you live. We are the lords of life and death,’” Perez Esquivel testified.
According to official accounts, 13,000 people were killed during Argentina’s dictatorship, although rights group estimate the true toll may be as high as 30,000.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in