Saving Haiti's Cultural Heritage

The Fight to Save Haiti’s Archives
Members of the International Council of Archives (ICA) in Haiti have formed a crisis cell entitled ‘Heritage in danger’ on the fringes of the official commission for the evaluation of buildings and reconstruction. They have recently issued a statement listing some of the most urgent requirements in order to save the country’s archives and cultural property. Wilfrid Bertrand is the National Archivist of Haiti and Jérémy Lachal is the Executive Director of Libraries Without Borders, who is currently on mission in Port-au-Prince. Both stressed the pressing need for tarpaulins in order to protect the records that are currently lying on the ground and risk being destroyed during the forthcoming rainy season.
ICA explained that it is urgently trying to get these materials out to Port-au-Prince. It is also working with the Blue Shield Network, the cultural equivalent of the Red Cross, which was founded in the aftermath of the Second World War to protect cultural heritage during armed conflicts. The two organisations are currently trying to collect hard information as the basis for an initial report on damage to cultural property in Haiti. The report is due to provide an indication of the resources that will be needed to safeguard the country’s cultural heritage.
For further information, visit the websites of the ICA (http://www.ica.org/) and Blue Shield (http://www.ancbs.org/).

Bhutan: An Eye to History
More than 80 photographs charting the history of Bhutan were on display until the end of last month at The National Gallery of Modern Art in Delhi. The images included photographs of Rinpung monastery in Paro taken in 1864 and of the King and Queen of Bhutan at the Red Fort during their first state visit to India in 1954. There is a slideshow of some of the photographs on the website of the BBC.

Hitler’s secret relationship with Eva Braun
In the aftermath of the Second World War, the British historian Hugh Trevor-Roper concluded that Eva Braun was ‘uninteresting’. However, the first academic biography of Eva Braun: Life With Hitler by the Berlin historian Heike Görtemaker and published at the end of the month by CH Beck refutes traditional views of Braun and Hitler’s relationship.
In Der Spiegel Online Klaus Wiegrefe provides an insight into the realities of the couple’s secret relationship. The article also features a slideshow of images of Eva Braun and Hitler.
Kate Connolly also reports in The Guardian.

Light on Japan’s ‘Unit 731’ experiments
In 1989, a mass grave was discovered during construction work in Tokyo’s district of Shinjuku. The grave contained human remains which are believed to have come from ‘Unit 731’ where the medical research team of the Imperial Japanese Army carried out gruesome human ‘experiments’ on more than 10,000 people per year. Authorities in Tokyo recently announced plans to study the remains in an effort to address this dark, and previously ignored, page of Japanese history.
Julian Ryall reports in The Telegraph.

First Impressions: Moctezuma: Aztec Ruler

by Kathryn Hadley

Moctezuma: Aztec Ruler opens today at the British Museum. Organised in anticipation of the anniversaries in 2010 of the independence of Mexico (1810) and the Mexican Revolution (1910), the exhibition is the last in the museum’s series of exhibitions exploring power and empire. Moctezuma II (1467-1520) was the ninth and the last ruler of the Mexica people. His father Axayacatl, the sixth ruler, was succeeded by his two brothers and Moctezuma was elected in 1502. The exhibition explores the foundation of the Aztec empire and its capital Tenochtitlan, Moctezuma’s coronation, the religion and Gods of the Mexica people, Moctezuma’s role as a warrior and military leader and the Spanish conquest.

Paul Lay wrote yesterday that Moctezuma emerged in the exhibition as an ‘insubstantial’ figure. In my view, such a representation is, however, inevitable primarily due to the nature of the historic sources used to document the period. Mexican sources of the time were largely destroyed following the Spanish conquest and the main surviving sources are Spanish accounts. Some were written posthumously, but there also exist contemporary eyewitness accounts written by Hernan Cortes (1485-1547) himself and by those who accompanied him.

Cortes’ Letters from Mexico consist of a series of five letters written by Cortes to Charles V of Spain and document the conquest of Mexico from Cortes’ arrival at Veracruz to his journey to Honduras in 1525. A second key source is The Conquest of New Spain by Bernal Diaz del Castillo who accompanied Cortes on his voyage to Mexico. Nevertheless, both sources should be read with a pinch of salt. Cortes was in dispute with the crown and would inevitably have sought to highlight his achievements in an attempt to justify his voyage.

The nature of the sources for the period is just one grey and shadowy area in the representation of Moctezuma. How accurate are Spanish accounts of the period? How did the Mexica view their leader? One of the Spanish documents on display in the exhibition is a Spanish map of Tenochtitlan. The map was drawn in 1514, three years after the conquest, but the artist appears to have had first hand knowledge of the city and his representation was on the whole accurate. Nevertheless, his addition of spires and pitched roofs to some of the buildings illustrates perfectly how Spanish authors and artists may have twisted what they saw and experienced in Mexico in accordance with their own visions of the world and the expectations of their Spanish audiences at home.

Moctezuma’s achievements and success as a leader are also shrouded in controversy. Moctezuma was in many ways a great ruler: he expanded the empire to the south of Tenochtitlan; successfully formed a Triple Alliance between the major cities of Tenochtitlan, Tetzcoco and Tlacopan; developed trading links across Mexico and commissioned a program of lavish public building in Tenochtitlan. But despite these achievements he is remembered and blamed in Mexico for the demise of the Aztec empire.

Furthermore, the circumstances and causes of Moctezuma’s death remain a mystery: was he murdered by the Spanish or stoned to death by his own angry people, who felt that he had betrayed them? Again, the sources offer different interpretations. Whilst many views suggest that the Mexica turned against their ruler, according to The Florentine Codex, Moctezuma’s followers sought to retrieve his body in order for it to be cremated. The Florentine Codex is a series of twelve books written under the supervision of the Spanish Franciscan missionary Bernardino de Sahagun between approximately 1540 and 1585. It is a copy of the records of interviews with indigenous sources and remains the main source of Mexica life in the years preceding the Spanish conquest.

Numerous other questions also remain unanswered. Was the Aztec civilization really as violent and brutal as it is often portrayed - notably in Hollywood films such as Mel Gibson’s Apocalypto? Has it been unfairly portrayed? Moreover, why did Moctezuma become such a mythical figure in Europe notably in the centuries following the Spanish conquest? In 16th-century Europe there was a growing appetite for accounts of indigenous kings and on display in the exhibition is the earliest European portrait of Moctezuma by the French artist Andre Thevet dated to 1584. Why did he become more familiar in Europe than in Mexico?

The figure of Moctezuma is surrounded by unanswered questions and issues for debate. Yet, the British Museum’s exhibition largely avoids confronting these questions. These uncertainties and the insubstantiality of Moctezuma’s person are, however, the most fascinating and focal point in the study of the Aztec empire and the Spanish conquest. They would have been the perfect starting point for the exhibition and the perfect theme around which to base it. Has the British Museum missed the point?

For further information on the Aztec Empire and the Spanish conquest of Mexico, visit our History of Mexico focus page.

Images:

- Turquoise mosaic mask, c. 1500-1521, Mexica/Mixtec (The Trustees of the British Museum)

- Portrait of Moctezuma by Antonio Rodriguez, 1680-1697 on loan from the Museo degli Argenti, Florence (su concesione del Ministero per I Beni e le Attivita Culturali)

Che: Part Two - Guevara's Bolivian Campaign

by Kathryn Hadley

Che: Part Two, which tells the story of the last year of Guevara’s life in Bolivia, from November 1966 to October 1967, was released in cinemas on February 20th. Having been captivated by Che: Part One and filled with admiration for Guevara and his profound moral values of justice and equality, I was eager to discover his subsequent fate and whether or not his portrayal in the second part of the film would be more nuanced and uncover other more controversial aspects of his career.

Che: Part Two is also based on Guevara’s diary, entitled The Bolivian Diary of Ernesto Che Guevara, which begins on November 7th, 1966, after his arrival at the farm in the Nancahuazu region, to the south east of Bolivia, and ends on October 7th, 1967, the day before his capture. Again, possibly because the film is based once more on Guevara’s diary, he remains just as sympathetic and inspiring and the question of how far his character is idealised thus remains in the second part of the film. Guevara is depicted as an essentially tragic figure, who fights for his ideals until the very end, despite gradually losing support and being betrayed, notably by the local Bolivian peasants, for whom he desires merely justice, equality and improved living conditions.

At the end of March 1965, Guevara vanished from Cuba, leaving behind his wife and five children, to ensure the continuing fight for the worldwide implementation of the ideals of the Cuban Revolution. On October 3rd, 1965, Castro publically read an undated letter from Guevara in Havana, which he had allegedly written to him a few months earlier. The recording of Castro’s reading of the letter is incidentally available in the exhibition ‘The Sound and the Fury’ currently on show at the British Library. In his letter, Guevara reasserted his solidarity with the Cuban Revolution and stated his intention to leave Cuba to fight for the revolution abroad. He also announced his resignation from his positions in the Cuban government and renounced his honorary Cuban citizenship. Guevara initially travelled to Africa, where he participated in the conflict in the Congo. Following the failure of his campaign, however, Guevara left the Congo and reportedly lived as a clandestine in Dar es Salam and Prague. He then travelled to Western Europe to test his new forged identity papers for his subsequent travels to South America.

In November 1966, Guevara flew into La Paz, intent on starting another revolution. He travelled from the capital to an area in the jungle in the Nancahuazu region, purchased by the Bolivian communists for Guevara to use as a base camp and training ground. His force of approximately fifty revolutionaries was known as the ELN (Ejercito de Liberacion Nacional de Bolivia), the National Liberation Army of Bolivia. Despite initially successful campaigns, notably in the mountainous Camiri region, by the end of the summer of 1967, the tide was turning. The guerrilla groups were faced with unexpected and growing obstacles: the United States intervened on the side of the Bolivian Army with a team of the CIA’s Special Activities Division Commandos, local dissidents and the Bolivia Communist Party withdrew their support, and Guevara’s forces lost radio contact with Havana. In September, the regular Bolivian Army, trained and supplied by U.S. Army Special Forces, notably eliminated two guerrilla groups. On October 7th, Guevara was captured. On October 9th, the Bolivian president, Rene Barrientos, ordered his assassination. On October 15th, Castro acknowledged Guevara’s death and declared three days of public mourning. Guevara’s remains now lie in a mausoleum in the city of Santa Clara, where he had commanded a decisive victory during the Cuban Revolution.

Stephen Soderbergh’s film alone is testimony to the extent to which the myth of the ‘Che’ lives on, more than forty years after his death. Somewhat paradoxically in the light of his beliefs and ideals, Guevara’s iconic image has been merchandised throughout the world and he is depicted in popular culture as a hero. The questions raised by the film should not, however, remain unanswered and the more controversial aspects of his life should also be considered.

Mass grave in Mexico from the colonial era

by Kathryn Hadley

A mass grave from the time of the Spanish conquest has recently been discovered in Mexico City raising new questions about the fate of the Aztec capital city, Tenochtitlan, and its inhabitants following its conquest led by Hernan Cortes in 1521. The discovery was announced on Tuesday. The four-by-10-metre burial site was discovered by archaeologists initially searching for a palace complex in the Tlatelolco area, to the North of the city. It contains 49 skeletons laid out in neat lines all lying face-up with their arms crossed. The skeletons are mostly those of young men, but also include those of two children, one teenager and an elderly person wearing a ring. Several skeletons showed broken bones that had mended suggesting that they may be the bodies of warriors.

Salvador Guilliem, the leader of the excavations for Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History, described the discovery as completely unexpected:

"We were completely taken by surprise. We didn't expect to find this massive
funeral complex".

Tlatelolco was a city-state on the northern part of an island on Lake Texcoco. It is believed to have been founded in 1337, fifteen years after the foundation of Tenochtitlan (to the South of the island), as an independent city-state. The two city-states maintained close trading links, however, and at the end of the 15th century Tlatelolco became subject to Tenochtitlan. The Aztec empire was formally founded by Itzcoatl in 1428. By 1500, the Aztecs had conquered most of central Mexico and the empire reached its height under Moctezuma II, who ruled from 1502 to 1520. When Cortes arrived in Tenochtitlan on November 8th, 1519, accounts by Spanish conquistadores described the city as one of the largest in the world on a par with Paris, Constantinople and Venice (ref. Bernal Diaz del Castillo’s account of the conquest Historia verdadera de la conquista de la Nueva Espana – The Conquest of New Spain). Tenochtitlan was eventually conquered on August 31st, 1521. The area where the burial was found is believed to be the site of the last Indian resistance to the Spanish during the month long battle for the city. Relatively little is known, however, about the period immediately after the fall of the city, when Cortes allegedly razed most pyramids and temples and abandoned the city. He fled to the outskirts of the city before returning some time later to build a Spanish style city on the ruins of the Aztec capital.

According to Guilliem, the indigenous population buried in the grave either died in battle against the invading Spanish army or from diseases that killed large parts of the native population in 1545 and 1576. Millions notably perished in a four-year epidemic of hemorrhagic fever that broke out in 1545 killing 80% of the indigenous population. The discovery has also raised many questions that have yet to be answered.

The burial is particularly unusual because the positioning of the bodies suggests that they were buried following Christian traditions. It differs from previously discovered conquest-era graves, where the remains of Indians who died from epidemics were haphazardly thrown in pits, regardless of gender or age. The corpses were, however, buried with pre-Hispanic artefacts, such as copper necklaces and bone buttons, and some appear to have been wrapped in large cactus leaves rather than placed in European-style coffins. The graves also revealed evidence of Aztec style rituals in which incense or animals were burnt in an incense burner.

Guilliem has suggested that the burials may have been ordered by the Spanish but carried out by the indigenous population. Susan Gillespie, an archaeologist from the University of Florida, did not participate in the excavations, but questioned why the Spanish would have bothered with the careful burial of Aztec warriors. Moreover, if the burial was carried out by the indigenous population, the Indians would have been more likely to cremate any honored dead. Guilliem suggested that the Aztecs may have returned to bury their dead during the interim period, between the conquest of Tenochtitlan and its later reconstruction. Alternatively, the victims may have been held captive by the Spanish for some time before being killed later, as was the leader of the Aztec resistance, emperor Cuauhtémoc. It is also possible the bodies were those of disease victims or rebellious Indians from after 1521.

Guilliem explained that more research was needed and the skeletons analysed in order to determine the cause of their death. Scientists expect to uncover at least 50 more bodies as excavations continue at the site.

For more information, read our articles:
>> Aztec Warfare - Ross Hassig offers a reinterpretation of the culture of Aztec warfare, which may have been distorted by Spanish accounts in an attempt to justify the Spanish conquest
>> If Columbus Had Not Called – Brian Fagan reviews the state of the Aztec empire on the eve of the Spanish conquest questioning what would have happened if the conquistadores had not arrived. (The article includes a quote of Bernal Diaz’s description of Tenochtitlan).
>> Aztecs: A New Perspective – John M.D. Pohl reviews recent scholarship about the Aztec empire.

Che: Part One

by Kathryn Hadley

There are just a couple of weeks left to see Steven Soderbergh’s Che: Part One, about the first three years of the Cuban Revolution, before the sequel, Che: Part Two, is released on February 20th. Based on Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara’s memoirs ‘Reminiscences of the Cuban Revolutionary War’, the film provides a captivating insight into the initial guerrilla warfare stage and Guevara’s role in the revolution, from 1956 to January 1959, as a group of rebels marched through Cuba from the southwest coast to Havana. ‘Reminiscences of the Cuban Revolutionary War’ was first published in 1963 as a series of articles and was then translated into English in 1968.

The opening scene features Argentine Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara and Fidel Castro’s first meeting in Mexico City in 1955. Following their release from prison, Fidel Castro and his brother Raul Castro Ruz had fled to Mexico earlier in the year with other exiles to prepare a revolution to overthrow the US-sympathetic Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista. The Cuban Revolution is typically known to have begun on July 26th 1953 when a group of rebels, including Fidel and Raul Castro, attacked the Moncanda military barracks in Santiago and in Bayamo. The attack failed, however, and the two brothers were captured and put on trial. Fidel was sentenced to 15 years imprisonment and Raul received a thirteen-year sentence. In 1955, however, the Batista regime freed all political prisoners including the Moncanda rebels.

As a result of their meeting, Guevara agreed to join the band of Cuban rebels led by Fidel Castro on their journey to Cuba. They left Mexico in November 1956, arriving in Cuba on December 2nd 1956. The film is centred on their two-year journey and guerilla warfare battles through Cuba to Havana, as they gain increasing popular support and finally successfully topple the government of Batista in January 1959. On January 1st 1959, Batista fled to the Dominican Republic. Guevara and his troops entered Havana on January 2nd and Fidel Castro arrived on January 8th. The film is interspersed with flashbacks to Guevara’s speech as the head of the Cuban delegation at the United Nations conference in New York in 1964 and extracts from an interview with an American journalist, in which the ‘Che’ recalls the initial years of the revolution.

Guevara, in an excellent performance by Benicio del Toro, appears as a loveable father-like figure to which the audience immediately warms and his ideals and strong moral values of equality and justice, for both the Cuban people and the entire population of Latin American, are immensely inspiring. The film does also, however, raise a number of questions. Is this depiction, based on Guevara’s own writings, not possibly over-idealised? Did Guevara’s tragic death not also cause him to be remembered as a hero, overlooking possible faults and flaws in his leadership and ideals? Will the second part of the film be consistent with this view or will he be portrayed in a somewhat more shaded light? With the rebels now in Havana and Batista in the Dominican Republic, how will the revolution be implemented?
Patience and Che: Part Two will hopefully tell…

For more information on Fidel Castro, his depiction as a revolutionary guerilla leader and the practical achievements and structural changes that he brought to Cuba, read our article Makers of the Twentieth Century: Castro
For a review of Cuba in April 2008, when Castro handed over the reins of power after 49 years, read our article Which Way Cuba?

The Mystery of the ‘Land of the Twins’

by Kathryn Hadley

In a recent book entitled Mengele: the Angel of Death in South America, the Argentine historian Jorge Camarasa, a specialist in the Nazi post-war flight to South America, claimed that the Nazi doctor Josef Mengele may be responsible for the extraordinarily high proportion of twins in the Brazilian town of Candido Godoi (State of Rio do Sul, South Brazil). The average twin birthrate is one in 80 pregnancies; in Candido Godoi, however, one in five pregnancies typically results in twins, most of them with blond hair and blue eyes.

Camarasa’s book retraces the last years of Mengele’s life in South America, where he allegedly pursued his efforts to produce an Aryan master race. During the Second World War, Mengele was an SS physician in Auschwitz-Birkenau where he carried out genetic experiments for the production of twins in an attempt to create a master race for Hitler. He is believed to be responsible for 400,000 deaths in medical experiments in Auschwitz. In 1949, he fled to South America where he moved from Argentina, to Paraguay and finally to Brazil. He lived in Brazil for 18 years until his death by drowning in a swimming accident on February 7th, 1979. He was buried in Embu das Artes in the State of Sao Paolo under the name Wolfgang Gerhard.

Mengele allegedly visited the small town of Candido Godoi various times in the 1960s posing as a vet. Camarasa explained:

'I think Candido Godoi may have been Mengele's laboratory, where he finally managed to fulfill his dreams of creating a master race of blond-haired, blue-eyed Aryans […] There is testimony that he attended women, followed their pregnancies, treated them with new types of drugs and preparations, that he talked of artificial insemination in human beings, and that he continued working with animals, proclaiming that he was capable of getting cows to produce male twins […] Nobody knows for sure exactly what date Mengele arrived in Candido Godoi, but the first twins were born in 1963, the year in which we first hear reports of his presence’.

A former mayor of the town and local doctor, Anencia Flores da Silva, also carried out numerous interviews in an attempt to explain the exceptionally high proportion of twins and discovered that the name of Rudolph Weiss, an itinerant medic, was consistently cited. In the words of Dr da Silva:

‘[Mengele] attended women who had varicose veins and gave them a potion which he carried in a bottle, or tablets which he brought with him. Sometimes he carried out dental work, and everyone remembers he used to take blood’.

The town’s official crest shows two identical profiles and a sign welcoming visitors to a ‘Farming Community And Land Of The Twins’. The film The Boys from Brazil (1978) tells the story of Mengele’s life in South America, where he allegedly planned to found a fourth Reich with other Nazi sympathisers and sought to recreate the childhood of Hitler for the 95 boys he cloned from the Nazi leader. In the light of Camarasa’s recent statements, this fictional film rings worryingly closer to reality.

For more information on Mengele’s treatment of the Ovitz family in Auschwitz, read our article

Mengele and the Family of Dwarfs

Trophy Heads: Gruesome Practices from the Nazca Civilisation

by Kathryn Hadley

In 1925, the American anthropologist Alfred Louis Kroeber (1876-1960) discovered a series of ‘trophy heads’ at six different sites in the region on the southern coast of Peru at the heart of the Nazca civilization, which flourished from approximately the first to the eighth centuries AD. The lips of the heads were sewn together with cactus spines and all the heads featured a hole in the centre of the forehead through which a carrying rope was inserted. Their meaning has remained a myth, however, for the past 100 years. Were they war trophies? Were they the heads of venerated ancestors, which bore a religious significance and were used in rituals or offerings?

Recent research has, however, revealed the geographical origins of the trophy heads, providing new clues as to their significance. Archaeologists compared strontium, oxygen, and carbon isotope data found in the tooth enamel of 16 of the trophy heads, originally discovered in 1925 and currently held at the Chicago Field Museum of Natural History, with that from 13 mummified bodies buried in the Nazca region. The atomic structures of strontium, oxygen, and carbon vary by geographical location, thus reflecting where the person lived and his or her diet.

The results of the study, published online on December 11th in the Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, concluded that the trophy heads did not come from a distinct geographical region and that the individuals in the study consumed similar diets. The trophy heads came from the local Nazca population, rather than from a neighbouring enemy civilisation, thus hinting that they may have been used in rituals. Widespread depictions of trophy heads on painted pottery from the late Nazca period suggest that collecting and displaying trophy heads was a relatively common practice amongst the Nazca civilisation.

Nevertheless, researchers do not rule out that the heads may have also served as war trophies. Paintings on pottery often reveal warriors holding trophy heads, which may have come from warring in the Nazca area. Considering the extensive lifespan of the Nazca culture over more than seven centuries, it also seems likely that the role and purpose of trophy heads evolved over time.

In the words of Professor Kelly Knudson, the lead author of the study from Arizona State University:

"It is possible that the role of the trophy heads changed over time. It is possible that these individuals were sacrificed, but we don't have any evidence for that".

Italian Archaeologist Giuseppe Orefici, who has worked since 1982 excavating the ancient Nazca ceremonial city of Cahuachi, approximately 28 kilometres away from the modern city of Nazca, explained how:

"In 26 years of digging at Cahuachi, we have never come across any head used as a war trophy […] We are rather talking of 'offering heads' used in rituals. They belong to people of both sexes and in most cases they have been buried inside the ceremonial center. The images of disembodied heads in pottery and textiles are either representations of myths or indicate the high social status of the people who carry them".

New museum in memory of Pinochet

by Kathryn Hadley

The Pinochet Foundation Museum in Santiago, Chile, was inaugurated on Friday December 12th, two days after the second anniversary of Pinochet’s death, by family, friends and supporters of his regime. The museum was officially opened to the public today. More than 150 people have already registered to visit the display of the dictators’ medals, sabers, books, his collection of toy soldiers, his desk and uniforms, which include the last uniform that he wore as commander in chief of the Chilean Army. The museum is devoted to the memory of the dictator. Its construction was sponsored by the Pinochet Foundation, which includes supporters and former aides to Pinochet, and was to a large extent financed by private donations.

Its inauguration has, however, sparked considerable controversy and opposition from victims of the dictatorship. In 1973, General Augusto Pinochet led a military coup against the socialist government of Salvador Allende ushering in 17 years of dictatorship. According to official reports, 3,197 suspected leftists were assassinated before he left power in 1990 and approximately 28,000 were tortured. Pinochet died on December 10th, 2006. Shortly before his death, he recognised the human rights abuses committed during his rule. He never issued an official apology, however, and was never put on trial.

Tito Tricot, an academic who was tortured under Pinochet’s regime condemned the inauguration of the museum:

"Any monument to a dictator is shameful to the memory of all those who fell in the fight against the dictatorship […]. It is a reflection of what is going on in this country, of a negotiated, agreed transition, in which justice has not been done […]. It is offensive to me. Shameful."

Supporters of the former dictator still claim, however, that Pinochet saved Chile from being transformed into a communist dictatorship and credit him for successfully rebuilding Chile’s allegedly broken economy following Allende’s presidency.

For more information on the memory of Pinochet's dictatorship read our article

Coming to Terms with the Past: Chile

Remains of ‘disappeared’ victims of the Argentine dictatorship uncovered

by Kathryn Hadley

On Tuesday December 9th, a group of forensic anthropologists confirmed that almost 10,000 bone fragments found in the ‘Arana pit’ in La Plata were those of victims of the Argentine military dictatorship under General Videla, from 1976 to 1983. The pit is situated on the site of a once-secret detention centre where dissidents were imprisoned, tortured and executed in what has become known as the Dirty War. A wall with over 200 bullet marks was also found bordering the grave.

It is the first time that remains of victims of the dictatorship have been found en masse in an illegal detention centre and the discovery marks a considerable step in the fight for justice for the victims of the dictatorship and their relatives. In the words of Maria Vedio, a legal chairwoman for the Permanent Assembly for Human Rights La Plata:

"This is the first time there is proof that Arana wasn't only a detention and torture centre, but also a centre of elimination."

It has confirmed the testimonies of survivors who, for the past thirty years, have claimed that political opponents were tortured, killed and burned. However, the military authorities consistently eliminated any evidence of their crimes and the victims’ bodies were never found. They consequently became known as ‘the disappeared’. Whilst official records estimated that there were 13,000 victims, human rights groups put the figures up to 30,000 victims. It is now believed that the military and the police operated approximately ten detention centres in the university city of La Plata, where the repression of students was particularly severe.

The bone fragments were unearthed between February and September this year, following testimonies of survivors who claimed that the site had served as a detention centre. The Asociación de Ex Detenidos Desaparecidos initially filed a legal complaint in 2000 in an attempt to push forward an enquiry into the fate of the victims of the Dirty War. An enquiry eventually began in March 2003.

Work will now continue in an attempt to determine the minimum number of bodies buried in the pit. It will, however, be extremely difficult to identify the victims because most DNA evidence was destroyed in the fire. The local government authorities plan to convert the site into a museum dedicated to the memory of the victims of the dictatorship. The governor of La Plata Daniel Sciolo made an official announcement yesterday that it would be transformed into ‘a site of memory and reflexion’.

The discovery was notably reported in the Argentine newspaper La Nacion
https://www.lanacion.com.ar/nota.asp?nota_id=1079192

For more information on the dictatorship and its official memory read our article
Argentina’s Coup: Social Myth, Memory and History

Discovery of 5,500-year-old human settlements in Peru

by Kathryn Hadley

El Comercio newpaper reports that recent excavations have revealed evidence of 5,500-year-old human settlements in the Palpa Valley region on the South coast of Peru, approximately 400km South of Lima and just North of Nazca. The group of homes and nineteen graves are believed to represent the first evidence of human settlement from the late archaic period, approximately 3,500BC, ever discovered in southern Peru.

The remains are suggestive of simple houses with walls and roofs constructed of branches and sticks. Some of the graves include sculpted bones and snail shells as well as necklaces and bracelets. No concrete evidence of offerings to the dead or to deities was found, however, and researchers have consequently concluded that there were not significant social distinctions amongst the inhabitants. One of the graves was, however, different: it included the body of a child younger than one year old, which appeared to have been mummified.

The findings are part of a large scale research project led jointly by the two Peruvian archaeologists, Johny Isla Cuadrado and Elsa Tomasto, and by the German archaeologist Markus Reindel from the Deutsches Archaologisches Institut. The project aims to research the cultural history of the Palpa region from its beginning until the end of the pre-Hispanic period, at the time of the Spanish conquest in 1532, which saw the downfall of the Inca civilisation.

Although the southern coast of Peru has been investigated archaeologically since the early twentieth century, systematic excavations and the number of scientific publications on the area remain scarce.

The region is also the site of the mysterious Nazca lines, the series of geoglyphs which cover approximately 450 square kilometres and depict living creatures, imaginary beings, as well as geometrical figures. The figures are scratched in the surface of the desert and are believed to date from the Nazca civilisation, from approximately 200BC to 800AD. The longest line is 12 kilometres long and the drawings are only visible from the sky. Their purpose and meaning remain a mystery; various theories suggest that they were created as astronomical observation lines or were used in religious rituals.