Business and social life go on as usual in autumnal Buenos Aires. The dog walkers pace, the telephones ring, the cafes fill with coffee-fiends and mothers drag children to school in their starched uniforms. However, a very unfamiliar chill swept through the city this week and not only signified the changing of the seasons, but the changing too of the lives of hundreds, perhaps even thousands, as the gavel of justice hit its stand with a loud bang on Tuesday, the 20th of April, 2010. The piercing sound exceeded the walls of the old gymnasium in Buenos Aires where a “makeshift” courtroom had been set up to try the criminals of the “The Dirty War”; a label, used only by foreigners, affirmed ex-militante popular Rolando Lapidus, over a late Argentinean dinner on Monday. “If I go and attack that person on the street”, he commented as he pointed out of the window towards a pedestrian, “it is not war. It is terrorism.” He continued, “What began in Argentina in 1976 was not a war. It was state enforced terrorism.”
On Monday morning at precisely 9am, I trekked back down the long road “Chile” on my way to the subte (or, underground). Recovering from the astonishingly early English lesson I had just delivered in the Montserrat home of one of my students, I walked slowly, looking at the pavement as I walked, trying desperately to wake-up and pull myself together after the anything-but-restful weekend I had just experienced – that weekend which had, unfortunately for myself and all those other Monday-haters out there, abruptly terminated to the obnoxious tone of an alarm clock. As I walked I gazed at the recently washed pavement stones, wondering to myself why people seem to be fond of washing the pavement outside their house or building every morning with washing-up liquid. Suddenly, I woke up as I came to a dramatic halt outside of Chile 850. Three pavement stones had been covered over with heavy scarlet colored plaques. The plaques frowned up at me as I bent over them to read their inscriptions:
Aqui vivió Susana Elena Pedrini
Militante Popular
Detenida Desaparecida
27-7-76
Por el terrorismo de estado
Barrios por Memoria y Justicia
Aqui vivió Jose Daniel Bronzel
Militante Popular
Detenida Desaparecida
27-7-76
Por el terrorismo de estado
Barrios por Memoria y Justicia
Aqui vivió Cecilia Podolsky
Militante Popular
Detenida Desaparecida
27-7-76
Por el terrorismo de estado
Barrios por Memoria y Justicia
Upon reading, I paused, horrified as I realized the plaques honored three of approximately 30 000 men, women and children abducted, tortured and more often than not killed during the military dictatorship of 1976-1983. Here I stood, outside Chile 850, where 34 years ago, three innocents were snatched and “disappeared” and now live only as memories of Argentina’s macabre past. A past still so fresh, that a certain hesitance in many is still prevalent when asked to discuss and evaluate what happened behind closed doors over three decades ago. After five minutes of staring I was pushed out of the way by a mad dash of brief cases: “Permiso,” “Cuidate eh!” and “Ay, por favor!” were some of the exclamations I heard from busy civilians on their way to work. For many of these busy business men and women, I could only assume that this was a regular route. A route which involves plowing down Chile and stepping over a morose part of their nation’s contemporary history.
I eventually went on my way, however felt somewhat heavier and more down-trodden than I had been upon leaving my student’s hogar, or home. I threw myself into research as soon as I reached my house on Hipolito Yrigogen and my spirits were obviously not lifted as I ploughed through page upon page of “desaparecidos.” Backgrounds and professions separated them, but their abduction, torture and assassination meant that they all shared a common denominator. The desaparecidos were sent to a number of hidden locations and work camps where they all faced their fate as those brave enough to oppose state evoked censorship, violence and terrorism.
I quickly came across the names of those “desaparecidos” who I envision every time I make my way down La Avenida Chile. Jose Daniel Bronzel and his wife Susana Elena Pedrini, both aged twenty-eight, were forced from their home on the thirteenth of July, 1976. Cecilia Podolsky de Bronzel, Jose Daniel’s mother, aged 51, was also abducted on that morbid Tuesday in el Gran Capital. Jose Daniel and Susana were both architects and professors at La Universidad de Buenos Ares. When the three were taken, Susana was one and a half months pregnant. The amount of information on the trio was limited, however the desaparecidos database affirmed that their lives were taken on the twentieth of August, 1976 in “La Masacre de Fatima.” Jose Daniel, Susana and Cecilia were three of thirty illegally-detained prisoners who were drugged and shot by two Argentine police officers in the Buenos Aires province of Fatima. Those culpable for this massacre were sentenced to life imprisonment on the eleventh of July, 2008.
This week, the last military president of Argentina’s darkest period was sentenced to twenty-five years in prison. Reynaldo Benito Bignone, aged 82 sat solemnly in court as he and six other former military officials and police officers were tried for the torture and murder of a vast number of innocents. As the trial went on, the audience sat watching, the vast majority of whom held up pictures of their friends and family members who had been disappeared during Bignone’s reign. An eerie silence and strong-willed persistence oozed from the spectator section of the courtroom. Bignone was not present during the sentencing, but those who held pictures of their loved ones cried out as justice rang through the old gymnasium, almost three decades after those closest to them had been taken. I could not help but think of Jose Daniel, Susana and Cecilia as I watched the dramatic scenes of the trial on the television. For Jose Daniel, Susana and Cecilia who died under the rule of Videla, and for the thousands of families still grieving, I quietly thanked the judge whose gavel, that day brought relief to thousands.
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