On film and inspiration

Film is an incredible medium, one that over a century at work continues to inspire and amaze humanity. This year I have relied a lot on film. Moments when I needed to escape from my day to day happenings, moments when I needed to feel anguished, and moments when I needed inspiration. I thought it would be fun to inaugurate my blog with a list of the best films of 2007. These are not all new films, just films that I saw in 2007. Some of these films are political, others just inspired me.

Requiem, directed by Hans Christian Schmid

Social, religious and family pressures envelop a young woman who fights a mental illness. The film Requiem follows 21-year-old Michaela, who tries to find her independence knowingly plagued by mental problems. Ultimately, religion and family kills Michaela who is left untreated and subjected to a number of exorcisms.

This film treat’s Michaela’s struggle for independence as a struggle for survival. I identify with the main protagonist’s struggle against guilt, religious traditions and family pressures. This beautiful film reminded me that it is not easy for young woman (and men) to break free from societal pressures and oppression.

Midwinter night’s dream, Directed by Goran Paskaljevic

A man recovers from war and prison with the love of an autistic child and her mother. An ex-convict (Lazar) returns home after 10 years in prison when he finds a young mother and her autistic child living as squatters in his childhood home. He wants to kick them out, but changes his mind after seeing the horrid conditions of the shelter where they must go. They soon form a makeshift family. Lazar soon finds inner peace from his violent self-destructive past through love.

This film gave me hope that lives and destinies can turn around for the better. But it has a tragic end, which reminds us that

Salvador (Puig Antich), Directed by Manuel Huerga

A profile of the life of anarchist and expropriator Salvador Puig Antich who was executed under the dictatorship of Fransico Franco. This is the quintessential political film of this year. This film inspires direct action and struggle against the state with un relentless support of Puig Antich’s actions. Puig Antich became involved in the MIL- clandestine anarchist cell robbing banks to distribute funds to workers’ struggles in the hopes of finally overthrowing the Franco dictatorship. He was a fervent anti-capitalist and grass roots militant.

The films’s photography, music score and script re-invent the passionate story of Salvador Puig Antich who dedicated his life to liberate generations from oppression. This film destroyed me and inspired me at the same time. I loved the film’s unrelenting support of the protagonists’ ideals and decision to raise up arms against the Franco regime. A very important film in conserving the historical memory of resistance and liberation.

Eden, Michael Hofmann

This is a silly tale about a woman who falls in love with a fat man’s gift of cooking. I would fall in love with any man who cooked liked this main character in Garden of Eden. Gregor is a man obsessed with cooking but a little lonely in his inspirational quest for making his restaurant goers squirm in ecstasy. His restaurant would be my quitessential dream – either to work there or to eat there. His aphrodisiac inspired restaurant has only three tables, and clients must wait up to a year to enjoy the delicacies served. From afar he becomes infatuated with a waitress from a local café, Leonie. She is uninspired in her marriage and wants more children. When she meets Gregor they begin an innocent but complicated love based on Gregor’s ability to fill her with happiness and food. But as in most films, the plot thickens as each protagonist must face the bleak realities. Gregor is unattractive. Leonie is trapped in a marriage with a sexist, aggressive but charming guy.

This is the best food movie of the year. It will make you hungry for exquisite food and for someone to share it with. The power of food is profound, so strong the unimaginable can happen over a plate of wonderful food.

Lady Bird Lady Bird, Directed by Ken Loach

Never in my life has one film made me cry so much. Within the first minutes of Lady Bird I began to cry and didn’t stop for two days. This film demonstrates the violence and ineffectiveness of any state to decide what is best for children or mothers.

The title of the film comes from the nursery rhyme, ‘Lady Bird, ladybird, Fly away home, Your house is on fire, And your children all gone,’

Lady Bird begins with the life of Maggie, the troubled mother of four children, all of whom have different fathers. English social service workers have taken away all of her children. In the film’s opening, Maggie meets Jorge, an immigrant from Paraguay. During her introduction to gentle Jorge, she tells him of her past. An abusive father and subsequent abusive partners. She lost her children to social services after she left her children home in government-housing to go out singing. The film doesn’t take sides, simply lets the audience make decisions whether Maggie is a fit mother. The patient and calm Jorge falls in love with Maggie and as they begin their relationship they also begin their fight to get back Maggie’s children. When Maggie and Jorge have their first child, it is taken away. It happens yet again, in a scene of hopelessness and grief. A social service worker comes to remove the newly born from Maggie’s arms in her hospital bed. But Maggie and Jorge continue on in their struggle to get back their children. Years and years of struggle with little results.

Arna’s Children, Juliano Mer Khamis and Danniel Danniel

Quite possibly the best documentary I have ever seen, because of the film’s complexity, narrative and political commitment.

ARNA'S CHILDREN tells the story of a theatre group that was established by Arna Mer Khamis. Arna comes from a Zionist family and in the 1950s married a Palestinian Arab, Saliba Khamis. On the West Bank, she opened an alternative education system for children whose regular life was disrupted by the Israeli occupation. The theatre group that she started engaged children from Jenin, helping them to express their everyday frustrations, anger, bitterness and fear. Arna's son Juliano, director of this film, was also one of the directors of Jenin's theatre. With his camera, he filmed the children during rehearsal periods from 1989 to 1996. Now, he goes back to see what happened to them. Yussef committed a suicide attack in Hadera in 2001, Ashraf was killed in the battle of Jenin, Alla leads a resistance group. Juliano, who today is one of the leading actors in the region, looks back in time in Jenin, trying to understand the choices made by the children he loved and worked with. Eight years ago, the theatre was closed and life became static and paralysed. Shifting back and forth in time, the film reveals the tragedy and horror of lives trapped by the circumstances of the Israeli occupation.

New films from Grupo Alavío

Buy a DVD and support Grupo Alavío!

Grupo Alavío would like to send a special holiday greeting and give a special fund raising appeal. Keep the group’s video production and website Ágora TV up and running by purchasing a DVD. We are completely viewer-funded and volunteer based: your contributions help us to produce ground breaking videos from the Third World. Ágora TV provides a radical space for cutting edge video activists all over Latin America.

Ágora TV is a community television production collective that currently broadcasts over the internet. The project reaches a global audience of grassroots activists and citizens tired of status quo media. We work on issues including Argentina’s recovered factory movement, labor conflicts,social movements, indigenous struggles, and gender equality. The Buenos Aires-based video collective Grupo Alavío built the website (www.agoratv.org) in 2006 as an organizing tool and alternative media space for groups that would not otherwise have access to the airwaves.

For more than 15 years, Grupo Alavío has participated in working-class struggles and dedicated efforts to supporting them with social and political documentaries. Making technologies and skills accessible and available to exploited sectors by democratizing audiovisual production is a priority of Grupo Alavío. Through Ágora TV, Grupo Alavío is radically changing how media is created, managed, and distributed.

All films have English subtitles and are in U.S. DVD format. Shipped from the US.

Cost: $15 plus shipping for individuals, $30 plus shipping for universities

Contact: Marie Trigona

mtrigona@msn.com

FILMS available for purchase:

1. Chilavert Recovered, 38 minutes, 2004 Newly released withENGLISH SUBTITLES

Chilavert is a leading member of the 'recovered factories' movement which developed during the collapse in 2001 when many factories in Argentina were taken over by the workers. As the owner of a printing plant began to shut it down and turn it over to his creditors, the workers seized control and formed the Chilavert Cooperative. The documentary gives a realistic overview of the recuperation movement and workers’ self-management.

2. Obreras en lucha (The struggle of Brukman workers).Spanish with ENGLISH SUBTITLES

This documentary tells the story of the' recuperation' of Brukman textile factory in Buenos Aires by its workers, after its owners decided to close it down in December 2001. Workers (most of them women) decided to occupy the plant on December 18, 2001to protest their reducing and delayed salaries. Only two days after, the economic and political crisis exploded in Argentina.This documentary contains impressive images of the expulsion of the workers from the factory by the police in 2003, the massive popular protests which followed and the brutal repression with which Duhalde's government replied. it contains as well interviews with workers and images from the assemblies at the factory.

3. Hotel BAUEN: Workers’ Cooperative

20min, 2004 Spanish with ENGLISH SUBTITLES

The Hotel BAUEN was an emblematic symbol of neoliberalism in Argentina.The hotel was constructed in 1978, in the glory of the military dictatorship, with government loans and subsidies. In the height of Argentina’s economic meltdown, the owners ransacked the hotel and closed the hotel’s doors,leaving the workers in the streets. In March 21, 2003the workers decided to occupy the hotel. The workers cleaned up the hotel and slowly began to rent out services. With over 150workersemployed at the hotel, BAUEN hotel has become a symbol for the working class.

4. Zanon (Constructing resistance)

18min, 2003, Spanish with ENGLISH SUBTITLES

Argentina’sPatagonian province of Neuquén,is home of the Zanon ceramics factory.In 2001 Zanon’s owner fired the workers and abandoned the factory forgreener pastures. After resisting outside the plant, the group ofworkers decide collectively to recuperate and put the plant to produce.Since 2001, the workers at Zanon have occupied and managed the plant,which is Latin America’s largest ceramics factory. In the film, Zanonceramists narrate their day-to-day work, struggles and hopes tocontinue production under worker control.

5. La Foresta belongs to the workers

52min, 2005 Spanish with ENGLISH SUBTITLES

The film tells the story of a group of workers who are fighting to recuperate La Foresta meatpacking plant in La Matanza, on the outskirts of Buenos Aires city. Most of the factory’s employees have worked their for decades, through the good times and bad times. In 1999, the plant went bust, a series of businessmen rented the facilities, making quick profits and then abandoning the factory for greener pastures. Grupo Alavío’s film follows the 70 workers who’ve put up a legal fight to keep their factory and start up production without a boss or owner,under worker-self management.

6. Music in Solidarity with Zanon,

90min, 2005 Spanish with ENGLISH SUBTITLES

This film was produced as part of a video work shop for the workers. Musicin solidarity with Zanon: musicians León Gieco, Rally Barrionuevo, Ciro(Ataque 77) and other artists performed a concert in December, 2004. The workers organized the super event, with more than 10,000 supporters from the community of Neuquén.

7. Argentina:30 years after the military dictatorship (compilation of short films)

Letter to the Military Junta, 6min, 1996

Rodolfo Walsh wrote the “Open Letter to the Military Junta”on the first anniversary of the military coup in 1977 reporting the tortures,mass killings, and thousands of disappearances. The political writer was disappeared just one day after the letter was distributed. This 6minute video essay reconstructs Walsh’s powerful report, imagery from the bloody dictatorship and the writer’s disappearance.

Escrache a Videla, 12min, 2006

Events to mark the 30 years since Argentina's military junta kicked off with an escrache or “exposure” protest against the coup's first dictator,Jorge Rafael Videla. Over 10,000 people participated in the protest in front of Videla's home, where he is under house arrest in connection with numerous charges of human rights abuse. Human rights group H.I.J.O.S. brought a crane and gave the ending remarks directly in front of Videla's fifth floor apartment.

Memories of Struggle and Resistance: Rio Santiago Ship Yard, 10min, 2006

The dictatorship attempted wiped out an entire generation of working-class resistance, which the nation decades later is still recovering.This year for the first time, over 1,500 workers from the Rio Santiago ShipYard in Buenos Aires commemorated the ship yard's 48 disappeared.

8. Compañeras

45min, 2005, Spanish with ENGLISH SUBTITLES

Compañeras brings together four working women who give testimony of their lives and daily struggles. MAGDALENA,works on a small farm in the province of San Juan. KARINA is a train conductor. REGINA lives n VillaFiorito, she collects cardboard from the streets, classifies and then sells it. NINA is a militant from the 70’s, during which she exiled from Argentina to Nicaragua and participated in the Sandanista revolution. Stories that mix with other history, women who revindicate their identity as workers, but without easing to be mothers, without giving up the struggle, continuing to be compañeras.

9. The Face of Dignity, Memories of MTD Solano

58 minutes, 2002, Spanish with ENGLISH SUBTITLES

In the shambles of an economically ruined Argentina,a new practice of protest emerged, blockading roads. Since 1997, what is now known as the unemployed workers movement has taken root. Without access to the factory and utility of tools for liberation—strike,sabotage, and occupying the factory, unemployed workers sought out new practices for struggle. Unemployed confronted globalization by fighting for jobs. One of the most important experiences that emerged in these years was Unemployed Workers Movement-MTD (Movimiento de Trabajadores Desocupados) in Solano (inside Quilmes, a city in the province of Buenos Aires). MTD's formation was based on the principles of horizontalism, direct democracy, autonomy from the state and power, and the integral political formation among members. Work, popular education, democratic debate of ideas, sharing life in the struggle for work, dignity and social change are some of this memory's content.

10. For a 6 hour workday

20min, 2004, Spanish with ENGLISH SUBTITLES

Reducing the workday to six hours with a salary increase for all workers would create jobs for more than 3 million unemployed and lift many out o poverty. Subway workers who have been organizing wildcat strikes for salary increases have spearheaded Argentina's movement for a six-hour workday. In 2003, subway workers (in all sectors from ticket office to train drivers) won a six-hour workday.Since this victory,subway workers, other labor conflicts, economists and unemployed workers organizations have formed a movement for a6-hour workday for all workers, with increased salaries.

11. Organizing Resistance (Chronicles of Freedom, Martin,Recuperating Our Work) Spanish with ENGLISH SUBTITLES

Chronicles of Freedom (organizing resistance) , 45min, 2002

June26, 2002two activists Darío Santillán-22 and Maximiliano Kosteki-25from Argentina’s unemployed workers’ movement were killed during a road blockade of Pueyrredón Bridge in police repression. The repression was part of a known and announced government plan to control growing social protest. 33 were wounded from lead bullets, 160detained and hundreds injured from rubber bullets. Unquestionably,the deaths and repression have left an unforgettable mark on the movement—generating internal debates and self-criticisms. Chronicles of Freedom includes interviews on the right to identity, self-defense and organizing to confront state repression.

Martín, 2002, 7 minutes

Synopsis: Martín, 27 years old, Argentine, brother, compañero from the barrio Floridai n Solano was killed during a fight with a neighbor. The experimental narration explores inner-violence and questions the absurdity of the system’s violence that is imposed on us.

Recuperando nuestro trabajo, 2003, 18min

Argentina's worker occupied factory movement has been an example of resistance for workers all over the world. In response to the process of deindustrialization and flexible labor markets, thousands of workers have said enough to exploitation of the working class by bosses and owners.

Plan Condor: Crimes without borders in Latin America

Znet

By Marie Trigona

Former military dictator Jorge Rafael Videla and 16 other military leaders in Argentina will be prosecuted on charges of conspiring to kidnap and kill political activists in a scheme known as Plan Condor, developed by Henry Kissinger and George Bush Sr., head of the CIA at the time. Dictators in Uruguay, Chile, Paraguay, Brazil, and Argentina killed opponents in the 1970s and 80s under the plan, also known as Operation Condor. The United States and Latin American military governments developed Operation Condor as a a transnational, state-sponsored terrorist coalition among the militaries of South America. In Argentina alone some 30,000 people were disappeared as result, leaving loved ones to seek justice decades later.

Coordinating Terror with U.S. support

Plan Condor began with the U.S. supported military coup against Chile’s democratically elected socialist president, Salvador Allende. Allende's government was targeted as a threat to U.S. strategic policy in Latin America early on. White House tapes reveal that on Sept. 14, 1970, then-President Richard Nixon ordered measures to force the Chilean economy into bankruptcy. "The U.S. will not accept a Marxist government just because of the irresponsibility of the Chilean people," declared Henry Kissinger, Nixon´s secretary of State.

Declassified U.S. Department of State documents have provided evidence to Plan Condor’s broad scope. The Operation was an ambitious and successful plan to coordinate repression internationally. FBI special agent intelligence liason to the Southern Cone countries Robert Scherrer (now deceased) sent the letter to the U.S. embassy in Argentina on September 28, 1976: ‘Operation Condor’ is the code name for the collection, exchange and storage of intelligence data concerning so-called ‘leftists,’ communists and Marxists, which was recently established between cooperating intelligence services in South America in order to eliminate Marxist terrorist activities in the area.”

The memo also specified Argentina’s enthusiasm over the plan. “Members of "Operation Condor" showing the most enthusiasm to date have been Argentina, Uruguay and Chile. The latter three countries have engaged in joint operations, primarily in Argentina, against the terrorist target.” Operation Condor has been difficult to investigate, due to the selectivity of victims and lack of official declassified documents from the CIA and Department of State. Many of the documents that have been released have been heavily censored. However, following an extensive investigation by Argentine courts beginning in 1999 and the decade long work of human rights groups to collect forensic evidence, 17 military leaders will be put on trial for their participation in the illegal persecution of social activists.

Argentina’s dictatorship and Plan Condor

Former dictator Jorge Videla, now 82, is currently under house arrest, already found guilty for stealing babies born in captivity during the bloody junta. The former dictator may now face a jail cell for his participation in Operation Condor.

In 1977, Videla speaking to journalists recognized the phenomenon of forced disappearances but suggested they were disappeared because they were participating in armed, clandestine struggle. “In our country people have been disappeared, this is a sad reality. But objectively we should recognize why and through whom they were disappeared. These people went disappeared because they went clandestine.”

At least 25 Bolivian citizens were disappeared in Argentina during the 1976-1983 military dictatorship. Another 5 Bolivians were disappeared in Chile during the regime of dictator Augustin Pinochet.

Ruth Llanos, a representative from the Bolivian Association of Family Members of The Detained and Disappeared said regional dictatorships used Plan Condor to target dissidents with the support of former U.S. Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger. “Plan Condor was a joint plan developed through Henry Kissinger, a criminal who hasn't been punished yet. The plan established with the military dictatorships in Latin America was a process of forced disappearances of all social activists who in the 70's and 80's were looking for social transformation in their respective countries.”

Orletti Auto Garage, Prototype for Plan Condor

“My name is Emi Dambra, mother of two disappeared. A girl and a boy. The girl was disappeared here in Buenos Aires and taken to the Orletti Auto-Garage.” In front of the clandestine detention center where her daughter was tortured while pregnant and later murdered, Emi Dambra participated in a homage to victims of Plan Condor. “Orletti was the prototype example of Plan Condor, here they held prisoners from Uruguay and other countries,” said Dambra Inside the Orletti Auto-Garage, which also functioned as a clandestine detention center tucked in a residential neighborhood in Buenos Aires, hundreds perished, not only Argentines but also citizens from Uruguay, Cuba, Chile and Bolivia.

Some 132 Uruguayans were “disappeared” through the Condor years (127 in Argentina, three in Chile, and two in Paraguay). Orletti functioned as the clandestine detention center for international prisoners. The clandestine detention center was rented out to the military under the guise of a Auto-Garage, secretly tucked in between homes. Commando groups would bring prisoners to the Garage in the middle of the night. During the day, witnesses say the torturers inside would leave the front gate half-way open. In one instance a Uruguayan couple were able to escape Orletti, naked and brutally tortured, in the middle of the night.

According to Dambra, those responsible for leading the bloody military junta should be put behind bars and not like former dicatotor Jorge Rafael Videla under house arrest. “We want to know what happened to each one of the victims, we want the people who organized this slaughter to be put in regular jails, with life sentences.”

Fight against forced disappearances

The practice of forced disappearances was systematized in the Southern Cone by military governments in the 1970’s with U.S. financial support and trainings. It is estimated that 90,000 people in Latin America have been disappeared since the 1950’s. And the practice continues today in places like Colombia, Mexico, Guatemala and Argentina.

Patrick Rice, an Irish Priest who was disappeared by a commando group in a Buenos Aires shanty town in 1976 said that internationally coordinated disappearances of people continues today. “The phenomenon is occurring more and more now in the context in what is called the global war on terrorism. The practice of forced disappearances continues with secret detention centers such as Guatanamo. With the return to the use of the hood, the hood for us is a symbol of forced disappearances. People detained on places of undisclosed location, the practice of extraordinary renditions. All of this points to a new form of Operation Condor.”

Operation Condor set precedents for internationally coordinated torture crimes that have transcended from the alleged “war on communism”, “the war on drugs”, to “the war on terror.” Today, prisoners in undisclosed locations in Iraq face torture techniques similar to those used during Argentina’s 1976-1983, a carry over for U.S. policy implemented during the Plan Condor years.

Long time human rights activists like Ruth Llanos who lost her husband in the scheme known as Plan Condor say that it is more important than ever to push for the ratification of the U.N. treaty against forced disappearances. Even in countries like Argentina which ratified the treaty in November, 2007 disappearances continue with cases like missing witness Julio Lopez. Lopez, a retired construction worker and former political prisoner disappeared just hours before he was slated to give his final testimony on the eve of the conviction of the former police investigator, Miguel Etchecolatz. With Julio Lopez disappeared for more than a year, it is almost certain that he is dead. His capturers are using his body as a negotiating tool to protect military personnel from any further criminal charges or trials.

Videla and other military leaders will face trial early next year. Human rights groups continue to push for nations to sign the UN sanctioned treaty against forced disappearances, which the U.S. has refused to ratify.

Marie Trigona is a writer, radio producer and filmmaker based in Buenos Aires. She can be reached at mtrigona@msn.com

For videos on the ongoing human rights trials in Argentina visit www.agoratv.org

Plan Condor in Latin America

RADIO STORY on Plan CONDOR
Free Speech Radio News
by Marie Trigona

Former military dictator Jorge Rafael Videla and 16 other military leaders in Argentina will be prosecuted on charges of conspiring to kidnap and kill political activists in a scheme known as Plan Condor, developed by Henry Kissinger and George Bush Sr., head of the CIA at the time. Dictators in Uruguay, Chile , Paraguay, Brazil , and Argentina killed opponents in the 1970s and 80s under the plan, which was also called operation condor. Marie Trigona reports from Argentina where some 30,000 people were disappeared as result, leaving loved ones to seek justice decades later.

REVIEW of STORY by James Reiss

Marie Trigona's reports from Argentina regularly appear on PRX. Rather than riffing on the tango or on Buenos Aires's fun-filled night life -- a bargain during this era of The Depressed Yankee Dollar -- Trigona's essays circle like condors high above the Rio de la Plata. With unerring instinct, her pieces dive into the wreck of recent Argentine history, and they make a feast -- of dead meat.

If this sounds disgusting, I am sorry to say that it is. Imagine our situation in Guantanamo, where hundreds of suspected terrorists have been imprisoned for years. Multiply that by, say, 30. Now imagine a bullet in the back of every suspected terrorist's head.

Thanks to the military dictators ruling Argentina not that long ago, the verb "disappeared" has been broadened to become a kind of noun, as in the case of "On the night of June 14, 1979, Juan was disappeared" or "Maria has been disappeared ever since she marched in the Plaza de Mayo." While it may be a semantic breakthrough to equate "was disappeared" with "got dead," the real human meaning of the phrase is a setback recalling Genghis Khan, Attila the Hun, and that master sleight-of-hand man, Adolph ("the Disappearer") Hitler.

Once in a while Americans hear that Argentine junta thugs like Jorge Rafael Videla are finally being prosecuted for their crimes. The big news about Trigona's piece under review here is that it implicates our own fellow Americans Henry Kissinger and George H. Walker Bush in the scheme to make a killing field for Argentine dissidents. Back when he was CIA chief, Bush, with Kissinger, actually developed Plan Condor. This would be the rough equivalent of saying that President George W. Bush and a high administration official like Colin Powell secretly masterminded the abuses, torture, rape, and killing of prisoners in Baghdad's notorious correctional facility, Abu Ghraib.

Wal-Mart Faces Accusations of Anti-union Practices in Argentina

Marie Trigona | November 16, 2007

Americas Program, Center for International Policy (CIP)

Wal-Mart's aggressive efforts to keep labor unions out of stores worldwide have come under fire across the hemisphere. Workers report how the retail chain systematically violates international labor laws protecting workers' rights to free association and union organizing. As the world's largest private employer, Wal-Mart has set a precedent for bad working conditions for employees in the United States and abroad.

Due to weak U.S. labor laws, Wal-Mart's most impressive violations of workers' rights take place in the United States, where Wal-Mart's founder Sam Walton opened his first store in 1967. The mega chain's legacy was built over decades based on providing shoppers with low prices, but at the cost of workers, who face aggressive anti-union tactics, low salaries, often no benefits, tight surveillance, and degrading working conditions. In some cases, they are even forced to work without pay and off the clock.

Human Rights Watch's extensive report "Rights: Wal-Mart's Violation of U.S. Workers' Right to Freedom of Association" details how aggressive efforts to keep out labor unions have often violated federal law and infringed on workers' rights. The report found that unions and workers had brought 292 cases against Wal-Mart for violating labor laws in the United States.

The mega-chain's sales have hit record levels since opening stores internationally. Wal-Mart's total revenues of $315.65 billion for the fiscal year ending Jan. 31, 2006 , would rank it as the twenty-first wealthiest country in the world. Wal-Mart operates approximately 2,700 stores internationally in Puerto Rico, Mexico, Canada, Brazil, China, Argentina, Japan, and the United Kingdom. Wal-Mart currently employs approximately 1.8 million workers, called "associates," worldwide, 1.3 million of whom work in the United States. Workers in nations such as Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico have been able to win minimal union representation due to strict labor laws on the books in each country, but not without withstanding intense opposition from Wal-Mart's local management.

The Case in Argentina

Wal-Mart has drawn the attention of Argentine lawmakers for anti-union practices in the corporation's stores throughout the South American nation. Earlier this year, Argentina's national congress led an investigation into Wal-Mart's labor practices in the corporation's 15 Argentine retail outlets. Following reports of the firing of union delegates and abusive working conditions, Wal-Mart was called before a congressional investigative committee in July 2007.

Gustavo Cordoba, a labor activist at a Wal-Mart store in Buenos Aires, was fired in May for his union activity. He testified before the investigative committee about the corporation's anti-union practices. "We appreciate our jobs, but we also want to make it clear that Wal-Mart abuses workers' rights. We demand that those abuses cease and that firings for union activities stop. Behind closed doors Wal-Mart violated Argentina's constitution and it employs corporate practices that discriminate against workers."

Representatives from President Nestor Kirchner's Victory Front Party have taken issue with Wal-Mart's anti-union aggressive tactics. Appearing before the investigative committee, national congressman Santiago Ferrigno expressed his "concern over the working conditions and persecution of union activists in Wal-Mart Argentina." He also noted concerns that Wal-Mart has hired ex-military officers who served during the nation's bloody 1976-1983 military junta for administrative and security positions within the company.

At the congressional session in July 2007 Wal-Mart representative Gaston Wainstein reported that the company has allowed employees to join unions while providing customers low prices. "The Wal-Mart stores have affiliated personnel. Secondly, the company currently has 31 active union delegates. Third, far from not having unions, in our company two unions operate: retail and truck drivers." Wal-Mart representatives stressed to the investigative commission that the 15 stores operating provide customers with the "lowest prices" possible.

Wal-Mart currently employs 5,800 workers in Argentina throughout the nation. According to labor laws, the retail chain has less than half the union delegates needed to represent the total amount of employees. Martín Falcón, a union delegate at the store's Avelleneda location, says that employees' reports have helped stop unfair firings, but the company continues to discourage union organizing efforts. "After all of our reports of accusations, Wal-Mart in Avelleneda doesn't want to fire any workers out of fear. But the company continues to hold meetings with workers telling them they are 'associates,' telling them that Wal-Mart is the best place to work in the world. Wal-Mart is known for persecuting its workers because Wal-Mart doesn't want its workers to organize."

Workers report that Wal-Mart uses humiliating tactics in the stores, in some cases going as far as prohibiting workers from taking bathroom breaks. In a particular case, a 19-year-old cashier was prevented from going to the bathroom after she asked for permission. Although she was menstruating, the supervisor made her wait for 30 minutes. When she had stained her pants, the supervisor accompanied her to the bathroom and brought her new pants and underwear for her to continue working her shift.

In October 2007, workers and human rights activists protested outside a Wal-Mart store to call attention to the retail chain's working conditions in Argentina. During a theater performance actors mocked the humiliation that Wal-Mart workers must endure. In one particular scene, a performer explained what a "mystery shopper" is—a supervisor disguised as a customer to spy on Wal-Mart employees. The theatre troop also parodied the mega-store's pin system, a way to award workers for missing bathroom breaks and working overtime without overtime pay.

The retail chain prohibits workers from referring to themselves as employees, and insists on the term "associates." They are forced to sing the Wal-Mart anthem at work, complete with pom-poms.

Dark Pasts in Private Security

In addition to reports of anti-union practices, Wal-Mart has come under public scrutiny for hiring a former military officer connected with the 1976-1983 military dictatorship as head of security. Alfredo Oscar Saint Jean served during the nation's bloody military junta in cities where clandestine detention centers operated. Outside a Wal-Mart store, human rights representatives participated in an escrache or "exposure" protest calling for an end to impunity for military officers who participated in the systematic disappearance of 30,000 people in the so-called Dirty War.

A representative from Wal-Mart Argentina defends the corporation's decision to hire retired military personnel who served during the dictatorship. "We have not had any formal notification from the judicial system that Saint Jean is connected to any crime." Military officers in Argentina have benefited from long-standing impunity. In total, 256 former military personnel and members of the military government have been accused of human rights crimes and are now awaiting trial.

However, this adds up to less than one ex-military officer for each of the country's 375 clandestine detention centers that were used to torture and forcefully disappear 30,000 people. Aside from numbers, human rights representatives report that the trials are advancing at a snail's pace, if at all. Saint Jean Jr.'s father served as general and later as dictator for five days in 1982, and is charged with 33 criminal charges for human rights crimes.

Saint Jean currently heads the retail chain's security department. Although he hasn't been charged for human rights violations by a criminal court, he was stationed in Tucumán during the Independence Operative. Beginning in 1974, one year before the coup, right-wing Peronists initiated the Independence Operative to hold military operations in the Northern Tucumán province. This became the first testing ground for torture tactics. The operative supposedly targeted left-wing guerillas operating in Tucumán's mountainside. However, the military kidnapped and tortured workers from the region's sugar fields. They terrorized entire villages to make sure that no workers complained of the slave-like working conditions in the sugarcane fields and mills.

Wal-Mart worker Falcón along with human rights organizations have called for the immediate dismissal of Saint Jean. "When I was hired at Wal-Mart they asked me what my mother and father did for a living. They investigated my police record. I don't understand how this man with a position as important as head of security could be hired at Wal-Mart with his background," Falcón says.

Later Saint Jean worked in the coastal port town Bahía Blanca in the Buenos Aires province and later in Tandil and Azul where a network of clandestine detention centers operated. Several of Saint Jean's coworkers at Wal-Mart are ex-members of the military who served during the 1976-1983 military dictatorship including Miguel Cavazza, Alejandro Patzold, Cristian Thomanssen, Roberto Masilo, Patricio O'Brien, Martín Mundo, Juan Muiño, Roberto Salmon, and Raúl Salazar.

Unions Beware

In line with Wal-Mart stores in the United States, the retail chain in Argentina has taken measures to ensure limited union organizing. Tactics detailed in Human Rights Watch's report mirror the working conditions reported by workers in Argentina's stores, although conditions in Argentina for union organizing are slightly better than for U.S. Wal-Mart associates.

Workers organizing a union at the Wal-Mart Avelleneda store have faced firings and even violent threats. The retailers union that represents Wal-Mart workers and is affiliated with the CGT umbrella union, has been all too compliant with the company's resistance to unionize workers. When Falcón and Cordoba were elected as union delegates independent from the CGT's retail union, Wal-Mart fired Cordoba on two occasions. Both delegates have received phone calls from anonymous callers threatening that if they do not stop union organizing activity they will be physically assaulted.

One single store in Buenos Aires reports sales of more than $3.3 million per month, and an employee makes about $300 a month. With rising inflation, Wal-Mart's salaries fall below poverty levels, where a family needs a minimum of $600 a month to meet basic needs.

Worldwide Wal-Mart has been reported for paying employees low salaries and for unfair labor practices. The situation for the retail chain's employees in Brazil is similar to workers in Argentina. In Mexico, Wal-Mart has faced allegations of unlawful labor practices. Newsweek magazine, in a 2006 article, reported that Wal-Mart had been using some 19,000 teenagers to work as unpaid baggers at its stores in Mexico. The teens between 14-16 were denied wages and had to rely entirely on customers' tips as compensation. Wal-Mart officially describes the youths as "volunteers."

Wal-Mart's success has been due to a key motivation: driving out competition. Wal-Mart stores offer incredibly low prices, which some call predatory pricing, until many potential competitors are driven out of business, unable to keep up with the mega-store's buying power. Later, when Wal-Mart is left with little competition, it can manipulate higher prices for customers accustomed to buying everything from groceries, clothes, electric appliances, to gasoline in one convenient location. Globally, workers face a bleak horizon with many retail giants and manufacturers using competition to drive down wages and labor costs.

The retailer has also used this method with the workforce, hiring young people with little organizing experience and poor work histories to comply with high production rates. With an army of young people eager to find work, Wal-Mart has an endless supply of "associates." Like Ford in the 1920s, Wal-Mart has also created a production model.

In Ford's factories, workers had the benefit of stable jobs and livable wages, although workers endured social control and exploitation. Whereas Ford's model was designed so that employees could buy the final product, a Ford vehicle, the situation for Wal-Mart workers is dismal. Many of Wal-Mart's employees can't afford to shop in their employer's stores, and they must endure unstable and precarious work conditions.

According to union activist Falcón, Wal-Mart has a good image in the eyes of shoppers but a bad reputation for its treatment of workers. Wal-Mart may have met its match, with union delegates eager to improve working conditions and unionize more workers in stores. Argentine workers are pushing for independent union representation, and seem to be making strides despite pressures.

Marie Trigona is a journalist based in Argentina and writes regularly for the Americas Policy Program (www.americaspolicy.org). She can be reached at mtrigona(a)msn.com.

For More Information

Resources:

Human Rights Watch's report "Rights: Wal-Mart's Violation of U.S. Workers' Right to Freedom of Association"
http://hrw.org/reports/2007/us0507/

Day of Action Against Big Box Retailers (November 17, 2007)
http://intldayofaction.bbc.wikispaces.net/

Agora TV Wal-Mart video
http://www.revolutionvideo.org/agoratv/secciones/luchas_obreras/wall_wart.html

Wal-Mart Watch
http://walmartwatch.com/

Wal-Mart No
http://wal-mart-no.blogspot.com/

Wake Up Wal-Mart
http://www.wakeupwalmart.com/

Propagandhi: A Band With Values

By Marie Trigona

They are thrasher, punk, and political. With almost 20 years on the music scene, Canadian punk rock band Propagandhi has made more than just a musical name for themselves. Propagandhi has come a long way politically and artistically since forming the band in the mid-1980s, when Chris Hanahh posted the ad: “progressive thrasher band looking for bassist” at a local record store. The members of the band— singer/guitarist Hanahh, bassist Todd Kowalski, and drummer Jord Samolesky decided to put the band at the service of social change, which has inspired their lyrics, benefit shows, and volunteer work in their hometown of Winnipeg, Ontario.

The band embarked on their first tour through Latin America in October. While in Buenos Aires, Propa- gandhi stayed at the BAUEN Hotel, which has been under worker control for the past four years in the heart of the city. Enthusiastic about staying at the 19 story hotel with no boss or owner, they asked all kinds of questions about how the cooperative is organized. Many of the questions were rooted in their own experience self- managing a band and record label, G7 Welcoming Committee. Long- time Parecon [Participatory Economics] advocates and Z readers, Hanahh and Kowalski sat down in the basement of the BAUEN Hotel, at video collective Grupo Alavío’s office, to talk about Propaghandi’s political growth and artistic future.

TRIGONA: What is Propagandhi?

HANAHH: The name is just something that we came up with when we were 16. Maybe it still has meaning, but it’s basically a name to us now. The band is value based.

KOWALSKI: I think in terms of what the band is—songs, lyrics, things that we support, benefits we play.

How do you produce music?

HANAHH: There’s not a specific set of job complexes for the band. It’s a pretty natural evolution of how things happen. We try our best to make everything collaborative. We try to get everybody’s input, when you do it like that the final product is better when everybody contributes. Luckily, it’s just naturally how it’s been, we haven’t had to force that process. I think that speaks to a natural tendency for how things can be. Things can be better when everybody contributes rather than one person tells everybody what to do and you end up with their product rather than everybody’s product.

What is the underlying philosophy of G7 Welcoming Committee records?

HANAHH: First and foremost, to deal with artists or musicians that we actually like and that we think are ignored by a music industry that is more profit-driven than value-driven. That’s a certain aspect. The other aspect has been the workplace structure, to always make sure that it doesn’t replicate what I think is an immature way to organize your workplace, which is to have a president or a boss. Then everyone else follows a chain of command where directions come from the top down. We’ve seen it with our former U.S. label, Fat Records, and other labels. There’s a king, then everyone does what they are told.

In my estimation, it’s ruined the projects that the label has been responsible for. Whereas G7—despite what’s happening with music where records aren’t selling and downloading is more popular—will survive because of our workplace structure. It’s more resilient in a lot of ways. Everybody—well there’s only two guys now—but even when we had five people working at it, people were there because they were interested in the values rather than turning a quick buck. That’s important to us.

How has being a band that owns its own label affected distribution?

HANAHH: Per capita we’ve done a better job than the top-down rich companies. The workplace structure is an internal, practical application of the idea. Outside of that we provide distributors with records on time. Outside of our workplace structure we are still slaves to the market.

What social and political movements have inspired Propagandhi’s work?

KOWALSKI: Most recently, Sisters in Spirit based in Winnipeg. We’ve played benefits for them. Sisters in Spirit works with aboriginal Canadian women. They try to find missing aboriginal women in Canada who’ve been murdered and cops aren’t doing enough to find them. Also, to bring awareness of the abuse of aboriginal women in Canada’s society. Also for me there’s a place called the Welcome Place, a center for recent refugees to Canada where I’ve spent a lot of time volunteering. Showing people around, getting library cards, showing them how to use the Y.

HANAHH: Really, over the past 15 or 20 years of involvement with organizations, things that make our ears perk up are groups that are doing something different than the existing institutions that are clearly failing everybody on almost every level. When we were kids our ears would perk up about anarchism or socialism, anything that seemed more about values than pure profit. That’s brought us to where we are today, still trying to find what is effective or efficient in people making that real.

Now that you’re in Latin America what have you found inspiring?

KOWALSKI: Some of the art we’re seeing in the street.

HANAHH: As far as human social institutions go, this [BAUEN Hotel] is probably pretty unique for what we’ve seen so far. The other thing that’s impressed me, not totally positively, especially in Central America, was how much people knew about, almost to a fault, North American culture. I expected to come down to Central America and get deluged with different sounds and people not knowing what’s going on in North America and showing us what’s going on with the bands here. It’s very Americanized. That really surprised me. It’s a one way street—North American culture to Latin America. It’s not healthy to have a one way street with culture exchange.

KOWALSKI: You come down here and you don’t want to rip people off. You also fear that if a tour goes reasonably well, you’re opening the door for dickweed bands that want to come and try to make money off of kids. So it can be a double-edged sword.

What is an artist’s role in social change?

HANAHH: I’m not ashamed of saying something on stage that is regarded as political or using the stage as a political platform. We usually say something at shows.

Personally, and we probably share this perspective, I have a responsibility as somebody born into this world and who sees the world in a certain way. And who sees the world in such a crazily wrong way [I have] to comment on it. Through the band it’s the least we can do to be responsible about…how can you walk through the world and see what you see, whether it’s on the news or on the street, and get together with a bunch of people and comment on it instead of pretending it’s not there.

KOWALSKI: I think that people react when people listen, they react to what they can relate to. Different crowds react to different segments of the lyrics. If you get this part, if you don’t, you don’t.

HANAHH: We don’t say things to try to be different from everybody. Our idea is that there’s a principle of mediocrity in effect. Most people can relate, for example, if I feel that it’s wrong for there to be a boss-employee relationship. If I feel that there’s something fundamentally wrong, that I’ve never personally enjoyed about that relationship in my entire working life, then my assumption is that the majority of people also share that experience of having a negative boss-employee relationship. I’m not a particularly unique person. So when you put those ideas out there and you start seeing that, yeah, everybody has had a similar experience. If you ask for a show of hands about something like that, all the hands go up. It’s just that most people don’t organize or else they feel like they can’t organize. Everybody feels isolated and that’s why nothing ever seems to change too much.

Do you think music can send a message better than other mediums?

HANAHH: It could, but it doesn’t because a lot of the bands—especially in the punk music scene—choose not to. They enjoy the social relationships that exist, they enjoy the gap between the rich and poor that they can leverage to their benefit. Despite what they say, I believe that most of the established punk bands in North America have no interest in making change. Music could be a powerful tool.

Propagandhi performing in Buenos Aires—photo by Marie Trigona

KOWALSKI: The thing about music is that it makes you feel something, or you can understand how someone else is feeling about something. You hear it and then you say, “Yeah.”

How has the DIY [“Do It Yourself”] culture in punk affected the way Propagandhi makes music and the kind of music you make?

HANAHH: DIY culture has definitely informed it from the very beginning. When Todd was in Eye Spy, his previous band, and Propagandhi and Eye Spy were growing along together, DIY was the ethic we were aiming for. To this day, every practical, every impractical aspect, we try to create in our own realm.

KOWALSKI: One time we had 5,000 CDs and we sat and cut pieces of cardboard for every CD trying to make cases.

HANAHH: DIY to the point of absurdity in some cases.

KOWALSKI: Then the ink rubs off the cardboard onto the CD and wrecks it.

HANAHH: But the logical extension of DIY is people cooperating instead of somebody imposing their ideas on everybody else.

What are the overall political goals?

KOWALSKI: One of our main goals as musicians is to make the ripping-est songs we can when we get home. Make good lyrics and good songs. I’d like more of what we are doing to have more impact on our website. Sometimes we’re inching along and disappearing in the shadows. It would be nice to stay up front with new ideas all the time and more stuff going on.

HANAHH: Times are changing for music and bands. Making songs that make us incredibly happy—you can’t lose because people will hear and say “Yeah, I can dig that.” And then that matters for the ideas and music too. You can have great ideas but if you have totally crappy music, people aren’t going to buy into it at all.

How have you grown artistically and politically?

KOWALSKI: Artistically, we’ve grown ridiculously. When I think about my own actual playing over the years, I can’t believe we faced a crowd in any form. I have videos of my old bands and clearly we’ve gotten better.

As veteran punk rockers what are you most proud of in your career?

KOWALSKI: It’s hard to say. Certain songs or parts of songs.

HANAHH: Maybe even just keeping it real for as long as we have. Watching a lot of our peers either selling out or just getting shittier and shittier. We never went for the perverbial brass ring. We’ve kept it real. It’s four friends who are literally in the basement making music each guy likes.

KOWALSKI: Sometimes you got to be proud that you know that the band you’re in is what you would have liked as a kid, but as a kid you wouldn’t have been able to imagine the music you’re making because the exact sounds and styles weren’t there when you were a kid. You took the music and you made it new.

HANAHH: On a more abstract level and a more cliché level, getting feedback from people, not even just young people, people in general. Them claiming that the band has had an impact on their lives in a way that reflects our values, that’s huge. Up against the entire system that teaches certain values, a band manages to turn a person to values that you think make way more sense. You could say that’s your life justification, even if it’s just anecdotal.

What’s the song that’s closest to you?

KOWALSKI: If I was to go with one that I made, “Bringer of Greater Things,” that I wrote the lyrics for. I grew up in Regina. It was so racist. My family was racist. To manage to turn it around in my life and realize, when I was 17-18, we’re all fucked. To see my mom latch on and say “Yeah, we are fucked” and my brother latch on and say “Yeah, we are fucked.” To write a song about it that isn’t lame and has some meaning for me and carries a weight that I can view in my head as a full picture. The song is about, in Saskatoon, the cops taking aboriginal people out of the city and making them walk home in 40 degree below weather. A few guys have died from that. You know it happens. I feel proud of having got something off my chest in a way that is artistically enjoyable for me.

What’s in store for the future ?

KOWALSKI: Going home to thrash as hard as we can.

HANAHH: Another record in whatever format that market forces allow. More playing, more rocking in the basement, keeping it real, connecting lyrics with the bands to what we do in our real lives. Trying to support people also doing things that are connected to the band’s professed values. A huge part of the band is supporting people actually doing the dirty work.

KOWALSKI: We’re trying to do the same work. There’s the band and trying to do that kind of work. All of it’s enjoyable. None of it seems like work. None of it is paid work either.

Argentina: Priest Imprisoned for Dirty War Crimes

Tuesday, 16 October 2007, Toward Freedom

Von Wernich

Former Chaplin Christian Von Wernich was sentenced to life in prison on October 9th in Argentina, for committing crimes against humanity during the nation's bloody military junta. He is the first catholic priest to be charged with human rights abuses committed during the 1976-1983 military junta, during which an estimated 30,000 people were killed.

Von Wernich was found guilty of collaborating with state security agents and covering up crimes in seven deaths, 31 cases of torture and 42 cases of illegal imprisonment. This is the latest human rights verdict of an accused torturer since the landmark conviction of a former police officer for genocide in 2006. As judge Carlos Rozanski read the historic verdict, torture survivors and family members of victims celebrated.

Slow wheels of justice: 30 years of impunity

Outside the courtroom between hugs and cheers, Carlos Saiman, torture survivor and plaintiff against the ex-military chaplain, said that the trials need to continue. "We want for those who participated in genocide to be put in jail, today there's one more in prison. This should force us to continue to bring every person who participated in the genocide in the clandestine detention centers and supported genocide to justice, justice which we the survivors didn't have, that the 30,000 disappeared didn't have."

Protests at Trial Opening

In total, 256 former military personnel and members of the military government have been accused of human rights crimes and are now awaiting trial. This is only the third trial held since Argentina's Supreme Court struck down amnesty laws in 2005 protecting military personnel who served during the seven-year dictatorship. So far, two police officers and a priest have been tried – not a single military officer has been slated for trial. Human rights groups in Argentina report that the trials to convict former members of the military dictatorship for abuses have advanced at a snail’s pace, if advancing at all. Victims blame an inefficient court system filled with structural roadblocks and uncooperative judges.

The historic verdict, sentencing Von Wernich to life in prison comes shortly after the one year anniversary to mark the one year disappearance of a key witness who helped convict a former police officer for life in 2006. Julio Lopez, went missing exactly a year ago, on the eve of the land mark conviction of Miguel Etchecolatz, the first military officer to be sentenced to life in prison for crimes against humanity and genocide committed during the 1976-1983 military dictatorship. Lopez was last seen walking near his home in La Plata, about 40 miles from Buenos Aires.

"After the disappearance of Jorge Julio Lopez, we were afraid whether we could continue with the trials. Even though the witnesses are afraid it is important to continue with the trials to end with the impunity," said Guadelupe Godoy human rights lawyer handling the plaintiffs charges against Von Wernich in the proceedings. Many of the witnesses have had to accept government sponsored witness protection. Just an hour before Von Wernich’s verdict was scheduled, the courthouse in La Plata had to be evacuated.

"Spiritual Aid"

In the courtroom, wearing a priest's collar and bullet proof vest, Von Wernich seemed unaffected and showed no remorse when the verdict was read. On October 9, during his final declaration the ex-military chaplain said that in the history of Christianity, no priest had ever violated the sacrament of confession. "The sacrament of confession - or reconciliation - gives men the opportunity to eradicate their hearts of evil. We the priests of the Catholic church, can use the sacrament and share it. With this sacrament and in 2,000 years in the history of the church, no priest from the Roman-Catholic church ever violated this sacrament."

Julio Lopez Bandanas

According to Godoy, the ex-military chaplain had a direct role in the forced disappearances of men and women in clandestine detention centers. "Von Wernich is responsible for all the disappeared from the clandestine detention centers where he worked. He wasn’t only guilty in collaborating in the kidnapping, torture and killing of people, but directly participating in the crimes, especially torturing. His job was to break the witnesses down and get more information from detainees during and after torture sessions."

More than 100 witnesses testified against Von Wernich in the trial which opened in July. He worked as a military chaplain in clandestine detention centers where detainees were tortured during interrogations. Many representatives from the human rights organization Mothers of Plaza de Mayo cried and embraced each other as the verdict was read.

"Christian Von Wernich is one of the spokesmen from the Church that participated in the torture and ‘comforted’ disappeared detainees," said Christina Valdez, whose husband was kidnapped and later disappeared in the provincial capital of La Plata. Witnesses have testified that Von Wernich carried out a special role inside a network of clandestine detention centers known as the "Camps Circuit" in the Buenos Aires suburbs. He is most notorious for his title as "spiritual aid" inside the Puesto Vasco concentration camp, one of the 375 used to disappear, torture, and murder 30,000 people.

On just the third day of the trial, a number of witnesses gave remarkable testimonies of Von Wernich's crimes in several clandestine detention centers. Torture survivor Héctor Mariano Ballent testified that the catholic priest would visit detainees in their cells after torture sessions saying, "Come on son, confess everything so they stop torturing you." After Ballent asked from his cell how a priest could condone this type of punishment, Von Wernich left. At least 30 detainees report that they saw Von Wernich inside the Puesto Vasco clandestine detention center.

The Catholic Church relocated Von Wernich to Chile at his request to avoid criminal persecution in 1996, just before a series of trials began in La Plata in 1998. He was working as a priest in El Quisco, Chile under the alias of Christian González, a name the parish gave to him until he was arrested in 2003.

Church’s role in the dictatorship

Von Wernich

Many priests and church members were victims of the military junta’s bloody persecution of dissidents. French nuns, Alice Domon and Léonie Duque, were disappeared and murdered in 1977 for their organizing activities with the poor. Ex-navy captain Alfredo Astiz, also known as the "blond angel of death" is facing trial for the nuns' disappearances along with those of a dozen other people, including Azucena Villaflor, the founder of Mothers of Plaza de Mayo. Villaflor was kidnapped by a commando group in 1977 as she left the Santa Cruz church in Buenos Aires, where family members of the disappeared would clandestinely meet. Humanitarian organizations have reported that during the dictatorship at least 19 priests were disappeared, 11 were kidnapped, tortured, and later released, and 22 were arrested for political reasons.

Another case of persecution of Third World Priests involves a group of five members of the Palatine parish in Buenos Aires. Shortly after the 1976 coup, in a sermon Father Alfredo Kelly reported that locals with ties to the military were auctioning off valuables that belonged to people who were "disappeared" by commando groups. On July 4, 1976 a commando operative entered the San Patricio church, murdering the priest and four seminary students. When the five bodies were discovered, the commando group had left a written epitaph: "these lefties died because of their virgin minds that were indoctrinated." No suspect has been brought to justice for their murders.

Human rights representatives have demanded that the Catholic Church issue an apology for the victims during Argentina's so called "Dirty War." The Catholic Church has refused to issue a statement, other than to confirm that Von Wernich continues in the ranks of the church hierarchy. The Argentine Catholic Church has refused to suspend Von Wernich from his duties of the priesthood, even after the verdict. Behind bars in the V.I.P. Marcos Paz Federal prison, Von Wernich will be able to give communion to fellow cellmates – convicted torturer Miguel Etchecolatz and other human rights offenders.

Sara Derotier de Cobacho is a Mother of Plaza de Mayo whose two sons were disappeared during the dictatorship. One of her sons, Enrique Ramon Derotier de Cobacho was disappeared at 23-years-of-age for his work as a seminary student and organizing efforts. "Today is the fruit of 30 years of struggle. Today, because the amnesty laws were revoked, we are able to put Von Wernich on trial. For me today is a strong blow because I have a disappeared son who was in seminary school, so I have a contradiction of what the church meant. Not only was there impunity, but the Church remained silent."

Painful trials

"For practicing Catholics, we have entered an identity crisis. Today, I couldn’t sit and listen to Von Wernich. I thought of my son. And the years I lost praying," said Derotier de Cobacho with tears in her eyes, referring to Von Wernich’s court sermon. Many Mothers are now in the 80’s, continuing a legacy of fighting for justice for their disappeared sons and daughters – a legacy which they have endured for more than 30 years. In the months since the trial began, mothers, relatives whose family members were disappeared and survivors each day would line up outside the courthouse for police to open the gates – a moment they have fought 30 years for the proceedings, for the day when a court would condemn the participants of the military junta’s bloody systematic killing of students, workers, academics, proponents of liberation theology and neighborhood organizers.

Many human rights activists have expressed immediate concerns over the handling of the human rights trials and the slow proceedings. Nora Cortinas, from the president of the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo's founding chapter, says that Argentines do not wish to live with a justice system that permits impunity: "What we want is for the trials to speed up a little bit and not be tried on a case by case basis, and that the government takes responsibility to help end the threats against witnesses, judges, and lawyers, so that we can really say that there's justice in this country."

Applause at the trial

Human rights groups are awaiting the next slated trial of military personnel who worked in the ESMA Navy Mechanics School, Argentina's most notorious clandestine detention center. The mega-ESMA case has been tied up in court proceedings and judicial blockades through much of this year.

Groups worry that many of the military junta leaders and lower rank officers (many of whom are now in their 70’s and 80’s) who participated in the systematic disappearance of 30,000 people may die before they are tried for their crimes. Justice is now legally possible since the Supreme Court nullified the amnesty for military leaders through the full-stop and due-obedience laws passed in the 1990’s. Much of the evidence has been researched by human rights organizations, with very little support from the government. Survivors and relatives must give testimony on a case-by-case basis, trying each military personnel individually rather than by operations in the clandestine detention centers – a painful, slow process for the survivors who must relive the terror which they endured while in illegal captivity.

Marie Trigona is a writer, radio producer and filmmaker based in Buenos Aires. She can be reached at mtrigona@msn.com

Also watch this video on the Von Wernich verdict.

Court Sentences Argentine Priest to Life in Prison for Genocide

A Catholic priest was sentenced to life in prison October 9 in Argentina, for committing crimes against humanity during the nation's bloody military junta. He is the first priest to be charged for these crimes. This is the latest human rights verdict of an accused torturer since the landmark conviction of a former police officer for genocide in 2006.

Former Chaplin Christian Von Wernich was found guilty of collaborating with state security agents and covering up crimes in seven deaths, 31 cases of torture and 42 cases of illegal imprisonment. He is the first catholic priest to be charged with human rights abuses committed during the 1976-1983 military junta, during which an estimated 30,000 people were killed. As judge Carlos Rozanski read the historic verdict, torture survivors and family members of victims celebrated.

Outside the courtroom between hugs and cheers, Carlos Saiman, torture survivor and plaintiff against the ex-military chaplain, said that the trials need to continue.

“We want for those who participated in genocide to be put in jail, today there's one more in prison. This should force us to continue to bring every person who participated in the genocide in the clandestine detention centers and supported genocide to justice, justice which we the survivors didn't have, that the 30,000 disappeared didn't have.”

In the courtroom, wearing a priest's collar and bullet proof vest, Von Wernich seemed unaffected when the verdict was read. Yesterday, during his final declaration the ex-military chaplain said that in the history of Christianity, no priest had ever violated the sacrament of confession. “The sacrament of confession, or reconciliation, gives men the opportunity to eradicate their hearts of evil. And us the priests of the Catholic church, can use the sacrament and share it. With this sacrament and in the 2,000 years in history, 2,000 years in history, no priest from the Roman-Catholic church ever violated this sacrament.”

More than 100 witnesses testified against Von Wernich in the trial which opened in July. He worked as a military chaplain in clandestine detention centers where detainees were tortured during interrogations. Many representatives from the human rights organization Mothers of Plaza de Mayo cried and embraced each other as the verdict was read.

Sara Derotier de Cobacho is a Mother of Plaza de Mayo whose two sons were disappeared during the dictatorship. “Today is the fruit of 30 years of struggle. Today, because the amnesty laws were revoked, we are able to put Von Wernich on trial. For me today is a strong blow because I have a disappeared son who was in seminary school, so I have a contradiction of what the church meant. Not only was there impunity, but the Church remained silent.”

Humanitarian organizations have reported that during the dictatorship at least 19 priests were disappeared, 11 were kidnapped, tortured and later released, and 22 were arrested for political reasons. The Catholic Church has refused to issue a statement, other than confirming that Christian Von Wernich continues in the ranks of the Catholic hierarchy. Human rights groups are awaiting the next slated trial of military personnel who worked in the ESMA Navy Mechanics School, Argentina's most notorious clandestine detention center.

Video on the trial of Christian Von Wernich