After a new discovery of human remains in one of the battalions used as illegal centers for the detention, torture, and burial of disappeared detainees, different social, political, and family members expressed mixed feelings.
“On the one hand, the joy because more than one disappeared person is going to be known, but on the other hand, the sadness once again that they were killed, that they made these burial practices so perverse, even because of the conditions in which they are found. the body”, Senator Amanda Della Ventura told Portal APU.uy, a portal that integrates EL ECO.
For Della Ventura, “this finding is firstly very moving because in reality the bones speak and shout, that they are there, that you have to look for them, but that they are there,” said the senator.
Members of the Forensic Anthropology Research Group presented and explained this Wednesday to family members, members of human rights organizations and the media present the characteristics of the finding, the search modality that has been carried out in said site, while remarking ” We lack information.”
For its part, the National Human Rights Institution issued a statement on Wednesday, stating that “the commitment to carry out this work with professionalism and respect for the victims and their families is reiterated. The sensitivity of this important finding is clear, so work will continue to contribute to the process of truth and justice that we long for as a society.”
INDDHH statement
The INDDHH pointed out that “as a result of the work carried out by the Search for the Disappeared Detainees area of the National Institution for Human Rights and Ombudsman’s Office (INDDHH), the discovery of human remains in Infantry Battalion No. ° 14”, which has mobilized family members in particular and public opinion in general for what it means in the search for truth and justice regarding the fate of the disappeared detainees who still have to be located and identified.
“Unfortunately there are silences, there continue to be silences among those who know, but the people and the May 20 march show it every year, especially young people continue and continue to wonder where they are,” Senator Amanda Della Ventura pointed out in dialogue with APU.uy Portal
A story of concealments and lies
“When the teacher Julio Castro is kidnapped, the Army kidnaps him, kidnaps him, tortures him and murders him. When he assassinates him, the Army through the State takes out an apocryphal communication where it shows a list of passengers to Buenos Aires and on that list is the teacher Julio Castro. They made someone travel with the ID, it is a possibility; In short, they set up a story where they affirm that the teacher Julio Castro is in Argentina, that he left, that what is said in the world that he is a detainee/disappeared is a lie”, recalled the journalist and writer Alberto Silva in dialogue with this outlet. .
As a historical context, regarding what has arisen from this new discovery, Silva brought up that “when Dr Jorge Batlle sets up the Commission for Peace, the Army as an institution tells the Commission for Peace that the teacher Julio Castro actually they had arrested him and that in the course of the interrogations, on account of a health problem and had died. That they take the body to Punta Espinillo, they had a military base there where they practiced shooting, the same center of Punta Espinillos that when Tabaré Vázquez won the Intendancy, being a municipal property, they took it back for the neighbors; but, they say that they make a hermitage there, they set it on fire, they turn it into ashes and those ashes were thrown into the Río de la Plata”
Some time later “when he was found in the 14th Battalion – Silva points out – there are signs of torture, wires in the extremities and a bullet to the head fired at very close range. He was shot. When Dr. Tabaré Vázquez calls Gelman to tell him that they had found the place where she had been buried, it was in Battalion 14, the Army lied to another president and then it was finally learned that her mother, who was kidnapped, was not buried there. in the Argentine Republic and now when another body appears near where the body of Maestro Julio Castro was found, it creates a great commotion, 14 members of human rights organizations and the Army institution responsible for that battalion, which is very It is big and has a very large troop, there is no better idea than doing military maneuvers and deploying tanks and armored vehicles that pass in front of all those people,” Silva remarked.
The pact of silence remains intact and is being groped
Beyond the official discourse and the statements by leading figures of the national government affirming the advances in the search for truth and justice regarding recent history in terms of human rights, the journalist Alberto Silva remarked that, in the case of this week’s discovery “As if that were not enough, they bring out a formation of young soldiers who are there and make them march and sing in front of all these moved people.”
For Silva, “at least it should have been a day of absolute silence, they should have put the flag at half mast, the person in charge of said unit should have reflected with the soldiers on things that can never happen again,” the communicator reflected.
For the journalist, writer and investigator of the violation of human rights in the last civic-military dictatorship “as an institution [lo que se generó fue] a provocation”. For which we witnessed that “two really outrageous events were generated, all of which in a certain way graphs the continuity of certain things that it seems incredible that time passes and they remain the same. And they also remain the same because this new discovery was not based on precise information about someone who broke the pact of silence, but rather is part of that very slow task that has been carried out systematically in those 32 hectares that are preserved there.” Silva remarked.
A fight that does not expire
“For the cause of truth and justice, of memory and never again, this appearance of remains reaffirms that fight that has never been abandoned, which is that claim for society itself, which shows recent history in a different way than they want Lately make us see it,” said Senator Della Ventura
Because “although the mothers are leaving, the children remain, the grandchildren remain, and the Uruguayan people remain, who perhaps do not have a direct relative who has disappeared, but who put themselves in the place of those who do and from there empathize and fight as well. Therefore, this helps and helps a lot to see the events that took place during the dictatorship in the correct perspective,” said Della Ventura.
Each one of the actions, the claims, the marches and the findings shed light on a past with many shadows and it is highlighted, according to the senator, that “we can continue investigating, we can continue judging and penalizing those who are responsible for this type of so sad facts of the dictatorship”
