On Latin American repression: the Barbie and plaza de mayo grandmothers stories

To many people it would be a surprise to find out how closely related is nazi and repression in Latin American countries. After all, Latin American is far away from Germany and Europe and its population is mainly mix.

This geographical characteristic perhaps explains, at lest partly, the nazi presence in the region. Being far away from Europe and the United States, South America was an ideal place to hide. Once there, nazi became some sort of ‘advisors’ to Latin American rules. A case in point, and maybe the most notorious of all, is Klaus Barbie, the butcher of Lyon.

He came to Bolivia running away from his prosecutors in Europe, especially France. Establishing himself and soon he started to make political connexions. Eventually he was invited to be a sort of ‘special advisor’ to prevent communism from spreading. For that he fully used his ‘skills’.

Several Bolivians have accused him of torturing them. Some other of being in charge of especial areas of secret police that illegally arrested, tortured, disappeared, and killed people. All that supported by rightish governments at that moment.

However, those governments didn’t last forever, and as soon as leftist came to power in Bolivia Barbie’s power disappeared as well. He was handed over to the French. Surprisingly, according to Bolivians, the French hesitated in arresting Barbie. And this is a surprise as according to the ‘official’ story nazi were ‘angrily’ chased.

How many more nazi were there in Latin America? In Argentina, or Chile, or Brasil, perhaps? The true is that we don’t know, and that only those notorious guys as Barbie were chased. In Mexico we don’t have a clue about the real influence of these people in the dirty war of the 60s and 70s, neither have we known about their legacy now, apart from the fact that fascism is rising again with all the killings and kidnappings in Oaxaca and elsewhere in Mexico.

A funny anecdote is that when the Bolivian pilots took Barbie to French territory, they asked for a tip for him to be handed over. Next is the last part of a video about the capture of Klaus Barbie, the butcher of Lyon.

Barbie captured



Another example of how repression worked (and still does) in Latin America is Argentina. There is a group called ‘plaza de mayo grandmothers’. They started as ‘plaza the mayo mothers’.

They reason is that during the military government, their sons and daughters were kidnapped. Some of the women were pregnant or had a little baby with them at the moment of being disappeared. Hence, those mothers lost not only their daughters but their grandsons as well. Now they focus their efforts in finding their grandsons, that generally survived, but with were given away to different families.

I would like to say that plaza de mayo grandmothers bring a message of hope to those in Mexico or Oaxaca whose relatives have been disappeared. We hope that one day they all join their families again, and that those who committed those crimes are taken to justice, as in the Argentina example. (In solidarity with Nadin from Oaxaca, whose father is dissapeared)

Next is a video about hose brave grandmothers. It was aired last week in open television in UK, in channel 4.

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