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A12 WORLD NEWS
Saturday 6 april 2019
Argentina: Bodies of 600 disappeared wait to be identified

By ALMUDENA CALATRAVA her much older sister. “Isa-
Associated Press bel was this mysterious per-
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina son,” she said.
(AP) — Bonnie and Daniel “It’s been 40 years,” Bon-
Loedel walked into a mau- nie Loedel said. “When
soleum with an urn holding somebody disappears, you
the bone remains of their can’t grieve, she has disap-
sister Isabel, who had been peared. Taking the blood
unidentified for four de- test and finding her was
cades after being forcibly amazing.”
disappeared during Argen- Giving blood samples to
tina’s military dictatorship. identify a loved one who
Delivering the simple died in violent circumstanc-
wooden box was the last es is a delicate psychologi-
step of an arduous identi- cal process that can bring
fication process that they back haunting memories.
hope will bring the family “It takes a long time to
closure and, at the same muster courage to do
time, thwart the goal of the something so simple,” said
military regime that human Daniel Di Giacinti, who pro-
rights groups estimate killed vided a sample to identify
or disappeared 30,000 his brother, Isabel’s partner.
people while seeking to In this March 28, 2019 photo, Gala Maruscak, a member of the Argentine Anthropology Forensic “It sounds easy, but it’s not.
make its victims invisible. Team, examines the skeletal remains of an unidentified missing person in her laboratory, in Buenos It was extremely hard for
The Remembrance, Truth Aires, Argentina. me, and I was a (political)
and Justice Mausoleum for Associated Press activist.”
the Victims of State Spon- and have since helped un- working since 1984, a year ing bodies and allow them Juan Carlos Barrera, a
sored Terrorism is at a cem- ravel human rights atroci- after Argentina’s return to proper burials. member of the Montoneros
etery in La Plata, a town ties in more than 50 coun- democracy. It has recov- The process not only gives a guerrilla group, was identi-
about 35 miles (58 kilome- tries. ered the bodies of more name to the invisible. It also fied under a forensic team
ters) from Argentina’s capi- Friends and family of Isabel than 1,400 disappeared reconstructs their stories initiative in 2009 thanks to
tal of Buenos Aires. It holds Loedel recently gathered people and identified 795 and suffering, allowing their a blood sample given by
the remains of at least a at the mausoleum to say of them. loved ones to complete his daughter, Angela. But
dozen people who were goodbye to Isabel, whose The genetic profiles of the their grieving. “You can let coming to grips with the
disappeared during the remains were identified approximately 600 remains go. You can celebrate their past was painful, she said.
dictatorship. only last year. She has now that are unidentified don’t lives and you can let them “Just calling (the team) was
The remains are a few of rejoined her partner, Julio match any of the samples go, and at the same time tough. I called several times
those identified by the Ar- Di Giacinti, who was iden- in the team’s database. it reminds us we can’t ever and hung up,” Barrera told
gentine Forensic Anthro- tified by the forensic team So the non-governmental forget ... you cannot erase The Associated Press. When
pology Team, an indepen- seven years ago. Both were group has launched a people, make them invis- she finally stayed on the
dent group of scientists killed in early 1978 by dicta- campaign urging more rel- ible,” she said of her half-sis- line, she found the team
who developed their ex- torship agents. atives of the disappeared ter, who was 11 years older. also would provide her with
pertise identifying victims of The Argentine Forensic An- to provide blood samples Still, Bonnie said, she has emotional support and she
the 1976-1983 military junta thropology Team has been to help identify the remain- only vague memories of agreed to go ahead. q

High-risk expedition succeeds with isolated tribe in Brazil

By SILVIA IZQUIERDO mistakenly believing their than Hungary.
MAURICIO SAVARESE relatives had been killed by Brazilian law states that
Associated Press the Matis. contact with isolated tribes
RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Bra- The main concern of FU- can be used only as a last
zil’s agency for indigenous NAI analysts was that the resort to preserve the lives
peoples said Friday that a isolated group would not of indigenous peoples and
high-risk expedition in the believe that the Korubos in the expedition was FUNAI’s
Amazon has reunited an the expedition were in fact biggest since 1996. It is also
isolated group with rela- their relatives, which made the agency’s first major op-
tives and eased tensions them label the mission as eration during the adminis-
with a rival tribe near the “high risk.” tration of far-right President
border with Peru. “It was actually quite mov- Jair Bolsonaro.
The FUNAI agency said a ing. We soon found one of Brazil’s new leader has of-
team of nearly two dozen the two Korubos we saw ten criticized bodies that
reached 34 members of first was a brother of one of handle indigenous issues.
the Korubo tribe in the Bra- the members of the expe- He has also promised to
zilian state of Amazonas. dition,” said FUNAI coordi- stop demarcation of indig-
The expedition included In this 2019 handout photo released by Brazil’s National Indian nator Bruno Pereira. “There enous lands and allow min-
relatives of the Korubos Foundation, or FUNAI, a Korubo man smiles up at the camera as was a lot of emotion and ers and farmers to operate
and also aimed to avoid a FUNAI member checks his heart rate during an expedition to tears.” The trip lasted 32 in their lands.
a possible conflict with the the Javari Valley, in Brazil. days in the Javari Valley, FUNAI’s chairman Franklin-
Matis tribe living about 12 Associated Press an area of more than 8 mil- berg de Freitas, appointed
miles (20 kilometers) away. requested FUNAI’s interven- they believed the isolated lion hectares (nearly 31,000 by Bolsonaro, called the
The Matis tribe repeatedly tion in the case because Korubos wanted revenge, square miles), or bigger expedition “a landmark.”q