To remember is to evoke an image, a word, a gesture, a sentiment, an absence. It is to bring into the present something or someone that we have seen in the past, but it is also to come to terms with the emptiness that endures because of an unexpected, unwanted theft.
The memory of the absence, more than any other memory, fills the present with questions for which the primary and most fundamental is, “where are those that have been disappeared?”
It is not simply a political slogan that is proposed, it is an existential question for the family members of the disappeared that has been translated into the profound need to obtain answers about their whereabouts; and which, for our society as a whole, can be translated into: “What do we do with the vast emptiness that the lives of the disappeared have amassed in our collective experience as Guatemalans?”
History continues its course and many people say that we must turn the page and move on, but memory does not have an expiration date nor does it listen to rational arguments, it emerges in any given moment - in the face of a child! - and it challenges us to remember.
The question that plagues us now is not only what happened to the disappeared, but also what happened to us without them, who we have become after such barbarism and what we do with the incessant onslaught of memory.
The Room of Absences is not an empty place, it is the attempt to find numerous presences and in this experience, assume the hardship of asking these fundamental and difficult questions about justice, memory, and the future of Guatemala.
Marco Antonio Molina Theissen, his disappearance
Marco Antonio was a 14 year old boy. He was in the 8th grade when members of the military entered his house, kidnapped, and disappeared him. Up until this point we still don’t know where he is.
His sister, Emma Guadalupe, was detained illegally on the September 27th, 1981 at the junction that is known as the Four Pathways. She was taken to “Manuel Lisandro Barillas” a military zone in Quetzaltenango, where she was tortured and raped. After eight days of detention, she managed to flee through a window.
On October 6th, 1981, one day after Emma escaped from her captors, various military members (dressed as armed civilians) showed up at the front door of her parents in the neighborhood La Florida, in the municipality of Mixco, department of Guatemala. They entered by force and directed themselves towards Marco Antonio, shackled him, covered his mouth with masking tape, and beat his mother in front of him. Later, they put him in a sack and they threw him in the back of a pickup truck with the official plate number 17675. Even though his mother ran behind the pickup truck as fast as she could, there was nothing she could do.
His parents searched desolately to find their son in hospitals and military outposts. They filed many reports: to the authorities, the military, the church, and even to human rights organizations abroad, but they were still not able to find him. To this day, Marco Antonio’s family does not know about his whereabouts, but they have not stopped searching.
Glenda, Rosaura, and Almita Portillo*
On Friday, September 11th, 1981, Adrián Portillo Alcántara was arrested in Zone 1 of Guatemala City by a group of armed young men dressed in plainclothes, and taken in an unmarked vehicle with polarized windows. Some hours later, at his house in Zone 11, this same group (as deduced by his relatives) detained and kidnapped his wife, Rosa Elena Latín de Portillo, 23 years old, and their daughter, Alma Argentina, who was only 18 months old at the time. That day, the granddaughters of Adrián Portillo Alcántara—the young Glenda Corina and Rosaura Margarita Carrillo Portillo (9 and 10 years old, respectively)—happened to be visiting.
Furthermore, Edilsa Guadalupe Álvarez Morales (18 years old), partner of Manuel Alfonso was also present. Some neighbors ascertained that, during the military operation, that they had heard the voices of women and children crying and pleading for help.
Nevertheless, the security forces claimed that the house was empty. The news outlets printed the official version of the story as follows: “Apart from the seizure (of subversive material), no kidnappings of the residents have been reported, since by the time that public security arrived, the house was empty.”
In her testimony, Adriana Margarita Portillo relates: “When we approached the house, we observed that the block was completely surrounded by national police self-patrols, army trucks, and Jeeps. There were also some vehicles present with polarized windows. Upon arriving at the entrance hall, which was open, we were immediately surrounded by a group of heavily armed men, carrying 45mm caliber machine guns and squads. Some of them dressed in plainclothes, others wore the uniform of the army and the traveling military police, Command Six, and a few others wore the uniform of the national police. ”
As soon as they arrived, Adriana and her sister in law, who had accompanied her, were interrogated by members of the military, who in turn gave each of them contradictory information about what was going on:
“During the time that we were interrogated, my inner voice murmured: ‘maybe we confused the date... maybe papá gave us the wrong address and forgot to tell us… maybe this is all a dream… please… can someone hit me… in the face… and wake me up… please… We had only taken a few steps when, suddenly my reality hit me: my dad, my mother in law, my sister in law, my little sister—and only then did I remember—my daughters, Rosaura and Glenda, have been kidnapped by government security under orders of the general Lucas García. This could only mean that they were assassinated here, or disappeared and taken somewhere else. The world—my world—had been destroyed forever. Time and space seemed to stand still and then… with my nephews hands in mine, we began to move quickly away from our certain death. We went in search of life, towards the taxis which were parked one block away from El Trébol. Death realized that he had committed a very big mistake in not stopping and chasing up. We had been witnesses to an abominable crime.”
The whereabouts of Adrián Portillo Alcántara, Rosa Elena Latín de Portillo, Alma Argentina Portillo, Glenda Corina and Rosaura Margarita Carrillo Portillo were never found out. The Guatemalan authorities never even acknowledged that the detention of the disappeared had taken place. On July 31, 1998, the CEH consulted the Army regarding the case. They replied, by means of a note dated August 20 of the same year, by stating that in their files they did not keep information about it and attaching the transcript of a Press article dated September 12, 1981.
* Text constructed based on: Report of the Commission for the Historical Clarification of "Guatemala: Memory of Silence". Illustrative case no.87 Detention and forced disappearance of six members of the Portillo family, including three girls.
Where is Félix Estrada?
by Salomón Estrada Mejía
Our parents were Félix Estrada Hernández (+) and Victoria Mejía (+). Félix, my brother, was born in Guatemala City on September 17, 1958. He studied at the "Adela Asencio Sandoval" Urban Elementary School located at the time in the Roosevelt football fields, in zone 11; next to the National Hospital that bears the same name.
He completed high school at the Central Normal School for men, otherwise known as “La Normal,” which was founded in 1873. There, he was trained as a teacher and student leader, fighting alongside his peers for the reconstruction of the Normal School, which had been destroyed by an earthquake in 1976. He played a leading role as a student activist during the revolutionary government of Dr. Juan José Arévalo.
Since the Normal School and the student movement made great strides despite harsh repression by the Federal Police Anti-Riot Squadron, who regularly used tear gas and firearms against the student leaders in order to dissuade them from protesting. During this time, many students and teachers were reported dead. Despite all of these setbacks, Félix was able to stay in school for 5 years and complete his undergraduate degree in teaching.
His political and revolutionary militancy had formed at the young age of 9, through his involvement in the Patriotic Youth in Labor organization (JPT). After several years of learning how to organize militantly, he participated in 1978 in the Global Festival of Youth and Students in Havana, Cuba, as a representative of Guatemalan young people.
His organizational capacity allowed him to be a part of the Coordination of Middle School Students (CEEM), which brought together Normalist and middle school organizers. Almost immediately, the CEEM allied themselves with Guatemalan workers, peasants, university students, teachers, and other sectors within the Guatemalan Labor Party (PGT).
Due to his level of commitment and political training, he was sent in the year of 1982 to the Soviet Union, on a trip that served to increase his commitment to the revolutionary struggle alongside the working people.
He was self-taught, and he spent hours and hours reading. At night, he would light several candles to illuminate his desk and he would work until he was overcome with fatigue, then he would take two steps and throw himself on his bed to sleep.
On May 15th, 1984, a day like any other, being a disciplined young man with homework and routines, Félix went on a run, returned to his house, —a simple and humble building— showered and got ready, arranged his clothes, and at 6:30 in the morning he left for a meeting with members of the PGT. But he never returned.
This same day, he was detained and disappeared by government agents sent by General Oscar Humberto Mejía Víctores. Since that fateful day, our family has searched for him and demanded that he be found alive, but we have become tired of searching, for it has been 32 years since he was disappeared. Our parents have since died waiting for him to return home.
It wasn’t until the year 1999, on May 20, that the military diary “Dossier de la Muerte” was released, a document that had been held captive inside the army archive. In its pages, Félix’s arrest had been noted, as well as details about his detainment in 1984. The code 300, which was written next to his name, indicated that he was held for a month in a military prison, tortured, and then killed.
With a deep love
Dear Juanito:
This is what I called you, what your family, your friends and your community called you. For several days now I have wanted to place your photograph in this space, which is often cold and distant, and about which we are making an effort to bring a little bit of gear and humanity by way of our memories. I have allowed that time pass, waiting for the best moment to do so and I felt that today was this moment.
There have been many occasions in which I have opened your photo and stared at it, with my eyes full of tears in front of yours, which are so expressive, so black and profound and beautiful.
Through your eyes, I have imagined many times what it must have felt like to suffer the torture and pain of seeing your sister in front of you, receiving death threats.
Today, dear Juanito, your case, along with many others is being tried publicly in the international court of law through the release of the military document “Dossier de la Muerte,” or military diary, where you were reduced to simply a number, “86.” Your photograph does not appear in the Dossier, since as a minor you didn’t carry an identification card…
Nothing of your story appears in the file. Your childhood struggle is unknown, how you worked alongside your father in the cornfield, planting new life. The cornfield is where your happiness and your dreams now live, and unfortunately it is not possible to make space for this in court. It will be left out that you were born in a village marked by inequality, poverty, and exploitation, that you were the son and the brother of female warriors and the son of a man who, alongside many others, considered transforming life, first inside the village and later throughout the country. At 5 or 6 years old you were recorded in the cameras that were a novelty of the 1970’s. Today, these cameras and the hands that dedicated themselves to photograph you allow us to know you and feel that you are close on this day that like many others, we continue to seek justice.
Thank you for your vision and your life, Juanito. If there is any place where you exist, it is in the heart of your family and of many others whose hearts carry you with a deep and profound love.
Glenda García, August 30, 2012.
Mamá, if I am disappeared, where will I go?
By Marcela Ibarra Mateos
I don’t know, son.
I just know that if you are disappeared, I will search for you inside the earth and underneath her.
I will knock on every doorway of every house.
I will ask each and every person who I encounter on my search if they have seen you.
I will demand, each and every day, in every instance, that your search continue, until I find you again.
And I hope, son, that you will not be afraid, because I am searching for you.
And if they don’t listen, son,
My voice will become strong and I will scream your name down the streets.
I will break windows and tear doors off of their hinges in order to find you.
I will burn down buildings so that everyone knows how much I love you and and how much I yearn for you to return.
I will paint murals with your name and hope that nobody will forget you.
I will find everyone who is also searching for their kids and together we will find you and all the others.
And I hope, son, that you will not be afraid, because many people are searching for you.
If you are not disappeared, son, how I hope and pray.
I would scream the names of all those who have been disappeared.
I would write their names on the murals.
I would hug all of their parents, far and wide,
Sisters and brothers who search for their disappeared family members.
I would walk shoulder to shoulder with them through the streets.
And I would not allow that the names of their children be forgotten.
And I hope, son, that they would not be afraid, because we are all searching for them.
Comments