Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
A VICTIM OF TORTURE
RETURNS TO ARGENTINA, 1984
I
in April 1977, 20 armed men arrested journalist Jacobo Timerman in
his apartment. Timerman had reported tentatively about disappear-
ances and about guerrilla activities, two subjects the military regime had
banned from publicity. Timerman was also Jewish, and extremists among
the ruling officers were notoriously anti-Semitic. The armed men placed
a hood over his head and bundled him into the back of a sedan. One of
his kidnappers placed a gun to his head and threatened, “Say goodbye,
Jacobo dear. It's all up with you.” Someone counted slowly to 10, then
his captors broke into loud laughter.
For the next three years, Timerman was imprisoned and tortured
by members of the security forces. He finally gained release through
the protests of international human rights groups and left Argentina
to write a celebrated chronicle of his incarceration,
Prisoner Without a
Name, Cell Without a Number.
Timerman returned to Argentina following
the restoration of democracy in 1984. It was a wrenching, bittersweet
experience for the former prisoner of the military government.
Back in Argentina, Timerman pressed charges against two general
officers and set out to find the clandestine prisons in which he had
been confined for much of his time in captivity. He posed for a photo
in one small cell in which he had been held incommunicado, tortured
with electric currents, and poorly fed. He reflected on the renewal of
democracy in the country, as well as on the search for the truth about
the human rights abuses of the previous regime. Timerman expressed
hope for the pursuit of justice against the military officers who had
conducted the Dirty War, but he also recognized that not everyone
condemned the past abuses.
Even before Timerman's return visit in 1984, apologists for the mili-
tary began filling the newspapers with stories about the internationally
famous Argentine journalist's former connections with suspected bank-
ers for the Montoneros. His torturer, General Ramón Camps, even
published a book linking Timerman to “communist terrorists.” The
publicity impugning Timerman's reputation had the impact in Argentina
of justifying his kidnapping and torture.
Source:
Quotation from Timerman, Jacobo.
Prisoner Without a Name,
Cell Without a Number
(New York: Knopf, 1981), p. 10.
