ESMA

Today, Eve and I took a tour of the one of the most notorious detention centers, which efficiently managed to detain, torture and ultimately murder some 5,000 people between 1976 and 1983. ESMA -- The Escuela de Mecanica de la Armada (Technical School of the Navy) -- is a 35-acre campus in the northern part of Buenos Aires, in the barrio of Nunez. It was founded in 1924 what was then a fairly rural area and served as the Navy's main training school until just a few years ago. But during the dictatorship it was home to Grupo de Tareas 3.3.2 (something along the lines of "Task Force 3.3.2), one of the mainly secret police groups whose sole purpose was to seek out people deemed dangerous -- Peronists, revolutionaries, people who read leftist literature, labor union activists, etc.

This is one of the key points made in the tour and it is absolutely right: the death of 30,000 people was not the result of "unfortunate" excesses by a few rogue military leaders. (That reasoning should sound awfully familiar). Rather, it was a systematic effort to eliminate a set of people deemed "dangerous" to the rejuvenation of the nation. I believe this is called genocide. In numbers it did not reach the levels we have seen elsewhere in the last century, but it bore the imprint of those models.

Carlos Menem, president beginning in 1989, pardoned many of those convicted of human rights crimes during the "Dirty War" and proposed completely demolishing ESMA in order to create a "national reconciliation park." This was halted by the courts and ultimately the property was taken from the Navy, returned to the city of Buenos Aires (who essentially "loaned" it to the Navy for use as a school). In 2004, it was officially designated to become a center for the promotion and defense of human rights, run by a coalition of human rights organizations.

So, although word about the atrocities being committed at ESMA began to leak out in the late 1970s (and provoking the Inter-American Human Rights Commission to visit the country 1979 and investigate potential crimes), there is a feeling that this site is just now taking shape. Debates continue as to what should happen in the Officer's House (where the detainees lived), what should happen to the larger site, how much restoration should take place. At the moment, tours are by appointment only -- about five thousand people visit per year. The interpretive material in the various rooms are pretty thin and focused on what was there now and what had changed. This is a little too "inside baseball" for most visitors, I think. (Although it is fascinating that what prompted much of the remodeling of the building was the impending visit of the human rights commission in 1979; the regime shipped the detainees off to a Catholic church in Tigre for the duration of the commission's visit, and changed the plan of the building around so it wouldn't match the memories of the few survivors). Most want to learn about what happened here, learn the larger context, hear from the survivors. All of this awaits an expansion of the tours, the development of a real museum, perhaps an introductory video.

I am especially taken by the debate between some -- especially the survivors (some 200 people managed to come out alive) -- who want to preserve the whole thing essentially as is, keeping it as a reminder of the atrocities, and others -- including the Madres de Plaza de Mayo -- who want to bring life back to where death once ruled. They want to make this a cultural center, for young and old to make art and music, and turn the military school into a summer playground. I am sympathetic to this idea, and it fits with the ideas I put forward for what should happen at Ground Zero in New York. It is a fundamental debate, I think, that we should be engaged in: do we continue to produce more and more monuments whose purpose is almost exclusively to remember, or do we choose to honor the victims by invoking Harold Bloom's translation of the Hebrew "baruch," usually simply "blessing" but which he reads as "more life!"

I think there is room for both at ESMA: it seems clear that the Officer's House will remain largely as is, with tours and interpretive signage, but little physical transformation. But the rest of the site -- and most if the buildings were not used by the Grupo de Tareas -- should be revitalized as a living place for portenos. Is that not always the best answer to factories of death -- bring vibrant, democratic life back?

The issue of ESMA will only become more important when the long-awaited trials of the ESMA leaders begins in October. Yes, twenty-six years after the end of the dictatorship, some of the ESMA leaders are finally going to be forced before a judge. Those not pardoned by Menem managed to outlast the statute of limitations. But in 2003, then-president Nestor Kirchner (succeeded by his wife, Christina) helped get the statute lifted, opening the way for new trials. It took five more years, but they are now beginning, in Cordoba this month, and in Buenos Aires next.

Suffice it to say, I will have more thoughts on the issue of these sites of memory.