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	The Cry of The Disappeared by Roger Cohen International Herald Tribune USA   June 2007   To disappear became a transitive verb in Latin America. Military dictatorships “disappeared” their opponents. That is to say, they kidnapped, tortured, murdered and disposed of them, leaving only an inconsolable absence in the place of a human being.   I spent some time in Argentina in the aftermath of the 1976-83 dictatorship. Enough to become familiar with countless picture frames holding images of impossibly lovely young women, taken from their homes for “brief questioning,” never to be seen again. Enough to know the unquenchable parental tears these disappearances provoked.   It was not too early then, in rooms filled with the animal sobbing of the bereaved, to feel rage at the junta’s crimes. But it was too early to know the full extent of them: the 30,000 disappeared, the torture at the Navy School of Mechanics in Buenos Aires, the corpse-dumping flights out to sea.   Argentines still hoped back in the 1980s. They hoped, whatever their heads told them, that the longing in their hearts might return their loved ones intact. No doubt, many still hope.   With disappearance, closure is impossible, for there is no evidence of an ending. In this infinite prolongation of suffering lay the particular contribution of the generals to the infliction of pain.   There was something else we did not know back then. Henry Kissinger, then secretary of state, told Admiral César Augusto Guzzetti, the Argentine foreign minister, in June 1976: “If there are things that have to be done, you should do them quickly. But you should get back quickly to normal procedures.”   Later, Kissinger assured the admiral that the administration “won’t cause you unnecessary difficulties.” He also grew angry when he learned that the U.S. ambassador in Buenos Aires, Robert Hill, has given the junta a warning about violations of human rights. “In what way is it compatible with my policy?” Kissinger asked, before suggesting that Hill might have to go.   These exchanges, records of which were obtained in recent years under the federal Freedom of Information Act by the nonprofit National Security Archive, suggest how the surrogate battles of the Cold War, as fought in the American hemisphere, drew the United States into forms of complicity that remain a shadow on its conscience.   More recently, the historian Robert Dallek unearthed transcripts in the National Archives that show Kissinger, bitter at negative newspaper coverage of the 1973 coup in Chile, complaining to President Richard Nixon that, “in the Eisenhower period, we would be heroes.” The coup would lead to thousands of “disappearances.”   I was thrust back into this Latin American vortex, which haunted me in the 1980s, by a powerful show called “The Disappeared” at New York’s El Museo del Barrio. It features works about horrors, often followed by impunity, to which the United States turned a blind eye at best.   Ana Tiscornia’s blurred portraits, palimpsests in which the subjects seem to hover between life and death, capture the slow fading of the disappeared, and their flickering hold on those from whom they were seized.   A corridor full of photographs of young couples feature women who were pregnant when “disappeared.” The Argentine military would wait for the child to be born before murdering the mother. The babies went to childless military couples. Laconic captions say: “The couple and their child remain disappeared.”   As Laurel Reuter and Julian Zugazagoitia write in their introduction to the show, organized by the North Dakota Museum of Art, the artists “ask us, as North Americans, to question what role our own country played in supporting the Latin American governments which killed their people as a matter of course.”   The artists also ask us something else. This month six human rights groups listed 39 people they believe are secretly imprisoned in unknown locations by the United States as part of the war on terror.   President George W. Bush acknowledged last year that some individuals deemed particularly dangerous had been moved “to an environment where they can be held secretly.” In effect, categorized as enemy combatants, they have been “disappeared.”   This practice is unconscionable. It does not matter that the purpose of the disappearance is not murder, as it was in Argentina.   Once people disappear, every basic human right is at risk because every check, every balance, has gone with them. The worst becomes almost inevitable because there is nothing to stop it.   The United States demands accountability of others when its own people go missing. It must demand the same accountability of itself, whatever the fight. The lovely, longing and lost young faces of Latin America require at least that.
	UN urges investigations of deaths and more security for aid workers by IRIN News / ICRC Sri Lanka   Colombo, 7 August 2007   UN urges investigations of deaths and more security for aid workers (IRIN)   United Nations Emergency Relief Coordinator John Holmes has strongly urged Sri Lanka to conclude slow-moving investigations into the year-old killing of 17 humanitarian workers even as humanitarian agencies said security concerns were slowing down aid delivery.   Holmes, the UN under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs, also called on the government to give better access for aid workers to communities in need and to ensure the safety of local and foreign humanitarian workers.   Describing the gunning down on 6 August 2006, of the Action Contre la Faim (ACF) employees in eastern Muttur town in Trincomalee District, as the "single worst crime committed against humanitarian workers in recent history," Holmes, who is on a four-day visit to the island, asked the government to do everything possible to prevent a recurrence of such a tragedy.   The killing of the ACF workers who were trapped in their office during fierce fighting between the security forces and the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) is the most high-profile of at least 28 murders of members of non-governmental organisations, including Caritas and Terre des Hommes, since January 2006.   "We have never lost so many development agency workers as we have since 2006," noted Jeevan Thiyagarajah of the Consortium of Humanitarian Agencies. "This is part and parcel of the unfinished conflict that we have here."   We have never lost so many development agency workers as we have since 2006.This is part and parcel of the unfinished conflict that we have here.   Holmes said, "I repeat the call of the [UN] Secretary-General to the Government of Sri Lanka to investigate this murder with the full weight and force of the justice system," he told a gathering aid agencies marking the first anniversary of the murders. "They were not the first humanitarian aid workers to die in this country. They have, sadly, not been the last."   04 Jun 2007   Red Cross Movement condemns murder of Sri Lanka Red Cross staff. (ICRC)   Colombo/Geneva – The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement strongly condemns the abduction and murder of two Sri Lanka Red Cross Society staff members which occurred in the capital Colombo on 1 June.   Sinnarasa Shanmugalingam (32) and Karthekesu Chandramohan (26) had worked for the Batticaloa branch of the Sri Lanka Red Cross for many years. They had been in Colombo attending a training workshop organized by the Sri Lanka Red Cross national headquarters. At about 6.45 p.m. on 1 June they were abducted from Fort railway station in Colombo by unknown men while waiting to return to Batticaloa. Their bodies were found on 2 June at the Dumbara Estate in Kiriella, Ratnapura district.   "We are shocked by these brutal murders and wish to convey our sincere condolences to the family members and colleagues of the dead", said Sri Lanka Red Cross director general Neville Nanayakkara. At the same time, the Movement calls upon the Sri Lankan authorities to carry out an immediate and comprehensive investigation into the killings.   The Movement reminds the parties to the conflict that murder is prohibited under international humanitarian law, and that they must respect the work of humanitarian agencies and refrain from any acts that might jeopardize humanitarian staff or activities. It also urges them to take all necessary measures to ensure that aid workers assisting the civilian population and persons not or no longer taking part in the hostilities are spared from attack and can move freely and safely.   The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement will carry on with its conflict-related and post-tsunami work in Sri Lanka.
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