The plight of families trying to establish what has become of people who simply "disappeared" in countries like Argentina or Chile is well known. Repressive regimes have often turned to just snatching those challenging them literally "off the streets" - never to be seen or heard of again.
Roger Cohen, writing in the IHT, has an incisive piece on the "disappeared" and in the process highlights the disgraceful involvement of Henry Kissinger in his dealings with the Argentinian dictator at the time.
"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."
Bringing the topic to the present, Cohen writes:
"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."
Roger Cohen, writing in the IHT, has an incisive piece on the "disappeared" and in the process highlights the disgraceful involvement of Henry Kissinger in his dealings with the Argentinian dictator at the time.
"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."
Bringing the topic to the present, Cohen writes:
"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."
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