“I am Leila Guerriero, I am a journalist, I live in Buenos Aires,” she says in her speech on the ‘Let’s Live for Two Days’ program every Saturday. de la Ser is an Argentinian writer who turns every subject that comes his way into a literary challenge.
Now He discussed the repression by the Military Junta, the most horrific event in his country’s history He has murdered and humiliated thousands of Argentines since 1976. His book ‘The Call’ It consists of (anagrama) 430 pages, none of which succeed in impressing those who want to know what these people are doing, and above all the Argentinian army they preside over. Jorge Rafael VidelaTo humiliate his opponents.
The persecution was evil. It reached out to citizens who were boys at the time, whether militant or not. MontonerosThe opposition fighting the generals’ men with weapons. ESMA ( Naval Mechanics School) was part of that evil tool by which men and women were imprisoned, tortured, and used, and in this case specifically, raped by the military in charge of the prison and detention.
Guerriero singled out a specific person, Silvia LabayruMontonera, then in his twenties with a military father, is used by bandits hailed by the aura of power to accompany them on the most terrible missions of oppression that still continues to frighten Argentina today.
The book is full of questions and answers, and in this interview we ask the author, who is 57 years old and later wrote a book, what still bubbles in his mind about this incident he experienced as a child. It is known by names such as ‘Suicides in the South of the World’, ‘Strange Fruits’ or ‘American Airplane’.
Q. How challenging was this book for you? How was it born? What was the first question?
A. I first met Silvia at an informal meeting at her home in Buenos Aires; I thought about writing an article for ‘El País’, assuming it was an interesting story. And this story began to grow and now it became a book born with their agreement. During that first meeting, there was something wearing a mask outdoors on the balcony of his house. [mascarilla], because it was 2020, the pandemic. We had the first meeting there, I don’t remember what the first question was. Perhaps the simplest one was: when were you born… Because I was clear that I would not just focus on the years of militancy or the kidnapping, but that I would tell his story from the very beginning. I immediately noticed that it was very detailed and even repetitive.
Q. It was a challenge, so…
A. In a way. First of all, you had to gain their trust; It had been forty years since he had spoken to a journalist, and by all accounts he had had very bad experiences with journalism. And I was sure that I was there, not to remain indifferent to what he was telling me: I had to confront him, ask him uncomfortable questions. I asked him directly whether his intelligence was useful while he was part of the Montoneros at home. [y era utilizada por la ESMA para que miembros de ésta se infiltraran en organizaciones como las de las Madres de la Plaza de Mayo] He did not risk his own family’s life [de militares] I didn’t want to write another book about the 1970s in Argentina, I wanted a profile of this woman with all the necessary context, and she knew that would be the case. The challenge as a journalist was to keep his distance, to gain his trust, so that at a certain moment he would not pull the curtain down and say, “I don’t want to continue talking to you.”
Q. What information did you have about him and what happened?
A. I read the testimonies of the survivors in general, and especially the books written about Alfredo Astiz. [el más conocido, y de los más crueles, de los torturadores de la ESMA] At that time, a lawsuit was filed regarding the rapes she suffered, and she gave me permission to have these conversations. [con Silvia y con los restantes amigos o compañeros de la protagonista del libro, en ‘La llamada’ hay la consecuencia de más de ochenta entrevistas] I started asking a lot of people. They all have different versions and different positions that may or may not match Silvia’s. I believe that the best way to counter a journalist’s tendency to bias is to be equipped with all the information possible to get a story that is not afraid of conflicting versions, but rather reveals the contradiction at the same time. human existence.
“Rape as a crime other than torture has only been around since 2010. But there don’t seem to be many complaints, which tell a lot about the consequences of terrorism and how terrorism spreads over time.”
Q. Why did you choose it?
A. Your story came to me randomly at the suggestion of a photographer friend who recommended I read a report that appeared on ‘Page 12’. It’s about that rape case. “Wow, there’s something here,” I said.… ” It seemed to me that there was something very unique in that text. She was one of the few women to denounce a situation that occurred much more frequently in concentration camps and about which there are still few complaints. Among other things, because rape as a crime other than torture has only existed since 2010. But there do not seem to be many complaints about how terrorism spreads in the country, which speaks volumes about the consequences of this terrorism. . time. A woman who dared to do this seemed unique to me. It also caught my attention that he studied psychology in Spain, or that he was said to have been disowned by his own militant friends when he came to Spain, which surprised me, because I have absolutely no such information. Prejudice about a person being in an extreme situation that I have never experienced before and hope I never will. I was also surprised that Astiz was the one forced by the military to accompany him in the horrific and gruesome infiltration of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, which resulted in the disappearance of the mothers and two French nuns. Birth of daughter Vera [habida de su primer matrimonio con Alberto Lennie, con abundante presencia en el libro]The baby discussed at that hearing, which was one of the few babies handed over to relatives by the army, also caught my attention. Therefore, it was a wonderful story with very complex aspects that distinguishes itself somewhat and very brightly from other well-known stories.
Q. He told you, and in the book he said he would talk to you. Did you feel like a responsibility?
A. I never felt that weight. I felt the weight of responsibility for the story I was telling. It is the weight of telling the same things I have explained in books and articles well, with numerous testimonies, so that a veil of prejudice, bluntness, or ignorance is not created. That was the responsibility. As for her, I was hoping there wouldn’t be a sense in my book that she would give me confidence in exchange for making her look good, and there wasn’t.
Question: In the book, you explain how this was done… Was there a possibility that the possibility of continuing would be shaken for a moment?
A. No, no, no, never. There were almost no moments of anxiety or feeling overwhelmed by the amount of information. When he opened the door, other doors began to open rapidly. I did not encounter any resistance from her acquaintances, such as her ex-husband Alberto Lennie, and others like him answered me immediately. And he was very generous: he wrote a letter to his friends here since childhood, saying that I would ask them for a story in which he was the protagonist. He maintained relationships with almost all of them. Some said unpleasant things to him, just as he necessarily did the same when it came to them, but I am sure that neither one nor the other would spoil the friendship between them. As a journalist, it seems to me that I did what had to be done to avoid distortions: I created a very choral story in which everyone would tell some of what they remembered.
We wear journalist and person characters all the time. I ask what I need to ask to tell a story. “No matter what horrific or shocking things they tell me, I receive them with equanimity.”
Q. Of all the things you’ve heard as a person, as a journalist, what surprised or hurt you the most?
A. It seems to me that there is no difference between a journalist and a person. We wear these two characters all the time. I ask what I need to ask to tell a story. No matter what scary or shocking things they tell me, I receive them with equanimity. Listening to what they wanted to tell me did not harm me in this sense. For example, Silvia told me many things. It wouldn’t make sense for me to leave interviews afraid, I had to listen to him until the end.
Q. How did this book leave you?
A. Exhausted like everyone else. Reporting, transcription, two and a half years of coming and going, months of transcription. You always feel a little empty. But then I went to Palamós to write a volume about Truman Capote, and the emptiness quickly disappeared.
Q. Silvia tells you about all the books she got her hands on. Machado, Borges, so many… You quote the lines from Borges that he underlines. For example: “I know (everyone knows) that defeat has a dignity that loud victory does not deserve.”. There may be a verse that helps tell the story you signed…
A. Yes, it is very meaningful, its place in the notebooks he keeps is very meaningful. Let’s say this word beat It is covered in a certain light. It seems to me that, yes, it makes a lot of sense.