Fredy Peccerelli: A forensic anthropologist who brings closure for the “disappeared"

Translator: Petra Aquamarine Reviewer: Linda Magáthová

Guatemala is recovering from a 36-year armed conflict.

Guatemala sa zotavuje po 36-ročnom ozbrojenom konflikte.

A conflict that was fought during the Cold War.

Tento konflikt sa odohrával počas studenej vojny.

It was really just a small leftist insurgency

Išlo o malú ľavicovú vzburu

and a devastating response by the state.

a brutálnu reakciu štátu.

What we have as a result is 200,000 civilian victims,

Za obeť mu padlo 200-tisíc civilistov.

160,000 of those killed in the communities:

160-tisíc z nich bolo zabitých:

small children, men, women, the elderly even.

malé deti, muži, ženy, dokonca starí ľudia.

And then we have about 40,000 others, the missing,

Zostáva 40-tisíc ďalších, nezvestných,

the ones we're still looking for today.

ktorých dodnes hľadáme.

We call them the Desaparecidos.

Voláme ich „zmiznutí“, Desaparecidos,

Now, 83 percent of the victims are Mayan victims,

83 percent obetí bolo mayského pôvodu,

victims that are the descendants

boli to potomkovia

of the original inhabitants of Central America.

pôvodných obyvateľov Strednej Ameriky.

And only about 17 percent are of European descent.

A len okolo 17 percent bolo európskeho pôvodu.

But the most important thing here is that

Ale najdôležitejšie na tom celom je to,

the very people who are supposed to defend us, the police, the military,

že práve tí, ktorí nás mali chrániť,

polícia, armáda,

are the ones that committed most of the crimes.

spáchali väčšinu tých zločinov.

[Páchatelia: 93 % armáda, 3 % vzbúrenci, 4 % iní]

Now the families, they want information.

Rodiny obetí chcú odpovede.

They want to know what happened.

Chcú vedieť, čo sa stalo.

They want the bodies of their loved ones.

Chcú telá svojich milovaných.

But most of all, what they want is they want you,

Ale zo všetkého najviac chcú, aby ste vy

they want everyone to know that their loved ones did nothing wrong.

a celý svet vedeli, že ich blízki sa ničím neprevinili.

Now, my case was that my father received death threats in 1980.

Môjmu otcovi sa začali v roku 1980 vyhrážať smrťou.

And we left.

Odišli sme.

We left Guatemala and we came here.

Opustili sme Guatemalu a prišli sem.

So I grew up in New York,

Vyrastal som v New Yorku,

I grew up in Brooklyn as a matter of fact, and I went to New Utrecht High School

presnejšie v Brooklyne, na strednú som chodil na New Utrecht

and I graduated from Brooklyn College.

a na vysokú na Brooklyn College.

The only thing was that

Jedinou chybou bolo,

I really didn't know what was happening in Guatemala.

že som nevedel, čo sa v Guatemale deje.

I didn't care for it; it was too painful.

Neriešil som to, bolo to príliš bolestivé.

But it wasn't till 1995 that I decided to do something about it.

Až v roku 1995 som sa rozhodol niečo s tým urobiť.

So I went back.

Tak som sa vrátil.

I went back to Guatemala, to look for the bodies,

Šiel som do Guatemaly hľadať telá,

to understand what happened and to look for part of myself as well.

pochopiť, čo sa stalo, a tiež nájsť časť seba samého.

The way we work is that we give people information.

Naša práca spočíva v tom, že dávame ľuďom informácie.

We talk to the family members and we let them choose.

Rozprávame sa s rodinami obetí a dávame im na výber.

We let them decide to tell us the stories,

Oni rozhodnú, o aké príbehy sa s nami podelia,

to tell us what they saw,

či nám povedia, čo videli,

to tell us about their loved ones.

alebo porozprávajú o svojich milovaných.

And even more important,

A čo je najdôležitejšie,

we let them choose to give us a piece of themselves.

rozhodnú sa, či nám dajú kúsok seba.

A piece, an essence, of who they are.

Podstatu toho, čím sú.

And that DNA is what we're going to compare

My potom tieto vzorky DNA porovnávame

to the DNA that comes from the skeletons.

s DNA získanou z kostier.

While we're doing that, though, we're looking for the bodies.

Zároveň stále hľadáme telá.

And these are skeletons by now,

Dnes sú z nich kostry,

most of these crimes happened 32 years ago.

väčšina vrážd sa odohrala pred 32 rokmi.

When we find the grave,

Keď nájdeme hrob,

we take out the dirt and eventually clean the body, document it, and exhume it.

odhrabeme ho, očistíme telo, zdokumentujeme a exhumujeme ho.

We literally bring the skeleton out of the ground.

Doslova vytiahneme kostru zo zeme.

Once we have those bodies, though, we take them back to the city, to our lab,

Tieto telá prevezieme do mesta, do nášho laboratória,

and we begin a process of trying to understand mainly two things:

kde začne proces odhaľovania predovšetkým dvoch vecí.

One is how people died.

Po prvé, ako tí ľudia umreli.

So here you see a gunshot wound to the back of the head

Tu vidíte prestrelenú lebku odzadu

or a machete wound, for example.

alebo napríklad ranu mačetou.

The other thing we want to understand is who they are.

Po druhé, chceme zistiť, kto boli títo ľudia.

Whether it's a baby,

Či je to dieťa,

or an adult.

alebo dospelý.

Whether it's a woman or a man.

Či je to muž, alebo žena.

But when we're done with that analysis

Keď máme toto hotové,

what we'll do is we'll take a small fragment of the bone

odoberieme malú vzorku kosti

and we'll extract DNA from it.

a extrahujeme z nej DNA.

We'll take that DNA

Samozrejme preto,

and then we'll compare it with the DNA of the families, of course.

aby sme ju mohli porovnať s DNA pozostalých.

[DNA pozostalých – DNA obete]

The best way to explain this to you is by showing you two cases.

Najlepšie vám to vysvetlím na dvoch príkladoch.

The first is the case of the military diary.

V prvom ide o armádny denník.

Now this is a document that was smuggled out of somewhere in 1999.

Odniekiaľ ho prepašovali v roku 1999.

And what you see there is the state following individuals,

Sú v ňom záznamy o tom, ako štát sledoval svojich občanov,

people that, like you, wanted to change their country,

ľudí, ktorí, tak ako vy, chceli zmeniť svoju krajinu.

and they jotted everything down.

Viedli si o všetkom záznamy.

And one of the things that they wrote down is when they executed them.

Jedna z vecí, čo evidovali, je, kedy koho zabili.

Inside that yellow rectangle, you see a code,

V tom žltom rámiku vidíte kód,

it's a secret code: 300.

je to tajný kód: 300.

And then you see a date.

A pri ňom je dátum.

The 300 means "executed" and the date means when they were executed.

Tá 300 znamená „popravený“, s príslušným dátumom.

Now that's going to come into play in a second.

Za chvíľu uvidíte, akú to hrá v našom príbehu rolu.

What we did is we conducted an exhumation in 2003,

My sme v roku 2003 vykonali exhumáciu

where we exhumed 220 bodies from 53 graves in a military base.

220 tiel z 53 hrobov na jednej vojenskej základni.

Grave 9, though, matched the family of Sergio Saul Linares.

V hrobe číslo 9 sme identifikovali DNA Sergia Saula Linaresa.

Now Sergio was a professor at the university.

Sergio bol univerzitný profesor.

He graduted from Iowa State University

Vyštudoval na Iowa State University

and went back to Guatemala to change his country.

a vrátil sa do Guatemaly, aby pomohol zmeniť svoju vlasť.

And he was captured on February 23, 1984.

Zavreli ho 23. februára 1984.

And if you can see there, he was executed on March 29, 1984,

A ako vidíte, 29. marca 1984 bol popravený.

which was incredible.

To bolo neuveriteľné.

We had the body, we had the family's information and their DNA,

Mali sme telo, od jeho rodiny sme mali informácie aj DNA,

and now we have documents that told us exactly what happened.

a teraz máme aj dokumenty, ktoré presne popisujú, čo sa stalo.

But most important is about two weeks later,

Čo bolo dôležité, o dva týždne

we go another hit, another match

sme mali ďalší nález z rovnakého hrobu,

from the same grave to Amancio Villatoro.

The DNA of that body also matched the DNA of that family.

DNA z tela zodpovedala DNA jeho rodiny.

And then we noticed that he was also in the diary.

A potom sme si všimli, že on bol tiež v tom denníku.

But it was amazing to see that he was also executed on March 29, 1984.

Prekvapilo nás, že bol popravený tiež 29. marca 1984.

So that led us to think, hmm, how many bodies were in the grave?

Rozmýšľali sme takto: koľko tiel bolo v tom hrobe?

Six.

Šesť.

So then we said, how many people were executed on March 29, 1984?

A koľko ľudí podľa denníka popravili v ten deň?

That's right, six as well.

Sedí to, šesť.

So we have Juan de Dios, Hugo, Moises and Zoilo.

Takže ďalší budú Dios, Hugo, Moises a Zoilo.

All of them executed on the same date, all captured at different locations

Všetci popravení v rovnaký deň, každý zadržaný niekde inde a inokedy.

and at different moments.

All put in that grave.

Dali ich do jedného hrobu.

The only thing we needed now was the DNA of those four families

Potrebovali sme už len získať DNA tých štyroch zvyšných rodín.

So we went and we looked for them and we found them.

Začali sme po nich pátrať a našli sme ich.

And we identified those six bodies and gave them back to the families.

Takto sme identifikovali tých šesť tiel a vrátili ich rodinám.

The other case I want to tell you about

Druhý prípad, o ktorom budem rozprávať,

is that of a military base called CREOMPAZ.

sa týka vojenskej základne zvanej CREOMPAZ.

It actually means, "to believe in peace," but the acronym really means

Znamená to „verím v mier“, ale v skutočnosti je to akronym

Regional Command Center for Peacekeeping Operations.

Regionálneho veliteľstva pre mierové operácie.

And this is where the Guatemalan military trains peacekeepers from other countries,

Tam cvičí guatemalská armáda vojakov z iných krajín

the ones that serve with the U.N.

na misie OSN

and go to countries like Haiti and the Congo.

v ďalších krajinách ako je Haiti alebo Kongo.

Well, we have testimony that said that within this military base,

Mali sme svedectvo, že na tej základni

there were bodies, there were graves.

sa nachádzajú telá, hroby.

So we went in there with a search warrant and about two hours after we went in,

Získali sme príkaz na prehliadku a dve hodiny po príchode

we found the first of 84 graves, a total of 533 bodies.

sme našli prvý z 84 hrobov, spolu 533 tiel.

Now, if you think about that,

Keď sa nad tým zamyslíte,

peacekeepers being trained on top of bodies.

výcvik mierových síl nad telami mŕtvych,

It's very ironic.

to je irónia.

But the bodies -- face down, most of them, hands tied behind their backs,

Tieto telá – väčšina z nich tvárou dole, ruky zviazané za chrbtom,

blindfolded, all types of trauma --

zaviazané oči, všetky možné znaky násilia –

these were people who were defenseless who were being executed.

títo popravení boli úplne bezbranní.

People that 533 families are looking for.

Ľudia, ktorých hľadá 533 rodín.

So we're going to focus on Grave 15.

Zameriame sa na hrob číslo 15.

Grave 15, what we noticed, was a grave full of women and children,

Všimli sme si, že tento hrob bol plný žien a detí.

63 of them.

63 tiel.

And that immediately made us think,

Okamžite sme začali rozmýšľať,

my goodness, where is there a case like this?

preboha, čo to mohlo byť za prípad?

When I got to Guatemala in 1995,

Keď som v roku 1995 prišiel do Guatemaly,

I heard of a case of a massacre that happened on May 14, 1982,

počul som o masakri zo 14. mája 1982,

where the army came in, killed the men,

keď prišla armáda, pozabíjala mužov

and took the women and children in helicopters to an unknown location.

a ženy s deťmi naložila do helikoptér a odviezla neznámo kam.

Hádajte.

Well, guess what?

The clothing from this grave matched the clothing from the region

Vzorky oblečenia z tohto hrobu zodpovedajú odevom z regiónu,

where these people were taken from,

odkiaľ boli unesení tí ľudia,

where these women and children were taken from.

tie ženy a deti.

So we conducted some DNA analysis, and guess what?

Takže sme spravili DNA analýzu a, áno,

We identified Martina Rojas and Manuel Chen.

identifikovali sme Martinu Rojas a Manuela Chena.

Both of them disappeared in that case, and now we could prove it.

Obaja zmizli pri tom incidente a teraz sa to dokázalo.

We have physical evidence that proves that this happened

Máme fyzický dôkaz, že sa to naozaj stalo

and that those people were taken to this base.

a že tých ľudí odviezli na túto základňu.

Now, Manuel Chen was three years old.

Manuel Chen mal tri roky.

His mother went to the river to wash clothes, and she left him with a neighbor.

Jeho mama išla s bielizňou k rieke a nechala ho so susedkou.

That's when the army came

Práve vtedy tam vtrhla armáda,

and that's when he was taken away in a helicopter and never seen again

naložila ho do helikoptéry a už ho nikdy nikto nevidel,

until we found him in Grave 15.

až kým sme ho nenašli v hrobe číslo 15.

So now with science, with archaeology, with anthropology, with genetics,

Takže dnes pomocou vedy, archeológie, antropológie a genetiky

what we're doing is, we're giving a voice to the voiceless.

dávame hlas nemým.

But we're doing more than that.

A robíme ešte niečo.

We're actually providing evidence for trials,

Poskytujeme súdom usvedčujúce dôkazy

like the genocide trial that happened last year in Guatemala

v procesoch, akým bol aj ten minuloročný v Guatemale,

where General Ríos Montt was found guilty of genocide and sentenced to 80 years.

v ktorom za genocídu odsúdili generála Ríosa Montta na 80 rokov.

So I came here to tell you today that this is happening everywhere --

Dnes som vám prišiel povedať, že toto sa deje všade –

it's happening in Mexico right in front of us today --

v Mexiku sa to deje priamo pred našimi očami

and we can't let it go on anymore.

a nemôžeme to nechať len tak.

We have to now come together and decide

Musíme sa spojiť a rozhodnúť,

that we're not going to have any more missing.

že už nebudú žiadni ďalší zmiznutí.

So no more missing, guys.

Žiadni zmiznutí, vážení.

Okay? No more missing.

OK? Žiadni zmiznutí.

Thank you.

Ďakujem.

(Applause)

(potlesk)