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

Prevodilac: Aleksandar Kovačević Lektor: Miloš Milosavljević

Guatemala is recovering from a 36-year armed conflict.

Gvatemala se oporavlja od sukoba koji je trajao 36 godina

A conflict that was fought during the Cold War.

i koji se vodio tokom Hladnog rata.

It was really just a small leftist insurgency

Radi se o manjoj levičarskoj pobuni

and a devastating response by the state.

na koju je vlada razorno reagovala.

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

Posledica ovoga je 200.000 žrtava civila,

160,000 of those killed in the communities:

od kojih je 160.000 ubijeno u naseljima:

small children, men, women, the elderly even.

mala deca, muškarci, žene, čak i stari.

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

Pored toga, imamo 40.000 nestalih,

the ones we're still looking for today.

za kojima i danas tragamo.

We call them the Desaparecidos.

Zovemo ih ,,Desaparecidos''.

Now, 83 percent of the victims are Mayan victims,

83% žrtava je majanskog porekla,

victims that are the descendants

potomci urođenika

of the original inhabitants of Central America.

Centralne Amerike.

And only about 17 percent are of European descent.

Svega oko 17% je evropskog porekla.

But the most important thing here is that

Ali najvažnije od svega je

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

da su oni koji su trebali da nas brane - policija i vojska -

are the ones that committed most of the crimes.

upravo počinili većinu tih zločina.

Now the families, they want information.

Porodicama stradalih trebaju informacije.

They want to know what happened.

Žele da znaju šta se dogodilo.

They want the bodies of their loved ones.

Žele da nađu tela svojih najbližih.

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

Ali pre svega žele da vi,

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

a i svi ostali znaju da njihovi najmiliji nisu ništa skrivili.

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

U mom slučaju, otac je 1980. dobijao pretnje smrću,

And we left.

pa smo otišli.

We left Guatemala and we came here.

Otišli iz Gvatemale i došli ovamo.

So I grew up in New York,

Odrastao sam u Njujorku,

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

zapravo u Bruklinu; tu sam pohađao srednju školu Nju Utreht

and I graduated from Brooklyn College.

i diplomirao na Bruklinskom koledžu.

The only thing was that

Jedini je problem

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

što nisam zapravo znao šta se dešava u Gvatemali.

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

Nisam želeo da znam; bilo je previše bolno.

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

Tek sam 1995. godine odlučio da učinim nešto po tom pitanju.

So I went back.

Zato sam se vratio.

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

Vratio sam se u Gvatemalu kako bih pronašao tela,

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

shvatio šta se dogodilo, ali i pronašao deo sebe.

The way we work is that we give people information.

To postižemo tako što ljudima pružamo informacije.

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

Razgovaramo sa članovima porodica i puštamo ih da izaberu.

We let them decide to tell us the stories,

Mogu da izaberu da nam kažu šta se desilo,

to tell us what they saw,

da nam kažu šta su videli,

to tell us about their loved ones.

da nam pričaju o svojim najmilijima.

And even more important,

I, što je važnije,

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

mogu da izaberu da nam daju deo sebe.

A piece, an essence, of who they are.

Deo, suštinu, onoga što jesu.

And that DNA is what we're going to compare

A tu DNK zatim poredimo

to the DNA that comes from the skeletons.

sa DNK iz kostura.

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

U isto vreme tražimo nova tela.

And these are skeletons by now,

Od njih su sad ostali samo kosturi,

most of these crimes happened 32 years ago.

pošto se većina zločina desila pre 32 godine.

When we find the grave,

Kada pronađemo grobnicu,

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

uklanjamo zemlju dok ne očistimo telo, zabeležimo ga i iskopamo.

We literally bring the skeleton out of the ground.

Bukvalno vadimo kosture iz zemlje.

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

Nakon što pronađemo tela, vraćamo ih u grad, u laboratoriju,

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

i pokušavamo da utvrdimo dve glavne stvari:

One is how people died.

prva je način na koji su umrli.

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

Ovde se vidi prostrelna rana na potiljku,

or a machete wound, for example.

ili na primer, rana od mačete.

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

Zatim pokušavamo da otkrijemo ko je u pitanju.

Whether it's a baby,

Da li je beba

or an adult.

ili odrasla osoba,

Whether it's a woman or a man.

muškarac ili žena.

But when we're done with that analysis

Kada to utvrdimo,

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

uzimamo malo parče kosti

and we'll extract DNA from it.

i iz njega vadimo DNK.

We'll take that DNA

Naravno, tu DNK

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

zatim poredimo sa DNK porodica žrtava.

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

Ovo ću vam najbolje objasniti ako vam pokažem dva slučaja.

The first is the case of the military diary.

Prvi slučaj se odnosi na vojni dnevnik.

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

Ovaj dokument je odnekud prokrijumčaren 1999. godine.

And what you see there is the state following individuals,

Vidi se da je država pratila pojedine ljude

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

koji su, poput vas, želeli da promene svoju zemlju,

and they jotted everything down.

i da su zapisivali sve o njima.

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

Između ostalog su zapisali i kad su ih pogubili.

Inside that yellow rectangle, you see a code,

U žutom pravougaoniku se nalazi šifra,

it's a secret code: 300.

tajna šifra: 300.

And then you see a date.

A uz nju je datum.

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

300 znači da su pogubljeni, a datum je datum pogubljenja.

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

Na to ćemo se brzo vratiti.

What we did is we conducted an exhumation in 2003,

Godine 2003, vršili smo iskopavanja

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

prilikom kojih smo u jednoj vojnoj bazi pronašli 220 tela u 53 grobnice.

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

Grob 9 se poklopio sa porodicom Serhia Saul Linaresa.

Now Sergio was a professor at the university.

Serhio je bio profesor na univerzitetu.

He graduted from Iowa State University

Diplomirao je na Državnom Univerzitetu u Ajovi,

and went back to Guatemala to change his country.

a zatim se vratio u Gvatemalu kako bi je promenio.

And he was captured on February 23, 1984.

Zarobljen je 23. februara 1984.

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

A tu se vidi, pogubljen je 29. marta 1984.

which was incredible.

Neverovatna je stvar

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

da smo imali telo, podatke o porodici i DNK,

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

a sada i dokumenta koja opisuju šta se desilo.

But most important is about two weeks later,

Najvažnije je da je dve nedelje kasnije

we go another hit, another match

došlo do novog poklapanja iz iste grobnice,

from the same grave to Amancio Villatoro.

sada sa Amansiom Viljatorom.

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

DNK sa tela se ponovo poklopila sa DNK porodice.

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

A onda smo primetili da je i on u dnevniku.

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

Zanimljivo je bilo videti da je i on bio pogubljen 29. marta 1984.

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

To nas je nateralo da se zapitamo: koliko tela ima u grobnici?

Six.

Šest.

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

Zatim smo proverili koliko je njih pogubljeno 29. marta 1984.

That's right, six as well.

Tako je, takođe šest.

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

To su još Huan de Dios, Ugo, Moises i Soilo.

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

Svi su pogubljeni istog dana, a uhvaćeni na različitim mestima

and at different moments.

u različito vreme.

All put in that grave.

Svi u istom grobu.

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

Sad nam je trebala jedino DNK te četiri porodice.

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

Zato smo ih potražili i na kraju i pronašli.

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

Identifikovali smo svih šest tela i vratili ih porodicama.

The other case I want to tell you about

Drugi slučaj se odnosi

is that of a military base called CREOMPAZ.

na vojnu bazu CREOMPAZ.

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

Ime baze znači ,,verovati u mir'', a istovremeno je skraćenica za

Regional Command Center for Peacekeeping Operations.

Regionalni centar za komandu mirovnim operacijama.

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

Tu vojska Gvatemale obučava mirovne trupe iz drugih zemalja

the ones that serve with the U.N.

koje služe pri U.N.

and go to countries like Haiti and the Congo.

i deluju u državama poput Haitija i Konga.

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

Primili smo svedočenja koja kažu da se unutar baze

there were bodies, there were graves.

nalaze tela i grobnice.

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

Otišli smo sa nalogom za pretres i nakon dva sata

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

smo pronašli prvu od 84 grobnice, sa ukupno 533 tela.

Now, if you think about that,

Kada pogledate,

peacekeepers being trained on top of bodies.

mirotvorce obučavaju na masovnim grobnicama.

It's very ironic.

Vrlo ironično.

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

Ta tela - većina okrenuta licem ka zemlji, sa rukama vezanim iza leđa,

blindfolded, all types of trauma --

povezima na očima, raznim vrstama povreda -

these were people who were defenseless who were being executed.

to su bespomoćni ljudi koji su pogubljeni.

People that 533 families are looking for.

Ljudi za kojima tragaju 533 porodice.

So we're going to focus on Grave 15.

Bavićemo se Grobnicom 15.

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

Primetili smo da je Grobnica 15 puna žena i dece,

63 of them.

ukupno 63-je.

And that immediately made us think,

To nas je odmah nateralo da se zapitamo

my goodness, where is there a case like this?

odakle takav slučaj.

When I got to Guatemala in 1995,

Godine 1995, kada sam stigao u Gvatemalu,

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

čuo sam za masakr koji se dogodio 14. maja 1982. godine,

where the army came in, killed the men,

kada je vojska došla, pobila muškarce,

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

a žene i decu helikopterima odvela na nepoznato mesto.

Well, guess what?

The clothing from this grave matched the clothing from the region

Ali zamislite ovo:

odeća iz grobnice se poklapala sa nošnjom iz oblasti

where these people were taken from,

odakle su nestali,

where these women and children were taken from.

odakle su oteti te žene i deca.

So we conducted some DNA analysis, and guess what?

Izvršili smo analizu DNK i uspeli

We identified Martina Rojas and Manuel Chen.

da identifikujemo Martinu Rohas i Manuela Čena.

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

Oboje su nestali za vreme masakra, a sad smo to i dokazali.

We have physical evidence that proves that this happened

Našli smo materijalne dokaze da se to dogodilo

and that those people were taken to this base.

i da su te ljude odveli u ovu bazu.

Now, Manuel Chen was three years old.

Manuel Čen je imao tri godine.

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

Njegova majka je otišla do reke da opere veš, a njega je ostavila kod suseda.

That's when the army came

Onda je došla vojska,

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

koja ga je odvela u helikopteru i više ga niko nije video

until we found him in Grave 15.

dok ga nismo pronašli u Grobnici 15.

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

Sada, uz pomoć nauke, arheologije, antropologije, genetike

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

uspevamo da damo glas onima koji ga nemaju.

But we're doing more than that.

Ali radimo i više od toga.

We're actually providing evidence for trials,

Uspevamo da pronađemo dokaze za suđenja,

like the genocide trial that happened last year in Guatemala

poput prošlogodišnjeg suđenja za genocid,

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

kad je general Rios Mont osuđen na 80 godina.

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

Danas sam tu da bih vam rekao da se ovakve stvari svuda dešavaju -

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

upravo sada se tako nešto dešava u Meksiku -

and we can't let it go on anymore.

i ne smemo da dopustimo da se nastavi.

We have to now come together and decide

Moramo da budemo jedinstveni u odluci

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

da više neće biti nestalih.

So no more missing, guys.

Dakle, nema nestalih.

Okay? No more missing.

Okej? Nema nestalih.

Thank you.

Hvala vam.

(Applause)

(Aplauz)