MEXICO CITY – If there’s a nonetheless open wound in Latin America, it’s that of the tens of thousands of disappeared people and decades-long ache that has gathered in components of the area akin to Mexico and Colombia.
Two visions of the trauma had a central position on the 97th Academy Awards: the Brazilian movie “Ainda Estou Aqui” (“I’m Still Here”), which tells the drama of the household of a leftist former congressman who disappeared in 1971 on the peak of the navy dictatorship; and the musical “Emilia Pérez,” a couple of fictional Mexican drug lord who leaves a lifetime of crime to develop into a transgender girl and searcher for the disappeared in Mexico.
“We hope that on this manner the society can be sensitized,” stated activist Indira Navarro, who directs the Guerreros Buscadores de Jalisco collective in Mexico and has been trying to find her brother, who disappeared within the northern state of Sonora 9 years in the past.
The Academy Awards’ recognition of the movies, each of which had been nominated in a number of classes, was an unparalleled alternative to make the issue seen, Navarro stated.
“I’m Nonetheless Right here,” by Brazilian Walter Salles, gained the Oscar within the class of greatest worldwide movie. “Emilia Pérez”, by famend French director Jacques Audiard, was this yr’s most-nominated movie and gained within the classes of greatest authentic track and best supporting actress for Zoe Saldaña.
Salles and Audiard’s movies additionally had a standard denominator of disappearances in Latin America: impunity.
The story behind ‘I’m Nonetheless Right here’
“I’m Nonetheless Right here” was impressed by the guide “Ainda Estou Aqui” by Marcelo Rubens Paiva, son of the disappeared former congressman Rubens Paiva. Greater than 5 many years after he was taken from his Rio de Janeiro house and disappeared, none of these answerable for Paiva’s case have been held accountable.
His widow, Eunice, and their 5 kids have sought justice for years. His household needed to wait 40 years to obtain his dying certificates and even longer for the authorities to acknowledge that he, like others, died within the context of the violence of the navy dictatorship.
Salles, accepting the award, stated from the Oscars stage: “This goes to a lady who, after a loss suffered throughout an authoritarian regime, determined to not bend and to withstand…Her identify is Eunice Paiva.”
Marcelo Rubens Paiva informed The Related Press of the affect of the Oscars recognition: “Individuals in all places are afraid of watching their democracies develop into dictatorships… This film glorifies democracy and the understanding that human rights, empathy are in brief provide.”
The disappeared in Mexico
Within the case of “Emilia Pérez” the central character, a drug trafficker nicknamed Manitas del Monte ( Karla Sofia Gascón ), tries to vindicate his years as a prison in search of disappeared folks together with lawyer Rita Castro (Saldaña). He by no means pays for his crimes nor are these answerable for disappearances held accountable earlier than the Mexican justice system.
That’s similar to the fact in Mexico, the place in keeping with official figures there are at the moment 123,147 disappeared.
The United Nations Committee on Enforced Disappearances acknowledged in a report it introduced in April 2022, after a go to to Mexico, that solely between 2% and 6% of circumstances of disappearances had been prosecuted.
“Organized crime has develop into a central perpetrator of disappearances in Mexico, with various levels of participation, acquiescence or omission of public servants,” the committee stated.
The phenomenon of disappearances in Mexico started within the Sixties, however the numbers skyrocketed from the 2000s with the rise in drug trafficking actions and the warfare towards cartels undertaken by the federal government of then-President Felipe Calderón (2006-2012).
In Mexico the seek for many disappeared rests on the shoulders of their relatives who, with scarce sources and with out safety from the authorities, enter areas managed by criminals to seek for their family members.
That’s true for Navarro, who spoke Monday whereas looking a grave in western state of Jalisco that she and different activists positioned. She stated she hopes the Oscars will function “a wake-up name for the entire world and to know what we’re actually experiencing right here in Mexico.”
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