Latin American Madness

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It’s finally Spring here on the other side of the world. After beginning with heavy showers, the latter half of the week produced a series of sunny days, each warmer than the last. This week has been particularly “Latin American” for me, and I wanted to share a few of the details:

On Friday night there was a really large demonstration in the main plaza downtown with thousands of people protesting the disappearance of a witness, Jorge Julio Lopez, in the recent trial of the former BA police chief responsible for kidnapping and torturing hundreds of people during Argentina’s military dictatorship. The trial was the first to hold any of the upper echelons of power accountable for an estimated 30,000 kidnappings and deaths since most of those responsible were let free under an amnesty law passed during the final days of the dictatorship. That law was recently ruled unconstitutional by the Argentine Supreme Court since it was passed by the coercive military government. Jorge Julio Lopez was a key witness in the recent trial that lead to the conviction and life-term for the former police chief of Buenos Aires. Days after testifying, Lopez disappeared and has been missing for over two weeks. For most Argentines, these are eerily similar details to the crimes that occurred during the dictatorship and it’s giving many citizens an opportunity to reflect on just how secure their democracy is. This time, however, almost nobody believes that Lopez’s disappearance has anything to do with the government, and in fact, the provincial government of Buenos Aires has lead a massive search effort. What’s also different from last time is that the Argentine people are reacting in mass to the scary circumstances. Thousands of protesters, lead by human rights groups and families who had victims during the dictatorship, gathered together in front of the President’s office to protest Lopez’s disappearance. Many fear that his disappearance/death is meant to intimidate people to stop the trials as well as to intimidate potential witnesses in those cases.

On a lighter note, because it was so beautiful out today, my friend Kim and I took a long walk through the city that lead us to Buenos Aires’ equivalent of Central Park. The walk was really nice. On the way, while crossing one of the city’s major streets, we heard lots of honking, screaming, a helicopter was flying over head, and we didn’t know what was going on. Soon we realized, after seeing dozens of people waiving the colors of one of the two BA soccer teams, Boca Juniors, this had something to do with a soccer match. After a few minutes, a police motorcade roared by to cheers (and jeers) as a bus load of the team’s players made its way across town to play the other major BA soccer team, River Plate, in their annual match. After the bus full of players passed, then the madness really started when dozens of public busses, with crazy fans literally hanging out of every window and door, slowly drove by to deliver Boca’s most faithful fans to the game. The rivalry between the two teams is legendary, and nobody in the city stays neutral. Boca Juniors, famous for producing Maradona, is located in one of the city’s poorest neighborhoods and its fans are known for being particularly rowdy and violent. River Plate on the other hand is located in one of the city’s best neighborhoods and it’s fans are much more tame.
We caught this crazy scene just by chance, and it really was crazy, but after living months here and seeing World Cup madness, it also wasn’t too surprising. The game ended a few hours ago with a 3-1 River victory, I can still hear lots of cars’ celebratory honking outside.

Meanwhile, at a party last night, I hung out with a Panamanian, Costa Rican, Puerto Rican, Ecuadorian, and an Argentine. Pretty good mix.

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