In the 70s, dictators left in Latin America the opposition “disappear”. Today, the Mexican Mafia and the Syrian resume secret service, the perfidious method. The tough fight against a war crime.
Missing: The 43 students after the massacre of Iguala, 2014 in Mexico
During the military dictatorship in Argentina (1976 to 1983) and “disappeared” thousands of civilians. They were dropped abducted, tortured, their bodies over the sea. Also in El Salvador or in Chile under the dictator Augusto Pinochet (1973 to 1990) was one of the “disappearance” of the strategy of dictators to weaken the population.
In North Africa the French have applied this terrorist method in the Algerian war, to the fight against resistance groups. Not only the Disappeared were the victims, but also their families. You don’t know still today, what happened to their relatives.
Historically, the national socialists have practiced this perfidious method for the first Time. With the so-called “night-and-fog decree” of Hitler of 7. December 1941 was created the basis for this is to kidnap the French and the nationals have fought against the Germans during the Second world war, from the occupied Western countries. The Nazis wanted to avoid that opposition members have been celebrated as a Martyr.
UN Convention lacks restraint
At the Nuremberg trials, the method was classified as a war crime. However, it took until 2006 to the United Nations (UN) adopted a “Convention against the disappearance”, and the theme is also officially part of its human rights policy. In 2010, the UN established in Geneva einBüro for the “UN Committee against disappearance”.
The German expert Rainer Huhle is a champion for the search of “Disappeared” and the fight against war crimes
However, the implementation of the Convention is difficult to know how to a meeting at the Federal foreign office in Berlin was because it is only 59 States have ratified the Convention so far. “Disappear” even today, thousands of civilians. The Problem has returned, under different assumptions on the political Agenda.
Example of Mexico: For years, American country disappear in the Latin girls and young women – probably in order to exploit them sexually. According to the Mexican national missing persons authority, lacking any trace of approximately 37,000 citizens.
Another example relates to Syria: Amnesty International has documented in the war-torn country since 2011, the systematic “disappearance” of people by Syrian intelligence services.
“Private Kidnappers”
How many victims there are worldwide currently, there are no Numbers. The German Rainer Huhle was one of the defining actors of 2010 established the UN Committee against enforced disappearances in Geneva . There is a new “dynamism,” he warned looking at the conference “Lost and found” at the Federal foreign office in Berlin.
Roundtable on “Disappeared” in Colombia in the foreign office
During the military dictatorships in the 70s and 80s have disappeared in Latin America, especially the publicly known members of the opposition”,” says Huhle. Today, members of social groups were affected. There is more private “kidnappers”.
The new cases increased the horror and loose to make. “In the past, the family members of the victims knew at least why the relatives of the ‘disappeared’ were so terrible this was,” says Huhle. “Now the reasons for the disappearance are not ‘understandable”.
Huhle took advantage of his appearance in Berlin for an appeal to the German policy: “to disappear no offence in Germany” criticized Huhle. This is actually a “Standard recommendation”. The Federal government, but argue that all the circumstances of the “Disappearances” were already under punishment. The Committee see it differently, so Huhle.
German aid to Colombia
The human rights representative of the Federal government, Bärbel Kofler, promised at the meeting, international for more acceptance for the UN to advertise the Convention. Why is this sometimes difficult, explained to conference participants from Pakistan and the Region. There, the Convention would often come up against rejection, because it would be interpreted as “Western Dominance test”.
Bärbel Kofler, Commissioner for human rights and Humanitarian aid
The conference was organized in Berlin by the German foreign office, highlighted many of the 150 participants from different countries. Networking and Best Practice, the objectives of the conference were of Central importance. How to care for the families of the victims, and not involved? How can databases to build? Who can help with the projects? How can perpetrators be prosecuted?
Germany also helps in the framework of the German society for International cooperation (GIZ) – for example, in Colombia. There, project staff, members of the family in the strategic search of the “Missing schools” and support you psychologically.
The decades-long civil war in Colombia, despite a truce in 2016 is still not finished, said the GIZ staff member Carolina Puerton Valdivieso at a Roundtable. Still, the activists would be threatened. Now could be sought, thanks to the project groups together with the judiciary, doctors and NGOs systematically according to the Victims. Even if the search remains unsuccessful, can it be said that the family will at least be that “everything was done that was possible”.