{"id":53,"date":"2021-03-04T17:49:14","date_gmt":"2021-03-04T20:49:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/institutomesa.org\/revistamesa\/edicoes\/6\/vidas-mortes-escondidas-rumo-a-uma-ontologia-do-desaparecimento-forcado-no-chile-ditatorial\/"},"modified":"2021-04-12T14:26:25","modified_gmt":"2021-04-12T17:26:25","slug":"vidas-mortes-escondidas-rumo-a-uma-ontologia-do-desaparecimento-forcado-no-chile-ditatorial","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/institutomesa.org\/revistamesa\/edicoes\/6\/vidas-mortes-escondidas-rumo-a-uma-ontologia-do-desaparecimento-forcado-no-chile-ditatorial\/?lang=en","title":{"rendered":"Hidden Lives \/ Deaths: Towards an Ontology of Forced Disappearance in Dictatorial Chile"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Patio 29, General Cemetery<\/em>, Chile, 2019. Photo: Javiera Santos Pizarro.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Hidden Lives \/ Deaths: Towards an Ontology of Forced Disappearance in Dictatorial Chile1<\/sup><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Jos\u00e9 Santos Herceg<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

The hidden confronts us with a very particular modality of being. It puts us in front of a different ontological scenario. The hidden is not there but it supposedly continues to exist, so it is expected to be found; to be present again. It is not perceived \u2013 it cannot be seen, it cannot be smelled, it cannot be touched \u2013 it has been covered up, it is concealed. It is beyond the senses; it is missing. Its ontological disappearance has not been corroborated; in fact, it is assumed that it continues to exist, that it continues being. Thus, it is searched for. A search that can be extended in time, even forever, when what is not there has ceased to exist without being acknowledged. The hidden can also not-be, but in this case, it will not be known; it cannot be known since it is not there. It is not in sight and, therefore, it may still exist or not: the hidden is located between the presumed being and the possible non-being.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The enforced disappearance of people shares this anomalous ontological condition with the action of hiding. Hiding is, in fact, an essential element of this crime, the “concealment of the whereabouts of the disappeared person” as defined in Article 2 of the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance.<\/em>2<\/sup> In what follows, this essay will address different moments of enforced disappearance by paradigmatically observing the Chilean case. Some of these moments are temporarily distinguished \u2013 before or after \u2013 some others are not: they are simultaneous, but they can always be ontologically individualized. They are moments of an ontological variation. They are different “scenes” of the disappearance of being.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Being that Ceases to be Present: Hiding Life<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Detained by agents of the security forces, people are taken from their homes, from the streets, from their work with deception and above all, violence. Ibar Aibar narrates in his testimony: \u201cAs soon as I half-opened the door \u2014a mad group of policemen covering their heads with combat helmets, bulletproof vests, and sophisticated weaponry\u2014 furiously pounced on me. They took me by the neck, dragged me outside the house, and brutally threw me on the ground.\u201d3<\/sup> The beating is a constant in the capture story, as corroborated by those who experienced it: \u201c[I] was beaten mercilessly with the butts of their machine guns, without any regard, while my face and body bled profusely.”4<\/sup> The vehicles were ready outside. The truck, says Cassasus speaking of his capture, \u201cmoved as the grim reaper does when it goes to look for those who are going to die. In silence and in the dark.\u201d5 <\/sup>Everything was fast and efficient. Everything was brutal. Tato Ayress writes: “[t]hey pushed our resistant bodies toward a truck, they pushed us into it …”6<\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once in the vehicle, their eyes are covered \u2013 the entrance into the world of shadows. Getting into the transport, they tell Manuel Ahumada: “\u2013’Hey dude, close your eyes and don’t turn your head”. I was not able to close them completely when I was blinded by a piece of insulating tape that went two or three times over my head. Suddenly, I went into the world of darkness, one that I would leave only occasionally during the following days.\u201d7 <\/sup>Raided, beaten and blinded, they are taken from their homes and separated from their families, from their lives. They never know where they are being taken. No information is given to anyone. Their fate is unknown: the dictatorship has hidden them. They are gone, but they are supposed to continue to exist: they are disappeared<\/em>.  Here, one could speak of being in the mode of non-being present. The detainees remain beings, they are likely still alive, but they are no longer in sight. Their disappearance is, at the moment, only sensory: they escape the sphere of perception. They can no longer be seen because their location is unknown, because they are hidden.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Being Missed: Infinite Movement<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Two days after the coup, with the curfew lifted for a few hours, the presumed mourners go out looking for the missing ones. They leave their young children with their female neighbors. They walk the blocks that separate them from the first police station or military quarter. They ask and get no answer. They are expelled without explanation. Like frightened rabbits they huddle together, one, two and three. People say over there … mass graves, hospital … they say over here … Public Assistance, morgue. They set routes and follow them exactly. Another regiment, a new barracks. Prefectures, Headquarters. Police stations.8<\/sup><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

As soon as the disappearance is announced, partners, sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, begin the search. Alejandro Witker says that \u201cwomen ran from one military office to another, gathering news about the transfer of prisoners, many of which are permanent or temporary disappearances; inquiring after us, they even reached the morgue.\u201d9 <\/sup>Juan del Valle details his wife’s journey looking for him through barracks, military regiments, hospitals, morgues, and even cemeteries.10<\/sup> He says that she always found the same answer: \u201cNo, ma’am; There is no one here with that name.\u201d11 <\/sup>Hundreds, thousands were looking for the disappeared and received no response. Many of them found only mistreatment, but still did not give up. Rolando Carrasco says that \u201cSome are beaten and others arrested. And there are those who receive a shot in response. But more appear.\u201d12<\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

When they finally managed to find their missing ones, they settled outside, like a scab, a cordon that surrounded the enclosures, asking, demanding. Family members besieged the places, even the most remote ones, forming true “hives”, as Carrasco13<\/sup> says. However, this external contingent was changeable. The detainees never stayed long in one place, as soon as they are found, they are transferred: they are hidden again, they change their hiding place. Similarly, the relatives were moving, continuing with the search. The mode of being of those who were hidden by the dictatorship is that of being missed.<\/em> Being missed infinitely and tirelessly is what characterizes the ontological condition of the disappeared. They are, from the beginning, until today, the missing<\/em>. You look for what you hope to find, what you dream of finding. The search presumes the existence of what is being missed. There is no reason to search for what is known as non-existent. As long as they are only hidden, the search persists … the hope persists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To Be not Being: To be a Disappeared Person<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

They go from “being missing” to “being a disappeared person.” A condition, a state of things, it becomes a definition; it becomes the mode of existence: disappeared-detainee<\/em>. Estella Schindel clearly sees this shift when analyzing the Argentine press. The first detainees are missing, with time they become disappeared, a transit that family members also go through. There is a jump from being a relative of someone who is missing to being a relative of someone who is a disappeared person. Gatti rightly points out that \u201cto disappear is not conjugated together with the verb to be [in the sense of being present]; it is something that affects the verb to be [in the sense of existing].\u201d14<\/sup> The disappeared people are not only disappeared, but also become disappeared, thereby configuring a particular \u201cmode of being\u201d or, as Gatti says, a \u201cnew state of being\u201d, one that is between life and death, of which it is not known whether they are alive or dead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To be in the “absence” mode is characteristic of this mode of being of the disappeared. Absent presence. The disappeared one, says G\u00f3mez Mango, is “always present in the absence itself.”15<\/sup>Lack, deprivation, emptiness is the mode of being of the disappeared person. It is hollow, blank, an abandoned place. “The truth is that what remains after the disappearance seems to be a void (or emptied outness), an absence.”16<\/sup> But the absence is nothing; it is actually void. As Maillard says, “It is, without a doubt, quite different to say that ‘there is nothing here’ than to say ‘here is nothing.'”17<\/sup> The absence that the disappeared one embodies has its own consistency, it exists, for “The existent has many faces (the visible, the normal, the present) and opposite faces (the invisible, the abnormal, the absent)”18<\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Their absence \u2013 absence in general \u2013 terrifies us, we do not know how to deal with it: timor vacui<\/em>. “In the West at least, absence is excommunicated and when we face it we react with dread, we deny it, and we seek to fill it with meaning.”19<\/sup> The disappeared person brings horror and pain. To be in the mode of so-called \u201cbad absence.\u201d The absence of the disappeared person is not just any absence; it is a bad absence. \u201cIt is an absence that hurts, but worst, because it is a bad absence \u2013 unexpected, catastrophic, sudden, violent \u2013 that is managed with difficulty and leaves those who suffer it in individual and collective states for which there are few instructions, for it affects everything: things, evidence, words, language, images.”20<\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Non-being that is not Present: Hiding Death<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

An ex-agent who delivers his version of events affirms that he worked in the Toucan Brigade under the command of Carabineros<\/em> colonel Germ\u00e1n Barriga Mu\u00f1oz and that in 1976 he had to tie Marta Ugarte Rom\u00e1n with wires to a piece of train rail, and later put her on a Puma Army helicopter. The machine \u2013 with a pilot, copilot, and an agent \u2013 headed towards the coast to throw its “luggage” into the sea.21<\/sup><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The detainees are assassinated, they die and their bodies are removed at night, stealthily, without anyone noticing. In some cases, they are destroyed. The hidden is not only the body, as a track or trace, but death itself. Their deaths are hidden; their non-being is hidden. Absence can only be a hiding place: outside perception, beyond sight. At first, the existence of what is hidden is assumed. It is possible, however, that something ceases to be while it is hidden and its disappearance becomes ontological, that it ceases to be without being known. Its final disappearance is not revealed. What has ceased to be is hidden: the non-being is hidden.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Patio 29, General Cemetery<\/em>, Chile, 2019. Photo: Javiera Santos Pizarro.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Referring to forced disappearance, Paz Rojas points out that there are many people involved in the execution, but a central role is played by “… those who decided how and where to hide or destroy the bodies.”22<\/sup> The first concealments were clandestine burials such as those carried out in Patio 29 of the General Cemetery. The General Cemetery was a hiding place, the bodies were hidden there; death was hidden there. This was not, however, the only hiding place used in the dictatorship. Hornos de L\u00f3nqu\u00e9n, Cuesta Barriga, Atacama Deserts, hills, military quarters, Pisagua, etc. There are also bodies hidden under water: some of them thrown into rivers, others into the sea. The first days of the Coup were marked by inexperience and recklessness, but “the technique was perfected to the highest levels of concealment, perversion, and cruelty.”23<\/sup> A plan was devised to hide what was already hidden, to make the disappeared ones disappear. The so-called \u201cRetiro de televisores\u201d [Retreat of televisions] consisted of digging up the bodies hidden in the ground and throwing them into the sea. As Paz Rojas says, “The bodies of those thrown into the sea disappeared for the second time permanently.”24<\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

To make someone disappear completely is to remove them from being. \u201cTo make someone disappear, in the literal sense of the word, consists in erasing an existence, not only making their body disappear but also eliminating their entire existence. In other words, to pretend \u2018as if they were never born.\u2019”25<\/sup> Paz Rojas mentions how existence is interrupted by killing even death itself.26<\/sup> The deaths are hidden again, later, behind the pacts (pact of silence, transitional pacts), denials, false information, half-hearted justice (as far as possible) and, of course, the Truth Commissions, the demand for reconciliation, and the endless and tortuous judicial processes. The result is almost fifty years of silence. The disappeared people do not appear; death is still hidden. Hiding is a permanent action: what is hidden remains hidden. Disappearance is a “crime of continuing offence” as Paz Rojas says.27<\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Being and Non-being: Ontological Paradox<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The disappeared, as long as they remain as such, are unknown. If the man appeared he would have an X treatment, and if the appearance became a certainty of his death, he would have a Z treatment. But as long as he is disappeared he cannot have any special treatment, he is unknown, he is a missing person, he has no entity, he is \u2026 neither dead nor alive, he is disappeared.28<\/sup><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

This famous statement by the former Argentine dictator has a clear ontological character. A disappeared person is an “unknown” says Videla, “has no entity.” Neither alive nor dead. Paz Roja rightly points out that “they modified what is impossible and unthinkable in the human, the non-death.”29 <\/sup>Mar\u00eda Jos\u00e9 L\u00f3pez explains this “non-death” very well when she alludes to the fact that “… the \u2018disappeared\u2019 is an inmate who has been killed, but around whom has been generated the conditions of unreality about that death, making it ambiguous. This is a person whose death is always presumed, supposed, we only know that we lost track of them\u201d.30 <\/sup>L\u00f3pez speaks of “obstruction of death.”31<\/sup> Death remains trapped, blocked; it cannot appear or manifest itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An ontological ambiguity: to be and not to be. Between life and death. Without entirely being, the complete non-being escapes from it. It is unknown if they live, or if they have died. Death, then, does not reach reality, it is only a conjecture: there is no evidence, there is no record, there is no body. Family members \u201cwill never accept death; and if they accept it, it will be a hidden death, unknown, without a thing, without a corpse, without remains, without places, without dates, without time.\u201d32<\/sup> To hide death is to hold in life, or rather, to hold in the non-death.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Paz Rojas refers to the case of Estela, whose father has disappeared. \u201cA strange thing happens to me: for me he was dead, but then he is not; in my thoughts, in my conscience and also in my desires, he is alive.\u201d33<\/sup> She explains: “My ambivalence was so distressing, so distressing, like feeling that he was dead, but at the same time not accepting that he had died.”34 <\/sup>“Because deep down you have nothing, neither life, nor death, only nothingness, a void.”35<\/sup> The researcher points out that in the course of her work with families there is uncertainty and especially ambivalence: “death is at times accepted, but immediately questioned or denied.”36 <\/sup>Simultaneous but contradictory feelings: “the wish that they are alive with the almost inexorable feeling that they are possibly dead.”37<\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The ontological condition of the disappeared is the paradox: a paradoxical absence. The disappeared are and are-not at the same time and with respect to the same: they are and are not alive; they are and are not dead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Non-being Missed: Inhabiting Grieving<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Mirna Schindler: Today the body of Bautista van Schouwen was found in Patio 29, what do you think about this?<\/p>

Augusto Pinochet: Did they find it? I congratulate the body seekers.<\/p>

MS: What do you think about two corpses being found in one grave?<\/p>

AP: What a great economy!38<\/sup><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

“Body seekers” is the expression used by the dictator Pinochet. An ironic, aggressive, contemptuous, and deeply despicable expression, but nonetheless true. This is the condition of the women who sweep the Atacama Desert looking for remains of the bones of their loved ones, but also of all those who, still today, ask about the whereabouts of their relatives. \u201cMore than forty years after the first cases of disappearances in Chile, the question that their relatives have asked time and again, the fundamental question, where are they? is still relevant and there is still no answer.\u201d39<\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Patio 29, General Cemetery<\/em>, Chile, 2019. Photo: Javiera Santos Pizarro.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

What is missed is no longer life, it is rather a proof, a vestige that indicates the actual death: a way out of the paradox. Only in this way, it has been said, can there be closure and acceptance of what is only supposed, intuited, deduced, but from which there is no certainty. For the relatives “death, if it occurred, was hidden, painful, humiliating, and above all unknown and therefore cannot be accepted as the end of the life.”40<\/sup> If death is not certain, there is no possible closure to the grieving process. This process, as an elaboration of loss, would begin, according to Rojas, after the death of a loved one. There is no certain death in the case of the disappeared. Grieving, therefore, would be impossible. There is, however, an uncertain, presumed, probable death. Starting grieving seems possible. Finishing it, however, is not possible \u201c\u2026 in the families of disappeared detainees, there will always be a controversy between life and death, because neither the continuation of life nor death have been confirmed. Therefore, the grieving process is stopped, suspended in time.\u201d41<\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Family members inhabit grieving: as Gatti and his team say, “the grieving, that hole, is habitable, it is even permanently so.”42 <\/sup>They live in a process of mourning that never ends, a permanent and endless process of pain and uncertainty. One that does not end because rituals [of closure] are not possible. “In the presence of disappearance and the unknown, the rituals of death are absent and therefore there is no mourning or elaboration of it, both in the family and in society.”43<\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

What Remains of Non-being: The Belongings<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The disappeared person always leaves something<\/em> behind when they leave the realm of what is perceived. Traces of their presence, residues, vestiges. They can no longer be seen, but there are their belongings: their clothes, their pencils, their photos, their room … The frame, the space, and the place remain, although the subject that filled it disappears. Everything that remains is filled with what is no longer there: these are their<\/em> belongings; this is their<\/em> place. They are traces, materiality in which a life, now absent, has been impregnated. A life that can be rebuilt from  objects. “The daughters often undertake the task of reconstructing the story of the disappeared father in the few material remains left by him, such as clothes, books, documents, and photographs.”44<\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is hidden is not seen, but remains, appearing in materialities tinged with presence. Seeing them, feeling their smell, entering\/passing by brings the missing person to the present. Rosario says: \u201cFor me this is one thing … An unforgettable memory, a really sad memory, and we still live in the same neighborhood, in the same place, I walk the roads they walked every day, I live in the same vineyards; I look, and I think I see them\u2026\u201d45<\/sup> In the same sense, Doris says that \u201cOn the Christmases that I have spent alone, I have set the table, I have laid out the tablecloth. So, I don’t cry. I feel like I’m with my children.\u201d46 <\/sup>Photographs have a special place in the set of this materiality. They reproduce the face of the one who is no longer there. “By bringing together a set of distinctive features of the person, the face enables a singling out and, printed in a photograph, allows it to be seen again and again, in the form of an image that updates their presence.”47<\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The materiality that remains makes the reality of the absence present: it makes it clear that the loved person no longer there<\/em> is missing. They show <\/em>the non-being. “Life has exuded its presence in materiality that, now, gives account for the absence.”48<\/sup> The void left by the disappeared person is framed by what remains;<\/ins> as a kind of negative definition that shapes the person\u2019s contours, bringing complete absence to presence. This materiality also manifests the possibility of a kind of reappearance, the reconstitution of the bond. Materiality maintains the hope of return and reunion. “If absence is a defining characteristic of disappearance, the material singularities that are left behind are as much a testimony of violent erasure as a testimony of a possible means \u2013 always fully unrealizable \u2013, of the return or connection with the disappeared person.49<\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Material things evoke and summon the disappeared person, hence the refusal to modify them, to eliminate them. Family members keep the belongings, they do not change places: everything remains as it was on the day of the disappearance. However, everything starts to acquire other values, new meanings over time. Doris says:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sometimes I feel alone in a huge house. But I keep company with the things that belonged to them, their poncho, their jacket \u2013 the combat jacket \u2013,  boots. A little picture, there it is; the hat of my son who worked with the peasants is a farmer\u2019s hat, there it is; a plow, a yoke, stirrups, drawings. I have all that with me, because if on my table there is a piece of cutlery of one of them, there are also dishes from the other. To me, now the house is a sanctuary.50<\/sup><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Non-being that is Represented: The Paradox of Appearing<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Altares de la Ausencia<\/em> [Altars of Absence] by Gast\u00f3n Salas is “… a photographic project based on certain particular objects that relatives of disappeared detainees keep in private, intent on visually representing the most terrible events in our recent history.”51 <\/sup>There are no longer objects but [rather] their representation. The absence is still present, in its representation: in all its representations. Being without being present: being in the mode of non-being. There are many gestures, aesthetic proposals, actions that occurred and continue occurring.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

La cueca sola <\/em>[The solo cueca]: \u200b\u200bsince 1978 mothers, wives, sisters, and daughters have danced this typical couple dance of Chilean folklore, but in the absence of their partner.52<\/sup> El siluetazo<\/em> [The great silhouette]: 1983, in Buenos Aires, human silhouettes are painted throughout the city, one for each disappeared person.53 <\/sup>Vivos Recuerdos<\/em> [Living Memories]: an exhibition that shows how 10 disappeared people from the Chilean dictatorship might look like today.54<\/sup> Gustavo Germano’s Desaparecidos <\/em>[The Disappeared]: recreates daily situations and scenes before the disappearance, returning to photography, now without the disappeared.55 <\/sup>Arqueolog\u00eda de la ausencia <\/em>[Archeology of absence] by Lucila Quieto:56<\/sup> recreates an impossible photo album in which she appears with her disappeared father.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Representation of absence: Lefebvre’s paradox. “The absence? How to represent it when the representation fills the voids of absence?”57 <\/sup>Representation tends to cancel absence; it occupies its non-being with represented-being. There is no longer a void, there is no longer nothingness, now there is a representation that fills the space, that fills the gap. The disappeared person disappears twice when represented: they disappear and so does their absence. It is present now as a representation. The permanent existence of the disappeared. Non-being is there; it is in its representation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Non-being that Exists without Being Present: Spectral Apparition<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Mar\u00eda Jos\u00e9 L\u00f3pez points out that \u201c[t]he disappeared, at least following the Chilean experience, never completely disappear, they remain in a symbolic way as a political figure that constantly \u2018reappears\u2019 in the community, as a pending task, as the remainder of a crime not completely solved.”58<\/sup> They [spectrally] reappear on the day of the disappeared detainee, they do so in each photo pasted on the chest of a relative, in Human Rights demonstrations. They occupy their place in public space as motives and as a symbol of a relentless struggle to find their whereabouts, to find out the truth, to achieve justice. \u201cBut a missing person is much more than a symbol. A disappeared person [\u2026] let’s call them a reappeared, is the interpellation and urgency of justice as an inalienable gesture\u2026\u201d59<\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The reappearance of the disappeared is a ghostly one. “The ghost is the mark of impossible mourning, necessarily impossible, that prevents removing the absent ones from the scene, to the point that every present becomes a present besieged by those presences-absences that glide ghostly.”60<\/sup> The mode of being of the one who is not, of inhabiting of the one who does not inhabit, of existing of the one who does not exist is, according to Derrida, “a haunting.”61 <\/sup>The ghosts of the disappeared reappear insistently. “Visit upon visit, since [they] return to see us and since visitare,<\/em> frequentative of visere<\/em> (to see, examine, contemplate), translates well the recurrence or returning, the frequency of a visitation.”62<\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

But besieging is not just coming back, reappearing again and again, but it is also, above all, doing it with a demand. They return tirelessly because something is wrong, because something is not in its place, because there is an error, an offense, a crime that has thrown everything out of balance, that has driven the world crazy. The spectrum accuses that there is a dislocation, that something is out of place and that it must be readjusted. Derrida speaks about specters directing \u201cdemands.\u201d63<\/sup> As in every horror story, as in the oldest of all, that of Atenodoro recounted by Pliny the Younger, a ghost is only conjured if it is confronted and its demands are attended to. \u201cSeeing the ghost is not enough. You have to listen to it and follow its disaggregated notes. Let it speak.\u201d64 <\/sup>But “to let it express, it is necessary to see it and recognize it as a ghost.”65<\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Almost being Present of the Non-being: Frustrated Finding<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

What is not present could appear. That which has not disappeared ontologically, could appear before the eyes at any moment. About the detainees, there is no information, and yet the search continues. Along the way there is hope, expectations … there are many almost<\/em> discoveries, almost<\/em> apparitions. After it became known that there were executions and clandestine burials in Cuesta Barriga, the judge in charge of the cases moved there to direct the excavations. Paz Rojas says that the family members attended for sixty three days in a row. “In the suffocating heat, they accompanied the work in the mine and waited with the patience and pain accumulated for almost twenty five years.”66<\/sup> Finally, the excavations were suspended as it was found that there were no bodies … Nothing was found.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are findings that are only traces, traces that do not lead to a specific appearance. Judge Guzm\u00e1n’s investigation took him to the sea in Quinteros. The divers dove and found the reported train rails. Finally, a button from one of them is found as irrefutable proof: people had been thrown into the sea there. But who were the “buried” under the sea: whose button was that? They, the almost,<\/em> also express themselves when what is found is not much, when the trace is so negligible that it does not lead to what has disappeared. Estela says: \u201cWe asked the doctor of the Legal Medical Service for the certainty of his death, because those bits of bones that they presented to us did not allow us to consider him dead and to this day and despite everything, we cannot say that he is dead.\u201d67<\/sup> This almost<\/em> could be due to inexperience or lack of will. The achievements of the Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team show that in Chile, many times, it has not been possible because it has not been willed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are others almost<\/em> by wrong attribution. As in some cases of error by the Chilean Medical Legal Institute: \u201cin some cases a great mistake happened, heartbreaking, and alienating, not to say maddening. The relatives had accepted with difficulty that it was no longer a matter of finding them alive, but that they had been found dead and somehow, at last, they had begun their grieving process. But the dead were not their dead: their remains did not belong to their relatives.\u201d68<\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Non-being that is There: Finding the (Non)death<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Appear, from the Latin apparescere<\/em>: \u201cto put in sight\u201d, “to make visible”. To come out of hiding, bring to light. Sensory apparition. It is seen; it is felt. To reappear: to come back, to return. Reappearing has to do with finding the lost, finding the hidden. But the found is not the same that was lost. The disappeared detainees who return are no longer the same. What has been found, many times, are only the remains<\/em>, appearing as a non-being of the loved one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No longer as you were. Nobody is the same again after having disappeared, after been a disappeared person. Everything has changed; neither the city is the same, or their lives. Everything has changed forever. The reappeared are, in many ways, like the walking dead: like zombies. Undead but not alive either. Social outcasts suspected of treason, without financial resources, without political support, ostensibly traumatized … Their lives no longer exist. The only alternative was, many times, to disappear again: exile.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To be what was left. A corpse, only bones, even a portion of the body of the disappeared person causes their reapparition. A non-being that appears and alleviates. \u201cFinding their children, the remains, however terrible this may be \u2013 as it is a confirmation of death that appears ambiguously considered \u2013 is a truth that is widely needed. Finding it at least, because it was something you had, a story, but not knowing is also terrible, because death is, at least, REAL.\u201d69 <\/sup>A heartbreaking, hopeless reappearance. Rosario says: \u201c[I] meditated after the discovery: looking for them for so long and they were so close. It was so terrible, I always gave myself hope thinking they could be out there, that they could arrive on any given day; I used to live with that uncertainty and sometimes it gave me hope; I used to think one thing and then another. Then everything fell apart.\u201d70<\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Scenes for an Ontology of Disappearance<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Being that ceases to be present: hiding life<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Being missed: Infinite movement<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To be not being: to be a disappeared person<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Non-being that is not present: hiding death<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Being and non-being: ontological paradox<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Non-being missed: inhabiting grieving<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What remains of non-being: the belongings<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Non-being that is represented: the paradox of appearing<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Non-being that exists without being present: spectral apparition<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Almost being present of the non-being: frustrated finding<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Non-being that is there: finding the (non)death<\/p>\n\n\n\n

***<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jos\u00e9 Santos Herceg<\/em><\/strong>
Holds a graduate degree in philosophy from Pontif\u00edcia Universidade Cat\u00f3lica do Chile and a doctorate in philosophy from Universit\u00e4t Konstanz, Germany. Currently he is a researcher at the Instituto de Estudos Avan\u00e7ados (IDEA), Universidade de Santiago do Chile. He is author of the following publications: Conflicto de Representaciones. Am\u00e9rica Latina como lugar para la filosof\u00eda<\/em> (2010), Cartograf\u00eda Cr\u00edtica. El quehacer profesional de la filosof\u00eda en Chile<\/em> (2015), Lugares espectrales. Topolog\u00eda testimonial de la prisi\u00f3n pol\u00edtica en Chile,<\/em> (2019), and La Tiran\u00eda del paper: de lamercantilizaci\u00f3n a la normalizaci\u00f3n de las textualidades <\/em>(2020).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Email: jose.santos@usach.cl<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1<\/sup> This text is part the research project Tortura: concepto y experiencia <\/em>(Fondecyt 118001, 2018-2020)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2 <\/sup>UN (September 22nd, 2006).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

3<\/sup> Ibar Aibar, Sol y cielo abonaron mis sue\u00f1os infinitos (Santiago de Chile: Emege Comunicaciones, 2002), 142.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

4  <\/sup>Ibid., 144.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

5<\/sup> Juan Casassus, Camino en la oscuridad<\/em> (Santiago de Chile: Editorial Debate, 2013), 19.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

6 <\/sup>Moreno Ayress, Tato Carlos. Sobrevivientes. Un suceso posterior al golpe pinochetista<\/em> (La Habana: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales, 2008), 14.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

7<\/sup> Lillo Manuel Ahumada. Testimonio: Cerro Chena – un campo de prisioneros <\/em>(Santiago de Chile: Leonardo Sep\u00falveda producciones gr\u00e1ficas, 2011), 67.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

8 <\/sup>Rolando Carrasco, Prigu\u00e9<\/em> (Santiago de Chile: Ediciones Aqu\u00ed y Ahora, 1991) [1\u00aa Edic. Mosc\u00fa: Novosti, 1977), 58-59.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

9 <\/sup>Alejandro Witker, Chile; Prisi\u00f3n en Chile <\/em>(M\u00e9xico: FCE, 1975), 32.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

10<\/sup> Juan Del Valle, Campos de concentraci\u00f3n, Chile 1973-1976<\/em> (Santiago de Chile: Mosquito ediciones, 1997), 53.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

11<\/sup> Ibid., 54.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

12<\/sup> Carrasco, Ibid., 59.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

13 <\/sup>Ibid.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

14 <\/sup>Gabriel Gatti, \u201cEl lenguaje de las v\u00edctimas: silencios (ruidosos) y parodias (serias) para hablar (sin hacerlo) de la desaparici\u00f3n forzada de personas\u201d. Universitas Human\u00edstica, n\u00fam. 72 (2011): 99.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

15 <\/sup>Mango, E. G\u00f3mez, El llamado de los desaparecidos. Sobre la poes\u00eda de Juan Gelman.<\/em> (Montevideo: Cal y Canto, 2004), 17.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

16<\/sup> David Casado-Neira, Alejandro Castillejo-Cu\u00e9llar, Paola D\u00edaz y Ivana Ruiz-Estramil. \u201cMaterializando la desaparici\u00f3n: la singularidad de sus cosas\u201d. O\u00f1ati Socio-legal Series<\/em> [online], 9 (2) (2018): 240.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

17<\/sup> Chantal Maillard. \u201cApuntar al blanco: El vac\u00edo y su representaci\u00f3n\u201d. Contra el arte y otras imposturas<\/em>. (Valencia: Pre-Textos, 2009), 96.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

18 <\/sup>Gabriel Gatti, Jaume Peris, I\u00f1aki Robles, Silvia Rodr\u00edguez, y Ram\u00f3n S\u00e1ez. \u201cRegreso al vac\u00edo: sobre ausencia y desaparici\u00f3n social\u201d. O\u00f1ati Socio-legal Series<\/em> 9 (2) (2018): 188.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

19<\/sup> Ibid., 186.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

20<\/sup> Ibid., 186.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

21<\/sup> Julio Garc\u00eda Oliva, \u201cYo lanc\u00e9 prisioneros al mar\u201d. El Siglo<\/em>. 16 de octubre (2004).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

22<\/sup> Rojas, Paz. La interminable usencia<\/em>. (Santiago de Chile: LOM, 2009), 117.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

23<\/sup> Ibid., 117.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

24<\/sup> Ibid., 108.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

25<\/sup> Mar\u00eda Jos\u00e9 L\u00f3pez, \u201cEl \u201cdesaparecido\u201d como sujeto pol\u00edtico: una lectura desde Arendt\u201d. Franciscanum <\/em>164, Vol. VII (2015): 85.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

26<\/sup> Rojas, 10.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

27<\/sup> Ibid., 181.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

28<\/sup> Jorge Videla, Press conference, question by Jos\u00e9 Ignacio L\u00f3pez. (1979)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

29<\/sup> Rojas, 107.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

30<\/sup> L\u00f3pez, 80.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

31<\/sup> Ibid., 81.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

32<\/sup> Rojas, 105.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

33<\/sup> Ibid., 76.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

34<\/sup> Ibid., 80.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

35<\/sup> Ibid., 85.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

36 <\/sup>Ibid., 56.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

37<\/sup> Ibid., 104.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

38 <\/sup>Augusto Pinochet, Press conference, question by  Mirna Schindler. (1991).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

39<\/sup> L\u00f3pez, 89.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

40<\/sup> Rojas, 105.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

41<\/sup> Ibid., 102.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

42<\/sup> Gatti et al., 193.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

43<\/sup> Rojas, 104.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

44<\/sup> Ximena Fa\u00fandez, B\u00e1rbara Azc\u00e1rraga, Carolina Benavente y Manuel C\u00e1rdenas, \u201cLa desaparici\u00f3n forzada de personas a cuarenta a\u00f1os del Golpe de Estado en Chile: un acercamiento a la dimensi\u00f3n familiar\u201d. Revista Colombiana de Psicolog\u00eda<\/em>, 27 (2017): 95.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

45 <\/sup>Rosario Rojas, Rosa Soto., Ana \u00c1lvarez, Paulina Mart\u00ednez, Doris Meniconi, Norma Matus, \u00c1ngeles \u00c1lvarez, y Viviana D\u00edaz, Memorias contra el olvido,<\/em> (Santiago de Chile: Amerindia, 1987).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

46<\/sup> Ibid., 159.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

47<\/sup> Fa\u00fandez et al., 95.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

48<\/sup> Casado-Neira et al., 241.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

49<\/sup> Ibid., 241.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

50<\/sup> Rojas et al., 159.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

51<\/sup> http:\/\/parquecultural.cl\/web\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/Dossier-Los-Altares-de-la-Ausencia.-.pdf<\/p>\n\n\n\n

52 <\/sup>See: Milena Gallardo and Tania Medalla, \u201cPara una pol\u00edtica de la insistencia: trayectorias y desplazamientos de la Cueca Sola en Chile (1978-2019)\u201d. \u00cdndex. Revista de arte contempor\u00e1neo<\/em>. N\u00ba.8 (2019): 192-200.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

53<\/sup> See: Ana Longoni and Bruzone, Gustavo Bruzone eds. El Siluetazo<\/em>. (Buenos Aires: Adriana Hidalgo editora, 2008).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

54 <\/sup>The producers Wolff BCPP, Ojo de Buey, SalaM\u00e1gica and the musician Dar\u00edo Segui were venid the exhibition. https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?time_continue=4&v=XDu0XcjBvTA&feature=emb_logo<\/p>\n\n\n\n

55<\/sup> https:\/\/culturainquieta.com\/es\/inspiring\/item\/7759-ausencias-impactante-proyecto-fotografico-sobre-los-desaparecidos-de-argentina.html<\/p>\n\n\n\n

56<\/sup>  The series is available online: http:\/\/www.me.gov.ar\/<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

57 <\/sup>Henri Lefebvre, La presencia y la ausencia: Contribuci\u00f3n a la teor\u00eda de las representaciones<\/em>. O. Barahona y U. Doyhamboure (Trad.). (Ciudad de M\u00e9xico: Fondo de Cultura Econ\u00f3mica, 1980). 257.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

58<\/sup> L\u00f3pez, 87.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

59<\/sup> Mar\u00eda Marta Quintana and Monteser\u00edn, Hector Eduardo. \u201cDiapositivas espectrales. Fragmentos para una interpretaci\u00f3n de las desapariciones (o de lo siniestro fantasm\u00e1tico), Pasado Por-venir\u201d. Revista de historia<\/em> A\u00f1o 5, N\u00ba5 (2010-2011): 201.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

60<\/sup>  Ibid., 201.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

61<\/sup> Jacques Derrida, Espectros de Marx: El estado de la deuda, el trabajo del duelo y la nueva internacional.<\/em> Alarc\u00f3n, Jos\u00e9 Miguel y Cristina de Peretti (Trad.). (Madrid: Editorial Nacional, 2002). 36. [T.N. The citation used here is from the English translation, Jacques Derrida, Specters of Marx: The State of the Debt, the Work of Mouring and the New International<\/em>, trans. Peggy Kamuf (New York\/London: Routledge 1994), 126.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

62 <\/sup> Ibid., 20<\/p>\n\n\n\n

63<\/sup> Ibid., 21.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

64 <\/sup>Ana Carrasco, Presencias irReales: Simulacros, espectros y construcci\u00f3n de realidades<\/em>. (Madrid: Plaza y Vald\u00e9s, 2017), 211.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

65<\/sup>  Ibid., 224.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

66<\/sup>  Rojas, 83.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

67<\/sup> Ibid., 85.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

68 <\/sup> Ibid, 109.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

69<\/sup> Ang\u00e9lica Pizarro and Ingrid Wittebroodt, \u201cLa Impunidad. Efectos en la elaboraci\u00f3n del duelo en madres de detenidos desaparecidos\u201d. Castalia. Revista de Psicolog\u00eda de la Academia<\/em> N\u00ba3 (2002): 132.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

70<\/sup> Rojas et al., 54.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hidden Lives \/ Deaths: Towards an Ontology of Forced Disappearance in Dictatorial Chile1 Jos\u00e9 Santos Herceg The hidden confronts us with a very particular modality of being. It puts us […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/institutomesa.org\/revistamesa\/edicoes\/6\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/53\/?lang=en"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/institutomesa.org\/revistamesa\/edicoes\/6\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/?lang=en"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/institutomesa.org\/revistamesa\/edicoes\/6\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page\/?lang=en"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/institutomesa.org\/revistamesa\/edicoes\/6\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1\/?lang=en"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/institutomesa.org\/revistamesa\/edicoes\/6\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments\/?lang=en&post=53"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/institutomesa.org\/revistamesa\/edicoes\/6\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/53\/revisions\/?lang=en"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3407,"href":"https:\/\/institutomesa.org\/revistamesa\/edicoes\/6\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/53\/revisions\/3407\/?lang=en"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/institutomesa.org\/revistamesa\/edicoes\/6\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/?lang=en&parent=53"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}