Annual Report: 1991
Full Annual Report 1991 (4.3 MB)
The team completed 90% of the excavation on Sector 134 of the Avellaneda cemetery, located in the outskirts of the city of Buenos Aires, in which disappeared people were buried in a series of common graves between 1976 and 1978. EAAF recovered so far 302 individuals many of whom are supposed to correspond to disappeared people.
In 1991, the laboratory work was still in its early stages. However, three disappeared people were identified within the recovered remains from Avellaneda: Luis Adolfo Jaramillo, Maria Adela Garin and Lidia Massironi de Perdoni. EAAF continued the historical research related with the identity of these individuals.
The team also worked on the Miguel Angel Morello case at the Lomas de Zamora cemetery.
Academic activities: The team conducted a seminar at the University of Buenos Aires, and hosted five foreign students through academic exchange with EAAF.
The team also positively identified the remains of Luis Adolfo Jaramillo, Marie Adelia Garin and Lidia Massironi de Perdoni, all of whom disappeared during the last military government and were found in the Avellaneda cemetery.
Guatemala
During 1991, the team conducted two missions to Guatemala. The first was at the invitation of the Mutual Support Group (GAM) to serve as international consultants in forensics for the Investigative Commission on the Disappeared. On its second trip, and at the request of CONAVIGUA, the Confederation of Widow of Guatemala, the team also conducted training seminars aiming to formed a local forensic team and exhumed three common graves in Chontala, Quiche.
El Salvador
In 1991, the team was invited by three committees of the disappeared, CO-MADRES, COMAFAC, and CODEFAM and the American Association for the Advancement of Science to plan forensic projects in El Salvador and discuss the training of a Salvadoran forensic anthropology team. The team also began initial discussions with Tutela Legal about serving as expert witnesses in the case of the "El Mozote" massacre, in which at least 792 people were killed in an offensive in December, 1981. More than 40% of those murdered were under ten years old.
Colombia
The team was invited by the Association of Relatives of the Disappeared (ASFADES) to conduct several training seminars with government officials, lawyers, archaeologists, doctors, sociologists and anthropologists. The team also held a workshop with families of the disappeared from around the country. Finally, the team met with human rights organizations and lawyers working on the case of the takeover of the National Palace in 1985, in which several judges were killed and many people were disappeared, to discuss the possibility of participating in investigations related to the case.
Brazil
The team conducted training and provided technical assistance to a local non-governmental organization in Rio de Janeiro, "Tortura-Nunca Mais" (Torture-Never Again), on the exhumation of 14 political prisoners who were kidnapped or killed between 1970 and 1974 and whose bodies were in a common grave.
Chile
The team participated in the Annual Latin American Congress of FEDEFAM (Federation of Associations of the Detained and Disappeared in Latin America) in Santiago, Chile. The team presented a paper on their work throughout Central and South America.
The team began using DNA recovered from skeletal material - important for many forensic cases. The team cooperated with a laboratory in England.
