Annual Report: 1992
Full Annual Report 1992 (2.6 MB)
The team continued its work on the Avellaneda case, in which at least 220 people were buried in several mass graves of Sector 134 of the Municipal Cemetery outside of Buenos Aires. The team also worked on the Colonia Montes de Oca case, in which a decomposed body was found on the grounds of an institution for people with mental disabilities several weeks after a 16-year old patient disappeared.
The Association of Relatives of the Disappeared Detainees and Martyrs for National Liberation of Bolivia (ASOFAMD) requested technical assistance from EAAF in the so-called, "Trial of Responsibilities"-- cases related to the former military dictatorship from 1980-1981, serving as expert witnesses and conducting an exhumation and analysis of remains.
The team continued its work with Tutela Legal on the El Mozote case, one of the most severe cases of human rights violations that occurred during El Salvador's 12-year civil war. In a first mission, members of the team participated were nominated as expert witnesses in the judicial case opened in the province of Morazán, but did not obtain permission to begin exhumations.
The team interviewed family members of victims to gather testimonies, conducted an intensive seminar on forensic anthropology for judges, government officials, committees of families of the disappeared, members of non-governmental organizations and forensic experts from all over the country.
In a second mission, the team served as technical consultants for the United Nations Truth Commission and began started excavations, discovering more than 141 skeletons inside of one site, from which 134 corresponded to children under 10 years of age, as well as substantial bullet fragments and spent gun cartridges. The team provided a report with its findings to the court in Morazán and to the United Nations Commission on the Truth.
At the request of the Popular Committee for Human Rights in Panama (COPODEHUPA), the team investigated the case of the disappearance of Marlene Mendizabal and Enrique Falconnet, politically active university students who were disappeared in 1976.
EAAF participated in an intensive training program for local anthropologists and students to form a local forensic anthropology team in order to investigate the numerous cases of disappearance and mass killings during the internal conflict, which included classroom work, exhumations, and laboratory work for three clandestine mass graves in the department of Santa Cruz del Quiche.
EAAF participated in a mission organized by Physicians for Human Rights to conduct a preliminary investigation of a mass grave in Ovcara, near Vukovar, Croatia. The grave was thought to contain the remains of staff and patient from the Vukovar Hospital. The mission operated under the auspices of the United Nations Commission of Experts investigating human rights and humanitarian law violations in the former Yugoslavia. The team also collaborated with the Joint Commission to Trace Missing Persons and Mortal Remains in Zagreb, which was working to exchange information about missing persons during the war.
The team participated in an international delegation organized by Middle East Watch and Physicians for Human Rights to investigate human rights violations committed in 1988 against the Kurdish population by the central Iraqi government. The team focused primarily on the massacre in the village of Koreme in 1988, in which at least 33 men were summarily executed-part of the estimated 60,000-80,000 people who disappeared and /or were summarily executed in the so-called "Anfal campaign," a military operation against the Kurdish population. The team also exhumed remains f victims that reportedly died due to the action chemical weapons in the hamlet of Birjinni , and others that allegedly died out of starvation in the Beharke and Jeznikam camps, all incidents of the same Anfal campaign.
The team commissioned a book on EAAF's work in Argentina. Tumbas Anónimas was written by Mauricio Cohen Salama and underwritten by the Ford Foundation. The team also attended several human rights coferences in Europe and met with European non-governmental human rights organizations and foundations.
