Del sacrificio impuesto al sacrificio voluntario. Una contribución para el análisis de la violencia y la muerte en la Guerra de Malvinas

Abstract

Resumen Es muy común encontrar en los testimonios de ex-combatientes o familiares de caídos de la Guerra de Malvinas (1982) la referencia explícita o implícita al sacrificio en el campo de batalla. Sin embargo, lo que se entiende por sacrificio o los sentidos dados al hecho no son los mismos en todos los casos. En este texto voy a proponer una tipología de sacrifico para entender el sentido que se la da a la muerte en la Guerra de Malvinas por diferentes actores sociales. Para ello, en una primera instancia, retomaré los aportes que se hicieron desde las ciencias sociales acerca del sacrificio. Luego, desde una perspectiva antropológica trataré los casos aquí analizados a partir del trabajo de campo realizado durante más de 10 años de investigación, y estableceré una vinculación entre sacrificio y violencia. En este sentido, vamos a analizar los diferentes sentidos otorgados a los muertos a partir de la interpretación dada al sacrifico y su específica relación con los significados acerca de la violencia en la guerra en el marco de la última dictadura militar en la Argentina.

Inhabiting Death in the Presence of the Body: Challenges of Exhumation in the Case of the Malvinas War

“…A number of studies that explore the idea of martyrdom (Burucúa and Kwiatkowski, 2014; Guber, 2016) can help us understand the perspective of relatives whose narratives allow us to relate the figure of the hero to that of the martyr. Although in the case of the Malvinas War the categories of hero and martyr are often interlinked (Guber, 2016) in a way that hero and victim are not (Panizo, 2019), in other contexts, such as the disappearances during the military dictatorship, the categories of martyr and victim can go together. María Soledad Catoggio's study on victims of state terrorism among the Argentinian clergy suggests that a common thread in the responses of religious victims was a belief in the figure of the martyr (Catoggio, 2016: 147–198).…”

“…They become sacred spaces where the dead can be venerated ‘like saints’ and a place for prayer and supplication: ‘To me, they are saints … hence the altar … and I swear they help us’ (Nely, interview 28 October 2009). Thus, the category of hero as applied to the Malvinas dead not only refers to a patriotic and sacrificial act, but to the process of sanctification initiated by their relatives (Panizo, 2011; 2019). It therefore refers to a construct created by the state and reconceptualised by relatives.…”

“…The second ceremony was to place a figure of the Virgin of Luján in the cemetery (the figure of the Virgin of Luján was donated to the Commission in 2002 by the Episcopate of Mercedes and played a role in all of its activities before being taken to Darwin). Again, a Catholic priest said mass while relatives approached the figure to pay tribute, say goodbye and leave an offering to the Virgin and to the fallen (Panizo, 2011(Panizo, , 2019. They were also invited to leave personal belongings in a transparent urn: 'At that moment, I could have torn out my heart and left it there.…”

“…Among these heterogeneous groups, dotted all across Argentina, the Centro de Ex combatientes de La Plata (CECIM, La Plata Malvinas Veterans' Centre) has a close affinity with human rights organisations and focuses on considering those who fought in the conflict as victims (Panizo, 2011(Panizo, , 2019. It has a long history of working to pursue investigations into the torture and mistreatment inflicted on soldiers by their superiors during the conflict (including estaqueamientos, 1 abandonment, starvation and servitude).…”

“…When Argentina surrendered in June 1982, bringing an end to a conflict that had cost the lives of 649 Argentinian troops, the territory remained under British control, as it is today. Six months later, on 17 January 1983, since the Argentinian government had done nothing to ‘repatriate’ (as the British saw it) the bodies of the fallen, the British proceeded to exhume the remains of Argentinian troops buried on the battlefield by their fellow soldiers (Panizo, 2019). The bodies were then placed in coffins and reburied two kilometres from Port Darwin, where the Argentine cemetery was laid out.…”