Adolfo Pérez Esquivel | |
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.jpg) Pérez Esquivel in 2023 | |
| Born | (1931-11-26)26 November 1931 (age 93) Buenos Aires, Argentina |
| Alma mater | National University of La Plata |
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Adolfo Pérez Esquivel (born 26 November 1931) is an Argentine activist, community organizer, painter, writer and sculptor. He was the recipient of the 1980Nobel Peace Prize for his opposition toArgentina's last civil-military dictatorship (1976–1983), during which he was detained, tortured, and held without trial for 14 months. He also received, among other distinctions, thePacem in Terris Award.[1]
Pérez Esquivel was born inBuenos Aires on 26 November 1931[1] to a Spanish fisherman fromPoio,Galicia, who emigrated to Argentina. His mother died when he was three, and despite his poverty, he attended theManuel Belgrano School of Fine Arts and theNational University of La Plata, where he was trained as a painter and sculptor.[2] He was appointed professor of architecture and worked with a variety ofsculptural media, and for 25 years taught in all levels from primary to university. Pérez Esquivel began working with popularly based Latin AmericanChristian pacifist groups during the 1960s. He relinquished his teaching post in 1974, when he was chosen as coordinator general for a network of Latin America-based communities promotingliberation of the poor throughnon-violence.[1]
When systematic repression followed theMarch 1976 coup, which brought the dictatorship of GeneralJorge Videla to power, Pérez Esquivel contributed to the formation and financing of the linkages between popularly based organizations to defendhuman rights in Argentina and support the families of the victims of theDirty War. TheNGOServicio Paz y Justicia ("Service, Peace and Justice Foundation", or SERPAJ), which he co-founded in 1974, and served as an instrument for the defense of human rights by promoting an international campaign to denounce the atrocities committed bythe military regime.[3] SERPAJ is a member of theInternational Fellowship of Reconciliation (IFOR), which supported Esquivel's work from the beginning.[a]
Pérez Esquivel was detained by theBrazilian Military Police in 1975. He was jailed in 1976 in Ecuador, along with Latin American and North American bishops. He was detained in Buenos Aires in 1977 by theArgentine Federal Police, tortured, and held without trial for 14 months; during that, he received, among other distinctions, thePope John XXIII Peace Memorial.[1]
Nominated by 1976 Nobel Peace Prize laureatesMairead Corrigan andBetty Williams,[5] Pérez Esquivel was awarded theNobel Peace Prize on 10 December 1980, for his efforts in thedefense of human rights. Accepting the prize "in the name of the poorest and smallest of my brothers and sisters,"[5] he donated the prize money to charity.[6] He remained active in support of theMothers of the Plaza de Mayo despite ongoing harassment by the dictatorship,[6] and later joined causes in support of theindigenous peoples of Argentina andenvironmentalism and againstausterity policies and theFree Trade Area of the Americas.[5]
Pérez Esquivel was awarded thePacem in Terris Award in 1999.
Pérez Esquivel served as president of the Honorary Council of Service, Latin American Peace and Justice Foundation and of the International League for Human Rights and Liberation of Peoples (based inMilan), and as a member of thePermanent Peoples' Tribunal. He publishedCaminando Junto al Pueblo ("Walking Together with the People", 1995), in which he relates his experiences with nonviolence in Latin America, and he was appointed Professor of Peace and Human Rights Studies at theUniversity of Buenos Aires in 1998.[7] He campaigned during 2010 against the practice on the part of theEsquel Police Department of training children intoparamilitary squads, an operation that he compared to the creation ofNazi Germany'sHitler Youth.[8]
Pérez Esquivel is a permanent lecturer at theUniversity of Buenos AiresFaculty of Social Sciences, where he directs the seminar "Culture for Peace and Human Rights".[7]
He opposed the European intervention in the2011 Libyan Civil War and warned against an intervention in theSyrian Civil War.[9] In the aftermath of thedeath of Osama bin Laden, he sent a letter to PresidentBarack Obama suggesting the United States killed rather than tried bin Laden because he could have revealed unsettling information about9/11.[9] He argued, "You know that there are people who have investigated the tragic events of 9/11/2001 andclaim there is evidence that this was a self-coup (self-inflicted attack)."[9] Later, he added, "this event was the perfect excuse to launch a war against Afghanistan and Iraq and now against Libya," and referred to the United States an "axis of evil."[9]
Pérez Esquivel expressed himself regarding the 2013 election ofArchbishop of Buenos Aires Jorge Bergoglio asPope Francis, stating that asProvincial superior ofJesuits "he had lacked the sufficient courage shown by other Bishops to support our cause for human rights during the dictatorship."[10] Pérez Esquivel also said that "Bergoglio did what he could given his age at that time."[11] He, however, clarified that the future Pope "was no accomplice and had no links with the dictatorship" and that while "it is said he did not do enough to get two priests out of jail, I know personally that many bishops called on the military junta for the release of prisoners and priests and that these requests were not granted."[12]
In June 2017, he defended the government ofNicolás Maduro in Venezuela, saying that the country was undergoing acoup d'état attempt, orchestrated by the United States.[13]
He was hospitalized in January 2022 following a stroke.[14]
Esquivel's work[15] ranges from exhibitions to murals and monuments, including the 15 station Latin American Via Crucis (including a Lenten cloth "A new sky and a new land") made in 1992 to commemorate the 500th anniversary of the conquest of America; Monument to Refugees, located in the Headquarters of theUNHCR in Switzerland; the Latin American Peoples Mural in the Cathedral ofRiobamba, Ecuador, dedicated toMonsignor Proaño and theindigenous peoples; and a bronze statue in tribute toMahatma Gandhi at Gandhi Square, inBarcelona.
