Network of Concerned Historians NCH Annual Report 201 2 http://www.concernedhistorians.org INTRODUCTION The eighteenth Annual Report of the Network of Concerned Historians (NCH) contains news about the domain where history and human rights intersect, especially about the censorship of history and the persecution of historians, archivists and archaeologists around the globe, as reported by various human rights organizations and other sources. It covers events and developments of 2011 and 2012. The fact that NCH presents this news does not imply that it shares the views and beliefs of the historians and others mentioned in it. Please cite as: Network of Concerned Historians, Annual Report 2012 (http://www.concernedhistorians.org). The complete set of Annual Reports (1995–2012) was compiled by Antoon De Baets. Please send any comments to: <[email protected]>. Network of Concerned Historians, Annual Report 2012 (June 2012) 2 ____________________________________________________________ AFGHANISTAN Last Annual Report entry: 2011. In 2012, the new series of official obligatory high school history textbooks, in preparation since 2002 and funded by the United States Commander’s Emergency Response Program (the United States military’s foreign aid arm), did not cover post-1973 history, thus stopping their coverage with the ouster of King Mohammad Zahir Shah in 1973 by Mohammed Daoud Khan and omitting the following period of political instability, including the Soviet occupation (1979–1989), the mujaheddin (Muslims who struggle in the path of God) and the civil war (1989–1996), the Taliban (1996–2001), and the United States military presence (2001–2012). In order to promote a single national identity, the depoliticization and deethnification textbooks were deemed necessary. In the post-1979 period, the USSR distributed books emphasizing communism and Marxism. In the late 1980s, the United States financed textbooks supporting the struggle of the mujaheddin. During the Taliban’s reign, conservative Islamic texts were imported from Pakistan. In western Afghanistan, Iranian textbooks openly praising Iran-backed militant groups such as Hizbollah and Hamas were for years distributed in public schools. The depoliticized approach was chosen as there was no agreement of how Afghanistan descended into civil war. Even mention of such key figures as the Northern Alliance commander Ahmad Shah Massoud or the Taliban’s Mohammad Omar was controversial. Despite broad consensus about the approach, Mir Ahmad Kamawal, history professor at Kabul University, criticized the omissions. [Source: Kevin Sieff, “Afghanistan; a new approach to teaching history: Leave out the wars,” Washington Post (5 February 2012).] See also Libya. ALBANIA Last Annual Report entry: 1996. After the collapse of communism, former communist ruler Enver Hoxha (1908–1985) was written out of history. In February 1991, students and academics at Tirana University demanded and obtained the removal of his name from courses of study. His body was removed from a national memorial and reburied in a public cemetery. Napalm was used to wipe his name from a mountain side where it had been written in stone. A new law passed on 14 July 2011 approved a plan to tear down a pyramid- Network of Concerned Historians, Annual Report 2012 (June 2012) 3 ____________________________________________________________ shaped landmark built on Tirana’s main thoroughfare as a museum for Hoxha to open the way for a new parliament, to be built in honor of the 100th anniversary of Albania’s independence in 1912 after 500 years of Ottoman domination. [Sources: BBC News (19 November 2004); Derek Jones, ed., Censorship: A World Encyclopedia (London/Chicago 2001), 28; Keesings historisch archief (2011), 344; Benet Koleka, “Albania To Raze Hoxha’s Pyramid for New Parliament” (Albanian.com; 14 July 2011).] See also Macedonia, Serbia / Kosovo. ALGERIA Last Annual Report entry: 2011. The authorities again took no steps to investigate the thousands of enforced disappearances and other serious abuses that took place during the internal conflict (1992–2000) or to ensure that perpetrators were held accountable. They continued to implement the Charter for Peace and National Reconciliation (Law 06-01), which gave impunity to the security forces, criminalized public criticism of their conduct and granted amnesties to members of armed groups responsible for gross human rights abuses. Families of people who disappeared faced pressure to accept generic certificates, which stated that their relatives were dead but did not specify the date or cause of death, as a precondition for claiming compensation. The security forces dispersed demonstrations organized by families of the disappeared. [Sources: Amnesty International, Report 2012 (London 2012), 60, 61–62; Human Rights Watch, World Report 2012 (Washington 2012), 532–533.] See also France, Morocco / Western Sahara ANGOLA Last Annual Report entry: 2009. Network of Concerned Historians, Annual Report 2012 (June 2012) 4 ____________________________________________________________ ARGENTINA Last Annual Report entry: 2011. In February 2011, Felipe Noble Herrera and Marcela Noble Herrera, who were adopted children of one of the richest women in Argentina, lost their legal challenge to the DNA laws, which forced them to give DNA samples in an attempt to establish their true parentage. In May 2010, following the pair’s refusal to provide samples, their house was raided, they were stripsearched and samples from clothing and toothbrushes were taken. A 2009 law gave the courts power to forcibly obtain DNA if someone refused to submit to a blood test. The law’s origin dated back to the 1970s and 1980s when left-wing activists were kidnapped, tortured and imprisoned by the military dictatorship. Many of those detained were young couples with either newborns or mothers expecting a child; babies were taken away and given to military or police officials to bring up as their own. The government that followed the military dictatorship set up a National Bank of Genetic Data, where grandparents and relatives of the missing children contributed DNA samples for identification purposes. Although campaigners attempted to identify the children of the disappeared, not all of them wanted to know about their biological parents. [Source: Index on Censorship (2011, no. 2), 140.] In April 2011, former Brigade General Reynaldo Bignone and politician and former police officer Luis Abelardo Patti were sentenced to life imprisonment for several cases of murder, abduction and torture in the town of Escobar during the 1970s. In October 2011, former navy captain Alfredo Astiz and 15 others were given prison sentences of between 18 years and life for their role in 86 crimes against humanity committed at a secret detention center in the Buenos Aires naval school (Escuela Superior de Mecánica de la Armada, ESMA) . Under military rule, hundreds of people had been held in the ESMA after being abducted; some were killed under torture while others were flung to their deaths from airplanes. Among those killed were human rights activists Azucena Villaflor, María Bianco and Esther Careaga, cofounders of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo. [Source: Amnesty International, Report 2012 (London 2012), 12, 65.] In August 2011, Osvaldo Bayer (1927–), a left-wing historian and film director, film codirector Mariano Aiello and historian Felipe Pigna were sued for defamation by José Alfredo Martínez de Hoz, who accused them of falsifying history and damaging his “family’s honor” and demanded a ban on the film Awka Liwen (Rebelde Amanecer; Rebel Awakening; September 2010) and heavy fines. In this film, Bayer, Aiello and Pigna analyzed the 1879 Campaña del Desierto (Desert Campaign) of Julio Argentino Roca, a military campaign against the indigenous peoples of Argentina (Mapuche and Network of Concerned Historians, Annual Report 2012 (June 2012) 5 ____________________________________________________________ Tehuelce), during which part of the pampa and Patagonia was conquered. The film asserted that, in the preparation of the campaign, José Toribio Martínez de Hoz ([1823]–71) (José Alfredo Martínez de Hoz’s great-great-grandfather), who had founded and presided the Sociedad Rural Argentina (Argentinian Rural Society) in 1866–70, had called for military intervention against the indigenous peoples, with the aim of evicting them and establishing latifundia with cattle instead. [Sources: Rodrigo Alonso, “Osvaldo Bayer recibió el apoyo de centenares de santafesinos” (http://www.amsafelacapital.org.ar/Noticia_completa.php?ID=900; Amsafe [2011]); Osvaldo Bayer, “Los Martínez de Hoz al ataque,” Página 12 (3 September 2011).] Several important human rights cases from Argentina’s last military dictatorship (1976–1983) were reopened in 2003 after Congress annulled the 1986 “Full Stop” law, which had stopped prosecution of such cases, and the 1987 “Due Obedience” law, which granted immunity in such cases to all members of the military except those in positions of command. Starting in 2005, federal judges struck down pardons that then-President Carlos Menem issued between 1989 and 1990 to former officials convicted of or facing trial for human rights violations. As of October 2011, according to the Center for Legal and Social Studies (CELS), 379 cases involving killings, “disappearances,” and torture were under judicial investigation or being tried in court. Of 1,774 alleged perpetrators, 749 were facing charges for these crimes, and