Unwanted Witnesses: Journalists and Conflict in Contemporary Latin America

By Gabriela Polit Dueñas

Gabriela Polit Dueñas analyzes the work of five narrative journalists from three countries. Marcela Turati, Daniela Rea, and Sandra Rodriguez from Mexico, Patricia Nieto from Colombia, and María Eugenia Ludueña from Argentina produce compelling literary works, but also work under dangerous, intense conditions. What drives and shapes their stories are their affective responses to the events and people they cover. The book offers an insightful analysis of the emotional challenges, the stress and traumatic conditions journalists face when reporting on the region’s most pressing problems. It combines ethnographic observations of the journalists’ work, textual analysis, and a theoretical reflection on the ethical dilemmas journalists confront on a daily basis. Unwanted Witnesses puts forward a necessary discussion about the place contemporary journalists occupy in the field of production, and how the risks they run speak directly about the limits of our democracies.

• Language: English
• Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press
• Release date: Oct 1, 2019
• ISBN: 9780822987130

Book preview

ILLUMINATIONS CULTURAL FORMATIONS OF THE AMERICAS SERIES

John Beverley and Sara Castro-Klarén, Editors

UNWANTED WITNESSES

Journalists & Conflict in Contemporary Latin America

Gabriela Polit Dueñas

UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH PRESS

Published by the University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, Pa., 15260

Copyright © 2019, University of Pittsburgh Press

All rights reserved

Manufactured in the United States of America

Printed on acid-free paper

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Cataloging-in-Publication data is available from the Library of Congress

ISBN 13: 978-0-8229-4583-3

ISBN 10: 0-8229-4583-5

Cover photograph: Doug Steley / Alamy Stock Photo

Cover design: Alex Wolfe

ISBN-13: 978-0-8229-8713-0 (electronic)

To all the journalists who have been disappeared, abused, raped, and threatened and all those who are imprisoned. To all of the journalists who continue to do their job despite the risks.

Dedicated to the memory of journalists killed in Latin America from 1992 to 2018.

1992

Virgilio Fernández, Pedro Yauri, Adolfo Isuiza Urquia, Alejandro Pérez, Ismael Jaimes, Iván Darío Pelayo, Manuel Martínez Espinoza

1993

Francisco Parada, Carlos Grant, María Carlín Fernández, María Verónica Tessari, Bienvenido Lemos, Carlos Lajud Catalan

1994

Jessé Medina Parra, Eustorgio Colmenares, Jorge Martín Dorantes, Joâo Alberto Ferreira Souto

1995

Reinaldo Coutinho da Silva, Ernesto Acero Cadena, Gabriel Cruz Díaz, Marcos Borges Ribeiro, Juan Carlos Vásquez, Ruperto Armenta Gerardo, Zaqueu de Oliveira, Ariste Guinda da Silva

1996

Norvey Díaz

1997

Jairo Elías Márquez Gallego, Víctor Hernández Martínez, Jesús Abel Bueno León, Edgar Lopes de Faria, Benjamín Flores González, Francisco Castro Menco, Freddy Elles Ahumada, Gerardo Bedoya Borrero, José Luis Cabezas

1998

Amparo Leonor Jiménez Pallares, Bernabé Cortés Valderrama, Nelson Carvajal Carvajal, Oscar García Calderón, Philip Ture, Manoel Leal de Oliveira, José Carlos Mesquita, Luis Mario García Rodríguez

1999

Ricardo Gangeme, Pablo Emilio Medina Motta, Rodolfo Julio Torres, Guzmán Quintero Torres, Hernando Rangel Moreno, Jaime Garzón

2000

Zezinho Cazuza, Jean Léopold Dominique, Julio César Da Rosa, Alfredo Abad López, Gustavo Rafael Ruiz Cantillo, Juan Camilo Restrepo Guerra

2001

Juan Carlos Encinas, José Luis Ortega Mata, Flavio Bedoya, Parmenio Medina Pérez, B rigno Lindor, Salvador Medina Velázquez, Jorge Enrique Urbano Sánchez, José Duviel Vásquez Arias, Jorge Ibraín Tortoza Cruz

2002

Domingos Sávio Brandâo Lima Júnior, Tim Lopes, Efraín Varela Noriega, Héctor Sandoval, Orlando Sierra Hernández, Elizabeth Ovando, Walter López, Maxime Séide

2003

Luis Antônio da Costa, Guillermo Bravo Vega, Luis Eduardo Alfonso Parada, Jaime Rengifo Revero, Juan Carlos Benavides Arévalo, Nicanor Linhares Batista, Héctor Ramírez

2004

Gregorio Rodríguez Hernández, José Carlos Araújo, Francisco Arratia Saldierna, Juan Emilio Andújar Matos, Ricardo Ortega, Carlos José Gadamuz, Alberto Rivera Fernández, Antonio de la Torre Echeandia, Martín La Rotta, Samuel Româ, María José Bravo, Francisco Javier Ortiz Franco, Oscar Alberto Polanco Herrera, Jaime Alberto Madero Muñoz, Ricardo Mendoza

2005

Dolores Guadalupe García Escamilla, Julio Hernando Palacios Sánchez, Rafael Enrique Prins Velásquez, Julio Augusto García Romero, Laraque Roberson, Joâo Cândido de Amorim Filho, Jacques Roche, Raúl Gibb Guerrero, José María Ramos da Silva

2006

Bradley Will, Roberto Marcos García, Atilano Segundo Pérez Barrios, Gustavo Rojas Gabalo, Jorge Aguirre, Ajuricaba Monassa, Milton Favián Sánchez, José Luis León Desiderio, Eduardo Maas Bol, Raúl Marcial Pérez, Adolfo Sánchez Guzmán, Roberto Marcos García, José Manuel Sánchez Nava, Misael Tamayo Hernández, Enrique Perea Quintanilla, Ramiro Téllez Contreras, Jaime Arturo Olvera Bravo

2007

Agustín López Nolasco, Flor Vásquez López, Mateo Cortés Martínez, Amado Ramírez Dillanes, Jean-Rémy Badio, Carlos Salgado, Tito Alberto Palma, Miguel Pérez Julca, Rodolfo Rincón Taracena, Luiz Carlos Barbom Filho, Saúl Martínez Ortega

2008

Alejandro Zenón Fonseca Estrada, José Armando Rodríguez Carreón, Carlos Quispe Quispe, José Fernando González, Miguel Angel Villagómez Valle, Felicitas Martínez, Teresa Bautista Flores, Normando García

2009

Norberto Miranda Madrid, José Emeterio Rivas, José Orel Sambrano, Everardo Aguilar, Christian Gregorio Poveda Ruiz, Eliseo Barrón Hernández, Vladimir Antuna García

2010

Carlos Alberto Guajardo Romero, Luis Carlos Santiago Orozco, Francisco Gomes de Medeiros, David Meza Montesinos, Joseph Hernández Ochoa, Nahúm Palacios Arteaga, Valentín Valdés Espinosa, Clodomiro Castilla Ospino, Rodolfo Maya Aricape, Marco Aurelio Martínez Tijerina, Guillermo Alcaraz Trejo, Juan Francisco Rodríguez Ríos, José Ochoa Martínez

2011

Noel López Olguín, José Agustín Silvestre de los Santos, Alfredo Antonio Hurtado Núñez, Pedro Alfonso Flores Silva, Edinaldo Filgueira, María Elizabeth Macías Castro, Rodolfo Ochoa Moreno, Gelson Domingos da Silva, Luciano Leitâo Pedrosa, Darío Fernández Jaén, Luis Emanuel Ruiz Carillo, Luis Eduardo Gómez, Medardo Flores, Nery Jeremías Orellana, Héctor Francisco Medina Polanco, Humberto Millán Salazar, Yolanda Ordaz de la Cruz, Miguel Ángel López Velasco, Medardo Alejandro Romero Chávez, José Oquendo Reyes, Julio Castillo Narváez, Valderlei Canuto Leandro

2012

Mario Randolfo Marques Lopes, Valério Luiz de Oliveira, Regina Martínez Pérez, Adrián Silva Moreno, Décio Sá, Guillermo Quiroz Delgado, Byron Baldeón, Eduardo Carvalho, Paulo Roberto Cardoso Rodríguez, José Noel Canales, Erick Alejandro Martínez Ávila, Víctor Báez, Marco Antonio Ávila García, Gabriel Huge, Guillermo Luna Varela

2013

José Roberto Ornelas de Lemos, Édison Alberto Molina Mafaldo Bezerra Goes, Walgney Assis Carvalho, Rodrigo Neto, Cláudio Moleiro de Souza, José Naudín Gómez, Juan Carlos Argeñal, Manuel Murillo Varela, Aníbal Barrow, Alberto López Bello, Jaime Guadalupe González Domínguez, Marcelino Vásquez, José Darío Arenas, Víctor García

2014

Octavio Rojas Hernández, Edgar Pantaleón Fernández Fleitas, Pablo Medina Velásquez, Fausto Gabriel Alcaraz Garay, Marcos de Barros Leopoldo Guerra, Santiago Ilídio Andrade, Pedro Palma, Gregorio Jiménez de la Cruz, Luis Carlos Cervantez, Yonni Steven Caicedo, Hernán Cruz Barnica, Jorge Torres Palacio, Pablo Medina, Carlos Mejía Orellana

2015

Rubén Espinosa Becerril, José Moisés Sánchez Cerezo, Israel Gonçalves Silva, Ítalo Eduardo Diniz Barros, Luis Antonio Peralta Cuéllar, Djalma Santos da Conceiçao, Evany José Metzker, Flor Alba Núñez Vargas, Gerardo Ceferino Servían, Gleydson Carvalho, Filadelfo Sánchez Sarmiento, Danilo López, Juan Carlos Cruz Andara, Jacobo Montoya Ramírez, Joel Aquiles Torres, Edgar Hernández García, Abel Manuel Bautista Raymundo, Gerardo Nieto Álvarez, Juan Mendoza Delgado, Erick Arreaga

2016

Marcos Hernández Bautista, Maurício Campos Rosa, Elidio Ramos Zárate, Mario Roberto Salazar Barahona, Jesús Adrián Rodríguez, Agustín Pavia, Joân Miranda do Carmo, Joân Valdecir de Borba, Álvaro Aceituno López, Salvador García Olmos, Aurelio Cabrera Campos, Pedro Tamayo Rosas, Francisco Pacheco Beltrán, Moisés Dagdug Lutzow, Anabel Flores Salazar, Nicolás Humberto García, Hernán Choquepata Ordóñez

2017

Maximino Rodríguez Palacios, Miroslava Breach Velducea, Luis Gustavo da Silva, María Eugenia Vásquez Astudillo, Luis Manuel Medina, Leonidas Martínez, Igor Abisaí Padilla Chávez, Cecilio Pineda Birto, Edgar Daniel Esqueda Castro, Javier Valdez Cárdenas, Salvador Adame Pardo, Carlos Williams Flores, Cándido Ríos Vásquez, Edwin Rivera Paz, Luciano Rivera Salgado, Ricardo Monlui Cabrera, Jonathan Rodríguez, Luís Gustavo da Silva

2018

Carlos Domínguez Rodríguez, Carlos Pureza, Jesús Báez do Nacimento, Ueliton Bayer Brizon, Jefferson Pureza Lopes, Leslie Ann Paloma Montenegro del Real, Jesús Alejandro Marcos Jiménez, Leobardo Vázquez Atzin, Mario Leonel Gómez Sánchez, Raúl Rivas Bravo, Javier Ortega

Flaubert called himself a human pen; I would say that I am a human ear.

—Svetlana Alexievich

What would it mean to write by listening, to escribir escuchando? What would a politics of listening entail? I held these questions to myself as I began to work. The book you now hold in your hands is an attempt to write by listening.

—John Gibler

La palabra siempre es plural, pero tal vez pocos géneros como la crónica nos recuerden esa básica verdad con tanta fuerza. La palabra del cronista no puede dejar de ser la palabra del otro: una tensión en la que se dan cita, al menos, otros dos.

—Cristina Rivera Garza

As soon as truth is a limit or has limits, its own, and assuming that it knows some limits, as the expression goes, truth would be a certain relation to what terminates or determines it.

—Jacques Derrida

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

Introduction

CHAPTER 1. Writing Suffering: Cronistas and Their Trade

CHAPTER 2. Falling into Silence: The Work of Patricia Nieto

CHAPTER 3. A Phenomenology of Affects: Marcela Turati

CHAPTER 4. The Case of Juárez: Sandra Rodríguez Nieto

CHAPTER 5. Motherhood and the Disappearing of the Disappeared: Daniela Rea’s Crónicas

CHAPTER 6. The Lawsuits of the Crimes against Humanity: María Eugenia Ludueña

CHAPTER 7. The Paradoxes of Beautiful Journalism: Patricia Nieto’s Los escogidos

Coda

Appendix: List of Murdered Journalists by Country

Notes

Works Cited

Index

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The first page of a book is usually written when everything else is done. It might seem obvious that when we finally complete a goal that we set ourselves to accomplish, we would be satisfied and even proud, but the process of writing and finishing this book has been nothing but humbling. During these years many journalists have been killed. Some of them I knew, while others were friends of friends. Those deaths felt somehow close. I have witnessed the pain of those journalists who have lost colleagues, and I have witnessed them carrying the burden of writing about social suffering. Although devastating, most of the time their struggles remain unnoticed. Their commitment, their courage, their compassion, their persistence in spite of all fears are commendable. I think that the making of their stories carries the greatest lesson a human being could share. What I learned from Patricia Nieto, Marcela Turati, Sandra Rodríguez Nieto, Daniela Rea, and María Eugenia Ludueña, who shared their time, their ideas, and their work with me, goes way beyond what this book might show. I am beholden to all of them.

I am deeply grateful to all of the journalists out there who are looking for the people, the events, the happiness, and the miseries that make our societies. My gratitude also goes to those journalists who stood behind the scenes with me during this process, especially Cristian Alarcón, whose generosity made this book possible in more than one way. A special mention also goes to the participants in the Fundación Nuevo Periodismo Iberoamericano (FNPI) meeting in Mexico City in 2009, as well of those who participated in the FNPI workshop in Buenos Aires in 2011. Ricardo Corredor Cure, the FNPI’s executive director, shared his experiences and ideas about the history of the FNPI, and over the course of nine years Jaime Abello, its general director, offered me his friendship in our meetings in Mexico City, Austin, Buenos Aires, Medellín, and Bogotá.

Sylvia Molloy is always an inspiration. Sylvia, Aníbal González, Julio Ortega, Charlie Hale, and Jason Borge read early texts of this book project. They encouraged me all along. My special gratitude to Sara Castro-Klarén and John Beverley for including Unwanted Witnesses in their series. Joshua Shanholtzer has been most helpful, and I am indebted to his generosity. Maureen Bemko had the patience to deal with the final edits that transformed the manuscript into a book, and Alex Wolfe worked on its design and great cover. Thank you to the entire team at the University of Pittsburgh Press!

Katie Jensen, Katy Sobering, Martha Acherio, and Sam Ginsburg dealt with the initial versions of this manuscript. Sarah Ropp handled with genuine intellectual interest and much care the editing the final draft of the manuscript. I am more than grateful to all for your patience, your hard work, and the enthusiasm you showed along the way. You were my cheering crowd, as were my students in the seminars I taught from 2015 to 2018 at the University of Texas at Austin. I owe you more than you can ever know. Michael Flynn taught me a different way of looking at trauma. Adriana Pacheco and Dinorah Cossio helped me with important references for my chapter on Daniela Rea. Valeria Rey de Castro listened to me with care, and her brilliant work on Argentina served as a guide to and inspiration for the chapter on María Eugenia Ludueña.

I wouldn’t have been able to finish writing this book if it were not for the support of the Lozano Long Institute for Latin American Studies (LLILAS) Research Leave during the spring of 2018, as well as funding from the Humanities Institute in COLAS, the College Research Grant, and the LLILAS Mellon Summer Research Fund. All of this funding enabled me to conduct fieldwork and have time off to write the book.

The dialogues I established with colleagues and students at the Universidad Autónoma de Sinaloa in Culiacán, at the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, at the Universidad San Francisco in Quito, at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, at El Colegio Nacional in Mexico City, at the Latin American Studies Association meetings in Puerto Rico and Lima, and at the American Comparative Literature Association meeting in New York all helped me to improve my arguments. The reviews I received from anonymous readers for the version of chapter 2 published in the Latin American Research Review (2017) and the comments and suggestions of Juanita Aristizabal and Juliana Martínez and the anonymous readers for chapter 4, which appeared in Revista de Estudios Hispánicos, were of significant help for the expanded version appearing in this book.

The last acknowledgments are for those closest to our hearts, the ones who make our daily life possible and at times also make our daily life seem impossible. Familia Polit Dueñas, you are the source that feeds my broad smile. I miss you every day, although I know that if I were living close to you, I wouldn’t be the scholar I am. Birthday celebrations, communions, weddings, commemorations, casual gatherings would take all my time. Whatsapp makes it easier. This book belongs to la Mami, the wisest, most curious, intelligent, tolerant, funny, adventurous, and good-hearted woman, and to el Papi, my luna creciente, who smiles at me with love and hope each month. To my Argentine family, my happy thoughts about our intense time spent in San Vicente always come with grace and gratefulness. María Jose knows that some memories come tainted with rosé, a color much needed at times during the process of writing this book. To my dear friend Graciela, for cooking, for helping me survive the socks crises at home, and for always being here.

My adored sons Camilo and Luis, you became adolescents while I wrote this book. Nothing has been as blissful and as stressful as witnessing you grow. It sounds like a cliché, but trying to love you right is the most complicated learning experience I have. A book on suffering is not what best speaks to that experience or about the lessons I get from you and your transition to adulthood. But I hope someday you read it, so you know what I think about complicated emotions. Finally, to Javier, for your impatience with my endless ruminating on ideas while we walk Gloria Polit and with my endless need to conversar. It will not get better after this book; don’t be so optimistic. Thank you for the times you listened and for those when you didn’t. That also helped to sharpen my ideas. And thank you for being half mom and half dad in our busy household. In that sense, this book is half yours. You will have to read it.

INTRODUCTION

On May 15, 2017, when I was about to finish the first draft of this book, Javier Valdez was shot to death in his native Culiacán. He was the sixth journalist killed in Mexico that year but would not be the last. His death came as a shock to the journalistic community because until then his reputation and broad recognition nationally and internationally seemed to be a shield for journalists like him. His assassination proved them wrong: when it comes to reporting on local violence, no one is safe in Mexico.

When I got the news of his death, I thought that all I had written had become meaningless, that no matter how sophisticated my argument or indeed any argument about the risks journalists run, when facing an assassination like his, words fail. But, as Eve Sedgwick said, Obsessions are our most durable forms of cultural capital, and mine regarding the hardships of journalists’ lives and those of their loved ones were still there. Valdez was the first journalist whose work I (ever) analyzed, and from him I learned about the need to understand the conditions under which journalists do their job. I remember, now in disbelief, when I saw him in Mexico City in 2009, days after a bomb had exploded in the offices of the weekly Riodoce, the publication he cofounded and where he worked until the day he was killed. He was still shaking in panic. Eight years passed before his assassination. Eight years during which he lived in fear.

Even if my book is not enough to change the fear with which many journalists in the region live and work, this book might (I hope) give them some comfort, not so much for its arguments but mostly because it is a product of care—even if that care appears in the intangible form of an intellectual approach that seeks to understand their ordeal.

Our projects have their own genetic histories. They are the product of our academic trajectories, our intellectual curiosity, and—I believe—a certain fate traced by what we’ve read, a few unforeseen events, and personal encounters with people who may have changed the path of our research. Javier Valdez might have planted the seeds of the questions raised in this book, perhaps subtly already present in my previous book about the representation of drug trafficking, Narrating Narcos. It was also while I was writing that book that the Chilean-Argentine journalist Cristian Alarcón invited me to participate in two workshops he organized with the Fundación Nuevo Periodismo Iberoamericano (FNPI). The first one was in Mexico City in 2009 (where I saw Javier Valdez again); it was a meeting Alarcón organized to facilitate a dialogue between scholars and journalists who study and cover violence in Latin America. The second was in Buenos Aires in 2011 and followed the format of the workshops organized by the FNPI, in which young reporters arrive with the draft of a story and many questions about how to transform it into a crónica.¹ These two events were defining moments that have guided the reflections exposed here; they enabled me to be part of the dynamics of the FNPI and meet journalists from all over the region.

In the first meeting I heard journalists speaking candidly about the risks and challenges of their profession. They shared experiences about the complications faced when dealing with police corruption, the emotional pressure of listening to people who are searching for their loved ones with no support or attention from authorities, the courage needed to understand the complex manifestations of resilience, and the self-restraint needed to write objectively about the cruelty displayed in the many forms of killing. In the second meeting, I heard about the struggles they experienced when writing. I cannot adequately express what a humbling experience it was to witness their excruciating search for words to describe the suffering they witness as they listen to victims’ voices and report them without obliterating or embellishing their words. It was likewise humbling to learn about the limited or nonexistent support they receive from the institutions for which they work. During those meetings it became clear to me that the human drama of violence and trauma was not only miles away in the streets where those journalists met the subjects of their stories—it was also there, at the Museo Rufino Tamayo in Mexico City and at the Universidad Nacional San Martín in Buenos Aires, where the meetings took place. I knew that if I wanted to analyze their work, I had to understand their world from within.

Journalism is the main (if not the only) channel through which we learn about the region’s most pressing problems, and it is through journalistic works that we are politically challenged, intellectually engaged, and affectively moved.² Even in an age of fake news and dramatic technological changes, Michael Taussig’s idea that the main way we learn about our cultures of terror is through the words of others is still valid. It is precisely because we live in the era of fake news that we have to better understand the risks journalists face, because they are greater than ever. We also need to consider the way technology has redefined the craft of written journalism.

While my goal is to include in the analysis all these elements, the object of this study is very specific. This book focuses on crónicas reporting on social suffering, violent events, and trauma. Since writing about these topics demands much physical and emotional energy, as well as a considerable intellectual investment, I am interested in reading these crónicas not only as written texts but mainly as cultural phenomena; I want to see what lies before, after, and in between the process of their production. Most analyses of violence focus either on the violent events themselves or on the way in which such events are represented. There are not many works that show the material conditions in which journalists work, the demands (and changes) within the journalistic field of production, and the emotional challenges journalists face when writing about violence, suffering, and trauma. I explore this universe. To that end, I carried out fieldwork in Argentina, Colombia, and Mexico. I conducted extensive interviews with five journalists, I did participant observation, and in most cases I became the journalist’s shadow. During this process I realized that, although their work describes massacres, forced disappearances, migratory experiences, physical aggressions, assassinations, stories of corruption, the effects of impunity, and so on, what drives the creation and shapes the form of these narratives are the journalists’ affective responses to the events they describe and the people with whom they speak: their feelings of empathy, solidarity, compassion, indignation, frustration, and rage and their attachment to the subjects of their stories. Their crónicas are motivated by a profound commitment to promoting social justice.³ These values define the crónicas analyzed here; although they may not necessarily be articulated in their texts, my aim is to make them visible.

Many of the arguments raised in this book are in direct dialogue with recent works from the field of media and