Adolfo Pérez Esquivel is an Argentine human rights activist, community organizer, pacifist,
art painter, writer and sculptor.
He was the recipient of the 1980 Nobel Peace Prize.
Biography
Pérez Esquivel was born in Buenos Aires to a Spanish fisherman from Poio, Galicia, who
emigrated to Argentina.
His mother died when he was three, and despite his poverty he attended the Manuel Belgrano
School of Fine Arts and the National University of La Plata, where he was trained as a painter
and sculptor.
He was appointed professor of architecture, worked with a variety of sculptural media,
and for 25 years taught in all levels from primary to university.
Pérez Esquivel began working with popularly based Latin American Christian 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 promoting liberation of the poor through non-violent
means.
When systematic repression followed the March 1976 coup, which brought the dictatorship
of General Jorge Videla to power, Pérez Esquivel contributed to the formation and financing
of the linkages between popularly based organizations to defend human rights in Argentina and support
the families of the victims of the Dirty War.
The NGO Servicio Paz y Justicia, which he co-founded in 1974, evolved in this context
and served as an instrument for the defense of human rights by promoting an international
campaign to denounce the atrocities committed by the military regime.
SERPAJ is a member of the International Fellowship of Reconciliation, which supported Esquivel's
work from the beginning.
Pérez Esquivel was detained by the Brazilian 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 the Argentine Federal Police, tortured, and
held without trial for 14 months; whilst incarcerated, he received—among other distinctions—the
Pope John XXIII Peace Memorial.
Nominated by 1976 Nobel Peace Prize laureates Mairead Corrigan and Betty Williams, Pérez
Esquivel was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on December 10, 1980, for his efforts in the
defense of human rights.
Accepting the prize "in the name of the poorest and smallest of my brothers and sisters,"
he donated the prize money to charity.
He remained active in support of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo despite ongoing harassment
by the dictatorship, and later joined causes in support of the indigenous peoples of Argentina,
of environmentalism, and against austerity policies and the Free Trade Area of the Americas.
Pérez Esquivel was awarded the Pacem 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, and as a member of the Permanent Peoples' Tribunal.
He published Caminando Junto al Pueblo, in which he relates his experiences with non-violence
in Latin America, and was appointed Professor of Peace and Human Rights Studies at the University
of Buenos Aires in 1998.
He campaigned during 2010 against the practice on the part of the Esquel Police Department
of training children into paramilitary squads, an operation he compares to the creation of
Nazi Germany's Hitler Youth.
He disapproved of the European intervention in the Libyan civil war and warned against
an intervention in the Syrian civil war.
In the aftermath of the Death of Osama bin Laden, he sent a letter to President Barack
Obama suggesting the United States killed rather than tried bin Laden because he could
have revealed unsettling information about 9/11.
He argued, "You know that there are people who have investigated the tragic events of
92001 and claim there is evidence that this was a self-coup."
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."
Pérez Esquivel expressed himself regarding the historic, March 13, 2013, election of
Archbishop of Buenos Aires Jorge Bergoglio as Pope Francis, stating that as Provincial
superior of Jesuits "he had lacked the sufficient courage shown by other Bishops to support
our cause for human rights during the dictatorship."
Pérez Esquivel also said that "Bergoglio did what he could given his age at that time"
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."
Works of art Esquivel's work ranges from exhibitions to
murals and monuments, including: the 15 station Latin American Via Crucis made in 1992 to
commemorate the 500th anniversary of the conquest of America; Monument to Refugees, located
in the Headquarters of the UNHCR in Switzerland; the Latin American Peoples Mural in the Cathedral
of Riobamba, Ecuador, dedicated to Monsignor Proaño and the indigenous peoples; a bronze
statue in tribute to Mahatma Gandhi at Gandhi Square, in Barcelona, amongst many other works.
See also World Social Forum
References
External links Adolfo Pérez Esquivel official site, edited
by Juan Varni Esquivel's Art – Stations of the CrossC
'The Military Did Not Do It Alone'- a video interview with Adolfo Pérez Esquivel