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GUEST: Patricia Isasa, torture survivor from Argentina

This weekend, activists will converge on Fort Benning, Georgia to denounce the Western Hemispheric Institute for Security Cooperation, formerly known as the School of the Americas. Patricia Isasa of Argentina, a victim of a graduate of the School of the Americas, is currently in the United States and will be traveling to Fort Benning to speak at the protest and to run a workshop. When Patricia was only 16 years old, a paramilitary group working in collusion with local police forces kidnapped her in the months following the 1976 military coup in Argentina. She was then detained for three months in three different concentration camps in the city of Santa Fe, Argentina and was subjected to various forms of torture. After two more years of detention, Patricia was released at the age of 18. Rather than remain silent, she spoke out to the Organization of American States against what she had experienced and witnessed at the various concentration camps. In retaliation, Patricia was kidnapped and taken to a concentration camp once again and eventually was one of four detainees who were released. The rest were murdered. Since the return of formal democracy to Argentina in 1984, Patricia Isasa has been seeking and fighting for justice against her former torturers. This year, on the first of May, a documentary about Patricia’s history was televised in Argentina and viewed by an estimated 3 million people.