You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
Chairs: Randi Wirth, Maureen Murphy
Moderator: Timothy Keogh
Discussants: Jeanne Wolff-Bernstein, Louis Brunet and Camilo Andres Jaramito
This panel, which took place in Cartagena on Friday 28 July during the International Psychoanaltic Association (IPA) Congress, plunged us right into the heart of the theme and the host country with the poignant testimony of the only survivor of the Oporto massacre, Camilo Andres Jaramito. This is not Camilo’s first attempt at the subject: for over 30 years he has been recounting, over and over again, on various occasions, the terrible attack that almost left him for dead and which cost the lives of five of his friends and at least 18 other innocent victims (the exact number remains unknown). For him, testifying is necessary in order to validate his experience and make it known to the community, a task that cannot be taken for granted, given the prevailing denial about this attack. On 23 June 1990, as Camilo and his friends, young students, are having a drink in the Oporto bar, near Medellin, at around 10 pm, a squad of about 20 hooded men armed with rifles burst in and separate the men and women in the bar. The men are taken to the car park and told to lie face down. Camillo closes his eyes; it’s certain he’s going to be shot. The massacre begins – the worst mass shooting ever to take place in Colombia – the shots rain down, Camillo is shot 9 times: with each bullet, he thinks it’s the “right one”, the one that will kill him, but no, he survives. Silence, he keeps quiet, “plays dead”, he receives a tenth bullet, still without flinching. His friends are dead and the terrorists leave the scene. The women who had been kept at a distance arrive and help him. An ambulance quickly takes him to hospital, where he stays for just a few days, his vital organs having been miraculously spared. “I lost all sense of security”, says Camillo. He quits his university and spends a few years in the United States, where he feels safer … until 11 Septemb