To the Editor:
The action taken by the members of the American Psychoanalytic Association at their annual meeting in San Francisco last May to circulate to the member societies of the International Psychoanalytic Association the 1978 letter sent to the Minister of the Interior of the Republic of Argentina about our disappeared Argentinian colleagues is, I believe, to be commended. Although there are differences in opinion among our members about the involvement of the American Psychoanalytic Association as an organization in this human rights issue, I believe there can be no disagreement about the appropriateness of our action as individuals, as psychoanalysts, and as citizens.
And in fact there has been no change in the situation of the “disparacidos” cited in the October 1978 letter, or in the situation of thousands of others. The disappeared persons have not been heard of again. They have not been charged or given a trial or declared dead. In some instances the government is willing to issue a death certificate but will not indicate the circumstances of death.
Let me cite the case of one disappeared person, someone not a member of our profession. Angela Auad was kidnapped along with 15 to 24 other women on December 8, 1977 in the Plaza de Mayo. She had no political interest or affiliation until the arrest of her husband, Roberto Genoves. When she was kidnapped, she was at a mass for her husband and other disappeared persons. Roberto has since been acquitted of all charges and released and is now in the United States, desperately trying to learn the whereabouts of his wife. He finds very little solace in the fact that his wife, along with the other women kidnapped in the Plaza de Mayo, has been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize.
I believe that as an act of conscience every member of the American Psychoanalytic Association should write individually to the Argentinian government, asking for information about the fate of the psychiatrists and psychoanalysts listed in the October 1978 letter, and about the fate of Angela Auad and the other women kidnapped in the Plaza de Mayo, and about all other disappeared persons who have not been treated in accord with United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states that no one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment, and that no one shall be subjected to
arbitrary arrest, detention or exile. The letter should be addressed to General Albano Harguindegui, Ministerio del Interior, Casa de Gobierno, Balcarce 50, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Arnold Richards, M.D.
New York