Adolfo Pérez Esquivel

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Adolfo María Pérez Esquivel (born November 26, 1931 in Buenos Aires ) is an Argentine sculptor , architect and civil rights activist . In 1980 he received the Nobel Peace Prize for his Mahatma Gandhi- oriented nonviolent commitment to human rights . In 1987 he took over the presidency of the International League for the Rights and Liberation of People . He is a member of the honorary protection committee of the International Coordination for the Decade for a Culture of Peace and Nonviolence for the Children of the World (2001-2010).

life and work

Early years and artistic creation

Adolfo Pérez Esquivel was born in Buenos Aires in Argentina in 1931; his father came from Spain and was a fisherman. His mother was the daughter of a Guarani Indian. He lost his mother when he was 3 years old. The father could not look after the small children and so Esquivel was brought as a half - orphan to an orphanage run by nuns . The moment of delivery and the time in the home were formative for him. He rebelled against the hard upbringing of the nuns and experienced kindness and encouragement of artistic talents from the housekeeper Josefa. After graduating from high school, he began studying architecture at the Buenos Aires School of Art. In 1956 he completed this course with a diploma. He subsequently worked as a sculptor and until 1974 taught architecture at several universities as a professor. As a sculptor, he won the Premio la Nación de Escultura, one of the most important cultural prizes in the country. With his work Templo del Sol , created in 1966 , he tried to incorporate pre-Columbian artistic features into his art, and motherhood was one of his central themes.

Social commitment

In 1968, at a conference of all Latin American human rights groups, Adolfo Pérez Esquivel was one of the founders of the Servicio Paz y Justicia (Service for Peace and Justice) as the umbrella organization for these organizations. This was a reaction to the political and social conditions in Argentina under the rule of the dictator Juan Carlos Onganía , which were accompanied by the impoverishment of a broad section of the population and state reprisals .

In 1973 he founded the newspaper Paz y Justicia as a monthly magazine and organ for the Latin American human rights movement. In 1974 he gave up his professorship and devoted himself entirely to the work in the organization and coordination of groups in Latin America. In that year he was also elected general secretary of the organization, he himself focused on promoting the education of the poor and self-help. In 1974 he also started a campaign for indigenous people looking for land . In 1975 he traveled to Paraguay and supported the farmers' league that was establishing itself there in their fight against government attacks.

In 1976 Adolfo Pérez Esquivel toured Europe and the United States, trying to promote the goals and efforts of his organization there. That year the Argentine President Isabel Perón was overthrown in a military coup and replaced by General Jorge Rafael Videla . In the military dictatorship that followed, the freedom of the press was restricted and criticism in the country was suppressed through torture, kidnapping and "disappearance" of 30,000 people. In 1977, Adolfo Pérez Esquivel was also arrested and imprisoned and tortured for 14 months. During this time he was looked after by Amnesty International . In 1978 he was released again - not least thanks to the successful Amnesty campaign - but placed under house arrest for another nine months. It was not until 1980 that he could become active again. When he received the Nobel Peace Prize that year, he was surprised himself, and this decision came as a surprise internationally too.

After the invasion of the Falkland Islands ( Islas Malvinas ) by the Argentine troops and the subsequent defeat in the Falklands War , the military government under Leopoldo Galtieri was so weakened in view of the desperate economic situation in the country that his military successor in the presidency, Reynaldo Bignone, called democratic elections as a way out left, from which Raúl Alfonsín emerged as president of Argentina in free elections. The members of the military junta were sentenced to imprisonment in 1985, but these were lifted in 1989/90 through the use of the pardon under President Carlos Menem . This transformed the de facto impunity during the military dictatorship into a legalized impunity under the democratic government.

Adolfo Pérez Esquivel became President of the International League for the Rights and Liberation of People in 1987 . He also lectures at the Universidad de Buenos Aires at the Facultad de Ciencias Sociales . He received an honorary doctorate from St. Joseph University in Philadelphia. He used his prize money primarily to support his organization, for indigenous people in the country and for homeless families.

Since 2004 Adolfo Pérez Esquivel has been a member of the jury of the Nuremberg International Human Rights Prize.

As a great friend of the children's charity and social project "Fundação Vida Para Todos - ABAI" in Mandirituba (southern Brazil) and its founder Marianne Spiller-Hadorn, Adolfo Pérez Esquivel took part in the anniversary event on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the organization. He presented the organization with a picture he had painted, which symbolizes the Mãe Terra (Mother Earth) and indicates the eco-spiritual dimension, which is an important aspect of the work of the “Fundação Vida Para Todos - ABAI”. This is supported by the Swiss association "ABAI Friends - Vida Para Todos" ideally and financially.

Together with the two Nobel Peace Prize winners Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Mairead Corrigan , he wrote an open letter in November 2012 in which Bradley Manning is called "a courageous informant who has uncovered crimes in Afghanistan and Iraq". The three Nobel Peace Prize laureates wrote in a letter published in The Nation magazine on December 3, 2012, that the US Armed Forces Corporal deserves mercy rather than prosecution .

From 2004 to 2016 he was a member of the jury for the International Nuremberg Human Rights Award .

literature

  • Bernhard Kupfer: Lexicon of Nobel Prize Winners . Patmos, Düsseldorf 2001, ISBN 3-491-72451-1 .
  • Michael Neumann: The Nobel Peace Prize from 1979 to 1982. Mother Teresa, Adolfo Perez Esquivel, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Alva Myrdal, Alfonso Garcia Robles (= The Nobel Peace Prize from 1901 to today , Volume 11), Edition Pacis, Zug 1992. ISBN 3-907514-11-4 .
  • Marianne Spiller-Hadorn: Adolfo Pérez Esquivel. The nonviolent rebel . Orell Füssli, Zurich 2006, ISBN 3-280-06079-6 .
  • Kai Ambos: On the “legal” structure of repression and criminal law dealing with the past in Argentina. A comment from a legal point of view . In: Detlef Nolte (ed.): Coming to terms with the past in Latin America . Vervuert, Frankfurt am Main 1996, ISBN 3-89354-244-2 .

Filmography

  • Charlotte Eichhorn: The Nonviolent Rebel: Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate , 3sat, first broadcast February 14, 2009.

Web links

Commons : Adolfo Pérez Esquivel  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Spiller-Hagedorn, M.:, Adolfo Perez Esquivel, The Violent Rebell, Zurich, p. 19
  2. ↑ Paola Carriel: ONG comemora 30 anos trazendo prêmio Nobel | Vida e Cidadania . Gazeta do Povo , November 21, 2010, accessed November 26, 2016 (Portuguese).
  3. ^ Nobel Laureates Salute Bradley Manning . The Nation , November 14, 2012, accessed November 26, 2016.
  4. ^ Nobel laureates stand up for Wikileaks informants Manning . dapd article on Welt Online , November 15, 2012, accessed November 26, 2016.
  5. ^ Andreas Hermann Landl: The nonviolent rebel. friedensnews.at, February 14, 2009, accessed on November 26, 2016 (short description of the film by Charlotte Eichhorn).
personal data
SURNAME Perez Esquivel, Adolfo
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Pérez Esquivel, Adolfo María (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Argentine sculptor, architect and civil rights activist
DATE OF BIRTH November 26, 1931
PLACE OF BIRTH Buenos Aires