At a press conference held during the 21st Guadalajara International Book Fair (Mexico) on Tuesday, November 28, a manifesto condemning the Military Commissions Act of 2006 was released. This manifesto written by Catalan writer Eduardo Subirats, which is included in the book Against Torture (Contra la tortura*), had been signed by 57 intellectuals from throughout the Spanish speaking world, including Nobel Prize for Literature winners Jose Saramago, Gabriel García Márquez, and Nobel Peace Prize winner Adolfo Pérez Esquivel.
The manifesto, which was read at the conference by Mexican actress and activist Ana Colchero, states in part:
“The U.S. Congress and government have recently passed a law, the 2006
Military Commissions Act, which justifies and promotes torture by
authorizing coercive interrogation procedures and the use of physical
violence. Torture is a violent means designed to destroy the moral and
physical integrity of a human being. Only despotic and belligerent
governments have applied these dehumanizing practices.”
Eduardo Subirats explained that the book including the statement
“emerged in reaction to the approval of a US law that promotes the
systemic use of torture.”
Also speaking at the press conference was Project Coordinator of the UN
Office on Drugs and Crime Carlos Castresana, who has served in the
Central Prosecution Service Against Corruption in the Attorney
General’s Office in Spain, who said: “First of all we wanted to talk
about something that nobody talks about, we wanted to break the silence
and someone had to say what is going on. That euphemism of the hard way
is the message sent by many governments that, either in real or
emergency situations, want to use this as a pretext to convince public
opinion that torture is legal.”
The signatories of this manifesto include:
Gabriel García Márquez, Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, José Saramago, Juan
Goytisolo, Carlos Monsiváis, Javier Acevedo, Mariclaire Acosta Urquidi,
Xavier Albó, Rafael Barrios M., Marisa Belausteguigoitia, Alberto
Binder, Sonis Britto, Amilton Bueno de Carvalho, Gustavo Cabrera,
Sandra Carvalho, Carlos Correa, Benjamín Cuellar, Enrique del Val,
Ariel Dorfman, Tomás Eloy Martínez, Diamela Eltit, Lúcio Flávio Pinto,
Eduardo Galeano, Roberto Garreton, Rafael Gumucio, Noé Jitrik, Horst
Kurnitzky, Julio Maier, Hna. Elsie Monge, Alejandro Moreano, Alvaro
Mutis, Daniel R. Pastor, Ignacio Padilla, Jorge Eduardo Pan, Mireya del
Pino, Nery Rodenas, Pablo Rojas, Pilar Royg, Emir Sader, Vicente
Quirarte, Judith Salgado, Minerva Margarita Villarreal, Francisco
Soberón, Juan Oberto Sotomayor, Adriana Valdés, Luisa Valenzuela,
Susana Villaran, Luis Villoro, José Woldenberg, David Toscana, Eduardo
Antonio Parra, Verónica Volkov, Xavier Velasco, José Emilio Pacheco.
* Contra la tortura: cinco ensayos y un manifiesto. Editorial Fineo,
México, noviembre 2006, incluye textos de Pilar Calveiro, Carlos
Castresana, Rita Laura Segato, Margarita Serje y Eduardo Subirats
(compilador),