Unsettling Accounts

Payne Leigh A. Payne

Description

An Argentine naval officer remorsefully admits that he killed thirty people during Argentina's Dirty War. A member of General Augusto Pinochet's intelligence service reveals on a television show that he took sadistic pleasure in the sexual torture of women in clandestine prisons. A Brazilian military officer draws on his own experiences to write a novel describing the military's involvement in a massacre during the 1970s. The head of a police death squad refuses to become the scapegoat for apartheid-era violence in South Africa; he begins to name names and provide details of past atrocities to the Truth Commission. Focusing on these and other confessions to acts of authoritarian state violence, Leigh A. Payne asks what happens when perpetrators publicly admit or discuss their actions. While mechanisms such as South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission are touted as means of settling accounts with the past, Payne contends that public confessions do not settle the past. They are unsettling by nature. Rather than reconcile past violence, they catalyze contentious debate. She argues that this debate-and the public confessions that trigger it-are healthy for democratic processes of political participation, freedom of expression, and the contestation of political ideas.Payne draws on interviews, unedited television film, newspaper archives, and books written by perpetrators to analyze confessions of state violence in Argentina, Chile, Brazil, and South Africa. Each of these four countries addressed its past through a different institutional form-from blanket amnesty, to conditional amnesty based on confessions, to judicial trials. Payne considers perpetrators' confessions as performance, examining what they say and what they communicate nonverbally; the timing, setting, and reception of their confessions; and the different ways that they portray their pasts, whether in terms of remorse, heroism, denial, or sadism, or through lies or betrayal.

Sujets

• Sociologie, société et politique
• Southern Africa
• Human rights

Informations

• Publié par: Duke University Press
• Date de parution: 11 janvier 2008
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780822390435
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

An Argentine navAl ofIcer remorsefully admitsthat he killed thirty people during Argen- tina’s Dirty War. A member of General Augusto Pinochet’s intelligence service reveals on a television show that he took sadistic pleasure in the sexual torture of women in clandestine prisons. A Brazilian military ofîcer draws on his own experiences to write a novel describ- ing the military’s involvement in a massacre during the 1970s. The head of a police death squad refuses to become the scapegoat for apartheid-era violence in South Africa; he begins to name names and provide details of past atrocities to the Truth Commission. Focusing on these and other confessions to acts of authoritarian state violence, Leigh A. Payne asks what happens when perpetrators publicly admit or discuss their actions. While mechanisms such as South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission are touted as means of settling accounts with the past, Payne contends that public confessions do not settle the past. They are unsettling by nature. Rather than reconcile past violence, they catalyze contentious de- bate. She argues that this debate—and the public confessions that trigger it—are healthy for democratic processes of political participation, freedom of expression, and the contestation of political ideas.  Payne draws on interviews, unedited television îlm, newspaper archives, and books writ- ten by perpetrators to analyze confessions of state violence in Argentina, Chile, Brazil, and South Africa. Each of these four countries addressed its past through a different institutional form—from blanket amnesty, to conditional amnesty based on confessions, to judicial tri- als. Payne considers perpetrators’ confessions as performance, examining what they say and what they communicate nonverbally; the timing, setting, and reception of their confessions; and the different ways that they portray their pasts, whether in terms of remorse, heroism, denial, or sadism, or through lies or betrayal.

“Unsettling Accounts is an extremely valuable contribution to social science scholar- ship. Leigh A. Payne’s complex and nuanced analysis of when, why, and how perpe- trators confess is far more sophisticated than any other research that I know about.” — , author ofThe School of the Americas: Military Training and Political Violence in the Americas

“Unsettling Accountsunique in transitional justice literature in its extended focus on in- is dividual perpetrators and on confessions. Leigh A. Payne links individual stories to some of the most pressing questions in transitional justice scholarship.”— , author ofMixed Signals: U.S. Human Rights Policy and Latin America

is Professor of Political Science at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

A John Hope Franklin Center Book The Cultures and Practice of Violence: A Series Edited by Neil L. Whitehead, Jo Ellen Fair, and Leigh A. Payne

Box 90660 | Durham, NC 27708-0660 www.dukeupress.edu

On the cover: Leon Golub,White Squad V, 1984, acrylic on linen, 120∑161 in., The Broad Art Foundation, Santa Monica. Courtesy Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, New York. © Estate of Leon Golub / licensed by VAGA, New York.

unsettlingaccounts i

leigh a. payne unsettlingaccounts

duke

leigh a. payne

neither truth

nor reconciliation

in confessions of

state violence

a john hope franklin center book

TheCulturesandPracticeofViolenceSeries

series editors: Neil L. Whitehead, University of Wisconsin, Madison Jo Ellen Fair, University of Wisconsin, Madison Leigh A. Payne, University of Wisconsin, Madison

unsettling accounts unsettling accounts

The study of violence has often focused on the political and economic conditions under which violence is generated, the su√ering of victims, and the psychology of its interpersonal dynamics. Less familiar are the role of perpetrators, their motivations, and the social condi- tions under which they are able to operate. In the context of colonial, national, and postcolo- nial state building, as well as the collapse and implosion of society itself, community violence, state repression, and the remembrance and inquiry that mark the aftermath of civil conflicts, there is a need to better comprehend the role of those who actually do the work of violence— torturers, assassins, and terrorists—as much as the role of those who su√er its consequences. When atrocity and murder take place, they feed the world iconic imagination that transcends reality and its rational articulation; but an imagination fed on violence can bring further violent realities into being. This series encourages authors who build on traditional disciplines and break out of their constraints and boundaries, incorporating media and performance studies and literary, cultural, and sexuality studies as much as anthropology, sociology, and history.

NeitherTruth

norReconciliation

inConfessionsof

StateViolence

leigh a. payne

duke universit y press

durham and london2008

unsettling accounts unsettling accounts

∫2008DukeUniversityPress Allrightsreserved PrintedintheUnitedStatesofAmerica onacid-freepaper$ DesignedbyKatyClove TypesetinCyclesbyKeystoneTypesetting,Inc. LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-Publication informationappearsonthelastprintedpageofthisbook.

to steve, zack, and abbe

forever and unconditionally

acknowledgments ix abbreviations xiii introduction: ThePoliticalPowerofConfession

1orrfPelencmanoCanoissef13

2Remorse41

3oisnCnoefssHeroic75

4Sadism107

5Denial141

6Silence173

7esdiFLinanctio

8Amnesia229

9Betrayal251

197

conclusion: ContentiousCoexistence notes 293 bibliography 343 index 353

279

1

contents contents

acknowledgments acknowledgments

‘‘Why is a nice girl like you working on a topic like this?’’ I have received this question more times than I can count in some form or another since I began this project. At first my answer focused on my personal and physical distance from these political matters. I argued that it was precisely because I had not experienced anything remotely like this political violence that I could work on it. That critical dis- tance, however, broke down after spending years working with per- petrators, victims, and survivors, video and photo archives of vio- lence, and confessional and testimonial accounts. While I still had not directly experienced authoritarian state violence, violence and viola- tors formed a large part of my life. Now I have to honestly reply that I did not understand the emotional and physical toll that such a study would have on me. But I have learned a lot along the way. I hope that this project contributes to a comprehension that political violence a√ects all of us once we begin to acknowledge it. I also hope that it encourages less silence and more combative dialogue to challenge the legitimacy of state-authorized violence. For the experience and the outcome, I owe many institutions and many individuals a debt of gratitude. This extensive and expensive project, which took place in four countries, was made possible by the