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Adolfo Pérez Esquivel (born 26 November 1931) is an Argentine activist, community organizer, painter, writer and sculptor. He was the recipient of the 1980
Nobel Peace Prize The Nobel Peace Prize (Swedish language, Swedish and ) is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the Will and testament, will of Sweden, Swedish industrialist, inventor, and armaments manufacturer Alfred Nobel, along with the prizes in Nobe ...
for his opposition to Argentina's last civil-military dictatorship (1976–1983), during which he was detained, tortured, and held without trial for 14 months. He also received, among other distinctions, the Pacem in Terris Award.


Early life

Pérez Esquivel was born in
Buenos Aires Buenos Aires, controlled by the government of the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires, is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Argentina. It is located on the southwest of the Río de la Plata. Buenos Aires is classified as an Alpha− glob ...
on 26 November 1931 to a Spanish fisherman from Poio, Galicia, who emigrated to Argentina. His mother died when he was three, and despite his poverty, he attended the
Manuel Belgrano Manuel José Joaquín del Corazón de Jesús Belgrano (3 June 1770 – 20 June 1820), usually referred to as Manuel Belgrano (), was an Argentina, Argentine public servant, economist, lawyer, politician, journalist, and military leader. He to ...
School of Fine Arts and the National University of La Plata, where he was trained as a painter and sculptor. He was appointed professor of architecture and worked with a variety of sculptural media, and for 25 years taught in all levels from primary to university. Pérez Esquivel began working with popularly based Latin American Christian pacifist groups during the 1960s. He relinquished his teaching post in 1974, when he was chosen as coordinator general for a network of Latin America-based communities promoting liberation of the poor through non-violence.


Plight for human rights

When systematic repression followed the March 1976 coup, which brought the dictatorship of General Jorge Videla to power, Pérez Esquivel contributed to the formation and financing of the linkages between popularly based organizations to defend human rights in Argentina and support the families of the victims of the
Dirty War The Dirty War () is the name used by the military junta or National Reorganization Process, civic-military dictatorship of Argentina () for its period of state terrorism in Argentina from 1974 to 1983. During this campaign, military and secu ...
. The NGO '' Servicio Paz y Justicia'' ("Service, Peace and Justice Foundation", or SERPAJ), which he co-founded in 1974, and served as an instrument for the defense of human rights by promoting an international campaign to denounce the atrocities committed by the military regime. SERPAJ is a member of the International Fellowship of Reconciliation (IFOR), which supported Esquivel's work from the beginning. Pérez Esquivel was detained by the Brazilian Military Police in 1975. He was jailed in 1976 in Ecuador, along with Latin American and North American bishops. He was detained in Buenos Aires in 1977 by the Argentine Federal Police, tortured, and held without trial for 14 months; during that, he received, among other distinctions, the
Pope John XXIII Pope John XXIII (born Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli; 25 November 18813 June 1963) was head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 28 October 1958 until his death on 3 June 1963. He is the most recent pope to take ...
Peace Memorial.


Distinctions

Nominated by 1976 Nobel Peace Prize laureates Mairead Corrigan and Betty Williams, Pérez Esquivel was awarded the
Nobel Peace Prize The Nobel Peace Prize (Swedish language, Swedish and ) is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the Will and testament, will of Sweden, Swedish industrialist, inventor, and armaments manufacturer Alfred Nobel, along with the prizes in Nobe ...
on 10 December 1980, for his efforts in the defense of human rights. Accepting the prize "in the name of the poorest and smallest of my brothers and sisters," he donated the prize money to charity. He remained active in support of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo despite ongoing harassment by the dictatorship, and later joined causes in support of the indigenous peoples of Argentina and
environmentalism Environmentalism is a broad philosophy, ideology, and social movement about supporting life, habitats, and surroundings. While environmentalism focuses more on the environmental and nature-related aspects of green ideology and politics, ecolog ...
and against
austerity In economic policy, austerity is a set of Political economy, political-economic policies that aim to reduce government budget deficits through Government spending, spending cuts, tax increases, or a combination of both. There are three prim ...
policies and the Free Trade Area of the Americas. Pérez Esquivel was awarded the Pacem in Terris Award in 1999. Pérez Esquivel served as president of the Honorary Council of Service, Latin American Peace and Justice Foundation and of the International League for Human Rights and Liberation of Peoples (based in
Milan Milan ( , , ; ) is a city in northern Italy, regional capital of Lombardy, the largest city in Italy by urban area and the List of cities in Italy, second-most-populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of nea ...
), and as a member of the Permanent Peoples' Tribunal. He published ''Caminando Junto al Pueblo'' ("Walking Together with the People", 1995), in which he relates his experiences with nonviolence in Latin America, and he was appointed Professor of Peace and Human Rights Studies at the University of Buenos Aires in 1998. He campaigned during 2010 against the practice on the part of the Esquel Police Department of training children into
paramilitary A paramilitary is a military that is not a part of a country's official or legitimate armed forces. The Oxford English Dictionary traces the use of the term "paramilitary" as far back as 1934. Overview Though a paramilitary is, by definiti ...
squads, an operation that he compared to the creation of
Nazi Germany Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German Reich, German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a Totalit ...
's
Hitler Youth The Hitler Youth ( , often abbreviated as HJ, ) was the youth wing of the German Nazi Party. Its origins date back to 1922 and it received the name ("Hitler Youth, League of German Worker Youth") in July 1926. From 1936 until 1945, it was th ...
.


Recent years

Pérez Esquivel is a permanent lecturer at the University of Buenos Aires Faculty of Social Sciences, where he directs the seminar "Culture for Peace and Human Rights". He opposed the European intervention in the
2011 Libyan Civil War The Libyan civil war, also known as the First Libyan Civil War and Libyan Revolution, was an armed conflict in 2011 in the North African country of Libya that was fought between forces loyal to Colonel Muammar Gaddafi and rebel groups that were ...
and warned against an intervention in the Syrian Civil War.Luis Fleishman
The Gaza Crisis and the Intellectual Left in Latin America: A Dark Picture
The Americas Report: Center for Security Policy, 6 December 2012
In the aftermath of the
death of Osama bin Laden Death is the end of life; the irreversible cessation of all biological functions that sustain a living organism. Death eventually and inevitably occurs in all organisms. The remains of a former organism normally begin to decompose sh ...
, he sent a letter to President
Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II (born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who was the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the first African American president in American history. O ...
suggesting the United States killed rather than tried bin Laden because he could have revealed unsettling information about 9/11. He argued, "You know that there are people who have investigated the tragic events of 9/11/2001 and claim there is evidence that this was a self-coup (self-inflicted attack)." Later, he added, "this event was the perfect excuse to launch a war against Afghanistan and Iraq and now against Libya," and referred to the United States an "axis of evil." Pérez Esquivel expressed himself regarding the 2013 election of Archbishop of Buenos Aires Jorge Bergoglio as
Pope Francis Pope Francis (born Jorge Mario Bergoglio; 17 December 1936 – 21 April 2025) was head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 13 March 2013 until Death and funeral of Pope Francis, his death in 2025. He was the fi ...
, stating that as
Provincial superior A provincial superior is an officer of a religious institute (including religious orders) acting under the institute's Superior General. A provincial superior exercises general supervision over all the members of that institute in a territorial ...
of
Jesuit The Society of Jesus (; abbreviation: S.J. or SJ), also known as the Jesuit Order or the Jesuits ( ; ), is a religious order (Catholic), religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rom ...
s "he had lacked the sufficient courage shown by other Bishops to support our cause for human rights during the dictatorship." Pérez Esquivel also said that "Bergoglio did what he could given his age at that time." He, however, clarified that the future Pope "was no accomplice and had no links with the dictatorship" and that while "it is said he did not do enough to get two priests out of jail, I know personally that many bishops called on the military junta for the release of prisoners and priests and that these requests were not granted." In June 2017, he defended the government of Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela, saying that the country was undergoing a
coup d'état A coup d'état (; ; ), or simply a coup , is typically an illegal and overt attempt by a military organization or other government elites to unseat an incumbent leadership. A self-coup is said to take place when a leader, having come to powe ...
attempt, orchestrated by the United States. He was hospitalized in January 2022 following a stroke.


Works of art

Esquivel's workObra Artística
Official website of Adolfo Pérez Esquivel (in Spanish)
ranges from exhibitions to murals and monuments, including the 15 station Latin American Via Crucis (including a Lenten cloth "A new sky and a new land") made in 1992 to commemorate the 500th anniversary of the conquest of America; Monument to Refugees, located in the Headquarters of the
UNHCR The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is a United Nations agency mandated to aid and Humanitarian protection, protect refugees, Internally displaced person, forcibly displaced communities, and Statelessness, s ...
in Switzerland; the Latin American Peoples Mural in the Cathedral of Riobamba, Ecuador, dedicated to Monsignor Proaño and the
indigenous peoples There is no generally accepted definition of Indigenous peoples, although in the 21st century the focus has been on self-identification, cultural difference from other groups in a state, a special relationship with their traditional territ ...
; and a bronze statue in tribute to
Mahatma Gandhi Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (2October 186930January 1948) was an Indian lawyer, anti-colonial nationalism, anti-colonial nationalist, and political ethics, political ethicist who employed nonviolent resistance to lead the successful Indian ...
at Gandhi Square, in
Barcelona Barcelona ( ; ; ) is a city on the northeastern coast of Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second-most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within c ...
.


See also

* World Social Forum * '' Adolfo Perez Esquivel: Rivers of Hope''


Notes


References


External links


Esquivel's Art – Stations of the CrossC
(English, French, Spanish, Portuguese)

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Esquivel, Adolfo Perez 1931 births Living people Artists from Buenos Aires Argentine people of Spanish descent Argentine people of Galician descent National University of La Plata alumni Argentine activists Argentine Christian pacifists Argentine Nobel laureates Argentine Roman Catholics Argentine sculptors Catholic pacifists Argentine male sculptors Nobel Peace Prize laureates Academic staff of the University of Buenos Aires Torture victims of the Dirty War Nonviolence advocates 20th-century Argentine sculptors 20th-century Argentine painters 20th-century male artists Argentine male painters Argentine human rights activists