Adolfo Pérez Esquivel

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 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. 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 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 Peace Memorial. Pérez Esquivel was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize 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 remained active in support of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo despite ongoing harassment by the dictatorship, He campaigned during 2010 against the practice on the part of the Esquel Police Department of training children into paramilitary squads, an operation that he compared to the creation of Nazi Germany's Hitler Youth.

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". In the aftermath of the death of Osama bin Laden, he sent a letter to President Barack Obama suggesting the United States killed rather than tried bin Laden because he could have revealed unsettling information about 9/11. 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 attempt, orchestrated by the United States.

He was hospitalized in January 2022 following a stroke.

Works of art

Esquivel's work 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 in Switzerland; the Latin American Peoples Mural in the Cathedral of Riobamba, Ecuador, dedicated to Monsignor Proaño and the indigenous peoples; and a bronze statue in tribute to Mahatma Gandhi at Gandhi Square, in Barcelona.