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suffered these accusations regarding Walter David by a State attorney during a
hearing at a courtroom.
She regrets very much having had to come before the Court, as she would have
preferred if things had been solved in her country. She asked the Court, insofar as
possible, to do something so that what happened to her son will not happen to any
other youth. All she wants is “justice, nothing more.”
b)
Expert opinion of Graciela Marisa Guilis, a psychologist,
Coordinator of the mental health team and a member of the Mental
Health Team of the Centro de Estudios Legales y Sociales on torture
during the dictatorship.
The expert witness referred to the impact of the events suffered by Walter David
Bulacio on the household. At the time of the facts, Walter’s family had a traditional
structure. His death caused a disruption which established “a before and an after in
the form of existence of this family.” When someone loses a spouse, he is called a
widower; when someone loses a father or a mother, he is called an orphan, but there
are no names, in any language, to call someone who suffers the death of a child.
Only in Hebrew is there a term that characterizes this situation, and that is “chacol”,
the closest translation of which is the idea of a dejectedness of the soul. This is the
only name given to a father or mother regarding the death of a child, and this is the
catastrophic dimension of Walter David’s death for his parents.
There is clearly mourning in the case of parents regarding the death of their children,
but the component of State intervention, in this case, affected the type of mourning
and the situation of the family. The State is supposed to be a guarantor, or a third
party to whom one can appeal in the “social contract between the citizens and State
institutions.” In face of an intrusion by the State, the family’s subjectivity is affected,
that is, their life projects and, ultimately, their sense of belonging to that social
space is affected, with the attendant psychological damage. This is why “only the
State can return justice [and] a place in society to these next of kin,” by answering
basic questions which any relative asks in a normal grieving process, such as: “how
did it happen?,” “who was responsible?,” “under what circumstances did it occur?”
Otherwise, the next of kin take upon themselves a feeling of guilt regarding the
death of their beloved one. With respect to Walter David’s image, the family also
endured suspicions that because he was an adolescent he was involved in
alcoholism, drug addition or altered sexual behavior, allegations that were ultimately
disproven.
According to the expert witness, she observed various effects in all members of the
family, both in their bodies and in their psyche. Since 1996, due to obstruction of
the investigation of what happened and lack of a judgment, all indicators and signs
shown by the members of the household grew dramatically and their pathologies
worsened. Furthermore, loss of their jobs was due to “the subjective conditions they
were undergoing and [...] the burden this meant in their existence.”
With respect to Lorena Beatriz Bulacio, Walter David Bulacio’s sister, the expert
witness pointed out that she was 14 at the time her brother died. The next year,
Lorena Beatriz suffered a serious pattern of bulimia that persisted throughout almost
all her adolescence; beginning in 1996, at age 19, she attempted suicide twice and