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was hospitalized for extended periods in neuropsychiatric centers. During the
interviews with Lorena Beatriz, she stated that what kept her alive was for her
“mother not to lose another child,” and at the same time she was afraid that
someone might die, and therefore she preferred to die. Furthermore, her parents
were so depressed that when they returned from work she had to care for them until
the next day, when they went back to work, and thus every day. With respect to her
father, Lorena Beatriz stated that he could not decide anything in his life, and even
less so with respect to her two little siblings, for which reason she also had to take
over the responsibility for them. Walter David was always a model or reference point
for Lorena Beatriz. Currently, Lorena Beatriz is at a point of the utmost concern, as
she is a woman who “at age 27” has not been able to go outside her house again, to
establish emotional ties with another person, to study or work, and she has become
“like a housekeeper [...] for her own family. She is the custodian of family life, to
ensure that no one else dies or is depressed.”
With respect to Víctor David Bulacio, the expert witness pointed out that his
death coincided, nine years later, with the month that Walter David had died. During
that period, he went through various situations “like going into and out of [...]
depressive patterns which he attempted to overcome, to continue with the demand
for justice for his son’s death.” He stopped working. Since 1996, he began to suffer
more protracted periods of depression, lost his job, became careless about his
personal hygiene, and was uninterested in life. He attempted suicide three times,
one of them swallowing ground glass. Finally, Víctor David Bulacio suffered a heart
condition that caused his death.
With respect to María Ramona Armas de Bulacio, Walter David’s grandmother,
the expert witness stated that she was a very active participant in the demand for
justice and truth regarding her grandson’s death. During several periods “she was
the public face of this struggle,” which was not enough to avoid certain effects on her
body: since 1996, she underwent seven operations and suffered a hiatus hernia,
duodenal cancer and metastasis in the stomach. Any family has expectations
regarding the future of its members; in the case of the grandmother, she idealized
Walter David’s image very much.
With respect to Walter David, the expert witness stated that it has been
“demonstrated by his school reports and by his friends, classmates and group
members, [that he was] an excellent student.” This youth had projects, as any
adolescent does. He planned to study law at the university; he worked and he
contributed to his family financially. He was the first-born son, and as such, there
were many expectations about him; he symbolized “continuity [of the parents] in
life.”
The next of kin interviewed insisted on their pressing need to “close a process that
has gone beyond the limits of mourning, even pathological.”
c)
Expert opinion of Sofía Tiscornia, anthropologist, Director of the
Political Anthropology and Institutional Violence Program of the Social
Anthropology Section of the School of Philosophy and Arts of the University of
Buenos Aires, and Director of the Study and Research Institute of the
Ombudsperson’s Office of the City of Buenos Aires.
The usual practice for detention of individuals by the police in Argentina, especially in
the city of Buenos Aires, is the so-called “razzias”, “detentions to verify criminal