Disappeared: A Journalist Silenced

by June Carolyn Erlick, Stephan Kinzer (Foreword)

"If I die, don't cry for me—because I was fighting for what I love."—Irma Flaquer

On a quiet October evening in 1980, Guatemalan journalist Irma Flaquer, returning to her downtown apartment after a visit with her four-year-old grandson, was dragged from her car, never to be seen again. Founder of the first Guatemalan Human Rights Commission, she was a crusading reporter who did not tolerate corruption or repression. Best known for her weekly column that ran for over twenty years in various Guatemalan newspapers—Lo Que Otros Callan or "What Others Don't Dare Write"—Flaquer criticized presidents, politicians, and the heads of the Roman Catholic Church, and championed the rights of the disenfranchised, in some cases, making and breaking political regimes. A tenacious detractor of the U.S.-backed, corrupt Guatemalan governments, Flaquer survived government-organized beatings, a car bomb that riddled her body with shrapnel, and drive-by shootings of her newspaper office, refusing exile and continuing her call for freedom and democracy until her abduction. Disappeared paints a gripping and complicated portrait both of a vibrant woman with a passionate vision and of an emerging nation, struggling against the strictures of Cold War politics and behind-the-scenes U.S. involvement.

Genres: Biography

256 pages, Paperback

First published September 30, 2004

Reviews

[Anne-Marie O'Connor · Rating 5 out of 5]

Irma Flaquer was a beautiful, intelligent young woman, who chose to ignore the privileged life that awaited young women like her, and instead undertake the difficult task of bearing witness to her country's fratricidal struggle with fascism, as a journalist. Did she have hope that her efforts would help to build a better tomorrow in Guatemala? Perhaps. Instead she vanished, during one of the succession of bloody military governments that would terrorize her country for decades.
For years Guatemalans have wondered what happened to Irma Flaquer. Their fears of the worst were renewed by the daily headlines of torture and murder. Flaquer became a symbol of how the best and the brightest of her country were consumed, as they tried to push their country towards democracy.
This book helps to solve the mystery. Anyone who cares about Guatemala and Central America should read it.
Comment

[Paula García · Rating 4 out of 5]

Irma Flaquer se atrevió a escribir la verdad y por eso fue asesinada. Casi 40 años después de su muerte, las luchas ideológicas continúan.

[Luis Cardenas · Rating 4 out of 5]

La triste historia de una periodista vicitma de los extremos ideológicos de izquierda y derecha, de la amenaza militarista tan presente en América Latina y de las guerrillas y paramilitarismo. Todo por hacer el trabajo de buscar lo más cercano a la verdad verdadera.