Argentina's Forensic Anthropology Team Left Without Funds

The Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team (EAAF) announced it will suspend its activities as they have not received the agreed government funds for 2018, forcing them to discontinue identification efforts for victims of the Malvinas’ war and the dictatorship, besides more recent femicides, forced disappearances and human trafficking cases.

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Despite being a non-governmental, not-for-profit organization, the international recognized team’s activities are mainly funded by a cooperative agreement with the Argentine Justice Ministry through the Human Rights and Cultural Pluralism Secretary, and it can’t continue with its duties if the funds don’t come.

“Every administrative step of the agreement with the Justice Minister has been delayed and we still don’t know if they will transfer the corresponding amount for 2018 and we also don’t know if it will be complete,” said the team in a official statement. “The questioned public servants pointed out they will transfer half of the agreed amount, but that didn’t happen by banks’ closing time on Thursday.”

The team was founded in 1984 to investigate the cases of at least 9,000 missing people in Argentina under the military government that ruled from 1976-1983. Since then, they have been applying forensic sciences to investigate human rights violations in Argentina and worldwide.

The agreement reached by the EAAF and the Justice Ministry allowed them to carry out their activities, such as identifying soldiers of the Malvinas War with the United Kingdom that were buried in anonymous graves, recent cases of human rights violations, the death of Carlos Menem Jr., the case of Santiago Maldonado, the car bomb attack against a Jewish community center (AMIA) in Buenos Aires, and other emblematic cases.

According to Luis Fondebrider, a founding member and executive director, suspending the activities would leave relatives of the victims waiting for answers.

“We have a specialized team, operative costs and supplies that must be covered and we’re not in conditions to do that without funds. It’s a very delicate situation because it affects the expectations of families and works that already started,” said Fondebrider.

After the suspension of the activities, the Human Rights Secretary Claudio Avruj said on Friday that the first payment should have been already received by the EAAF and that the next one would come by next week, highlighting the team’s important task in the defense of human rights.

“The joint work between the State and the EAAF is a commitment that guarantees the defense of human rights. It’s a link between different State administrations. We will continue complying with the signed agreements,” said Avruj

On Thursday, President Mauricio Macri said the funds would come through and that they never intended to affect EAAF’s operations.

The EAAF has not made further declarations since then.

Since its foundation, the EAAF has cooperated in more than 30 countries in Latin America, Africa, Europe and Asia. In Mexico they were one of the main investigation teams in the case of the 43 Ayotzinapa missing students and have rejected the government’s narrative of the event, denying there was any scientific evidence to prove the bodies were incinerated in the Cocula landfill.

The team also participated in the exhumation of Ernesto “Che” Guevara’s body in Vallegrande, Bolivia.