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Title: The Blindfold's Eyes: My Journey from Torture to Truth by Dianna Ortiz, Patricia Davis ISBN: 1570754357 Publisher: Orbis Books Pub. Date: October, 2002 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.62
Rating: 4
Summary: Compelling and disturbing
Comment: Sister Dianna Ortiz presents a compelling retelling of her experience with the brutality of the military regime in Guatemala. Her story is disturbing on a multitude of fronts. Ortiz's purpose in writing the book seems to be twofold: to exorcise the demons that linger around her and to expose the complicity of the US government in the military (and hence political) affairs of the government of Guatemala - especially as it pertains to the brutal methods of torturous warfare perpetuated on the citizens and noncitizens of the country.
Ortiz is successful in exposing how the United States is intricately tied up in this macabre dance of social/political machinations in that country. She, and others working with her on similar cases, have been instrumental in obtaining the declassification of CIA and US embassy communications - communications that even though heavily censored, point directly to US involvement in that country.
What is also disturbing about Ortiz's work is that it leaves questions unanswered, too. It becomes apparent that Ortiz is laying out her case in print as she has been unsuccessful in obtaining direct confessions from the US government that relate to her own personal experience. This constant attempt to justify actions and expose certain individuals becomes almost vendetta like in nature towards the end of her account although it is hard to be critical of that point given the tremendous psychological and physical warfare that has been perpetuated against her. Her strategy is probably a wise one as it is an attempt to force personal responsibility on individuals rather than let the government escape with a general nod at its own collective and ambiguously defined guilt.
The previously published accounts of eyewitnesses and the
unearthing of mass graves are testimony to the brutality that existed and still exists within the country. Ortiz's story broadens that spectrum of testimony by bringing the reader right into an actual instance of torture that includes graphic and deeply disturbing details that will linger with you for a long time after the book has been read. In the end, the US government still has not answered the methaphorical and actual question: Who IS Alejandro?
Rating: 5
Summary: A tribute to the human spirit
Comment: I first read Sister Dianna's memoir when it came out in October 2002, but found her account of her kidnapping, torture, and rape in Guatemala (not to mention the psychological and social after-effects she's endured) simply too troubling to review at the time. I just reread it, and only now am able to get beyond the pain to touch base with what I think is the book's real message.
Sister Dianna never softpedals either the brutality to which humans can sink nor the horrifying scars such brutality leaves on victims. She and thousands like her have been wounded for life by the ill-treatment they suffered. To look at Sister's photograph on the book's cover is to see a pain in her eyes that will probably never leave her. But she also leaves room for hope and redemption: a hope and redemption, granted, that are ambiguous and sometimes desperate, but nonetheless solidly real for being so unromanticized. She recognizes that what was taken from her during her brutalization can never be returned. Accounts will never be balanced. But as she writes at book's end, "What I had to learn is that math is not enough. You have to take into account the unexpected. As Graham Greene said, 'Life is absurd. Therefore, there is always hope.'" Not hope for a flashy divine intervention that makes everything right, but for a more solid, more redemptive healing: "I have forgiven God for not working some dramatic miracle. I've learned that God was working a quiet miracle all along, healing me through other people. I still have the horrible past with me
--I carry it in my memory and in my skin and I always will--but laid over it, like new skin over a wound, is a newer past, a past of caring and love."
I thank God for people like Dianna Ortiz, whose life reminds us that there is great strength in fragility.
Rating: 5
Summary: A true testament to the power of faith
Comment: The Blindfold's Eyes: My Journey From Torture To Truth is the horrific and candid story of Sister Dianna Ortiz, a Catholic nun who physically and emotionally suffered at the hands of ruthless Guatemala's torturers, and who was able to escape to reveal her story to the world and tell of a figure who intervened with her captors and may have had connections to the U.S. Embassy. Raw, harsh details not for the squeamish fill this chilling tale of terrible suffering and the gradual inner journey toward physical, emotional, and spiritual healing. The Blindfold's Eyes is highly recommended reading and a true testament to the power of faith under the most trying and tragic of circumstances.
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Title: Silence on the Mountain: Stories of Terror, Betrayal, and Forgetting in Guatemala by Daniel Wilkinson ISBN: 0618221395 Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Co Pub. Date: 26 September, 2002 List Price(USD): $24.00 |
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Title: Exorcising Terror: The Incredible Unending Trial of Augusto Pinochet by Ariel Dorfman ISBN: 1583225420 Publisher: Seven Stories Press Pub. Date: September, 2002 List Price(USD): $11.95 |
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Title: Soul Sisters: Women in Scripture Speak to Women Today by Edwina Gateley, Louis Glanzman ISBN: 1570754438 Publisher: Orbis Books Pub. Date: October, 2002 List Price(USD): $20.00 |
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Title: Mohandas Gandhi: Essential Writings (Modern Spiritual Masters Series) by Mohandas Gandhi, John Dear, Mahatma Gandhi ISBN: 1570754322 Publisher: Orbis Books Pub. Date: September, 2002 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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Title: Radical Gratitude by Mary Jo Leddy ISBN: 1570754489 Publisher: Orbis Books Pub. Date: September, 2002 List Price(USD): $18.00 |
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