Bosnia, 1992

Sarajevo, Bosnia, 1992

Gervasio Sánchez: compromised journalism, anti personnel mines and Bosnian War.

I’ve been too busy to update my tumblr lately, but I can’t help posting some Gervasio Sánchez’sphotographs. This Spanish photojournalist has covered many international conflicts, from the Bosnian War (whose infamous 20th anniversary has been remembered this week) to Sierra Leona, Chile or Iraq. He’s a fully compromised journalist who has reported not only the dictatorial regimes and the horrors of war, but also the acquiescence and passivity of the so-called “first world” governments. 

Yesterday it was the International Day Against Anti Personnel Mines. Let’s remember his speech at the Ortega y Gasset photography Awards in Spain, denouncing the selling of anti personnel bombs by the Spanish government:

“It’s true that the weapons found on the battlefields tend to be manufactured in developed countries such as our own, which was a huge exporter of mines in the past and that today does very little to help the victims of mines and the mine removal effort. 

It’s true that all the Spanish politicians, since the beginning of the transition, headed by presidents Adolfo Suárez, Leopoldo Calvo Sotelo, Felipe González, José María Aznar and José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, permitted and continue to permit the sale of Spanish arms to countries with internal conflicts or open wars.

It’s true that I’m shocked every time that I run into Spanish weapons in the forgotten battlefields of the third world, and I’m ashamed of my political representatives. 

But like Martin Luther King Jr., I refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt, and also like him, I have a dream: that a Spanish president will finally have enough guts to put an end to the silent arms market that, whether we like it or not, is turning our country into an exporter of death.”

There’s an anthological exhibition of Gervasio Sánchez’s work at the Tabacalera centre in Madrid that I highly recommend you.