We need your help for the argentine poet Juan Gelman and his search for
his daughter and grandchild. Please, sign this letter and return it, as
soon as posible, to the following fax-number in Columbia:
0057-4-2911950 or e-mail : [log in to unmask]

Thank you very much for your solidarity and attention.

Cordially,

Fernando Rendón


OPEN LETTER TO DOCTOR JULIO MARIA SANGUINETTI
PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC URUGUAY

December 21st 1999


Sir:

Poets and writers from all continents are hereby writing to you to offer
our support and reinforce the prolonged search for Maria Claudia Irureta
Goyena and her son or daughter born in captivity. As you know, Mr.
President, Maria Claudia is Juan Gelman -the great Argentine and all
Spanish language poet a daughter-in-law. Her son or daughter is thus
Gelman grandchild.

In 1976 Maria Claudia and her baby were abducted in Buenos Aires. In
October of that year Uruguayan Militaries took them to Montevideo. There
they were kept in a SID ( Infomation and Defence Service) site. Since
then there have been no news of their whereabouts.

Mr. President: your mandate will finish in three months. As supreme
commandant of the armed forces you are empowered by the constitution to
find out without any delay what some of your country´s military have
zealously hidden for 23 years. Almost three month are enoughg for a
President to show, before everyone and before history, his capability to
shed light upon the consequences of a crime he did not commit.

Therefore, in the kindest possible way, we ask you to order a through
investigation of this crime so that we can all know where are Juan
Gelman daughter-in-law and grandchild.

Yesterday, today and tomorrow constitute one body: that of man and woman
of all centuries. Art and poetry confirm this. That is why us, poets and
writers the world around, insist upon asking you to find the two persons
that disappeared in your country.

We give all our support to Juan Gelman. We would like you to show your
integrity and find the wife and child of Juan Gelman´s assassinated son.

Mr. President, we await good news from you. Our kindest regards,

Rodolfo Alonso, Saúl Yurkievich (Argentina); Dorothy Porter (Australia);
Pedro Shimose (Bolivia); Haroldo de Campos, Thiago de Mello, Dácio
Pignatari (Brazil); Nancy Morejón (Cuba); Loredana Bogliun (Croatia);
Gonzalo Rojas (Chile); Jorge Enrique Adoum (Ecuador); Michel Déguy,
Bernard Nöel (France); Hans Magnus Enzensberger (Germany); Ernest Pépin
(Guadalupe): Ersi Sotiropoulos (Greece); Claudio Pozzani, Edoardo
Sanguineti (Italy); Anise Koltz, Jean Portante (Luxemburgo); Homero
Aridjis, José Emilio Pacheco (México); Ernesto Cardenal (Nicaragua);
Wole Soyinka (Nigeria); Remco Campert (The Netherlands); Andolin
Eguzkitza (Spain, País Vasco); José Antonio Carr, Manuel Orestes Nieto
(Panama); Blanca Varela (Perú); Ana Luísa Amaral, Nuno Júdice
(Portugal); Mahmoudan Hawad (Central Sahara); Amadou Lamine-Sall
(Senegal); Eugen Gomringer, Vahél Godel (Switzerland); Alicia Torres,
Juan Sánchez Peláez (Venezuela); Trevor Joyce (Ireland)

And many more poets and writers.

Coordination: Fernando Rendón (Columbia); Tobias Burghardt (Germany).