Bilingual Newsletter
Erick Veliz, Inspiring Activism
Listen to the full version of this interview
We
talked to Erick Veliz, an Amnesty International USA member, who also serves
as legislative coordinator for Tennessee and is currently an elected board
Member to AIUSA.
Erick Veliz describes himself as a person blessed with many things, that has had a lot of opportunities and that wants to take those opportunities, like being in this great country, and use them to better the world.
During our interview we asked Erick to tell us about how he started activism and why. As a child Erick lived in Bolivia, with his mother and grandfather. Before Erick was born, under the Presidency of Hugo Banzer Suarez, his Grandfather was beaten for protesting against the established military dictatorship. Erick’s mother recounted the experience to Erick and she would also talk about her brother, Erick’s Uncle, who joined the military academy only to receive a fatal beating; this beating was to stand out as a warning to anyone who opposed the political views of the time: “…my uncle decided to go to military training, they decided to make an example out of him by beating him to the point that he was severely beaten and eventually died.”
As a young adult during his stay in Washington DC, Erick was assigned an interview, with Diana Ortiz , an American nun and torture survivor in Guatemala. Through his research, he found an extensive amount of information on torture practices which inspired him to speak out. “All the awful things that happen to this person and that she wasn’t the only one, but she was the lucky one that got to leave one day, while there were hundreds and thousands around the world who had gotten abducted. It was overwhelming to me.”
His passion lead him to speak out to end those practices: “…you need to be active on torture and torture needs to end around the world. Torture cannot be a policy around the world by any country. It can never be accepted.”
Erick told us he is currently volunteering as a legislative coordinator and is organizing a group from Nashville. He plans on visiting the office of Congressman Bob Inglis from Tennessee, and taking a group of people to meet with Senator Alexander Lamar, also from Tennessee, to discuss the issue of torture and U.S. policy.
Lastly, in a message aimed at Latino activists in the United States, Erick said: "we have to remain in solidarity against all of the abuses which exist today... the diversity of abuses is huge, therefore, we have to continue together, we have to continue to take action and mobilize against them, and publicize these abuses to inform others, our colleagues, our schoolmates, and to people in all those places in which these abuses are occurring."
Interview by Raul Rojas.