Abstract
Index editor
In the past six years I have seen him on a regular basis, but when he dropped in it wasn’t to reminisce, Andrew was very much the working journalist right until the end. He always had an idea for a new story or a feature brewing, or was ready to update us on the latest news from Argentina. He didn’t talk about the past unless we pushed him to do so. My regret now is that we didn’t do that more often.
He told us his years at Index were “one of the most important steps in my life”. He took the job as editor in 1989, after years of reporting from Argentina during a time when people who criticised the government were disappeared, murdered or jailed, and after fleeing the country with his family for his own safety.
One of the highlights of his years in the editor’s chair was becoming the first publisher of Ariel Dorfman’s play Death and the Maiden, which went on to become a worldwide success.
This summer I was looking forward to meeting up with Andrew again. Sadly it was not to be. On 6 July, we heard the news that he had died.
He never retired from journalism and had been bashing out columns for the Buenos Aires Times until just a few weeks earlier. The zest and determination to write something that might make a difference never left him.
During my time as editor, Andrew continued to write for Index about his beloved Argentina, and to criticise the things he thought needed to improve. We battled against the vagaries of the Argentinian postal system to get him copies of the magazine. Sometimes they arrived, sometimes they didn’t.
In 2015 he wrote a piece that looked back at Argentina in the 1970s and 1980s as a context for a critique of 2015’s politics. It started: “What does not change over the decades is the desire of those in power to limit information which might be unsuitable to their needs. Why should Argentina be different?”
That question is at the heart of everything that Index does, and resonates with those who battle for freedom of expression everywhere. Andrew nailed it in that first sentence.
He went on: “Nearly four decades ago, the military regime (1976-83) of General Jorge Rafael Videla went from threatening and terrorising journalists as a means of controlling information to murdering them. More than 100 journalists were killed during the seven-year rule of the armed forces, but that figure was hardly reported in the establishment press.”
Andrew Graham-Yooll as a young reporter
CREDITS: Cedoc/Perfil Archive/Graham-Yooll family
His analysis of the power that Argentinian President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner held in 2015, and the techniques she used, should be mandatory reading for those who now worry about presidents Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin and Rodrigo Duterte. She was ahead of the game, and Andrew was watching.
He described how “aides of President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner have used contrived show trials, held on a stage in front of Government House, to ‘try’ well-known media personalities accused of siding with the military during the dictatorship”.
And he argued that while Argentinian media were much freer to criticise than they had been in decades, “the government encouraged business allies and supporters to buy into existing companies, facilitating the purchases with generous credits and assuring proprietors abundant and well-paid government advertising”.
Andrew continued to use his journalistic skills to expose scandals and excesses and was as committed to journalism as he was when he wrote for Index’s second issue in 1973.
Through the years, Andrew reported on shootings and killings, infringements of press freedoms and the “disappeared”. He kept detailed logs of incidents during the seven years of dictatorship and smuggled information to London. Another former editor, Judith Vidal-Hall, recalled: “In 1976, Andrew gave me a bulky package, asking that I take care of it in his absence. It was 1983-84 and he did well to be cautious – he was badly beaten up as he prepared to testify to the ‘disappearances’ under the military.
“On his return he opened the parcel – which I’d kept under my bed untouched – and showed me the documents inside. Long lists of names, dates, details he’d recorded between 1973 and his departure three years later. These were the ‘disappeared’ – the only record at the time, meticulously recorded by Andrew, and the reason for the junta’s attempt on his life shortly before his departure.”
Andrew rarely talked about the risks he had to take, or about the danger. He preferred to talk about what was happening now, but his work is a reminder of what can happen, and why the media must report freely.
He would have loved the memorial party held at the Argentinian embassy in London in his honour on 22 July. A live tango band played, Malbec was swigged, and children ran from room to room. And there were speeches about the immense contribution that Andrew had made.
He would also have liked the words that Ariel Dorfman sent us honouring their friendship. “He was not only my friend but my editor,” he said. “He published Death and the Maiden in Index, the first time it was ever printed. And that initiated my collaboration with Index, which I so value to this day. For a man on such a serious mission, of such vast courage, always so close to horror and death and sorrow, Andrew was vitality itself, with a wonderful smile and sense of humour. ‘The bastards won’t take joy away from us,’ he once said to me. And now I’ll repeat that and say that Death can’t take the joy away from having been his compañero.”