Paraguay’s ‘disappeared’ and the history of the Channel Tunnel

The History Hour

BBC

History, Society & Culture, Personal Journals

4.4 • 879 Ratings

🗓️ 3 May 2024

⏱️ 51 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Max Pearson presents a collection of this week’s Witness History episodes from the BBC World Service.

This week we hear the story of Rogelio Goiburu, who has dedicated his life to finding the victims of Alfredo Stroessner's dictatorship in Paraguay, including the remains of his own father. Our expert Dr Francesca Lessa talks about other enforced disappearances in South America.

Plus, we hear about how, in February 2014, ordinary people got to see inside Mezhyhirya, the extraordinarily extravagant home of Ukraine's former president.

Also, a shocking psychological experiment from the 1960s. Just to warn you, this includes original recordings of the experiments which listeners may find disturbing.

The programme also includes the breakthrough moment when the Channel Tunnel was finally completed linking England and France beneath the sea and, finally, the story behind one of the world's most popular self-help books.

Contributors: Rogelio Goiburu - dedicated to finding the victims of Stroessner's Paraguay Dr Francesca Lessa - Associate Professor in International Relations of the Americas at University College London (UCL) Denys Tarakhkotelyk - from the Mezhyhirya estate Graham Fagg - the Englishman who broke through the Channel Tunnel Donna Dale Carnegie - daughter of Dale Carnegie, author of How to Win Friends and Influence People (Photo: Alfredo Stroessner. Credit: STR/AFP via Getty Images)

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome to the History Hour Podcast from the BBC World Service with me Max Pearson,
0:05.1	the past brought to life by those who were there.
0:08.4	This week, the moment ordinary people got to see inside the extraordinarily lavish home of a former president of Ukraine.
0:16.0	Eventually they found a way into Victor Yannukovic's sauna, complete with massage table and tastefully folded towels.
0:24.6	Plus the story behind one of the world's best known self-help books and the psychological experiments
0:30.0	that shocked the world in the 1960s.
0:32.3	The problem I wanted to study was the issue of authority.
0:35.0	Under what conditions would a person obey authority who commanded actions that went against conscience?
0:41.0	That's coming up later in the podcast but first we're delving into the murky
0:46.1	not so distant past of Paraguay in South America a continent played for much of the
0:51.5	last century by conflict between authoritarian right-wing
0:55.1	governments and leftist opponents. More than 450 people were murdered during the almost
1:00.6	35-year rule of Alfredo Strosna in Paraguay, for tens of thousands more,
1:06.1	their fate is still unknown.
1:08.4	They are remembered as the disappeared.
1:11.0	One man has dedicated his life to finding the remains of those who went missing, including his own father.
1:17.0	Here's Matt Pintas.
1:20.0	We start our story in 1977 in the Argentinian city of Parana,
1:26.0	when 19 year old university student,
1:29.0	Regilio Goyburu, is in the third year of a medical degree. He idolizes his father and his main
1:36.2	aim in life is to make him proud.
1:41.3	My father was waiting for me to come and work for him. I'd help him out in his surgery.
	...

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