Reconstructing an accurate history, one that includes the perspectives of all social groups during a specific period of time, is a difficult process, but it is not impossible.
This list attempts to begin that process. At times they are deeply disturbing, at others extremely controversial. But each one is a riveting story of survival and of hope. Nashville: Vanderbilt UP, Although their conversations have been translated into English, they are completely unmonitored and unedited.
Their conversations highlight the way in which being female affected their experiences in the concentration camp; one of the women was repeatedly molested by the guards, another raped, and another watched helplessly as a pregnant woman was shot to death.
They continually grapple with explaining the incomprehensible—how it is that one human being can knowingly impose extreme amounts of physical and psychological pain on another.
The women wonder at the casual cruelty of the people involved in torture. How can a torturer torture and then nonchalantly go out to enjoy a dinner of delicious food and animated camaraderie? Garibian explained that in the aftermath, nongovernmental organizations and political movements approached human rights in different ways. The use of DNA testing in the search for victims' remains, now seen all over the world, is due in part to Latin America and to Argentina specifically, Garibian said.
She pointed out that other countries seeking justice for victims in Argentina applied the legal principle of universal jurisdiction , which allows them to try unresolved war crimes or crimes against humanity that happened outside of their borders. Spain is a starting point for the use of universal jurisdiction for the judgement of mass criminals. While the politics of Argentina's Dirty War and Operation Condor compelled different countries to seek justice for victims outside of their borders, human rights can also be like a double-sided mirror, Garibian said, prompting countries to examine their own involvement in mass crimes around the world.
Arturo Conde is an editor and a bilingual freelance journalist. IE 11 is not supported. For an optimal experience visit our site on another browser. Politics Covid U. News World Opinion Business. In , a group of desperate mothers began to protest. Every week, they gathered in the Plaza de Mayo and marched, tempting the ire of the military junta. Soon, the government turned against the protesting women with the same brand of violence they had visited on their children.
Twenty-eight years later, her relatives received confirmation that she had been killed and dumped in a mass grave. They protested throughout the World Cup, which was hosted by Argentina, and took advantage of international coverage to make their cause known.
They protested despite state threats and at least once incident in which a portion of the group was fired on by machine gun-toting policemen during a protest. Their activism helped turn the public against the junta and bolster awareness of a policy that counted on silence and intimidation to victimize dissidents. Mothers and relatives of people gone missing during Argentina's Dirty War staged protests at the Plaza de Mayo in the s.
That encounter led to the declassification of 4, State Department documents in Those documents included U. The declassified documents show that U. Argentina was the operations center for Plan Condor , a U. S-organized alliance between the dictatorships of Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay, created in and operational until around Fearing the spread of communism across the Americas, the Ford administration offered these rightist military regimes everything from counterinsurgency training and financial assistance to intelligence briefings.
With U. They tortured detainees, and then threw them alive and conscious out of airplanes into the River Plate, near Buenos Aires, or dumped their bodies in mass graves.
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