INVESTIGADORES
CRENZEL Emilio Ariel
congresos y reuniones científicas
Título:
"From judicial truth to historical knowledge: The disappearance of persons in Argentina"
Autor/es:
CRENZEL, EMILIO ARIEL
Lugar:
Londres
Reunión:
Seminario; "Scenarios and Politics in Argentina's Memory Struggles: Trials, Sites of Memory, Narratives"; 2012
Institución organizadora:
Goldsmith Institute, Universidad de Londres
Resumen:
?From judicial truth to historical knowledge: The disappearance of persons in Argentina?   Emilio Crenzel National Council of Scientific Research (CONICET) and University of Buenos Aires, Argentina. The military dictatorship that began on March 24, 1976 brought two substantial changes to Argentina?s intense history of military interventions and political violence in the twentieth century. First, the new regime instituted an unprecedented form of political crime?enforced disappearance?, which condensed the state?s will to exterminate. Second, by perpetrating the disappearances in covert actions it introduced a new practice of political killing. These characteristics also set Argentina?s dictatorship apart from the other regimes that spread throughout Latin America?s Southern Cone during that period. These characteristics also set Argentina?s dictatorship apart from the other regimes that spread throughout Latin America?s Southern Cone during that period. The practice of disappearance began with a few scattered cases in the early 1970s, under an increasingly radicalized political climate, and became more widespread in 1975, when constitutionally-elected President María Estela Martínez de Perón authorized the armed forces to eliminate subversive activity. However, it would only become systematic after the coup d?état. Disappearances consisted in the abduction of individuals by military or police officers, in uniform or plainclothes. After having their property looted, the victims were taken to military or police facilities used as ?clandestine detention centers,? where they were tortured and usually killed. Their bodies were then buried in unmarked graves, incinerated, or thrown into the sea, while many of the children born in captivity were appropriated by their captors. The state denied any responsibility in these crimes. In these pages I will first describe the process of construction of a public truth regarding the system of enforced disappearances, to then examine the rhetoric that characterized that truth, and, lastly, analyze its limitations, revealing key aspects of the disappearances that are lacking from our historical knowledge, and whose examination would contribute to shape another kind of truth about this crime and the cycle of political violence experienced by Argentina three decades ago.