On the Trail of Disappearances: Empathy, Terror and Memory in Argentina

CRENZEL, EMILIO ARIEL

Londres

Conferencia; ?Empathy and Memory Studies?; 2012

Birkbeck College, Universidad de Londres

"On the trail of disappearances: fear, terror and memory in Argentina? Emilio Crenzel CONICET/Universidad de Buenos Aires In this paper I discuss two letters to the military junta and General Videla, during the last military dictatorship in Argentina. Both show some sort of links established between specific groups of civil society and the dictatorship, little explored in the local literature dealing subjective effects of State Terrorism. I will try also to clarify how these letters were inscribed in the canon about the disappearance of people in Argentina: the report Nunca Más (Never Again) produced by the National Commission on Disappeared People (CONADEP) created in December 1983 by the constitutional President Raul Alfonsín to investigate the forced disappearance. Finally, I will examine how Nunca Más report included the letters but removed the references that made ​​evident the strength and normalization of terror of different actors under the dictatorship to propose unambiguous picture of the relationship between civil society and the State terror in Argentina.