Political violence in Argentina: The disappearances and the report "Never Again"

CRENZEL, EMILIO ARIEL

Michigan Central University, Mt Pleasant, Michigan, Estados Unidos.

Conferencia; "Conference on Violence and Genocide in Latin American History"; 2007

Michigan Central University

Political violence in Argentina: The disappearances and the report "Never Again" Emilio Crenzel University of Buenos Aires In this paper, on the one hand, I will try to analyze, the breaks and continuities that introduced the practice of the disappearance by political reasons under the last military dictatorship (1976-1983) in the intense history of political violence in Argentina.  The systematical practice of the disappearances from 1976 prolonged the normality and regularity that had reached the use of the torture against the political prisoners in the country but it introduced an original attribute: the practice of a decision of clandestine extermination by the state. This quality introduced news obstacles for the elaboration of an integrated knowledge of the nature of the disappearances, and the inscription of them in a statement with sense.  On the other hand, I examine the narrative about this processes that proposed the most important book in political and publishing terms on this topic, the report "Never Again" published in 1984 by the "National Commission of the Disappearance People" (CONADEP). This Commission created by the constitutional president Raúl Alfonsín in December 1983, after the return of the democracy, received denunciations on the disappearances and sends them to the Justice, and investigates the destiny of the missing persons. "Never Again" established that 8,961 people dissapeared in the country (82% of them between 1976 and 1977, 71% in a age group between 21 and 35 years old; 70% were men and 30% female; 30,2% Workers, 21% Students, 17,9% With Collars, 10,7% Professionals, 5,7% Teachers, 1,6% Journalist and 1,3% Actors and Artists. The majority of them were political left activist. On 2006 the National Secretary of Human Rights established the number of missing people in 15,000 (2,000 survivors). The Human Rights organizations estimated in 30,000 the victims but the final number is open because of the silence of the perpetrators and the nature of the crime. "Never Again" report has reached the half million sold copies, it was translated into several languages, turned into the fundamental piece into the judgment to the militaries leaders and in a model to report the violations of the human rights committed by other dictatorships in the region. In summarize, I will try to analyze the explanation and narrative strategy of the report "Never Again" and the changes and continuities that presents with previous statements constructed from the State or the civil society about processes of political violence happened in the country. Throughout this approach, I try to explore how the disappearances and the narrative canon about them modified the history of the exercise of the political violence in the country and at the same time the own way of reporting the political violence.